UK Down The Drain

[Havet]

UK government just announced they're going to increase the minimum wage (http://www.minimumwage.org.uk/news.asp). The UK minimum wage is already one of the most unreasonably high minimum wages in the world (that i know of).

Also a bunch of new bullshit regulation forcing employers to keep paying workers even when they decide to stop working to bring up kids for up to 1 year, which will effectively crush any small business that exists, creating more monopoly businesses.

Of course what this will really do is incentivise employers not to hire women, something the state-socialists/capitalists would never admit to, as they have laws to prevent such "discrimination", never the less it will happen.

And a bunch of new welfare (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/sep/29/drug-tests-welfare-reform-bill) is coming in. It appears as if the current government is intending to crush the economy, as they know they will lose the upcoming election, so that when the next government come in, not only will they lose popularity for lowering taxes and welfare, but they will also take the blame for the economic devastation.

Its a clever strategy, politically speaking.

It seems most western "democracies" 's capitalistic parasites have found a way to perpetually keep the power, through constant government size expansion and contraction (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8278324.stm).

Sometimes the free the market a bit and allow for creation of wealth, other times they use that wealth to sponsor other reforms and legislation which will end up suffocating the market up to a dangerous point (as we are currently experiencing).

Like I said, politicians are clever, even if we want them to be idiots.

Share your thoughts.


PostScript for those who might think I am a right-winger simply because I don't support state-minimum wages:


"Positive changes" like forced maximum working hours, forced number of holidays and forced minimum wages hurt more the workers they are supposed to help and benefit the big business and power-that-be.

To take some of the common arguments against minimum wages:


Excludes low cost competitors from labor markets, hampers firms in reducing wage costs during trade downturns (etc.), generates various industrial-economic inefficiencies as well as unemployment, poverty, and price rises, and generally dysfunctions as basically a special form of political-economic protectionism – the labour market equivalent or analogue of such things as tariff barriers to low cost imports.[28] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-27)
Hurts small business more than large business. [29] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-28)
Reduces quantity demanded of workers. This may manifest itself through a reduction in the number of hours worked by individuals, or through a reduction in the number of jobs.[30] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-29)[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-The_Wages_of_Politics-30)
Reduces profit margins (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_margin) of business owners employing minimum wage workers, thus encouraging a move to businesses that do not employ low-skill workers.[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-31)
Businesses try to compensate for the decrease in profit by simply raising the prices of the goods being sold thus causing inflation (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation) and increasing the costs of goods and services produced. [33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-32)[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-33)
Does not improve the situation of those in poverty (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty), it benefits some at the expense of the poorest and least productive.[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-cato.org-34)
Is a limit on the freedom of both employers and employees, and can result in the exclusion of certain groups from the labor force. For example, during the apartheid era in South Africa (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_era), white trade unions lobbied for the introduction of minimum wage laws so as to exclude black workers from the labor market. By preventing black workers from selling their labor for less than white workers, the black workers were prevented from competing for jobs held by whites.[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-35)
Businesses spend less on training their employees.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Is less effective than other methods (e.g. the Earned Income Tax Credit (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit)) at reducing poverty, and is more damaging to businesses than those other methods.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Discourages further education among the poor by enticing people to enter the job market.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Causes outsourcing and loss of domestic manufacturing jobs to other countries.[38] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-37)

Of course, I wouldn't be arguing against minimum wages if I didn't thought there wasn't any practical alternative. Oh wait, but there is one.

Sweden is an example of a developed nation where there is no minimum wage that is required by legislation. Instead, minimum wage standards in different sectors are set by collective bargaining (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargaining).

Switzerland is also a good example.

they have no minimum wage and a higher average wage than nearly every other country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ges_by_country (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage#Minimum_wages_by _country)

"none; however, a majority of the voluntary collective bargaining agreements contain clauses on minimum compensation, ranging from 2,200 to 4,200 francs per month for unskilled workers and from 2,800 to 5,300 francs per month for skilled employees[4] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage#cite_note-CRHRP-2008-3)"

And to clear all doubts:


Like I said, the minimum wage is always going to end up hurting more the working class than it is supposed to help. Of course, if we just took the minimum wage away, it would not be enough, because capitalists would still hold an advantage over the others (through the privilege granted by government to capital). As an alternative (until a revolution which takes away ALL the immoral and illogical power from the hands of the capitalists and the government), I suggest other methods present in other countries (sweden and switzerland), which, with also freer markets, have allowed the non-existance of minimum-wages to be beneficial to workers.

[revolt4thewin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iqwx9i704g
Does no good for those who are out of work or barely afloat as it is with sky rocketing prices but who gives a rat's rear when the CEO gets compensation for sitting on his fat rump.

[Pogue]

UK government just announced they're going to increase the minimum wage (http://www.minimumwage.org.uk/news.asp). The UK minimum wage is already one of the most unreasonably high minimum wages in the world (that i know of).

Also a bunch of new bullshit regulation forcing employers to keep paying workers even when they decide to stop working to bring up kids for up to 1 year, which will effectively crush any small business that exists, creating more monopoly businesses.

Of course what this will really do is incentivise employers not to hire women, something the state-socialists/capitalists would never admit to, as they have laws to prevent such "discrimination", never the less it will happen.

And a bunch of new welfare (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/sep/29/drug-tests-welfare-reform-bill) is coming in. It appears as if the current government is intending to crush the economy, as they know they will lose the upcoming election, so that when the next government come in, not only will they lose popularity for lowering taxes and welfare, but they will also take the blame for the economic devastation.

Its a clever strategy, politically speaking.

It seems most western "democracies" 's capitalistic parasites have found a way to perpetually keep the power, through constant government size expansion and contraction (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8278324.stm).

Sometimes the free the market a bit and allow for creation of wealth, other times they use that wealth to sponsor other reforms and legislation which will end up suffocating the market up to a dangerous point (as we are currently experiencing).

Like I said, politicians are clever, even if we want them to be idiots.

Share your thoughts.

What on earth are you talking about?

[Sam_b]

Also a bunch of new bullshit regulation forcing employers to keep paying workers even when they decide to stop working to bring up kids for up to 1 year, which will effectively crush any small business that exists, creating more monopoly businesses.

Yeah, businesses paying exploited workers for maternity and paternity leave so they don't have to choose between their job and their family is a disgusting anti-worker measure.

Why do you think you should be unrestricted, again? :rolleyes:

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

What on earth are you talking about?

He's saying that regulation of private enterprise and government intervention to help the poor are pernicious to the leftist cause. That's why real leftists should all support unfettered free markets and by extension the abolition of minimum wages and welfare benefiits in order to stick it to the capitalists. That's the gist of the argument pretty much.

The UK would be better off under another Thatcher, apparently.

[debase89]

why are you against minimum wage increase? i thought we were for the workers around here? The hell with businesses and corporations!

-debase

[Pogue]

this guy is a monkey.

[ls]

UK government just announced they're going to increase the minimum wage. The UK minimum wage is already one of the most unreasonably high minimum wages in the world (that i know of).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8257673.stm :rolleyes:


The report says claimants taking a job paying less than £15,000 a year are currently worse off than if they remained out of work.

[Skooma Addict]

why are you against minimum wage increase? i thought we were for the workers around here? The hell with businesses and corporations!

The minimum wage is terribly unethical, and I get angry just thinking about it. Basically, much of the poor and disabled are forced to live in a state of permanent unemployment so some other workers can see their paychecks go up. It is worse than robbery because the victims are prevented by law from improving their conditions. It is sick and wrong.

[Havet]

Yeah, businesses paying exploited workers for maternity and paternity leave so they don't have to choose between their job and their family is a disgusting anti-worker measure.

Why do you think you should be unrestricted, again? :rolleyes:

Yeah, unemployed mothers and women is certainly the way to go!

Why do you think you should be in the Commie Club again? :rolleyes:

Seriously, its fairly obvious that no matter what legislation or anti-discrimination law is in place, it will still happen.

The problem is most people don't realize that in an ACTUALLY free market (probably through unions or simple worker demand and competition), mothers and women wouldn't be subject to this kind of discrimination.

Then again, it's better to blame "free markets" just because its what capitalists call the current mixed economies. Talk about fashion victims :lol:

[Havet]

He's saying that regulation of private enterprise and government intervention to help the poor are pernicious to the leftist cause.

And let me add its not just the regulation of private enterprise, but of cooperatives, communes and overall everything inside the area of the State.

I suppose no one told you yet that corporations are legal fictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction#Corporate_personality)? Guess what, free markets wouldn't have corporations (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html).


The UK would be better off under another Thatcher, apparently.

To hell with Thatcher, she was a corporatist, like all the other "free market advocates", who don't actually support free markets, but mixed economies as long as they are in charge.

[Havet]

why are you against minimum wage increase? i thought we were for the workers around here? The hell with businesses and corporations!

-debase

And I am for the workers around here. Minimum wages will hurt workers more in the long run by creating unemployment. Of course, in this society, pretty much every capitalist (government+business) action hurts the workers, so I understand how its hard to analyze the situation.

Here's my take:

"Positive changes" like forced maximum working hours, forced number of holidays and forced minimum wages hurt more the workers they are supposed to help and benefit the big business and power-that-be.

To take some of the common arguments against minimum wages:


Excludes low cost competitors from labor markets, hampers firms in reducing wage costs during trade downturns (etc.), generates various industrial-economic inefficiencies as well as unemployment, poverty, and price rises, and generally dysfunctions as basically a special form of political-economic protectionism – the labour market equivalent or analogue of such things as tariff barriers to low cost imports.[28] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-27)
Hurts small business more than large business. [29] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-28)
Reduces quantity demanded of workers. This may manifest itself through a reduction in the number of hours worked by individuals, or through a reduction in the number of jobs.[30] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-29)[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-The_Wages_of_Politics-30)
Reduces profit margins (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_margin) of business owners employing minimum wage workers, thus encouraging a move to businesses that do not employ low-skill workers.[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-31)
Businesses try to compensate for the decrease in profit by simply raising the prices of the goods being sold thus causing inflation (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation) and increasing the costs of goods and services produced. [33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-32)[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-33)
Does not improve the situation of those in poverty (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty), it benefits some at the expense of the poorest and least productive.[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-cato.org-34)
Is a limit on the freedom of both employers and employees, and can result in the exclusion of certain groups from the labor force. For example, during the apartheid era in South Africa (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_era), white trade unions lobbied for the introduction of minimum wage laws so as to exclude black workers from the labor market. By preventing black workers from selling their labor for less than white workers, the black workers were prevented from competing for jobs held by whites.[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-35)
Businesses spend less on training their employees.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Is less effective than other methods (e.g. the Earned Income Tax Credit (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_Income_Tax_Credit)) at reducing poverty, and is more damaging to businesses than those other methods.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Discourages further education among the poor by enticing people to enter the job market.[37] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-economist2006-36)
Causes outsourcing and loss of domestic manufacturing jobs to other countries.[38] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#cite_note-37)

Of course, I wouldn't be arguing against minimum wages if I didn't thought there wasn't any practical alternative. Oh wait, but there is one.

Sweden is an example of a developed nation where there is no minimum wage that is required by legislation. Instead, minimum wage standards in different sectors are set by collective bargaining (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargaining).

Switzerland is also a good example.

they have no minimum wage and a higher average wage than nearly every other country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ges_by_country (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage#Minimum_wages_by _country)

"none; however, a majority of the voluntary collective bargaining agreements contain clauses on minimum compensation, ranging from 2,200 to 4,200 francs per month for unskilled workers and from 2,800 to 5,300 francs per month for skilled employees[4] (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_minimum_wage#cite_note-CRHRP-2008-3)"

[Havet]

this guy is a monkey.

What a thought-provoking post.

[Bud Struggle]

why are you against minimum wage increase? i thought we were for the workers around here? The hell with businesses and corporations!

-debase

Well yes, but here is how things work IN REAL LIFE--a businessman hires a guy that he thinks the guy can make him (lets say) $15 an hour. He'll pay the guy $13 an hour and make $2 off him. So now out of the $13 he has to pay unemployment insurance, and health benefits and Social Security and so on, and if that all adds up to (lets say) $5 then he can afford to pay the guy $8. Can what you find in the workforce for $8 make they businessman $15? That's dicey. That's in the range of the the minimum wage crowd and they are famous for never making their keep.

And now if you bring the minimum wage up another dollar to cost the businessman $14 an hour--it's not worth the gamble to hire. And makes a good number of workers that were marginabl profitable not profitable at all and those people need to be fired.

Raising the minimum wage loosed jobs in the long run. If people were any good at what they do--they wouldn't be minimum wage in the first place.

[Pogue]

Well yes, but here is how things work IN REAL LIFE--a businessman hires a guy that he thinks the guy can make him (lets say) $15 an hour. He'll pay the guy $13 an hour and make $2 off him. So now out of the $13 he has to pay unemployment insurance, and health benefits and Social Security and so on, and if that all adds up to (lets say) $5 then he can afford to pay the guy $8. Can what you find in the workforce for $8 make they businessman $15? That's dicey. That's in the range of the the minimum wage crowd and they are famous for never making their keep.

And now if you bring the minimum wage up another dollar to cost the businessman $14 an hour--it's not worth the gamble to hire. And makes a good number of workers that were marginabl profitable not profitable at all and those people need to be fired.

Raising the minimum wage loosed jobs in the long run. If people were any good at what they do--they wouldn't be minimum wage in the first place.

Absolutely fabricated rubbish, the minimum wage is one fo the securities we, the working class, have against absolute destitution, and its appalling low, our whole society is structured around greed and profit, hence people make arguments like yours.

[Havet]

Absolutely fabricated rubbish, the minimum wage is one fo the securities we, the working class, have against absolute destitution, and its appalling low, our whole society is structured around greed and profit, hence people make arguments like yours.

Nice work ignoring my post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1559583&postcount=12).

You really make thought-provoking interventions...

[Pogue]

Nice work ignoring my post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1559583&postcount=12).

You really make thought-provoking interventions...

Fuck off you middle class intellectual prick, I don't live for your petty intellectual play games, get a job on the minimum wage and come back and talk to us then, I'm sick of you losers preaching your shit.

[Havet]

Fuck off you middle class intellectual prick

Great argument.


I don't live for your petty intellectual play games

Actually, it's not a game. It's called reason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason).


get a job on the minimum wage

I've been looking for a job in the minimum wage actually.


and come back and talk to us then

I know life under the minimum wage is damn hard, but I also know that without the minimum wage and an overall fairly free trade environment, average wages would be naturally higher, as I talked of in my two examples above: Sweden and Switzerland.


I'm sick of you losers preaching your shit.

Another great argument.

[ls]

Nice work ignoring my post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1559583&postcount=12).

You really make thought-provoking interventions...

Shut up you stupid wanker, you have ignored my post for quite a while now yourself.

You're an anarcho-capitalist hack.

[Bud Struggle]

Absolutely fabricated rubbish, the minimum wage is one fo the securities we, the working class, have against absolute destitution, and its appalling low, our whole society is structured around greed and profit, hence people make arguments like yours.

I'm not denying that people LIVE on minimum wage--but often it's a "gift" from the employer to the employee. As I said, for the most mart minimum wage people don't earn their keep. If people took the time and effort to better themselves and give better value in their work to their employer they wouldn't be making minimum wage--business would compete for their labor and they'd make more money.

[Havet]

Shut up you stupid wanker

Great argument.


you have ignored my post for quite a while now yourself.

What was your post intended to prove?

I indeed read your link, but I only perceived your information as helping my topic.

Did you not notice the mentality inherent to that post?

Let me show you:


Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC the key thing was getting people to make the decision to go into work in the first place by making sure "work pays" and helping people develop a "work habit".


"We believe that if you want to end child poverty, if you want to help people then you need to be able to help the worst off best, and you need to be able to help them do the most important thing in their lives - which is that we believe every household should have work."

Seems like those folks want to raise a slave workforce more than they want to help people.

The article, nevertheless, doesn't actually prove anything. It just shows the perceived opinion of sociologists, capitalists and other members who participated in the think-tank.


You're an anarcho-capitalist hack.

Wrong (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html).

[Bud Struggle]

Nice work ignoring my post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1559583&postcount=12).

You really make thought-provoking interventions...

For what it's worth--hay's post was pretty spot on. It's how things work. I'm not making a value call on it--it's just how the world at this present time works.

And no need for name calling everyone could make their point without getting nasty.

[Pogue]

Great argument.



Actually, it's not a game. It's called reason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason).



I've been looking for a job in the minimum wage actually.



I know life under the minimum wage is damn hard, but I also know that without the minimum wage and an overall fairly free trade environment, average wages would be naturally higher, as I talked of in my two examples above: Sweden and Switzerland.



Another great argument.

I don't feel any real need to argue with you self-obsessed wankers, your also a hypocrite, as ls hilighted, I think your whole ideology is ridiculous and insulting to those of us who work for the minimum wage, and I'm under no obligation to do anything else than make it clear I object to your wankery. But I'll do it anyway.

You think we can trust the market and bosses to pay us well?

[Bud Struggle]

I don't feel any real need to argue with you self-obsessed wankers,

Don't include me as a self obsessed wanker--as I'm a well known "ignorant tosser." :D

[Pogue]

Don't include me as a self obsessed wanker--as I'm a well known "ignorant tosser." :D

At least your honestly naive and self-interested, your just representing your class interest :)

[MilitantAnarchist]

.... Dont even get me started

[ls]

Great argument.

After the next few lines of complete bollocks, what would you have me say? You are a great debator? :rolleyes:


What was your post intended to prove?

That what you're saying is complete crap and it has.


I indeed read your link, but I only perceived your information as helping my topic.

What in the world?


Did you not notice the mentality inherent to that post?

Let me show you:


Seems like those folks want to raise a slave workforce more than they want to help people.

How surprising :(


The article, nevertheless, doesn't actually prove anything. It just shows the perceived opinion of sociologists, capitalists and other members who participated in the think-tank.

Yes it does prove something you moron, it proves that you're worse off on the minimum wage than you are on benefits.

You want to cut both benefits and the min wage:


The UK minimum wage is already one of the most unreasonably high minimum wages in the world (that i know of).


Also a bunch of new bullshit regulation forcing employers to keep paying workers even when they decide to stop working to bring up kids for up to 1 year, which will effectively crush any small business that exists, creating more monopoly businesses.

So if your argument is that there should be no welfare and no benefits and you're not an anarcho-capitalist either, your ideas are neoconservative and neoconservatism has consistently failed.

[Havet]

You think we can trust the market and bosses to pay us well?

No, I think people should have the freedom and equality of opportunity to choose whether they want to engage in a free market of trade of goods and services, with bosses, or in a free market where businesses are cooperatively and/or communally owned, or simply in communes.

Believe it or not, I expect all three to coexist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html) (with the current private sector more leveled down).

[Pogue]

No, I think people should have the freedom and equality of opportunity to choose whether they want to engage in a free market of trade of goods and services, with bosses, or in a free market where businesses are cooperatively and/or communally owned, or simply in communes.

Believe it or not, I expect all three to coexist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html) (with the current private sector more leveled down).

And I suppose working class people will have that choice. Because of course freedom doesn't relate to your ability to exercise your power. Why would anyone choose oppression? How would the bourgeoisie react to us rejecting it?

Your ideas are clueless, based on intellectual speculation, like most free market ideologies.

[Havet]

it proves that you're worse off on the minimum wage than you are on benefits.

And? That's a no-brainer. Of course living only on the minimum wage is bad. Of course I don't want people to earn so little in a job that they would ordinarily receive more.


You want to cut both benefits and the min wage

I wouldn't want to cut the benefits if I didn't think people wouldn't end up getting them naturally without any exploitation of anyone else.


So if your argument is that there should be no welfare and no benefits

Correction: No state-enforced welfare and benefits. I'm perfectly fine with those things if they are voluntary, product of individuals, cooperatives, charities or even communes.


your ideas are neoconservative and neoconservatism has consistently failed.

I agree neoconservativism has consistently failed (http://www.revleft.com/vb/naomi-klein-shock-t117114/index.html?t=117114). I am not a neoconservative though.

I'm an anarchist without objectives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_without_adjectives), with special preference towards mutualism/market anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism). I differ from ancaps because I am no absolutist propertarian, nor do I have the same vision of what a free market will be like (whilst they believe in freedom only for the contractors).

[Dimentio]

What Hayenmill forgets to mention is that Sweden (still) has one of the most organised labour union movements in Europe. The Swedish system is also pegged (or was before Reinfeldt took power) so the labour unions would be stronger than the corporations in bargaining.

[ls]

I wouldn't want to cut the benefits if I didn't think people wouldn't end up getting them naturally without any exploitation of anyone else.

?


Correction: No state-enforced welfare and benefits. I'm perfectly fine with those things if they are voluntary, product of individuals, cooperatives, charities or even communes.

So you want private crumbs for the working-class. How can you want communes and communism, but prefer private crumbs instead of state crumbs for working-class people? It's really weird and contradictory. Charities, cooperatives and voluntary individual help under Capitalism is very limited and is always going to be for working-class people, there's not even any point in advocating it. What's the point in advocating it over a collectivist or gift economy in a communist society? If you support communes then you support communes.


I'm an anarchist without objectives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_without_adjectives), with special preference towards mutualism/market anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism). I differ from ancaps because I am no absolutist propertarian, nor do I have the same vision of what a free market will be like (whilst they believe in freedom only for the contractors).

You're a completely contradictory fruitloop.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

I suppose no one told you yet that corporations are legal fictions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_fiction#Corporate_personality)?
Guess what, free markets wouldn't have corporations (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html).

First of all, I never argued for or against the idea that corporations would form under an Austrian/ultralibertarian conception of the free market. Of course, corporations as created or sanctioned by law wouldn't exist in a free market society. But if we are talking about the existence of large businesses or large concentrations of market power in an unfettered free market, that's another story entirely and I believe that we have discussed this already elsewhere.



To hell with Thatcher, she was a corporatist, like all the other "free market advocates", who don't actually support free markets, but mixed economies as long as they are in charge.

Thatcher, Reagan and other neoliberals may not have been free market fundamentalists of the Austrian persuasion, but there is no denying that they had an affection for free markets. Their policies brought about deregulation and privatization. According to the libertarian/austrian worldview, this should have raised living standards, increased employment and begotten other economic benefits, at least as compared to a left-wing government. So my argument stands. The UK would have been better off under Thatcher than say a social democrat or someone who supported more government regulation and welfare, according to the market fetishist perspective, at least. Do you follow what I'm saying?

[Demogorgon]

If you think the UK minimum wage is unreasonably high you aren't very good with exchange rates. It remains considerably below the European decency threshold and is indeed more or less impossible to live on.

The excuse for opposition to the minimum wage is often that it reduces employment, but that is nonsense, the prevailing opinion in economics these days is actually that it has little effect in that regard and certainly when Britain introduced the minimum wage a few years ago, no ill effect was recorded. Indeed in light of this the Conservative Party actually changed their policy to one of supporting the minimum wage, the consensus was so clear cut that it had worked that the main opposition party was forced to publicly admit it was wrong. You don't get that where there is doubt.

To oppose it now is to say Employers should be allowed to use their superior power in negotiations to force even lower pay on workers who in desperation must take it. People sometimes say in Scandinavia they manage without the wage laws but that is because trade unions are strong enough to enforce reasonable deals with employers. Since Thatcher gutted the Unions here they can rarely offer any defence to workers and so the minimum wage is the only thing many people have to keep them above starvation levels.

[ls]

To oppose it now is to say Employers should be allowed to use their superior power in negotiations to force even lower pay on workers who in desperation must take it. People sometimes say in Scandinavia they manage without the wage laws but that is because trade unions are strong enough to enforce reasonable deals with employers. Since Thatcher gutted the Unions here they can rarely offer any defence to workers and so the minimum wage is the only thing many people have to keep them above starvation levels.

The minimum wage does not keep people above starvation levels either really, I know a number of people who almost had all their possessions taken away by bailiffs because they simply could not afford their own tax bills on top of living expenses.

The way everything works here is completely falling apart, if you don't live in london, even if your union is not very militant, you can't even push for something like the london living wage.

I think that you need at least £13.50 an hour to survive okishly here in the UK, 7.50 is barely anything anyway.

[Skooma Addict]

The excuse for opposition to the minimum wage is often that it reduces employment, but that is nonsense, the prevailing opinion in economics these days is actually that it has little effect in that regard and certainly when Britain introduced the minimum wage a few years ago, no ill effect was recorded. Indeed in light of this the Conservative Party actually changed their policy to one of supporting the minimum wage, the consensus was so clear cut that it had worked that the main opposition party was forced to publicly admit it was wrong. You don't get that where there is doubt.

If it were true that minimum wage had no effect on employment, then why not have a 1 million dollar per hour minimum wage? Also, employment can go up at the same time the minimum wage increases, but employment will still be lower than it otherwise would be. As I said before...

The minimum wage is terribly unethical, and I get angry just thinking about it. Basically, much of the poor and disabled are forced to live in a state of permanent unemployment so some other workers can see their paychecks go up. It is worse than robbery because the victims are prevented by law from improving their conditions. It is sick and wrong.

[Bud Struggle]

The minimum wage does not keep people above starvation levels either really, I know a number of people who almost had all their possessions taken away by bailiffs because they simply could not afford their own tax bills on top of living expenses.

The way everything works here is completely falling apart, if you don't live in london, even if your union is not very militant, you can't even push for something like the london living wage.

I think that you need at least £13.50 an hour to survive okishly here in the UK, 7.50 is barely anything anyway.

But the point is not how much can people get from business--but how much can they OFFER TO business to get their wages higher. How much have people that make minimum wage invested in themselves to make their work valuable? that's the important question. Business doesn't own anyone a living--people have to EARN what they make and to do that they have to give simething worthwhile to the business.

The problem with minimum wage is that most people that earn it are over paid. The problem in our society is that there are are good deal of people that aren't worth what they earn to keep them alive.

And I guess that goes for the top end of the scale as well as the bottom. People make too much at the top, too.

[Demogorgon]

If it were true that minimum wage had no effect on employment, then why not have a 1 million dollar per hour minimum wage?Because that wouldn't do anything except decrease the value of the dollar.


Also, employment can go up at the same time the minimum wage increases, but employment will still be lower than it otherwise would be. As I said before...

Empirical proof here.

[Skooma Addict]

Because that wouldn't do anything except decrease the value of the dollar.

The value of the dollar depends soley on supply and demand. But your telling me that a 1 million dollar per hour minimum wage would not cause unemployment? Remember, the amount of dollars in society is has not changed.


Empirical proof here.


You want me to empirically prove that the minimum wage causes unemployment?

[Jazzratt]

You want me to empirically prove that the minimum wage causes unemployment?

I'm not sure there is any other way of reading what he wrote. Why are you wasting time like this rather than actually producing the evidence asked of you?

[Demogorgon]

The value of the dollar depends soley on supply and demand. But your telling me that a 1 million dollar per hour minimum wage would not cause unemployment? Remember, the amount of dollars in society is has not changed. Actually it would change. Labour is not worth a million dollars at current value therefore to give a million dollars for it would change the value of the dollar. That would lead to either the number of dollars increasing or the economy stopping because it didn't have enough money to reflect economic activity.

We are discussing the minimum wage here presuming that the value of currency is not drastically changing. So silly examples like a million dollar minimum wage are not going to add much to the discussion.


You want me to empirically prove that the minimum wage causes unemployment?
That would be the most obvious interpretation of what I wrote, yes.

[Skooma Addict]

I'm not sure there is any other way of reading what he wrote. Why are you wasting time like this rather than actually producing the evidence asked of you?

It was a little confusing because I didn't know if he wanted me to emperically prove that minimum wage causes unemployment or to empirically prove what came after "As I said before..."

Do you realize how absurd it is to ask me to empirically prove that minimum wage causes unemployment?

It is impossible to prove empirically whether or not minimum wage causes unemployment. Conditions are constantly changing, so there will always be other variables that cannot be held constant. Since this is the case, it is impossible to come to a definitive conclusion unless one relies on theory.

[Jazzratt]

Do you realize how absurd it is to ask me to empirically prove that minimum wage causes unemployment?

Yes, I do. I doubt, however, that we think it is absurd for the same reasons.


It is impossible to prove empirically whether or not minimum wage causes unemployment. Conditions are constantly changing, so there will always be other variables that cannot be held constant. Since this is the case, it is impossible to come to a definitive conclusion unless one relies on theory.

So you can't prove it, but it is the case because your pet theory says it is. I'm at a loss as to why people describe your lot as a cult :rolleyes:

[Skooma Addict]

Actually it would change. Labour is not worth a million dollars at current value therefore to give a million dollars for it would change the value of the dollar. That would lead to either the number of dollars increasing or the economy stopping because it didn't have enough money to reflect economic activity.

You admit that Labor is not worth 1 million dollars per hour. So it should be obvious that a 1 million dollar per hour minimum wage will cause unemployment. Also, we are assuming the amount of dollars in society are constant at all times.

[Skooma Addict]

So you can't prove it, but it is the case because your pet theory says it is. I'm at a loss as to why people describe your lot as a cult :rolleyes:

I can prove it....just not empirically. Just like you cannot empirically prove that minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment. You need to rely on theory.

[Demogorgon]

I can prove it....just not empirically. Just like you cannot empirically prove that minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment. You need to rely on theory.
You cannot prove it, you just said so. For a theory to be of any use it has to be testable. That is, it has to stand up to empirical scrutiny. You can have a theory that proves anything you like, but if you cannot get it to play out in the real world, it doesn't mean anything.

We know perfectly well that your theory says the minimum wage causes unemployment but I can present you with several competing theories why it does not. Look them up they are not hard to find. Why precisely do you think your theory trumps those theories. Generally when one theory is better than others, it is because it explains what we are observing better than the others, but you have just told us your theory does not do that.

[Skooma Addict]

You cannot prove it, you just said so.

I said I could prove it, but not empirically.


For a theory to be of any use it has to be testable. That is, it has to stand up to empirical scrutiny. You can have a theory that proves anything you like, but if you cannot get it to play out in the real world, it doesn't mean anything.

Except there are ways to test a theory without relying on empiricism.


We know perfectly well that your theory says the minimum wage causes unemployment but I can present you with several competing theories why it does not. Look them up they are not hard to find.

I know there are other theories, but I think they are wrong.


Why precisely do you think your theory trumps those theories. Generally when one theory is better than others

It relies on logic rather than empiricism.


Generally when one theory is better than others, it is because it explains what we are observing better than the others, but you have just told us your theory does not do that.


I never said that.

[Demogorgon]

It relies on logic rather than empiricism.

And there we put our finger on the problem. You see something can be perfectly logical but still wrong if there is something up with our starting premises (and that is discounting the possibility that there is a flaw in the logic somewhere along the line). So how do we know if our starting premises were right (and our logic has held)? We check to see if what our theories predict actually happen.

To reject empiricism is just to play silly games attempting to create abstract circumstances where your views might play out. If it doesn't actually happen out in the real world however, what possible use is it to anyone?

[Skooma Addict]

And there we put our finger on the problem. You see something can be perfectly logical but still wrong if there is something up with our starting premises (and that is discounting the possibility that there is a flaw in the logic somewhere along the line). So how do we know if our starting premises were right (and our logic has held)? We check to see if what our theories predict actually happen.

Obviously, if the premises of a theory are wrong, then the theory is logically unsound. You cannot empirically prove or disprove that minimum wage causes unemployment becasue there are variables that you cannot hold constant. Do you see why there are some claims that empiricism alone cannot prove wrong? Only logic could prove me wrong.



To reject empiricism is just to play silly games attempting to create abstract circumstances where your views might play out. If it doesn't actually happen out in the real world however, what possible use is it to anyone?

It's not like what I believe is radical or anything. Kant, Descartes, and Aristotle all agree with me. I don't completely reject empiricism. I think certain subjects are naturally more empirical than others. My views concerning minimum wage do reflect reality, but I cannot empirically prove them.

[Demogorgon]

Obviously, if the premises of a theory are wrong, then the theory is logically unsound. You cannot empirically prove or disprove that minimum wage causes unemployment becasue there are variables that you cannot hold constant. Do you see why there are some claims that empiricism alone cannot prove wrong? Only logic could prove me wrong.

No, something can be perfectly logical with flawed starting premises. That might be your problem. Equally of course there may be a mistake somewhere in your logic. Either way however there is definitely something wrong.

I think though you are missing a rather important point and that is that you might have the most wonderful theory in the world but how do we know it is wonderful? The answer is we take a look to see if what it predicts happens. You are refusing to put your theory up to that level of scrutiny therefore I cannot see why I should take it seriously.

It's not like what I believe is radical or anything. Kant, Descartes, and Aristotle all agree with me. I don't completely reject empiricism. I think certain subjects are naturally more empirical than others. My views concerning minimum wage do reflect reality, but I cannot empirically prove them.
Descartes agrees with you certainly, but that isn't necessarily a compliment. Kant and Aristotle? I'm not so sure. They after all won't refuse to test their ideas. See what you are missing is that reasoning out what might happen in an abstract way is all well and good for working out what might happen when you can't yet test it. So if there were no minimum wage laws out there, your argument would be a valid contribution to the debate on whether there should be any. However, now that there are such laws, mere theory has past its use. Our theories now have to explain what is actually happening, we can't simply state that we think x should happen and not look at whether it really is.

[Skooma Addict]

No, something can be perfectly logical with flawed starting premises.

Such a theory may be logically valid, but it would be logically unsound, and if something is logically unsound, it is false.


I think though you are missing a rather important point and that is that you might have the most wonderful theory in the world but how do we know it is wonderful? The answer is we take a look to see if what it predicts happens. You are refusing to put your theory up to that level of scrutiny therefore I cannot see why I should take it seriously.

Humans act in order to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs. That theory is true, and it does not rely on empiricism. It is an a priori truth.


Descartes agrees with you certainly, but that isn't necessarily a compliment.

Yeah, he is only one of the greatest mathematicians in history and the father of modern philosophy.


Kant and Aristotle? I'm not so sure. They after all won't refuse to test their ideas. See what you are missing is that reasoning out what might happen in an abstract way is all well and good for working out what might happen when you can't yet test it. So if there were no minimum wage laws out there, your argument would be a valid contribution to the debate on whether there should be any. However, now that there are such laws, mere theory has past its use. Our theories now have to explain what is actually happening, we can't simply state that we think x should happen and not look at whether it really is.

I do not refuse to test the theories I believe in. I refuse to test them empirically because it is impossible to emerically test them. Of coarse I believe in many theories that do rely on empericism to prove their validity.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The minimum wage is terribly unethical, and I get angry just thinking about it. Basically, much of the poor and disabled are forced to live in a state of permanent unemployment so some other workers can see their paychecks go up. It is worse than robbery because the victims are prevented by law from improving their conditions. It is sick and wrong.
Empirical evidence suggests (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Measurement-David-Card/dp/0691048231) that the minimum wage does NOT, in fact, increase unemployment. Stop confusing theory with reality.

Also, if you're so damn concerned about poor or disabled people who cannot find a job, why don't you support socialism? Or at least a strong welfare state?

You know what makes me angry? The fact that an advocate of the most unethical, anti-worker ideology in the world, who would let people die in the streets if they cannot fend for themselves, has the audacity to feign concern for the plight of the disadvantaged!

Do you honestly believe that you are not on the side of the oppressors, exploiters and tyrants of the world? How can you possibly handle the enormous cognitive dissonance that arises when you contrast your ideology with reality? Do you honestly believe that, despite two hundred years of unrelenting, heroic working class struggle for more regulations, for more welfare, for a higher minimum wage, and for an expansion of public services, millions of workers have somehow been deceived into giving their lives for the precise opposite of their true interests? Do you honestly believe that, somehow, no one has been able to figure out the truth except a tiny renegade sect of pseudo-scientists calling themselves economists? Do you really think that all of human history, in all its complexity, has simply been an unfortunate mistake?

The mind boggles at the sheer insanity of the Austrian School worldview.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Humans act in order to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs. That theory is true, and it does not rely on empiricism. It is an a priori truth.
No, it is not. How do you define "more satisfactory" or "less satisfactory"? Is the definition independent of the thoughts of the human actor in question? Or is it not independent?

If it is not independent - if you are going to say something like "humans act in order to achieve a state of affairs which they believe to be more satisfactory", then I can simply flat out deny this premise, and there is absolutely nothing you can say to defend it. If I refuse to have faith that humans always believe their actions to be oriented towards the attainment of a more satisfactory state of affairs, what then?

[Demogorgon]

It is an a priori truth.

Usually a fancy way of saying "because I say so". As soon as someone starts claiming as you are claiming it becomes clear that they have a certain dogmatic position that they will simply not let evidence stand in the way of. You claim something is true because you believe it, not that you believe it because it is true.

Now if you want to believe whatever you please that is of course your prerogative but you must understand that you will have a lot of difficulty in convincing others you are correct if you simply claim something is true without evidence.

[Skooma Addict]

(http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Measurement-David-Card/dp/0691048231)Empirical evidence suggests (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Measurement-David-Card/dp/0691048231) that the minimum wage does NOT, in fact, increase unemployment. Stop confusing theory for reality.


That was not a link that I could read online, but if it were, I would tell you my response. Just because unemployment does not go up when the minimum wage increases, that alone proves nothing. Maybe more jobs were created from new factories that opened? Who knows. The point is that just because unemployment does not increase when the minimum wage goes up, that does not mean minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment. If "all other things being equal", unemployment didn't increase with minimum wage, that would prove that the minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment.


Also, if you're so damn concerned about poor or disabled people who cannot find a job, why don't you support socialism? Or at least a strong welfare state?

I don't support socialism for many reasons. Even if the economic problems I imagine socialism would encounter didn't exist, I still wouldn't support it because emperical evidence (there, I used it) seems to show that Socialism leads to a totalitarian state which starves, murders, and steals from the population. I am sure you are familiar with the old story where 7 million Ukrainians died of starvation in under 1 year so the the Soviet Political elite (murders) could make a few extra bucks.

I don't support a welfare state because it has been a complete disaster that has done nothing good for the poor. The only good thing it has done is help people who are victims of minimum wage laws.


You know what makes me angry? The fact that an advocate of the most unethical, anti-worker ideology in the world, who would let people die in the streets if they cannot fend for themselves, has the audacity to feign concern for the plight of the disadvantaged!


Well, I don't only care about workers as you seem to. I also don't think what I support is unethical. I also don't think people would be dying in the streets (never heard that one before)....it's not like the soviet union where the political elite (murders) can kill 7 million people at will.


Do you honestly believe that you are not on the side of the oppressors, exploiters and tyrants of the world? How can you possibly handle the enormous cognitive dissonance that arises when you contrast your ideology with reality? Do you honestly believe that, despite two hundred years of unrelenting, heroic working class struggle for more regulations, for more welfare, for a higher minimum wage, and for an expansion of public services, millions of workers have somehow been deceived into giving their lives for the precise opposite of their true interests? Do you honestly believe that, somehow, no one has been able to figure out the truth except a tiny renegade sect of pseudo-scientists calling themselves economists? Do you really think that all of human history, in all its complexity, has simply been an unfortunate mistake?

What is good for the working class is not good for everyone. Also, almost everything you listed do help many workers....at the expense of the poor. It is a fact that some people are evil enough to advocate the forced (key word)removal of some people from the labor market thereby ensuring their permanent state of poverty. So none of this surprises me.

[Skooma Addict]

No, it is not. How do you define "more satisfactory" or "less satisfactory"? Is the definition independent of the thoughts of the human actor in question? Or is it not independent?

I don't understand what your asking me.



If it is not independent - if you are going to say something like "humans act in order to achieve a state of affairs which they believe to be more satisfactory"

Yes, this is what I believe.


then I can simply flat out deny this premise, and there is absolutely nothing you can say to defend it. If I refuse to have faith that humans always believe their actions to be oriented towards the attainment of a more satisfactory state of affairs, what then?


I dont care, you can deny it all you want. But then tell me, why do humans act? Why did you type that very sentence? Was it to prove me wrong? If you did not think that typing such a sentence was substituting a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs, then why did you type the sentence?

If man did not think he would achieve mental gain by performing a certain action, then he would not make such an action at all. Indeed, if a man were to suffer a loss by performing an action, then he wouldn't act upon it.

I honestly think you would agree with me. But since Mises said it, you think it must be wrong. Odd since many socialists wanted to build statues of Mises.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

That was not a link that I could read online, but if it were, I would tell you my response. Just because unemployment does not go up when the minimum wage increases, that alone proves nothing. Maybe more jobs were created from new factories that opened? Who knows. The point is that just because unemployment does not increase when the minimum wage goes up, that does not mean minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment. If "all other things being equal", unemployment didn't increase with minimum wage, that would prove that the minimum wage doesn't cause unemployment.
You seem to be asking if the authors used a control group. Yes, of course they did. Every serious scientific study uses a control group.

The main topic of the book is a "natural experiment" using data from the United States. The authors looked at employment figures over an area that covered the state of New Jersey and a similarly-sized chunk of eastern Pennsylvania (note for non-US readers: those two states share a border). One of the states increased its minimum wage and the other did not. The authors observed employment trends in the two states over the next few years to see if employment in the state with the greater minimum wage would end up being lower than right across the state border. It did not. In fact, employment went up (slightly) on the side of the border with the higher minimum wage. Similar observations on other pairs of states produced similar results. After presenting this, the authors discuss possible explanations.


I don't support socialism for many reasons. Even if the economic problems I imagine socialism would encounter didn't exist, I still wouldn't support it because emperical evidence (there, I used it) seems to show that Socialism leads to a totalitarian state which starves, murders, and steals from the population. I am sure you are familiar with the old story where 7 million Ukrainians died of starvation in under 1 year so the the Soviet Political elite (murders) could make a few extra bucks.

I don't support a welfare state because it has been a complete disaster that has done nothing good for the poor. The only good thing it has done is help people who are victims of minimum wage laws.
See, you have a problem there. You cannot make those two arguments at the same time (that socialism is bad because the Soviet Union compared unfavourably with the West AND that welfare states are also bad).

Why? Because in order to say that the USSR was bad, you need to use comparisons between living standards in different countries. But once you start using those comparisons, you realize that social democratic welfare states are the best countries in the world to live in (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/), at the present time. Oops.

So, you must choose either:

1. Comparisons of living standards between countries do not give us reliable information about the relative benefits of different systems, in which case you cannot say that the Soviet economic system was worse than Western capitalism.

OR

2. Comparisons of living standards between countries do give us reliable information about the relative benefits of different systems, in which case the best economic system is a social democratic welfare state.


Well, I don't only care about workers as you seem to. I also don't think what I support is unethical. I also don't think people would be dying in the streets (never heard that one before).... it's not like the soviet union where the political elite (murders) can kill 7 million people at will.
If you're going to throw the unsavory aspects of the Soviet Union at me, I'm going to throw the unsavory aspects of Somalia (for example) at you. We can play this game all day.

So, tell me, why do you support pirates capturing ships and taking hostages? Why do you support warlords terrorizing innocent people?

Maybe you don't support warlords and pirates? Well, guess what, I don't support dictatorship either.


What is good for the working class is not good for everyone. Also, almost everything you listed do help many workers....at the expense of the poor. It is a fact that some people are evil enough to advocate the forced (key word)removal of some people from the labor market thereby ensuring their permanent state of poverty. So none of this surprises me.
Unemployment in European social democracies before the late 1980s hovered around 3-4%. Extremely low by any standards.

And we can always add generous unemployment benefits to my list, thereby neutralizing your complaint that the unemployed poor would suffer.

[Skooma Addict]

You seem to be asking if the authors used a control group. Yes, of course they did. Every serious scientific study uses a control group.

In this case, it is impossible.


The main topic of the book is a "natural experiment" using data from the United States. The authors looked at employment figures over an area that covered the state of New Jersey and a similarly-sized chunk of eastern Pennsylvania (note for non-US readers: those two states share a border). One of the states increased its minimum wage and the other did not. The authors observed employment trends in the two states over the next few years to see if employment in the state with the greater minimum wage would end up being lower than right across the state border. It did not. In fact, employment went up (slightly) on the side of the border with the higher minimum wage. Similar observations on other pairs of states produced similar results. After presenting this, the authors discuss possible explanations.

Again, variables that cannot be accounted for are always present. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were not the same throughout the entire experiment.


See, you have a problem there. You cannot make those two arguments at the same time (that socialism is bad because the Soviet Union compared unfavourably with the West AND that welfare states are also bad).

Why? Because in order to say that the USSR was bad, you need to use comparisons between living standards in different countries. But once you start using those comparisons, you realize that social democratic welfare states are the best countries in the world to live in (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/), at the present time. Oops.

Is that really supposed to convince me? That only measured "Human Development". Not only that, but I couldn't find what standard they used to measure "development". I like how Iceland is #1 and that country is in a severe depression that is worse than Americas. So I am very skeptical.


1. Comparisons of living standards between countries do not give us reliable information about the relative benefits of different systems, in which case you cannot say that the Soviet economic system was worse than Western capitalism.

OR

2. Comparisons of living standards between countries do give us reliable information about the relative benefits of different systems, in which case the best economic system is a social democratic welfare state.

Maybe I don't agree with your so called evidence?


If you're going to throw the unsavory aspects of the Soviet Union at me, I'm going to throw the unsavory aspects of Somalia (for example) at you. We can play this game all day.

So, tell me, why do you support pirates capturing ships and taking hostages? Why do you support warlords terrorizing innocent people?

Maybe you don't support warlords and pirates? Well, guess what, I don't support dictatorship either.

Funny thing is Somalia has improved greatly since they overthrew their government. But as I said earlier, I see no reason why Socialism wouldn't end up with authoritarian dictatorships.


Unemployment in European social democracies before the late 1980s hovered around 3-4%. Extremely low by any standards.

And we can always add generous unemployment benefits to my list, thereby neutralizing your complaint that the unemployed poor would suffer.

Since you are so fond of empirical evidence, can you show me a nation that has remained the way its founders intended it to be? Every State seems to expand regardless of its founders intentions.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I don't understand what your asking me.
I am asking if the "more satisfactory state" is objective or subjective. You've already answered this, and said it was subjective. This puts you in a position of making a claim about what goes on in people's minds. Good luck proving that your claim is correct.


I dont care, you can deny it all you want. But then tell me, why do humans act?
For a wide variety of different and unrelated reasons. I have no single theory of human action - nor do I need one.


Why did you type that very sentence?
I don't know; that's a good question. At no time did I stop to consider why I was typing. I just did it. I'll bet this applies to many of your actions as well: You do things without thinking about their final philosophical purpose, or whether they will benefit you in some way. You don't think about them at all. You just do them.


If you did not think that typing such a sentence was substituting a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs, then why did you type the sentence?

If man did not think he would achieve mental gain by performing a certain action, then he would not make such an action at all. Indeed, if a man were to suffer a loss by performing an action, then he wouldn't act upon it.

I honestly think you would agree with me. But since Mises said it, you think it must be wrong. Odd since many socialists wanted to build statues of Mises.
No, I do not agree with you. You are begging the question:

Why do people act? Because they expect to gain something from it.
How do you know they expect to gain something from it? Because they act.

You're running around in epistemological circles. Your explanation for human action is based on an assertion about human thought which is derived from your explanation for human action which is based on an assertion about human thought which is derived from...

You cannot propose an explanation for human action and at the same time use the action (which you are trying to explain) as the evidence that your explanation is correct.

Or to put it another way, you do not know what people really think when they act, and you have given me no reason to believe that they think what you say they think.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Edit: Olaf, please note my previous post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1559925&postcount=60) at the bottom of the last page. It contains a very important point about your beliefs regarding human action, and I wouldn't want it to get lost in the discussion just because it's the last post on a page.


Again, variables that cannot be accounted for are always present. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were not the same throughout the entire experiment.
They did their best to pick two states that were as similar as possible. Are you rejecting any and all empirical evidence?

Ok. Then you have no evidence that planned economies perform badly.


Is that really supposed to convince me? That only measured "Human Development". Not only that, but I couldn't find what standard they used to measure "development". I like how Iceland is #1 and that country is in a severe depression that is worse than Americas. So I am very skeptical.
The data is from 2008, before the crisis hit. They explain their standards and data here (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/) and here (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/understanding/).

Basically, the HDI is an aggregate of various statistics generally considered to be measuring "good stuff", like GDP per capita, life expectancy, literacy, [lack of] crime, etc.


Maybe I don't agree with your so called evidence?
Do you have any better evidence?


Funny thing is Somalia has improved greatly since they overthrew their government.
And the Soviet Union improved to a far greater extent under Stalin.

But I thought you didn't believe in empirical evidence? Then you can't use real world examples in your argument. Sorry.


But as I said earlier, I see no reason why Socialism wouldn't end up with authoritarian dictatorships.
Ummm, you know about that burden of proof thing? Yeah, if you're going to assert something, you're the one who needs to make some sort of argument in favour of it.

I mean, otherwise, I might as well say that I see no reason why capitalism wouldn't end up with a genetically engineered unstoppable horde of 10-metre-tall man-eating sheep.

So, what makes you think that socialism would lead to an authoritarian dictatorship? Do you think it did so in the past? If you do, then you are wrong. While authoritarian dictatorships have indeed been associated with planned economies in the past, the dictatorship always came first. So, at best, you could think that [certain kinds of] authoritarian dictatorships lead to socialism - NOT the other way around.


Since you are so fond of empirical evidence, can you show me a nation that has remained the way its founders intended it to be? Every State seems to expand regardless of its founders intentions.
I don't think any state should remain the way its "founders" intended it to be. What do I look like, some kind of reactionary conservative? Human societies are SUPPOSED to keep changing. It's called progress.

We would want to prevent certain kinds of change, of course, but not to keep society in the same state forever.

[Skooma Addict]

For a wide variety of different and unrelated reasons. I have no single theory of human action - nor do I need one.

I get the feeling that you just don't want to agree with Mises.


I don't know; that's a good question. At no time did I stop to consider why I was typing. I just did it. I'll bet this applies to many of your actions as well: You do things without thinking about their final philosophical purpose, or whether they will benefit you in some way. You don't think about them at all. You just do them.

Like breathing? yeah. But purposeful action, no.


No, I do not agree with you. You are begging the question:

Why do people act? Because they expect to gain something from it.
How do you know they expect to gain something from it? Because they act.

No.....I will try to put it this way, imagine that there are two different actions you can make.

You feel that you will achieve a better state of affairs if you perform action X.

You feel you would achieve a worse state of affairs if you perform action Y.

Which action would you pursue?


You're running around in epistemological circles. Your explanation for human action is based on an assertion about human thought which is derived from your explanation for human action which is based on an assertion about human thought which is derived from...

You cannot propose an explanation for human action and at the same time use the action (which you are trying to explain) as the evidence that your explanation is correct.

Wow you are misunderstanding me. Ill rephrase....

Humans act if they feel they will substitute a better state of affairs for a worse state of affairs. How do I know this? It is an a priori truth that becomes apparent with a little self reflection. Since humans think and act logically, and since there is one universal Logic followed by all humans, I therefore know the logic of action applies to others besides myself.

Let me ask you this, do you think people will only voluntarily agree to an exchange if they feel at the time of the exchange that they will benefit?

[Skooma Addict]

They did their best to pick two states that were as similar as possible. Are you rejecting any and all empirical evidence?

Ok. Then you have no evidence that planned economies perform badly.

I only accept empirical evidence where it is reasonable to do so.


The data is from 2008, before the crisis hit. They explain their standards and data here (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/data/) and here (http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/understanding/).

Basically, the HDI is an aggregate of various statistics generally considered to be measuring "good stuff", like GDP per capita, life expectancy, literacy, [lack of] crime, etc.

Yeah, I see a lot of stuff I disagree with. For example, Population, total (thousands) (http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/334.html) I don't really see the connection. But I have other problems with the index.


Do you have any better evidence?

I don't think I can list the best countries so easily.


And the Soviet Union improved to a far greater extent under Stalin.

But I thought you didn't believe in empirical evidence? Then you can't use real world examples in your argument. Sorry.

Well, my claim was actually true.

I don't rely on emperical evidence where it is unwarranted. I merely pointed out that Somalia has improved since its brutal government collapsed. That doesn't mean the collapse was the casue of the improvement. I would need to explain why which I won't do becasue that will be waaaaay off topic.


Ummm, you know about that burden of proof thing? Yeah, if you're going to assert something, you're the one who needs to make some sort of argument in favour of it.

I mean, otherwise, I might as well say that I see no reason why capitalism wouldn't end up with a genetically engineered unstoppable horde of 10-metre-tall man-eating sheep.

So, what makes you think that socialism would lead to an authoritarian dictatorship? Do you think it did so in the past? If you do, then you are wrong. While authoritarian dictatorships have indeed been associated with planned economies in the past, the dictatorship always came first. So, at best, you could think that [certain kinds of] authoritarian dictatorships lead to socialism - NOT the other way around.

I just think putting so much power in the hands of so few people will lead to authoritarianism. Idk if dictatorships always came first, but I wasn't really relying on history. But it has been true historically that when a few people get a lot of power, nothing good comes out of it. I don't know if your the type of socialist who supports an elite group of "planners" or not...I know some don't and some do.



I don't think any state should remain the way its "founders" intended it to be. What do I look like, some kind of reactionary conservative? Human societies are SUPPOSED to keep changing. It's called progress.

We would want to prevent certain kinds of change, of course, but not to keep society in the same state forever.


There is no reason to assume that your Socialist state would remain the way you intended it to be. That's what I was saying. I just think the incentive structure would allow for a few people to radically alter what the States functions are very quickly.



But to tell you the truth, I think our other discussion is more important. So you can reply to this part of our discussion and have the last word.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I get the feeling that you just don't want to agree with Mises.
That is because you have never really considered a worldview that is radically different from the Misesian one, so you don't know what to think about me.


Like breathing? yeah. But purposeful action, no.
Is typing purposeful? I sure don't stop to think about its purpose before I do it!


No.....I will try to put it this way, imagine that there are two different actions you can make.

You feel that you will achieve a better state of affairs if you perform action X.

You feel you would achieve a worse state of affairs if you perform action Y.

Which action would you pursue?
X, but this scenario is a ridiculous oversimplification. "Betterness" is not a single variable. In real life, you get to choose between countless different actions that would improve or reduce countless different variables which cannot be directly compared (your social standing, your ability to buy things, your attractiveness, your relationship with a friend, your religious beliefs, your political goals, and so on).

It is not at all self-evident that people always choose the optimal course of action out of this wide spectrum of possibilities. It's not even clear if they take the time to consider all their options, let alone compare them.


Wow you are misunderstanding me. Ill rephrase....

Humans act if they feel they will substitute a better state of affairs for a worse state of affairs. How do I know this? It is an a priori truth that becomes apparent with a little self reflection. Since humans think and act logically...
No they don't. Not always.


...and since there is one universal Logic followed by all humans, I therefore know the logic of action applies to others besides myself.
How do you know there is one universal Logic followed by all humans?

Remember, we are working within your a priori framework here, so you are not allowed to bring up empirical evidence. If you do, then you concede the debate to empiricism.

So, again, what is your a priori reason for believing that there is one universal Logic followed by all humans?


Let me ask you this, do you think people will only voluntarily agree to an exchange if they feel at the time of the exchange that they will benefit?
No.

I don't even believe there is such a thing as a completely voluntary exchange to begin with. If you must exchange, then you are under some constraint. If you are under some constraint, then your actions are not fully voluntary.

To make myself absolutely clear: I do not believe that the notion of a "voluntary" action is coherent or useful in social science.

[Skooma Addict]

That is because you have never really considered a worldview that is radically different from the Misesian one, so you don't know what to think about me.

A bit of hypocrisy in that sentence. But your wrong, my idols used to be Bertrand Russell and Eugene V Debs.


Is typing purposeful? I sure don't stop to think about its purpose before I do it!

X, but this scenario is a ridiculous oversimplification. "Betterness" is not a single variable. In real life, you get to choose between countless different actions that would improve or reduce countless different variables which cannot be directly compared (your social standing, your ability to buy things, your attractiveness, your relationship with a friend, your religious beliefs, your political goals, and so on).

It is not at all self-evident that people always choose the optimal course of action out of this wide spectrum of possibilities. It's not even clear if they take the time to consider all their options, let alone compare them.

No they don't. Not always.


I am going to skip this part and go into what I feel is the important part of our discussion. If you feel otherwise, let me know and ill respond to these points individually.


How do you know there is one universal Logic followed by all humans?

I reject polylogism, and I think it has been refuted to death. First of all, if it were true that different people followed different laws of logic, then different laws of mathematics would apply to different people. To Quote Mises..

"As there is only one mode of logical thinking, there is only one praxeology
(and, for that matter, only one mathematics) valid for all. As there is no
human thinking that would fail to distinguish between A and non-A, so
there is no human action that would not distinguish between means and
ends. This distinction implies that man values, i.e., that he prefers an A to
a B. (TH III. 14. 2.)"

I can go on and explain more, but I am going to hope you agree with me so far...if not, then Ill offer more proof. I will end up quoting Wittgenstien who I believes give the best proof (too lazy to type myself, 12 AM).

But you do realize the implications if different people followed different laws of logic. The laws of mathematics would be different for different people. In fact, such a scenario is impossible to imagine.

But even if you do agree with me, I know that doesn't prove what I was trying to prove. I am just going to take this in steps so we can see where we disagree.

[Skooma Addict]

I just realized I mesed part of your post


No.

I don't even believe there is such a thing as a completely voluntary exchange to begin with. If you must exchange, then you are under some constraint. If you are under some constraint, then your actions are not fully voluntary.

To make myself absolutely clear: I do not believe that the notion of a "voluntary" action is coherent or useful in social science.

I will need you to explain this in detail. Why do you not think there is such a thing as voluntary exchange?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I'm afraid this will have to be my last post for tonight, but I'm definitely interested in continuing our conversation on empiricism vs. a-priori-ism. I also know that I owe you a reply on another, older topic about the calculation debate. I haven't forgotten - I just didn't have the time to reply.


I only accept empirical evidence where it is reasonable to do so.
That sounds an awful lot like you only accept the evidence that fits your ideology.


Yeah, I see a lot of stuff I disagree with. For example, Population, total (thousands) (http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/334.html) I don't really see the connection. But I have other problems with the index.
Well, population is an issue only because lots of other figures need to be divided by the population, in order to produce per capita statistics.


I don't think I can list the best countries so easily.
Well, I'm also very skeptical of country-by-country comparisons, but for a different reason (countries are not closed systems; they have a huge impact on each other, so it's very misleading to compare them as if every country's performance was due entirely to internal causes).

I brought up the HDI not because I think it's terribly accurate, but to illustrate the fact that the kind of country-by-country comparisons used to attack the Soviet system actually provide support for social democracy, not liberal capitalism. So, unless you happen to be a social democrat, you cannot use the argument that the standard of living in the USSR was lower than in the West, because that argument will backfire on you when it turns out the highest standard of living in the world right now is to be found in Norway or Sweden.


Well, my claim was actually true.
Umm, so was mine. The Soviet Union achieved amazingly rapid economic growth under Stalin. Health care and education improved. Social mobility improved. Gender equality improved. There was immense technological progress. Russia had been Europe's poorest and least industrialized country in 1917, and 40 years later the USSR invented artificial satellites and put the first human being in space.

Of course, Stalin also ruthlessly suppressed civil liberties, purged the Communist Party of all opposition, made a mockery of the justice system and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. But that does not erase the fact that standards of living did rise immensely.


I just think putting so much power in the hands of so few people will lead to authoritarianism. Idk if dictatorships always came first, but I wasn't really relying on history. But it has been true historically that when a few people get a lot of power, nothing good comes out of it. I don't know if your the type of socialist who supports an elite group of "planners" or not...I know some don't and some do.
You are correct that putting too much power in the hands of a few people usually leads to dictatorship. That's precisely why I don't want to do that.

Socialism requires a planned economy, yes, and there will be "planners" with the job of drafting the economic plans. But they will be elected officials, not an elite group, and their power will be limited by the fact that they will face frequent elections, the fact that people can recall them at any time by a majority vote, and the fact that socialism will involve strong, independent trade unions who will be able to put pressure of the planners if necessary.

Also, unlike in the USSR, the economic planners and the political leadership should be two entirely separate groups of people. We need separation of powers in socialism.


There is no reason to assume that your Socialist state would remain the way you intended it to be. That's what I was saying. I just think the incentive structure would allow for a few people to radically alter what the States functions are very quickly.
I expect socialist society to change over time. In fact, it's supposed to change. The state is supposed to "wither away" (meaning the gradual replacement of representative democracy with direct democracy) so that we can move on to communism.

I have not told you what the incentive structure would be, so you can't really comment on it. I think state institutions and incentives should be set up in such a way that power struggles within the state are always resolved by making use of popular support. Of course various individuals will try to get higher or better positions than their rivals - just like in any state. But if they must appeal to the people in order to win these struggles, then each struggle increases the power of the people over the state.


But to tell you the truth, I think our other discussion is more important. So you can reply to this part of our discussion and have the last word.
Thank you.

[Plagueround]

I don't support socialism for many reasons. Even if the economic problems I imagine socialism would encounter didn't exist, I still wouldn't support it because emperical evidence (there, I used it) seems to show that Socialism leads to a totalitarian state which starves, murders, and steals from the population. I am sure you are familiar with the old story where 7 million Ukrainians died of starvation in under 1 year so the the Soviet Political elite (murders) could make a few extra bucks.

Well, I don't only care about workers as you seem to. I also don't think what I support is unethical. I also don't think people would be dying in the streets (never heard that one before)....it's not like the soviet union where the political elite (murders) can kill 7 million people at will.


Ah, the "mountain of skulls" logic.

If we are to accept this, I could condemn your entire political and philosophical belief for what it did to my country and my people. But I won't.

Ironically, there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that anywhere from 1 to 7 million people starved in the United States while the government was trying to preserve capitalism. Now, you could (and probably will) rant about how uncapitalist that was, but then you would need to accept that the policy and actions of the USSR cannot be used to automatically condemn socialism. Fortunately, it looks like KH is doing a fantastic job, so I'll run off to go do admin things.

[Havet]

Why would anyone choose oppression? How would the bourgeoisie react to us rejecting it?

It wouldn't be oppression. We have oppression now.

For starters, there is no free competition now.

"Laborers are free to compete among themselves, and so are capitalists to a certain extent. But between laborers and capitalists there is no competition whatever, because through governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual. So long as one man, or class of men, are able to prevent others from working for themselves because they cannot obtain the means of production or capitalize their own products, so long those others are not free to compete freely with those to whom privilege gives the means."

[Havet]

So you want private crumbs for the working-class. How can you want communes and communism, but prefer private crumbs instead of state crumbs for working-class people?

I don't want communism (as most people paint it here at least), but I don't mind communes, and, of course, I support (non)private alternatives, as long as they aren't funded through the threat of force. Such alternatives include: communes, cooperatives, charities, etc.


Charities, cooperatives and voluntary individual help under Capitalism is very limited and is always going to be

And do you know why it is limited now? Because of two factors:

- governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated
- Tax-reliefs to institutions under the corporatist/hierarchy organization.


You're a completely contradictory fruitloop.

Helluva argument

[Havet]

First of all, I never argued for or against the idea that corporations would form under an Austrian/ultralibertarian conception of the free market. Of course, corporations as created or sanctioned by law wouldn't exist in a free market society. But if we are talking about the existence of large businesses or large concentrations of market power in an unfettered free market, that's another story entirely and I believe that we have discussed this already elsewhere.

Oh, you are talking about so called intrinsic market tendencies to create monopolies?

Yes, we have discussed, and nobody replied to my points (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1486069&postcount=38).


On monopolies:

The difficulties facing private cartels are nicely stated in Rockefeller's description, cited by McGee, of an unsuccessful attempt (in 1872) to control the production of crude oil and to drive up its price

... the high price for the crude oil resulted, as it had always done before and will always do so as oil comes out of the ground, in increasing the production, and they got too much oil. We could not find a market for it.
... of course, any who were not in this association were undertaking to produce all they possibly could; as as to those who were in the association, many of them men of honor and high standing, the temptation was very great to get a little more oil than they had promised their associates or us would come. It seemed very difficult to prevent the oil coming at that price.

Rockefeller's prediction was overly pessimistic. Today, although oil still comes out of the ground, federal and state governments have succeeded where the oil produceers of 1872 have failed. Through federal oil import quotas and state restrictions on production they keep the price of oil high and the production low. Progress.

It is also widely believed that railroads wielded unlimited monopoly power. Actually, as shown in Kolko's book, long distance transportation was highly competitive, freight rates were declining, and the number of railroads was increasing until after the turn of the century. One line might have a monopoly for short distances along its route, but a shipper operating between two major cities had a choice of many alternative routes - twenty existed between St.Louis and Atlanta, for instance.

Railroad rebates, cited as evidence of monopoly, were actually the opposite; they were discounts that major shippers were able to get from one railroad by threatening to ship via competitior.
Railroad executives often got toguether to try to fix rates, but most of these conspiracies broke down, often in a few months, for the reasons Rockefeller cites in his analysis of the attempt to control crude oil production. Either the parties to the agreeement surreptitiously cut rates (often by misclassifying freight or by offering secret rebates) in order to steal customers from each other, or some outside railroad took advantage of the high rates and moved in.

J.p Morgan (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan) commited his enourmous resources of money and reputation to cartelizing the industry, but he met almost unmitigated failure. In the beginning of 1889, for eg, he formed the Interstate Commerce Railway Association (http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D03E3DE143AEF33A2575BC0A9619C94689FD7CF) to control rates among western railroads. By March a rate war was going, and by June the situation was back to where it had been before he intervened.

By this time a new factor was entering the situation. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Comission (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission) was created by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT with (contrary to most history books) the support of much of the railroad industry. The ICC's original powers were limited; Morgan attempted to use it tp help enforce the 1889 agreement, but without success.

During its the next 31 years its powers were steadily increased, first inthe direction of allowing it to prohibit rebates (which Kolko (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Kolko) estimates were costing the railroads 10% of their gross income) and finally by giving it the power to set rates.

The people with the greatest interest in the ICC were the people in the rail industry. The result was that they dominated it, and it rapidly became an instrument for achieving the monopoly prices they had been unable to get on the free market. The pattern was clear as early as 1889, when Aldace Walker (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldace_F._Walker), one of the original appointees to the ICC, resigned to become head of Morgan's Interstate Commerce Railway Association. He ended up as chairman of the board of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. The ICC has served the railroads to the present day, in addition it has expanded its power and authority to cover other forms of transportation and to prevent them, whenever possible, from undercutting the railroads.

If you still can't understand why natural monopolies are so rare, consider the following example:

Suppose a onopoly is formed, as was U.S.Steel, by financers who succeed in buying up many of the existing firms. Assume further that there is no question of a natural monopoly; a firm much smaller than the new monster can produce as efficiently perhaps even more efficiently. It is commonly argued that the large firm will nonetheless be able to achieve and maintain complete control of the industry. This argument, like many others, depends on the false analogy of market competition to a battle in which the strongest must win.
Suppose the monopoly starts with 99% of the market and that the remaining 1% is held by a single competitor. To make things more dramatic, let me play the role of the competitor. It is argued, that the monopoly being bigger and more powerful, can easily drive me out.
In order to do so, the monopoly must cut its price to a level at which I am losing money. But since the monopoly is no more efficient than I am, it is losing just as much money per unit sold. Its resources may be 99 times as great as mine, but it is also losing money 99 times as fast as I am.
It is doing worse than that. In order to force me to keep my prices down, the monopoly must be willing to sell to everyone who wants to buy; otherwise unsupplied customers will buy from me at the old price. Since at the new old price customers will want to buy more than before, the monopolist must expand production, this losing even more money. If the good we produce ca be easily stored, the anticipation of future prices rises, once our battle is over, will increase present demand still further.

Meanwhile, i have more attractive options. I can, if I wish, continue to produce at full capacity and sell at a loss, loing one dollar for every hundrer or more lost by the monopoly. Or I may save money by laying off some of my workers, closing down part of my plant, an decreasing production until the monopoly gets tired of wasting money.

What about the situation where the monopoly engages in regional price cutting, taking a loss in the area i am operating and making it up in other parts of the country? If i am seriously worried about that prospect, I can take the precaution of opening outlets in all his major markets. Even if i do not, the high prices he charges in other areas to make up for his losses against me will make those areas very attractive to other new firms. Once they are estabished, he no longer has a market in which to make up his losses.
This the artificial monopoly which he tries to use its size to maintain its monopoly is in a sad position, as U.S.Steel, whcih was formed with 60% of total steel production, but which now has about 25%, found out to its sorrow. It has often been claimed that Rockefeller used such tactics to build Standard Oil, but there seems to be little or no evidence for the charge. Standard Oil officials occasionally tried to use the threat of cutitng prices and starting price was in an attempt to persuade competitors to keep their production down and their prices up. But the competitors understood the logic of the situation better than later historians, as shown by the response, quoted by McGee, of the manager of the Cornplanter Refining Company to such a threat:

"Well, I says, 'Mr.Moffet, I am very glad you put it that way, because if it is up to you the only way you can get it [the business] is to cut the market [reduce prices], and if you cut the market I will cut you for 200 miles around, and I will make you sell the stuff,' and I says, 'I don't want a bigger picnic than that; sell it if you want to,' and I bid him good day and left."


The threat never materialized. Indeed it appears, from McGee's evidence, that price cutting more often was started by the small independent firms in an attempt to cut into Standard's market and that many of them were quite successful. Cornplanter's capital grew, in 20 years, from $10,000 to $450,000. As McGee says, commenting on the evidence presented against Standard in the 1911 antitrust case: "It is interesting that most of the ex-Standard employees who destitifed about Standard's deadly predatory tactics entered the oil business when they left Standard. They also prospered."

Another strategy which Rockefeller probably did employ, is to buy out competitors. This is usually cheaper than spending a fortune trying to drive them out - at least, it is cheaper in the short run. The trouble is that people soon realize they can build a new refinery, threaten to drive down prices, and sell out to Rockefeller at a whopping profit. David.P.Reighard apparently made a sizable fortune by selling three consecutie refineries to Rockefeller. There was a limit to how many refineries Rockefeller could use. Having built his monopoly by introducing efficient business organization into the petroleum industry, Rockefeller was unable to withstand the competition of able imitation in his later years and failed to maintain his monopoly.


So my argument stands. The UK would have been better off under Thatcher than say a social democrat or someone who supported more government regulation and welfare, according to the market fetishist perspective, at least. Do you follow what I'm saying?

You are pressuposing that I give a damn about austrian/right-libertarian theory. I don't. Whether or not Thatcher and Reagan helped their countries is not a question i'm interested in, since I think politicians will always be harmful to the people in order protect their own interests.

Here's (http://all-left.net/) my kind of free market thinking.

[Havet]

The excuse for opposition to the minimum wage is often that it reduces employment, but that is nonsense, the prevailing opinion in economics these days is actually that it has little effect in that regard and certainly when Britain introduced the minimum wage a few years ago, no ill effect was recorded.

Minimum wage increases unemployment (http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2006/11/when_the_minimu.html), and contrary to what Olaf said, it is empirically verifiable. Its not, however, a linear observation.


To oppose it now is to say Employers should be allowed to use their superior power in negotiations to force even lower pay on workers who in desperation must take it. People sometimes say in Scandinavia they manage without the wage laws but that is because trade unions are strong enough to enforce reasonable deals with employers. Since Thatcher gutted the Unions here they can rarely offer any defence to workers and so the minimum wage is the only thing many people have to keep them above starvation levels.

Of COURSE if the minimum wage is removed, but other governmental privileges to capital are still granted it will STILL hurt the working class. That's my point! All the privileges must be removed, and until that is done, let us not hurt the working class any more through any state-benefits which end up causing more harm (to the working class) than what they intended.

And of course, I expect trade unions to appear, although I think that in a really free market, workers would have such a higher bargaining power as compared to now that they wouldn't need them as much.

[Havet]

To OP: Even 8 hour days are "devastating" for the employers. Practically every benefit workers have is "terrible" for employers. Every pro-worker measure incentivizes employers to avoid providing jobs and make bigger profits. Your so called pro worker arguments are nothing but baloney that just makes the bourgeoisie richer and workers living conditions go down the drain. No wonder lolbertarians Who make such abdurd arguments are not taken seriously by anyone.

You misunderstood me. I don't want just to remove the minimum wage. I want to remove, also, all governmental privileges to capital. Obviously, if one just removed the minimum wage, workers would be in an even worse condition. All aritificial and unfair-state benefits, to workers, but more especially, to businesses, must be removed if we are to achieve a free society.

[Havet]

What Hayenmill forgets to mention is that Sweden (still) has one of the most organised labour union movements in Europe. The Swedish system is also pegged (or was before Reinfeldt took power) so the labour unions would be stronger than the corporations in bargaining.

Of course. Is it not preferable to achieve a standard natural minimum wage without hurting other workers?

It seems to me that collective bargaining (achieved through unions, like you pointed out) is far effective than state-minimum wages. Of course, as long as there is still some governmental privilege to capital, workers will still be in an inferior position.

[synthesis]

It wouldn't be oppression. We have oppression now.

For starters, there is no free competition now.

"Laborers are free to compete among themselves, and so are capitalists to a certain extent. But between laborers and capitalists there is no competition whatever, because through governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual. So long as one man, or class of men, are able to prevent others from working for themselves because they cannot obtain the means of production or capitalize their own products, so long those others are not free to compete freely with those to whom privilege gives the means."

Wait... so oppression exists because capital is regulated?

Anyone who attempts to reduce all of society's ills to the state is being either naive or disingenuous, you and de Cleyre both, and on top of that, it is blindingly obvious that such a system would produce disastrous results if implemented in its entirety.

Money is power, whatever the form of government may be, and because of this you can't have a truly anarchist system without abolishing it. Let people actually "compete freely," with nothing that even resembles a democratic government with oversight, and soon enough somebody is going to have enough clout to have a de facto state on their side, even if they go out of their way to call it something else.

[ls]

So my argument stands. The UK would have been better off under Thatcher than say a social democrat or someone who supported more government regulation and welfare, according to the market fetishist perspective, at least. Do you follow what I'm saying?

Not posted by me.


And do you know why it is limited now? Because of two factors:

- governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated
- Tax-reliefs to institutions under the corporatist/hierarchy organization.

Do you know how many bourgeois people donate to charity simply as a tax loss. Charities pay out 10% of what they should and are as corrupt as some corporations, cooperatives are not really cooperatives in any communist sense either.

In many cases, as it stands now - the state is less Capitalist than cooperatives and charities. Private funds reserved for some people are often also bureaucratic messes.

[Trystan]

I don't think hayenmill, and other right-wing libertarians, really understand capitalism. You will always have a rich employing class under this system that will do all it can to make as much profit is possible - including using the State as a tool for crushing workers who use the collective bargaining (which is apparently OK for the libertarians). Right-wing libertarianism, although good natured enough, does not take into account the importance of class antagonisms.

The minimum wage and the benefit system may not be the ultimate goals of the Left, but if we are to have a system of capitalism that lasts for an apparently indefinite period of time, then the minimum wage and benefits (for those who need them) are absolutely necessary.

[Skooma Addict]

contrary to what Olaf said, it is empirically verifiable. Its not, however, a linear observation.

In order to empirically prove that the minimum wage causes unemployment, you need to hold all variables constant except the for minimum wage. But this is impossible. I read the study you linked, and I don't see what makes it different from any other empirical study on the subject. There are many things besides the minimum wage that can cause an increase or decrease in employment that cannot be accounted for.


You are pressuposing that I give a damn about austrian/right-libertarian theory. I don't. Whether or not Thatcher and Reagan helped their countries is not a question i'm interested in, since I think politicians will always be harmful to the people in order protect their own interests.

Reagan increased the federal deficit by over 30%. Heck, Carter was better than Reagan. Idk much about Thatcher since I hate learning about Britain.


I don't think hayenmill, and other right-wing libertarians, really understand capitalism.

What is a right-wing libertarian?

[Trystan]

What is a right-wing libertarian?

A capitalist.

[Skooma Addict]

A capitalist.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

[Pogue]

It wouldn't be oppression. We have oppression now.

For starters, there is no free competition now.

"Laborers are free to compete among themselves, and so are capitalists to a certain extent. But between laborers and capitalists there is no competition whatever, because through governmental privilege granted to capital, whence the volume of the currency and the rate of interest is regulated, the owners of it are enabled to keep the laborers dependent on them for employment, so making the condition of wage-subjection perpetual. So long as one man, or class of men, are able to prevent others from working for themselves because they cannot obtain the means of production or capitalize their own products, so long those others are not free to compete freely with those to whom privilege gives the means."

But it would be oppresion. It would be wage slavery - being bossed about, having someone else control your life.

[Trystan]

That makes no sense whatsoever.

http://images.starcraftmazter.net/4chan/for_forums/stalin_no_u.jpg

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

Oh, you are talking about so called intrinsic market tendencies to create monopolies?

Yes, we have discussed, and nobody replied to my points (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1486069&postcount=38).


We also discussed this in my thread concerning the prospects for labor union formation in "truly" free market societies (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labor-unions-really-t116645/index.html?t=116645) and you didn't respond to my last post. Now to address the post that you mentioned.



Having built his monopoly by introducing efficient business organization into the petroleum industry, Rockefeller was unable to withstand the competition of able imitation in his later years and failed to maintain his monopoly.

Firstly, I need a few things to be clarified concerning your position on this issue. Do you believe that monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies or cartels can form in a free market? Because according to the quote above, it seems here that you are conceding that they do indeed form, but can't be maintained for long periods of time. Is that what you believe? Just for the record, before I expound more on my position.


You are pressuposing that I give a damn about austrian/right-libertarian theory. I don't. Whether or not Thatcher and Reagan helped their countries is not a question i'm interested in, since I think politicians will always be harmful to the people in order protect their own interests.


You're an advocate of the free market, are you not? Your ideology is quite analogous to that of the typical right-libertarian or austrian school proponent. If we follow your logic that "free markets" are the panacea to most if not all economic problems, then there should have been at least some economic improvement during periods when there was smaller government(reagan years in the U.S., Thatcher years in the UK) relative to periods with greater government involvement(centre-left wing government periods). You say that Thatcher and Reagan were just corporatists. That maybe true, but they also greatly curtailed government in their respective countries. We should be able to draw some inferences from these "smaller government" periods in history, no? This is the only way that free market economics can truly be analyzed and/or scrutinized, at least with regards to empirical evidence. We lack unambiguous examples of "unfettered free markets" in history, so we must settle for the "second best" evidence available to us, no?

[Skooma Addict]

http://images.starcraftmazter.net/4chan/for_forums/stalin_no_u.jpg

Since a right-libertarian is a capitalist, that tells you nothing about the persons ideology or philosophical beliefs. So to call someone a right-libertarian is equivalent to calling someone a supplier of capital. So maybe someone else should answer....what is a right libertarian?

[Trystan]

Since a right-libertarian is a capitalist, that tells you nothing about the persons ideology or philosophical beliefs. So to call someone a right-libertarian is equivalent to calling someone a supplier of capital. So maybe someone else should answer....what is a right libertarian?

Just google it ffs.

[Skooma Addict]

Just google it ffs.

I did, and I couldn't get a good answer. Different sites said different things. In my opinion, if the term right-libertarian isn't going to be completely meaningless, it could only mean a libertarian who holds "conservative values". Take Hoppe for example. But you all just use it as a term to slander people, so w/e.

[Havet]

So you want to reform capitalism?

No, I want to get rid of it


Also what is your definition of "state"?

A person or group of people who acquire ownership by means that go against the prevalent intersubjective criteria of ownership in a certain area.

[Havet]

Do you know how many bourgeois people donate to charity simply as a tax loss. Charities pay out 10% of what they should and are as corrupt as some corporations, cooperatives are not really cooperatives in any communist sense either.

In many cases, as it stands now - the state is less Capitalist than cooperatives and charities. Private funds reserved for some people are often also bureaucratic messes.

Irrelevant strawman

Usually, capitalists or right-libertarians (miseans) say that workers are free to start their own business if they think they are being exploited (hence competition with the employers), but this is false, as I have said countless times (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialists-and-libertarians-t112434/index.html?t=112434&highlight=socialists+libertarians+capitalism).


It must be conceded to the socialist that under actually existing capitalism, exploitation is taking place. For under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system, the libertarian's view of it as an interaction between peers would be true.

Of course, with the possibility of actually competing with capitalists, and with the freedom to organize into different institutions (businesses, cooperatives, communes, etc), very few would engage in jobs the way we think of them today.

[Havet]

Wait... so oppression exists because capital is regulated?

It's not "regulated" as you may think of the term (restrictions on its use), but more as special privilege is granted to the owners of capital which gives them an unfair position over the workers, creating the eternal wage-slavery situation.


Anyone who attempts to reduce all of society's ills to the state is being either naive or disingenuous, you and de Cleyre both, and on top of that, it is blindingly obvious that such a system would produce disastrous results if implemented in its entirety.

Societies ills are caused by both the state and capitalists working together. This is why my "ideology" is called free-market anti-capitalism

Here's an interesting blog (http://mutualist.blogspot.com/) to get you started on the concept. Read up on mutualism as well.


Money is power, whatever the form of government may be, and because of this you can't have a truly anarchist system without abolishing it. Let people actually "compete freely," with nothing that even resembles a democratic government with oversight, and soon enough somebody is going to have enough clout to have a de facto state on their side, even if they go out of their way to call it something else.

No government is morally justifiable (do not mistake government with direct democracy).

Government is not magical. If it's wrong for people to murder, enslave, and steal, it's also wrong if done by government, because government is a group of people.

If it is wrong for a person to do X, then it is wrong for all people to do X.
If it is wrong for all people to do X, it is wrong for groups of people to do X.
Government is a group of people. It is wrong for government to do X.

This means, no war, no law, no taxes. This is not compatible with government.

Anything one group of people can do, any group of people can do. There is nothing inherent in any one group of people that makes them superior to all others by the very title which they give themselves.

[Havet]

I don't think hayenmill, and other right-wing libertarians, really understand capitalism.

I'm not a right-wing libertarian, but nice try.


You will always have a rich employing class under this system that will do all it can to make as much profit is possible - including using the State as a tool for crushing workers who use the collective bargaining (which is apparently OK for the libertarians)

I don't think its ok, but there's a solution: take away the power from those people so that they can no longer use such monopolized and centralized power in order to hurt the workers, like you said, by destroying their collective bargaining power.


The minimum wage and the benefit system may not be the ultimate goals of the Left, but if we are to have a system of capitalism that lasts for an apparently indefinite period of time, then the minimum wage and benefits (for those who need them) are absolutely necessary.

Like I said, the minimum wage is always going to end up hurting more the working class than it is supposed to help. Of course, if we just took the minimum wage away, it would not be enough, because capitalists would still hold an advantage over the others (through the privilege granted by government to capital which i've talked of earlier). As an alternative (until a revolution which takes away ALL the immoral and illogical power from the hands of the capitalists and the government), I suggest other methods present in other countries (sweden and switzerland), which, with also freer markets, have allowed the non-existance of minimum-wages to be beneficial to workers.

[Havet]

But it would be oppresion. It would be wage slavery - being bossed about, having someone else control your life.

That is what we have NOW.

In a freer society, it is obvious people, having an equality of opportunity like all the others, wouldn't have to resort to wage-slavery jobs like today. Contrary to these days, they could actually self-employ themselves, create alternative institutions more easily, and overall improve their lives without anyone else unfairly restricting their actions.

[Havet]

We also discussed this in my thread concerning the prospects for labor union formation in "truly" free market societies (http://www.revleft.com/vb/labor-unions-really-t116645/index.html?t=116645) and you didn't respond to my last post. Now to address the post that you mentioned.

Sorry, must've skipped your last post.


Even if we were to assume away all those market imperfections, do you honestly believe labor unions won't suffer from the same problems? Employers could always hire other workers who aren't union members if he finds the labor union's demands unreasonable. Also, employers could substitute machinery for workers in order to break the union, which is an example of "indirect competition" at work.

I think i'm beginning to see your point, even though you are assuming (like right-wing libertarians also do) that in a free market employers would have such power to dispose of workers so easily.

The point I was trying to make is that being able to directly compete with employers, the consequent scarcity of workers would drive their salaries higher, making them in a more equal position to deal with their employers. So I suppose there wouldn't really be a need for unions after all, except, perhaps, as an institutions where workers could find information on where to get the best deals possible.


Firstly, I need a few things to be clarified concerning your position on this issue. Do you believe that monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies or cartels can form in a free market? Because according to the quote above, it seems here that you are conceding that they do indeed form, but can't be maintained for long periods of time. Is that what you believe? Just for the record, before I expound more on my position.

Of course they can be formed. The issue is always that they cannot be maintained because they are NOT profitable.


You're an advocate of the free market, are you not?

Free-market anti-capitalism, to be more exact.


Your ideology is quite analogous to that of the typical right-libertarian or austrian school proponent.

It indeed has some analogies, but the differences are also pretty evident (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html).


If we follow your logic that "free markets" are the panacea to most if not all economic problems, then there should have been at least some economic improvement during periods when there was smaller government(reagan years in the U.S., Thatcher years in the UK) relative to periods with greater government involvement(centre-left wing government periods). You say that Thatcher and Reagan were just corporatists. That maybe true, but they also greatly curtailed government in their respective countries. We should be able to draw some inferences from these "smaller government" periods in history, no? This is the only way that free market economics can truly be analyzed and/or scrutinized, at least with regards to empirical evidence. We lack unambiguous examples of "unfettered free markets" in history, so we must settle for the "second best" evidence available to us, no?

Yes, by my logic, the more freer the market, the greatest benefits people would derive from it.

However, first I need to ask you a couple of questions: How did Reagan and Thatcher's plans reduced the size of government and freed the market? DO take into consideration that it's not enough to just free a part of the market if there is a regulation in another part of another market that directly affects the free market, therefore nuling the effect.

As far as examples of smaller governments and freer markets leading to better benefits, consider the examples:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Prc1952-2005gdp.gif

Now China and to a lesser extent India are getting richer faster than western countries precisely because western countries are disrupting the production of wealth through excessive market and worker exploitation.

If you want to talk about "good in the hands of the few", China and India both have the fastest growing number of millionaires on the planet, although they still are a long way from stoping being exploited by their religion, their governments and, to some extent, foreign corporations.

The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger at a massive rate in China, but outside the present exploitation which is present ALL around the world, this gap has also brought many advantages.

40 years ago everyone was poor, now millions of people have enough money to have electricity and motor cars (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/percapita_car_o.html).

-------------------------

The economic history of the United States has its roots in European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe) settlements in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The American colonies went from marginally successful colonial economies to a small, independent farming economy, which in 1776 became the United States of America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America). In 230 years the United States grew to a huge, integrated, industrialized economy that makes up over a quarter of the world economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy). The main causes were a large unified market, a supportive political-legal system, vast areas of highly productive farmlands, vast natural resources (especially timber, coal and oil), and an entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to investing in material and human capital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States_of_America#History

Just as the 1st generation of Americans toiled the land, the 2nd generation toiled in factories, so that the 3rd generation could enjoy the relative ease of service work.

----

I predict that in 100-200 years the world's markets will be practically indistinguishable. Not that we won't have cultural differences, but ordinary people will be on a much more higher level playing field.

As the Chinese and Indians bring themselves up, eventually they'll start competing at things that where once only the domain of western countries.

Already it has happened with places like South Korea, which are pretty fucking similar to western countries.

So we'll see a much more even breakdown of % industries. Primary industries will become an even smaller part of the economy, as newer technology means more ore and food can be produced for even less effort.

But we'll likely see an explosion of art and science from places like India and China, just as we have from America and Japan when they got rich enough so that they could focus on things other than the bare essentials.

[Skooma Addict]

right-libertarians (miseans)


Lol, you can't call all followeres of Mises right libertarians without the term being pratically meaningless. I guess Roderick Long is a right libertarian according to your definition. The very people you call right libertarians don't even call themselves right libertarians, and they reject what is commonly known as the values of the "right". So I am left with the conclusion that either cannot provide a meaningful description of what a right libertarian is, or you are just trying to slander ideological opponents. Not only that, but you can be a follower of Mises a while believing in a vast number of ideologies.

Although I agree you are not A Misesean because you believe you can empirically prove that the Minimum wage causes unemployment. But I explained why you are wrong.

I am not going to allow people to call me a right libertarian because I am not a right libertarian if we are using reasonable definitions.



Free-market anti-capitalism, to be more exact.


What does that even mean? There is no reason to assume that private suppliers of capital would not exist in a free market. There will be capitalists in a free market, that's just the way it is.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

I think i'm beginning to see your point, even though you are assuming (like right-wing libertarians also do) that in a free market employers would have such power to dispose of workers so easily.

I'm not really assuming anything here. I'm merely following the same logic you employ to argue that monopolies or other manifestations of business collusion wouldn't form or last for significant periods of time. Furthermore, most right-libertarians don't necessarily believe that the employer is all powerful or posseses a considerable advantage over the workers. They tend to down play the significance of bargaining power in the determination of employment or wages. Their view is pretty much that the worker needs the employer, just as much as the employer needs the worker.



The point I was trying to make is that being able to directly compete with employers, the consequent scarcity of workers would drive their salaries higher, making them in a more equal position to deal with their employers. So I suppose there wouldn't really be a need for unions after all, except, perhaps, as an institutions where workers could find information on where to get the best deals possible.

So you concede that labor unions(in the traditional sense of the term, not as some mere association of workers trying to find the best deals) wouldn't form or wouldn't strive in a free market society, correct? If that's indeed the case,then that makes your position quite unattractive to the communists and socialists on this board. I wish you good luck in your attempt to convince them of the virtues of the unbridled free market.


Of course they can be formed. The issue is always that they cannot be maintained because they are NOT profitable.

That's debatable, but I'll submit to you that monopolies are not prevalent in today's society and it's not necessarily because they're not profitable, however, though this may be the case in several instances. I'm of the opinion that though overt monopolies and blatant oligopolies are not prevalent, this is not necessarily and soley the result of market forces(though of course they play a role). My view is that the very existence of anti-trust legislation serves as a disincentive for businesses to blatantly collude or engage in anti-competitive behavior.


It indeed has some analogies, but the differences are also pretty evident (http://www.revleft.com/vb/would-anarcho-socialist-t116765/index.html).

Sure there are differences, but your arguments are essentially the same ones used by Austrian Schoolers and other right-libertarians. They tend to blame almost all problems on government intervention. One might bring up an example of where deregulation went amiss and led to a worsening of conditions and the right-libertarian typically responds by saying that the industry wasn't deregulated enough(similar to your argument that the supposed benefits of deregulation in one sector can be nullified by regulation in another). It seems that even if there is just an iota of government intervention in an example, it is rejected outright and all the problems in the example are attributed to that iota of government intervention. How are we then to argue? Do we have to wait for all the governments in the world to collapse and then draw conclusions about the benefits of "truly" free markets?


As far as examples of smaller governments and freer markets leading to better benefits, consider the examples:


I'm not about to argue that sheer state-planning is superior to mixed markets.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

There will be capitalists in a free market, that's just the way it is.

I have to agree with you on this point. ;)

[revolt4thewin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF8JhXJ8Aio&feature=related
That is one big gun.

[Robert]

Absolutely fabricated rubbish, the minimum wage is one of the securities we, the working class, have against absolute destitution, and its appalling low, our whole society is structured around greed and profit, hence people make arguments like yours.What percentage of UK workers earn the minimum wage?

One could get the impression from this and similar posts above that the minimum wage is an average wage, a typical wage, a common wage, a prevailing wage. One that the "the working class" enjoys or endures in common. This just doesn't fit the norm of reality, at least not in the USA.

The percentage of workers earning at or below the minimum wage in just about every category (2007 figures) is under 5%. For workers 25 years old or over, it is less than 2%. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2007tbls.htm.

The "average" wage in the USA, though it varies substantially from state to state and drastically from occupation to occupation is more than double that.

So ... is it the minimum wage keeping the typical worker from "absolute destitution?" Or something else?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Prc1952-2005gdp.gif



This graph is extremely misleading. If you look at the actual numbers for the Mao and post Mao periods, there is very little difference in the average economic growth. For example, you have the GDP doubling between 76 and 80 while it shows up as a very small increase, while between 2000 and 2004 it increased by less than 40% even though this shows up as a huge increase.


Fuck off you middle class intellectual prick, I don't live for your petty intellectual play games, get a job on the minimum wage and come back and talk to us then, I'm sick of you losers preaching your shit.

QFT

[ls]

Irrelevant strawman

No, that post is the strawman mine is entirely relevant.


Usually, capitalists or right-libertarians (miseans) say that workers are free to start their own business if they think they are being exploited (hence competition with the employers), but this is false, as I have said countless times (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialists-and-libertarians-t112434/index.html?t=112434&highlight=socialists+libertarians+capitalism).



Of course, with the possibility of actually competing with capitalists, and with the freedom to organize into different institutions (businesses, cooperatives, communes, etc), very few would engage in jobs the way we think of them today.

Yeah let's compete with other Capitalists! That totally makes us Socialists and not in any way Capitalistic!

[Leninid]

i know that the soviet union under stalin and the 5 year plans had enormous growth rates of 20% per year or more, without any private property or production, or any of that reformist bullshit that "communist" china is allowing to happen.

even after WW2 it maintained a growth rate higher than 10% untill the late 1960s.

in fact, it was because the soviet union managed a complete and extremely successful industrialization within a single generation, and entered the "2nd world" leaving medieval times behind, that all the capitalists in the west were worried about them.
they didn't give a shit about the "violations of human rights", all they cared about was that the Soviet Union grew insanely.

and of course since the soviet union fell and capitalism came, russia has been driven right back to the 3rd world by the capitalist reforms.


worker's rights like minimum wage have been EARNED by Worker Unions. who are you to say that people should starve and let the capitalists exploit their work?

claiming that someone who earns less than 8$ an hour is employed and not enslaved makes no sense to me.

[synthesis]

It's not "regulated" as you may think of the term (restrictions on its use), but more as special privilege is granted to the owners of capital which gives them an unfair position over the workers, creating the eternal wage-slavery situation.

I understood what you were saying. The point is that the capitalist class does not need a government to exert its power over the rest of society; it never has.

Their power comes from their control over resources, not the other way around.


Societies ills are caused by both the state and capitalists working together. This is why my "ideology" is called free-market anti-capitalism

Here's an interesting blog (http://www.anonym.to/?http://mutualist.blogspot.com/) to get you started on the concept. Read up on mutualism as well.

Again, I understand your arguments perfectly well. I'm not trying to pigeonhole you with the Austrians, but your line of argument completely misses the point.

In reality, the state is merely Iago to the capitalist Jafar. (Probably the best analogy I've ever made.)


No government is morally justifiable (do not mistake government with direct democracy).

Government is not magical. If it's wrong for people to murder, enslave, and steal, it's also wrong if done by government, because government is a group of people.

If it is wrong for a person to do X, then it is wrong for all people to do X.
If it is wrong for all people to do X, it is wrong for groups of people to do X.
Government is a group of people. It is wrong for government to do X.

This means, no war, no law, no taxes. This is not compatible with government.

Anything one group of people can do, any group of people can do. There is nothing inherent in any one group of people that makes them superior to all others by the very title which they give themselves.

To put it plainly, this moralistic perspective of the government is futile and meaningless. If anyone is allowed to gain a disproportionate degree of control of society's resources, they don't need a de jure government to exert control on society.

Their control of resources gives them the leverage to act as a hegemony and subsequently reconstruct and rearrange the power structure on their own terms, regardless of whatever anarchistic intent you may have held in building such a society.

[danyboy27]

minimum wage is nowhere near enough to make end meat for 90% of the population. the only way to make it with minimum wage is to have multiple jobs, and its not really a good recipies to survive.

[Havet]

Lol, you can't call all followeres of Mises right libertarians without the term being pratically meaningless. I guess Roderick Long is a right libertarian according to your definition. The very people you call right libertarians don't even call themselves right libertarians, and they reject what is commonly known as the values of the "right". So I am left with the conclusion that either cannot provide a meaningful description of what a right libertarian is, or you are just trying to slander ideological opponents. Not only that, but you can be a follower of Mises a while believing in a vast number of ideologies.

Like you said, a right-libertarian is a "libertarian" who supports conservative values, although he doesn't necessarily support violence to implement them.

right-libertarians, however, are distinct by their ability of deriving racist, anti-immigrational beliefs through "natural rights" or "a priori axioms". Some articles at Mises and LewRockwell are well documented of this. If you want to check them out, google voluntary slavery.



I am not going to allow people to call me a right libertarian because I am not a right libertarian if we are using reasonable definitions.

Oh yeah, I forgot, right-libertarians are also called like that because they usually hold a 19th century definition of Capitalism (where capitalism=free market), use rethoric which defends corporations and the mercantilist era (which was not an entirely free market).


What does that even mean? There is no reason to assume that private suppliers of capital would not exist in a free market. There will be capitalists in a free market, that's just the way it is.

Free market anti-capitalism (which is a part of left-libertarianism), is an opposition to statism and militarism, to cultural intolerance (including sexism, racism, and homophobia), and to the prevailing corporatist capitalism falsely called a free market; as well as by an emphasis on education, direct action, and building alternative institutions, rather than on electoral politics, as their chief strategy for achieving liberation.

[Havet]

I'm not really assuming anything here. I'm merely following the same logic you employ to argue that monopolies or other manifestations of business collusion wouldn't form or last for significant periods of time. Furthermore, most right-libertarians don't necessarily believe that the employer is all powerful or posseses a considerable advantage over the workers. They tend to down play the significance of bargaining power in the determination of employment or wages. Their view is pretty much that the worker needs the employer, just as much as the employer needs the worker.

I would go even further by claiming they believe its natural that vast amounts of wealth disparity (caused by State action, directly or indirectly) would be also natural in a free market.


So you concede that labor unions(in the traditional sense of the term, not as some mere association of workers trying to find the best deals) wouldn't form or wouldn't strive in a free market society, correct? If that's indeed the case,then that makes your position quite unattractive to the communists and socialists on this board. I wish you good luck in your attempt to convince them of the virtues of the unbridled free market.

If they find it unattractive its probably because they didn't bother to read my previous statements where a worker would be in such a higher position they wouldn't need unions as we know it (which lobby the state in order to get benefits at the expense of other workers, unions and industries).


That's debatable, but I'll submit to you that monopolies are not prevalent in today's society and it's not necessarily because they're not profitable, however, though this may be the case in several instances. I'm of the opinion that though overt monopolies and blatant oligopolies are not prevalent, this is not necessarily and soley the result of market forces(though of course they play a role). My view is that the very existence of anti-trust legislation serves as a disincentive for businesses to blatantly collude or engage in anti-competitive behavior.

Monopolies ARE prevalent in today's society. State-monopolies and artificial monopolies (private businesses who achieved such monopolization through indirect State help) particularly.

As far as anti-trust goes, I believe i mentioned something about it earlier:


By this time a new factor was entering the situation. In 1887, the Interstate Commerce Comission (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission) was created by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT with (contrary to most history books) the support of much of the railroad industry. The ICC's original powers were limited; Morgan attempted to use it tp help enforce the 1889 agreement, but without success.

During its the next 31 years its powers were steadily increased, first inthe direction of allowing it to prohibit rebates (which Kolko (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Kolko) estimates were costing the railroads 10% of their gross income) and finally by giving it the power to set rates.

The people with the greatest interest in the ICC were the people in the rail industry. The result was that they dominated it, and it rapidly became an instrument for achieving the monopoly prices they had been unable to get on the free market. The pattern was clear as early as 1889, when Aldace Walker (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldace_F._Walker), one of the original appointees to the ICC, resigned to become head of Morgan's Interstate Commerce Railway Association. He ended up as chairman of the board of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. The ICC has served the railroads to the present day, in addition it has expanded its power and authority to cover other forms of transportation and to prevent them, whenever possible, from undercutting the railroads.


It seems that even if there is just an iota of government intervention in an example, it is rejected outright and all the problems in the example are attributed to that iota of government intervention. How are we then to argue? Do we have to wait for all the governments in the world to collapse and then draw conclusions about the benefits of "truly" free markets?

That's right, some right-libertarians use the one-drop argument (which some communists use here as well, to justify everything was the result of the State, therefore a State is necessary). I don't buy the one-drop argument, but the truth is in many many cases, since the State has an enormous power, their "small" interference is enough to cause great damage.

Ideally though, one would want to look at each argument and situation independently. I can cite you several examples, if you want, regarding the AMA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association), Railroads, Oil, CAB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Aeronautics_Board#Civil_Aeronautics_Authorit y), post offices, and radio airwaves.

[Havet]

This graph is extremely misleading. If you look at the actual numbers for the Mao and post Mao periods, there is very little difference in the average economic growth. For example, you have the GDP doubling between 76 and 80 while it shows up as a very small increase, while between 2000 and 2004 it increased by less than 40% even though this shows up as a huge increase.

2000-2004 GDP: from 12000 to 16000, 4000 increase.

From 76-80 GDP: It shows some increase, but it is difficult to quantify. Perhaps you would like to supply the information of how it doubled? It could be useful for whoever is interested in the veracity of the graph, including myself.


QFT

Don't think so..

[Havet]

Yeah let's compete with other Capitalists! That totally makes us Socialists and not in any way Capitalistic!

The point of "competing" with capitalists is to NOT make the workers dependent of capitalists like they currently are.

Is that not a socialist goal?

DO you think ending the wage-slavery situation is Capitalistic?

DO you think ending the privilege of capital is Capitalistic?

[Havet]

worker's rights like minimum wage have been EARNED by Worker Unions. who are you to say that people should starve and let the capitalists exploit their work?

People are starving and their work is being exploited by the capitalists also as a result of those EARNED minimum wage privileges.


claiming that someone who earns less than 8$ an hour is employed and not enslaved makes no sense to me.

Ok then, let's put the minimum wage in 100$ an hour. :glare:

Being able to receive a minimum wage does not mean that that person is not enslaved. She is (unfortunately) still dependent on the Capitalist for subsistence, due to government privilege to capital and the owners of capital.

[Havet]

Some thing missing here: acknowledgment of the class society of capitalism: it is a class-based society out there. You cannot "get rid" of capitalism without getting rid of class society. Also, your definition of state is flawed without class analysis of society.

Listen, there are 3 definitions of State that I know of:

The Marxist Definition: The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled.

Although the Marxist argument is both helpful for developing theory and historically accurate, it’s really useless for what we’re trying to figure out here. The Marxist definition is really answering the questions of, “What has been the historical role of the State?” and “How does the State typically do?”. What we’re looking for here, is “what differentiates statist activity from non-statist activity?” If we’re trying to answer the question of, “does violently seizing private property and redistributing it make our anarchist commune a state?” or “does defense from outside aggression make us a state?” or “does taxation make us a state?” then Lenin’s definition is worthless. In those situations, we’re acting just like a modern or historical state would, by enforcing our will (or protecting it) over a geographic area and a population, but we’re not necessarily acting as an organ of class rule, nor are we exhibiting the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. While the state is a product of class antagonisms, and while it could wither away as those antagonisms do the same, it’s not answering our question.

While Engel’s historical analysis of the State and Lenin’s theoretical application of that analysis is applicable to many situations, it doesn’t answer the fundamental question of what constitutes a state.

The Traditional Definition: A State is a monopoly of the use of legitimate force over a geographical area.

While this definition sounds originally appealing, it’s applicability into theory is not great. For example, what differentiates a state under this definition and a landowner? Specifically in an anarchist society, where there is no overriding source of sovereignty that grants authority to landowners through property titles. In an anarchic society (particularly a market anarchist one, where defense was handled privately), a man defending his property from invaders (even legitimately) is engaging in statist behavior, as they are rejecting the aggressors claim to the use of force over the disputed object (claiming a monopoly). Ownership is nothing but claiming a monopoly of the legitimate use of force over a specific object (remember Proudhon’s equation of property with despotism?). When one asserts that they own something they are claiming the right to destroy it, alter it, consume it, trade it, and give it away, and simultaneously that no one else may do the same. To apply this to a genuine communist society, a militia defending a community from outside aggression is claiming a monopoly of the legitimate use of force over that area, by asserting (and backing up with violence) that the aggressors may not impose their will over that area. That being said, even anarchists would support such a measure, and someone defending their property (even collectively) doesn’t make sense as a state in the traditional sense, so I don’t feel like this definition is all that useful.

This definition – developed by Weber and adopted as the primary definition of a state by sociologists – is basically useless for our purposes, as it indiscriminately describes a vast array of situations, which in reality share little in common. To hell with it.

The Alternative Definition: A State is a person or group of people who exercise ownership over property that they have not acquired through the prevalent, inter-subjective criteria of ownership.

The assumption behind this definition is really that there are no “natural rights” that justify property, or ownership in any form. In reality, standards for obtaining property – like “finders keepers”, or possession and use - are determined by implicit agreements among people and communities. Today, these agreements are for the most part forced upon citizens by the state via property law. Now one could argue this view of property, but that’s a subject for another thread. The point of this definition is that a state is any entity which exercises ownership over property without fulfilling the common and agreed upon methods. For example, in the United States, the common conception of property is finders-keepers, or a Neo-Lockean interpretation of natural rights. A state would be any entity who can obtain property without having, what is considered, a natural right to that property. What qualifies the United Kingdom or the U.S. as states is that they exercise ownership (which, as expanded upon above, is the same as a monopoly of the use of force) over a geographical area, without having any commonly accepted claim to ownership over that area. The usefulness of this definition, is that it draws a line of distinction between someone defending their property (not a state), and someone forcefully taking another persons legitimate property (statist behavior).

As for the example above, if a militia defends the land they occupy, they are not exercising ownership over something they don’t have a claim to; they’re just protecting their own property. In my opinion, one of the biggest questions an anarchist has to answer is whether or not they would go around violently seizing private property, and whether or not such an action would make them a state. Under conventional definitions, it would. Under this definition however, it could be argued that the private property was a claim to property not operating under the conventional implicit agreement (which in an anarchic society would probably be possession), and was therefore a state. So in fact, the anarchists were just rectifying a wrong (statist activity), and were not contradicting their ideology.

Anyway, of COURSE there are classes, and the privileged class wants to remain where they are or increase their power. If you get rid of the system that is allowing their privilege, their ability to get more privilege will be destroyed, but they will still retain the previous privilege (capital, land, whatever).

There are some ideas regarding whether institutions with that much privilege should be communalized or not. To quote my other thread:


As for the specific question asked by a reader related to the issue of how a Wal-Mart or McDonald’s might be communalized, I am skeptical as to whether or not large retail and fast food chains of the type we are currently familiar with could even exist in a genuine free market. The success of these chains results from their ability to undercut their local competitors with lower prices. But their lower prices are possible only because of the massive state subsidies to trucking, shipping, infrastructure, aviation, etc. If such corporations had to cover their own costs in these areas, they might not be able to compete with local alternatives.(12 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anti-state.com/article.php?article_id=316#12))


And assuming that case were correct, their privilege would be split among others naturally (communes, cooperatives, smaller businesses, etc).

[Havet]

I understood what you were saying. The point is that the capitalist class does not need a government to exert its power over the rest of society; it never has.

Their power comes from their control over resources, not the other way around.

I think I disagree. Capitalists could only have acquired so much power and resources that fast through the help of a huge centralized institution with the monopoly of force (a State). If it were capitalists directly that used force to gain their privilege, then they were engaging in statist activity, therefore making them the State.

There is no proof that they could have acquired so much privilege, power and resources through completely free trade and market interactions. Where we see they started acquiring power, we can recognize some Statist action that enabled this (by force).


In reality, the state is merely Iago to the capitalist Jafar. (Probably the best analogy I've ever made.)

I'm not really familiar with Iago or Jafar, but I believe you were saying something like: "The state is merely a tool to the capitalists", which I agree. Whenever a State starts using its force, it becomes cheaper for the capitalist (and more profitable) to act directly through the State.


To put it plainly, this moralistic perspective of the government is futile and meaningless. If anyone is allowed to gain a disproportionate degree of control of society's resources, they don't need a de jure government to exert control on society.

And what i'm saying is that they have only acquired such disproportionate degree of control of society's resources through direct and/or indirect Statist activity, not of purely free-market mechanisms.


Their control of resources gives them the leverage to act as a hegemony and subsequently reconstruct and rearrange the power structure on their own terms, regardless of whatever anarchistic intent you may have held in building such a society.

Of course, once they have the power, they can do whatever they want. No quarrrel here.

[ls]

The point of "competing" with capitalists is to NOT make the workers dependent of capitalists like they currently are.

Is that not a socialist goal?

DO you think ending the wage-slavery situation is Capitalistic?

DO you think ending the privilege of capital is Capitalistic?

Your way stinks of Capitalism whereas the traditional revolutionary methods do not. EOD.

[Havet]

Your way stinks of Capitalism whereas the traditional revolutionary methods do not. EOD.

So your argument boils down to: "I don't like it because it's not a traditional way".

I thought elitism of this kind was reserved to the privileged class and right-wingers. Guess I was wrong.

[Skooma Addict]

right-libertarians, however, are distinct by their ability of deriving racist, anti-immigrational beliefs through "natural rights" or "a priori axioms". Some articles at Mises and LewRockwell are well documented of this. If you want to check them out, google voluntary slavery.

Right, so A right libertarian is a libertarian with socially conservative values. I don't know if believing in voluntary slavery is a socially conservative value however. So I would say the vast majority of Miseseans are not right libertarians according to this definition. Not to mention the entire left-right political spectrum is almost useless nowadays.


Oh yeah, I forgot, right-libertarians are also called like that because they usually hold a 19th century definition of Capitalism (where capitalism=free market), use rethoric which defends corporations and the mercantilist era (which was not an entirely free market).

But this has nothing to do with traditional values, so adding this portion to the definition of a right-libertarian makes no sense. The people you are referring to are called vulgar libertarians. It is another term people on the left use to slander ideological opponents.



Free market anti-capitalism (which is a part of left-libertarianism), is an opposition to statism and militarism, to cultural intolerance (including sexism, racism, and homophobia), and to the prevailing corporatist capitalism falsely called a free market; as well as by an emphasis on education, direct action, and building alternative institutions, rather than on electoral politics, as their chief strategy for achieving liberation.

Not only does free market anti-capitalism make no sense, but not one thing you listed in your definition has anything to do with anti-capitalism. If want to eliminate capitalism, then you want to eliminate the free market. So you either don't support the free market, or you aren't an anti-capitalist.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

I would go even further by claiming they believe its natural that vast amounts of wealth disparity (caused by State action, directly or indirectly) would be also natural in a free market.

So how exactly are you so sure that wealth disparities would tend to level off in the absence of state intervention? How about the 19th and early 20th century U.S. as examples? Wealth disparities were egregious in a time of laissez-faire economic policy. How do you explain that? I predict that you'll blame it on that iota of government intervention, no doubt. I just want to see how you'll go about doing it.


If they find it unattractive its probably because they didn't bother to read my previous statements where a worker would be in such a higher position they wouldn't need unions as we know it(which lobby the state in order to get benefits at the expense of other workers, unions and industries).

Again how are you so sure that workers will have even more bargaining power in the absence of the state(without the assistance of closed shops)? By the way, not all unions have the wherewithal to lobby the state. You're making generalizations.


Monopolies ARE prevalent in today's society. State-monopolies and artificial monopolies (private businesses who achieved such monopolization through indirect State help) particularly.

Again, it's the state's fault, right? The free market is absolved once more. Anyway state monopolies have grown unpopular over the years. Privatization and deregulation were all the rage before the financial crisis(caused by the state, no doubt). I should have clarified my statement by stating that glaring examples of monopolies, cartels etc., that arise without the help of the state, aren't as prevalent as they once were, before anti-trust, the laxing of protectionist measures, and several other factors.


As far as anti-trust goes, I believe i mentioned something about it earlier:

Where exactly? Does it have anything to do with Kolko's work? Because there has been historical research done since the 60's (the decade when "The Triumph of Conservatism" was released) that belie his thesis concerning regulation and anti-trust laws, though I'm not going to deny that he was correct on some points.

Furthermore, businesses today are careful not to collude openly(they have found ways to do it surreptitiously, however) or employ anti-competitive measures flagrantly because, in several instances, they fear government regulation.



That's right, some right-libertarians use the one-drop argument (which some communists use here as well, to justify everything was the result of the State, therefore a State is necessary). I don't buy the one-drop argument, but the truth is in many many cases, since the State has an enormous power, their "small" interference is enough to cause great damage.

No. It's not just some right-libertarians, it's several. But, anyway, let me get this straight. You don't buy the "one drop" argument, yet you admit it's correct almost all of the time, at least when employed to defend the free market?

[Havet]

Right, so A right libertarian is a libertarian with socially conservative values. I don't know if believing in voluntary slavery is a socially conservative value however. So I would say the vast majority of Miseseans are not right libertarians according to this definition. Not to mention the entire left-right political spectrum is almost useless nowadays.

I'll give you that the left-right political spectrum is somewhat outdated. Most people ate mises, and lewrockwell, and that other guy, Hans Herman Hoppe, are acknowledged for believing in the aspects I have described.


But this has nothing to do with traditional values, so adding this portion to the definition of a right-libertarian makes no sense. The people you are referring to are called vulgar libertarians. It is another term people on the left use to slander ideological opponents.

Oh yes, there's that term too. I used to argue that if those people believed those things, then they weren't "real" libertarians. Then, I concluded, I was the only real libertarian in the world:




QUOTE=hayenmill]I can demonstrate why i am right with my usual flawless logic:

Proposition 1: Lew Rockwell wishes to use force by restricting borders.

Proposition 2: Libertarianism is a term used to define political philosophies which seek to maximize individual liberty.

Proposition 3: Restricting borders isn't maximizing individual liberty.

Conclusion: Lew Rockwell isn't a Libertarian.

To which socialist replied: "Then neither was Rothbard (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://mises.org/journals/jls/11_1/11_1_1.pdf) a libertarian nor the writers at LewRockwell.com who advocate slavery (http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf) etc. You must be the only libertarian on the planet. Congrats! H (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_1/16_1_5.pdf)uh (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_1/16_1_5.pdf)"

More links to confirm the hypothesis: http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Search&cof=LW:500;L:http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewroc1a.gif;LH:93;AH:center;AWFID:65dad07a461e342 7;&domains=lewrockwell.com&q=immigration&sitesearch=lewrockwell.com


Ahem... (http://www.anonym.to/?http://rightwatch.tblog.com/post/1969971088) I'm not making these up. Libertarians themselves recognize the racist underbelly in their own movement. (http://rightwatch.tblog.com/)

No ugly racism here. (http://www.anonym.to/?http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/03/02/from-lew-rockwell-to-racist-collectivism/)

Or here. (http://www.anonym.to/?http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/02/02/phony-radicalism-from-a-reactionary-confederate-revivalist-2/)

Or here. (http://www.anonym.to/?http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/01/21/racism-and-bigotry-delivered-courtesy-of-lew-rockwell/)

...

http://www.betonronpaul.com/RadioShow/files/page5_sidebar_6.jpg

^Meet Lew Rokwell, the chairman of the Mises Institute, a crazy right wing homophobic, confederate, racist dickhead (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/02/02/phony-radicalism-from-a-reactionary-confederate-revivalist-2/). Mises.org is the "respectable" face of the racist, anti-immigrant, white/christian nationalist LewRockwell.com. Don't take my word, just look around the net before jumping to any conclusions.



Not only does free market anti-capitalism make no sense, but not one thing you listed in your definition has anything to do with anti-capitalism. If want to eliminate capitalism, then you want to eliminate the free market. So you either don't support the free market, or you aren't an anti-capitalist.

I am using the term capitalism as in actually existing capitalism, which the freedom of its markets vary from fairly free to mixed economy. No absolutely free market there. This is because a free market with a government/state always degenerates into corporations, state-monopolies, unemployment, etc.

I even made a thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialists-and-libertarians-t112434/index.html?t=112434) about why the term should be abandoned by both socialists and libertarians because of its ambiguity.

[Havet]

So how exactly are you so sure that wealth disparities would tend to level off in the absence of state intervention? How about the 19th and early 20th century U.S. as examples? Wealth disparities were egregious in a time of laissez-faire economic policy. How do you explain that? I predict that you'll blame it on that iota of government intervention, no doubt. I just want to see how you'll go about doing it.

First I would ask you to find me the information of the exact levels of wealth disparity in the 19th and early 20 centuries in the U.S. The only real information I could find about them was a quote from Ayn Rand (which I doubt is any helpful):

"Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof -- the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 percent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 percent per century."

and this graph (http://freedomkeys.com/gapgraph.jpg).

Here's the facts I know of that time:

- Era of widespread invention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention) and discovery, with significant developments in the understanding or manipulation of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity, and metallurgy largely setting the groundworks for the comparably overwhelming and very rapid technological innovations which would take place the following century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century#cite_note-0)
- Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
- Modest advances in medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine#Modern_medicine) and the understanding of human anatomy and disease prevention were also applicable to the 1800s, and were partly responsible for rapidly accelerating population growth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth) in the western world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world).
- Slavery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) was greatly reduced around the world.
- Widespread formation of new settlement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler) foundations which were particularly prevalent across North America and Australasia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasia)

I also know that time had child labor and precarious working conditions, but as time unfolded, it allowed workers to demand better conditions (through organization and spread of information) as well as allowing them to level themselves up.


Again how are you so sure that workers will have even more bargaining power in the absence of the state(without the assistance of closed shops)? By the way, not all unions have the wherewithal to lobby the state. You're making generalizations.

Under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

This gives the capitalist class an unfair advantage in two ways. First, it reduces the amount of competition on the market, increasing the capitalist's market share and prices with little effort on the part of the capitalist. Second, it reduces the amount of bargaining power the wage labor has. Because there is an oversupply of wage labor, wage labor is more easily replaced than it would be on a real free market, and wages are depressed. This amounts to an effective expropriation of value by the capitalists (who are in a state-created position of power) from the consumers on the one hand (through reduced competition and higher prices) and from the workers on the other (who are underpaid and have less than their fair amount of inflence) and even doubly due to the fact that the workers ARE consumers when they are not on the job.

In a free market, where more gain-oriented thought was present, where more entrepreneurs were around seeking to take from the reduced supply of voluntary wage labor workers, the capitalists would no longer have this unfair advantage. The workers, being scarcer, will thus command higher wages and more influence upon the employer, making it a much more fair system.


Again, it's the state's fault, right? The free market is absolved once more. Anyway state monopolies have grown unpopular over the years. Privatization and deregulation were all the rage before the financial crisis(caused by the state, no doubt). I should have clarified my statement by stating that glaring examples of monopolies, cartels etc., that arise without the help of the state, aren't as prevalent as they once were, before anti-trust, the laxing of protectionist measures, and several other factors.

Yes, some state-monopolies have grown unpopular, but the monopoly itself hasn't disappeared. Sometimes, because state-monopolies are unpopular, neocons convince the State that by privatizing that monopoly (notice they don't say freeing the market, but only transfering the monopoly) to a private business it will be beneficial. Of course, this is nonsense, it is doing nothing about the monopoly itself, and it is merely giving the spectacular amounts of profits to a single individual instead of the State.

Here's a quick video explaining this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWWOb7Pzems&feature=channel_page


Where exactly? Does it have anything to do with Kolko's work? Because there has been historical research done since the 60's (the decade when "The Triumph of Conservatism" was released) that belie his thesis concerning regulation and anti-trust laws, though I'm not going to deny that he was correct on some points.

Well, show me that research so I can analyze it. Seems unfair only you should get to read my sources and I don't get to read any of your sources.


Furthermore, businesses today are careful not to collude openly(they have found ways to do it surreptitiously, however) or employ anti-competitive measures flagrantly because, in several instances, they fear government regulation.

Small businesses fear government regulation.

Big businesses anxiously await it.


some[/I] right-libertarians, it's several. But, anyway, let me get this straight. You don't buy the "one drop" argument, yet you admit it's correct almost all of the time, at least when employed to defend the free market?

I don't use the one-drop argument like right-libertarians do.

For example, they would defend huge corporations like McDonalds or Coca-Cola or Microsoft simpy because their visual manifestation is the market, forgetting to rationalize that they are actually legal fictions, created through governmental IP laws, whose business only exists due to massive state subsidies to trucking, shipping, infrastructure, aviation, etc.

[Havet]

Where is this copypaste from?

From here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/state-t112106/index.html?p=1480146#post1480146).


Eliminating privileges is not going to change anything. Reformists have been advocating that for more than 100 years now, but capitalism has not allowed it. Thats why revolutionary socialism is not about eliminating "privileges".:rolleyes:

Well, i'm anti-reformism, because it never achieves any practical results. One can achieve the elimination of privileges, for example, through the revolution, or as i've mentioned before, through counter-economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-economics) (agorism (http://www.blackcrayon.com/library/mll/nlm/)).

(actually, the only point in counter-economics is to financially outcompete the State, in order to weaken it, so the physical revolution, with guns and fighting and all of that, is easier and with less material and human costs)

[Skooma Addict]

I'll give you that the left-right political spectrum is somewhat outdated. Most people ate mises, and lewrockwell, and that other guy, Hans Herman Hoppe, are acknowledged for believing in the aspects I have described.

Maybe Hoppe and Rockwell believe in a few of the things you listed. But you don't know what most Miseseans believe. Again, people just use the term right-libertarian to slander anyone who associates in any way with the Mises institute or Lew Rockwell. Why not just be truthful and admit it? Anyone who does not agree with many of the dogmatic beliefs of the left (egalitarianism for example) is rejected as a right libertarian.


Oh yes, there's that term too. I used to argue that if those people believed those things, then they weren't "real" libertarians. Then, I concluded, I was the only real libertarian in the world:

The debate about state borders and immigrations stems from a disagreement over who owns public goods. Are public goods unowned, or are the taxpayers who paid for these goods the owners? So you can be a libertarian and advocate closed borders if you believe the taxpayers are the owners of public goods.


To which socialist replied: "Then neither was Rothbard (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://mises.org/journals/jls/11_1/11_1_1.pdf) a libertarian nor the writers at LewRockwell.com who advocate slavery (http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf) etc. You must be the only libertarian on the planet. Congrats! H (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_1/16_1_5.pdf)uh (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/16_1/16_1_5.pdf)"

More links to confirm the hypothesis: http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Sear...ewrockwell.com (http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Search&cof=LW:500;L:http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewroc1a.gif;LH:93;AH:center;AWFID:65dad07a461e342 7;&domains=lewrockwell.com&q=immigration&sitesearch=lewrockwell.com)

According to you a libertarian is a person who seeks to maximize individual liberty. If you prevent me from entering into a voluntary slave contract, you are restricting my liberty and therefore you are not a libertarian.



^Meet Lew Rokwell, the chairman of the Mises Institute, a crazy right wing homophobic, confederate, racist dickhead (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.anonym.to/?http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/02/02/phony-radicalism-from-a-reactionary-confederate-revivalist-2/). Mises.org is the "respectable" face of the racist, anti-immigrant, white/christian nationalist LewRockwell.com. Don't take my word, just look around the net before jumping to any conclusions.

Is this the same guy who thought Mises supported fascism?


I am using the term capitalism as in actually existing capitalism

Assuming you are using normal definitions, you aren't a free market anti-capitalist then? Are you against private suppliers of capital who operate in a free market?


I even made a thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/socialists-and-libertarians-t112434/index.html?t=112434) about why the term should be abandoned by both socialists and libertarians because of its ambiguity.

I am not going to abandon a term just because many leftists are too stupid to understand what it means.

[Havet]

The goal of reformists, social democrats and liberals too is to achieve "elimination of privileges". They have not been successful in this ever. They tried this by trying to introduce reforms through parliamentary bodies. Why do you think "organizing black markets" will be any more successful in this goal? Actually by continuing the market as well as the production of commodities and wage labor, such "counter economics" is just going to build mini-tyrannies that will compete with bigger market tyrannies.

They are participating in a market where there is no exploitation. By the very nature of black and grey markets, they cannot grow like normal businesses (because of constant statist threat), besides they are not subject to capital privilege and worker expropriation like normal businesses are.


Also since you think removing privileges is somehow going to change anything, again I have to say you ignore class society. Any market needs a class society with a wage earning class and an employing class, similar to the current system of capitalism. Marxists define the state as the rule of one class over the other classes. As long as there are classes, there will be a state. In today's society, the state is an instrument of the capitalist class' rule over the working class. The only way to achieve true lasting change is by dismantling the current capitalist state and then transforming the economy into a socialist one. The reason I think why Agorism, market socialism etc fail is because they ignore the fact that current society is, as well as all previous societies in human history have been, class societies and, to paraphrase Marx, all of recorded human history is the history of class struggles.

They don't ignore it. They actually agree on Marx with it.


“Agorism and Marxism agree on the following premise: human􀀀
society can be divided into at least two classes; one class is􀀀
characterized by its control of the State and its extraction of un-􀀀
earned wealth from the other class. Furthermore, agorists and􀀀
Marxists will often point to the same people as members of the􀀀
overclass and underclass,􀀀especially􀀀 agreeing on what each􀀀
considers the most blatant cases. The differences arise as one􀀀
moves to the middle of the social pyramid.􀀀
“Agorists and Marxists perceive a class struggle which must con-􀀀
tinue until a climactic event which will resolve the conflict. Both􀀀
sides perceive select groups which will lead the victims against􀀀
their oppressors. The Marxists call these groups of high class􀀀
consciousness ‘vanguards’ and then extract even more aware􀀀
elements designated ‘elites of the vanguard.’ Agorists perceive a􀀀
spectrum of consciousness amongst the victims as well, and also􀀀
perceive the most aware elements as the first recruits for the􀀀
revolutionary cadre. With the exception of ‘intellectuals,’ the􀀀
Marxists and agorists sharply disagree on who these most􀀀
progressive elements are.”􀀀

from here (http://agorism.info/docs/AgoristClassTheory.pdf).

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

First I would ask you to find me the information of the exact levels of wealth disparity in the 19th and early 20 centuries in the U.S.

The Gilded age of the 19th century is widely recognized by historians (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=760175) to be an age of great wealth disparity. Also here. (http://chattahbox.com/business/2009/08/14/rising-income-inequality-incredibly-good-deal-for-super-rich/)

Income inequality in the U.S. in the early 20th century is very well documented statistically. [1] (http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2006/04/03/breakdown-of-income-share-top-5-1917-2002/) [2] (http://benmuse.typepad.com/ben_muse/2004/03/being_rich_isnt_1.html#more)






- Era of widespread invention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention) and discovery, with significant developments in the understanding or manipulation of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity, and metallurgy largely setting the groundworks for the comparably overwhelming and very rapid technological innovations which would take place the following century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century#cite_note-0)
- Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe.
- Modest advances in medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine#Modern_medicine) and the understanding of human anatomy and disease prevention were also applicable to the 1800s, and were partly responsible for rapidly accelerating population growth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth) in the western world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world).
- Slavery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery) was greatly reduced around the world.
- Widespread formation of new settlement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settler) foundations which were particularly prevalent across North America and Australasia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasia)



If I'm not mistaken, we were discussing wealth disparities in the 19th and 20th century, not any of the things you mentioned above.


I also know that time had child labor and precarious working conditions, but as time unfolded, it allowed workers to demand better conditions (through organization and spread of information) as well as allowing them to level themselves up.

They did this all without the help of the state, is that right?


Under this statist system, where licensing and regulation make it unduly difficult to actually be entrepreneurial, a disproportionate number of those who would otherwise be entrepreneurs become wage labor. This creates an oversupply of wage labor as opposed to entrepreneurial activity.

More evidence is required. How many workers are prevented from going into business by regulation alone? Provide the numbers, if you would be so kind?


Well, show me that research so I can analyze it. Seems unfair only you should get to read my sources and I don't get to read any of your sources.


I didn't even get to see your sources concerning antitrust regulation. Was it just Kolko? That was my initial question. Anyway there's a book entitled “The Great Merger Movement in American Business” (http://books.google.com/books?id=zQp3lrlhnUsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+great+merger+movement+in+american+busine ss&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Naomi Lamoreaux arguing that Kolko’s interpretation of business influence couldn’t account for some differential government treatment towards certain anti-competitive business practices. In addition, there’s “The Irony of Regulatory Reform” (http://books.google.com/books?id=Be5kFUVEzMcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+irony+of+regulatory+reform%22&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Robert Horritz who argues that Kolko’s theory ignores the complexity of regulatory formulation in certain instances where a myriad of different business interests are involved.



Big businesses anxiously await it.

Really? How do you explain why, at times, big businesses expend so much money lobbying attempting to prevent it? Regulation benefits big businesses in some cases, but it is a very myopic view to believe that big businesses is always eager for some more of it. You’re again making generalizations.


I don't use the one-drop argument like right-libertarians do.

You said earlier that you "don't buy" the one drop argument, but now your stating quite straightforwardly that you bought it and your flaunting the receipt around.

[GPDP]

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/31808561/Michael+Jackson+Jackson_popcorn.gif

My opinion of this thread.

Carry on.

[IcarusAngel]

I like agorism and some forms of free-market socialism but even many of them admit that the deregulation policies are nothing more than ploys to implement more corporatism. Chomsky has been pointing this out for years.

And, contrary to lies by Miseans and others ignorant of political science - it was not 'democracy' that led to Nazis and fascism, who actually opposed democracy, but weak states that did not have a balance of power in their economies, a balance of power created by democracy and ensuring everybody has some property. In America, workers are smashed all the time, in France and other places the people riot if the corporations/governments get too greedy. This is because one country understands the political implications of great inequality and the other does not - or at least will forget about it at times by focusing on single issues like abortion.


Miseans have already admit they reject political analysis and political science so there is no reason to even listen to them.

[Havet]

Maybe Hoppe and Rockwell believe in a few of the things you listed. But you don't know what most Miseseans believe. Again, people just use the term right-libertarian to slander anyone who associates in any way with the Mises institute or Lew Rockwell. Why not just be truthful and admit it? Anyone who does not agree with many of the dogmatic beliefs of the left (egalitarianism for example) is rejected as a right libertarian.

I will only admit that I use the term right-libertarian (http://www.revleft.com/vb/just-remind-you-t114828/index.html?t=114828) to differentiate between left-libertarians, which are usually mistaken as being the same here.


In before the storm

I'd like to add that i'm perfectly aware that one quote does not represent all of the "right-libertarians", but one gotta say, many (http://www.anonym.to/?http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf) make (http://mises.org/journals/jls/16_1/16_1_5.pdf) too (http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=388512) many (http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Search&cof=LW:500;L:http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewroc1a.gif;LH:93;AH:center;AWFID:65dad07a461e342 7;&domains=lewrockwell.com&q=immigration&sitesearch=lewrockwell.com) of (http://rightwatch.tblog.com/post/1969971088) these (http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/03/02/from-lew-rockwell-to-racist-collectivism/) quotes (http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/02/02/phony-radicalism-from-a-reactionary-confederate-revivalist-2/) ^^ (http://tomgpalmer.com/2005/01/21/racism-and-bigotry-delivered-courtesy-of-lew-rockwell/)

thanks to socialist for the resources


The debate about state borders and immigrations stems from a disagreement over who owns public goods. Are public goods unowned, or are the taxpayers who paid for these goods the owners? So you can be a libertarian and advocate closed borders if you believe the taxpayers are the owners of public goods.

One could only advocate closed borders if he magically convince all the communities and people that live in all of the borders (land and sea) to restrict their access. Such decentralized action would be impossible unless there was a massive indocrination propaganda. there wouldn't be any benefit with that action. Closed borders promotes incest and inbreeding, impoverishes the community and leads to less creation of wealth, as well as less technological innovation.


According to you a libertarian is a person who seeks to maximize individual liberty. If you prevent me from entering into a voluntary slave contract, you are restricting my liberty and therefore you are not a libertarian.

Oh I wouldn't prevent you. It's just that nobody would enforce that contract.

Besides, people are themselves. You cannot alienate yourself as a commodity and be bought or sold in an open market.

The whole concept of voluntary slavery is bunk. If it's slavery, it's not voluntary.

One could draw up a slave contract, but I don't see how its enforceable and doesn't become null and void the minute the "slave" decides to defect. He can't pay out his labor. The only thing that can technically be paid out is something that is alienable from the individual, so it can be legitimately transfered to another owner.

If one owns his actions, why is it that he still ultimately controls his actions?


Is this the same guy who thought Mises supported fascism?

Dunno, but I think this is the guy who prefered Fascism over parliamentary democracy.


Assuming you are using normal definitions, you aren't a free market anti-capitalist then? Are you against private suppliers of capital who operate in a free market?

What do you mean by private suppliers of capital exactly?

If in a given zone people have commonly agreed on some form of private property or possession, enforced by some association or entity (defense agency, militia, community police) I don't have anything against it, so long as they didn't engage in Statist activity (force that agreement over other communities).


I am not going to abandon a term just because many leftists are too stupid to understand what it means.

The problem is the term is just too ambiguous. Massive amounts of time are spent just floating around its meaning. Every usage of the word "Capitalism" can be replaced by "Free market", "Mixed economy", "Fascism", or something else.

[Havet]

The Gilded age of the 19th century is widely recognized by historians (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=760175) to be an age of great wealth disparity. Also here. (http://chattahbox.com/business/2009/08/14/rising-income-inequality-incredibly-good-deal-for-super-rich/)

Income inequality in the U.S. in the early 20th century is very well documented statistically. [1] (http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2006/04/03/breakdown-of-income-share-top-5-1917-2002/) [2] (http://benmuse.typepad.com/ben_muse/2004/03/being_rich_isnt_1.html#more)

Thanks for sharing the information.


If I'm not mistaken, we were discussing wealth disparities in the 19th and 20th century, not any of the things you mentioned above.

I was just posting the facts I knew to be certain about that time. That's right, it had nothing to do with wealth disparities.


They did this all without the help of the state, is that right?

If I recall, the State tried to prevent worker organization and movement in the early days through police and military effort at the benefit of the employers.


More evidence is required. How many workers are prevented from going into business by regulation alone? Provide the numbers, if you would be so kind?

Obviously that request is impossible. I cannot summarize the amount of people that had a business idea but didn't start it due to increased artificial barriers to entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry).

There are, however, some graphs showing the relationship between regulatory environment and business entry density.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CCKFxhIs-xU/SbwNeq4h3iI/AAAAAAAAAcA/4nDdyOtW35U/s400/regulation.gif

to quote the article:


The correlation is low enough to see that factors other than regulation have a big influence on a country's proclivity to start businesses, and high enough for anybody who cares about growth to care also about the burdens of regulation.

The actual article (http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13216025).

http://www.willisms.com/archives/entrepreneurialism.gif

From here (http://http://www.willisms.com/archives/2008/06/index.html) (scroll down to see some more info and graphs).

There's also the Index of Economic Freedom (http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx), where one cans see where which countries have less regulation. It provides some quick facts as well (click on desired country and check left side where it reads "quick facts") such as population, GDP, unemployment, inflation, growth, etc.


I didn't even get to see your sources concerning antitrust regulation. Was it just Kolko?

Yes, it was Kolko (which i discovered from The Machinery of Freedom)


“The Great Merger Movement in American Business” (http://books.google.com/books?id=zQp3lrlhnUsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+great+merger+movement+in+american+busine ss&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Naomi Lamoreaux

To quote the book (page 16):

"Despite the stereotypes we have of nineteenth-century industries dominated by a single entrepreneur or robber baron, there were many mass production industries in which no one firm managed to outdo its competitors(...). As we shall see, however, these attempts at collusion rarely succeeded."


“The Irony of Regulatory Reform” (http://books.google.com/books?id=Be5kFUVEzMcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+irony+of+regulatory+reform%22&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Robert Horritz

It seems like a quality book. It has a thorough analysis of the deregulation of American Telecommunications (which I presume intends the privatization, aka, shift of monopoly).

But another important question needs to be asked. How that telecommunications become so big and monopolized so that they required regulation? And you guessed it, the answer is the State.

´On 25 March 1925, John Logie Baird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Logie_Baird) was able to demonstrate the transmission of moving pictures at the London department store Selfridges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridges). Baird's device relied upon the Nipkow disk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipkow_disk) and thus became known as the mechanical television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television). It formed the basis of experimental broadcasts done by the British Broadcasting Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Broadcasting_Corporation) beginning 30 September 1929.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-12)

Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#Radio_and_tele vision)

From a global perspective, there have been political debates and legislation regarding the management of telecommunication and broadcasting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasting). The history of broadcasting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_broadcasting) discusses some of debates in relation to balancing conventional communication such as printing and telecommunication such as radio broadcasting.[40] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-Wood-39) The onset of World War II brought on the first explosion of international broadcasting propaganda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda).[40] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-Wood-39) Countries, their governments, insurgents, terrorists, and militiamen have all used telecommunication and broadcasting techniques to promote propaganda.[40] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-Wood-39)[41] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-Garfield-40) Patriotic propaganda for political movements and colonization started the mid 1930s. In 1936 the BBC would broadcast propaganda to the Arab World to partly counteract similar broadcasts from Italy, which also had colonial interests in the region.[40] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_North_America#cite_note-Wood-39)


Really? How do you explain why, at times, big businesses expend so much money lobbying attempting to prevent it? Regulation benefits big businesses in some cases, but it is a very myopic view to believe that big businesses is always eager for some more of it. You’re again making generalizations.

Yes, at times, the corporations (big businesses) will try to use the lobbying power to prevent some new legislation (tobacco business, for eg). However, this does not affect my argument that these problems would not exist in a free society because:
- There wouldn't exist any corporations (which are legal fictions created by the State)
- There wouldn't exist any State to lobby
- Worker organization, alternative institutions, etc could join forces if some entity started exhibiting statist behaviour (after all, after a revolution, the same forces which destroyed the State would also prevent a new one from existing, provided that after the revolution no new monopolization and centralization of resources occurred).

Don't put words into my mouth. I never claimed ALL big businesses did that (always lobby to increase power).


You said earlier that you "don't buy" the one drop argument, but now your stating quite straightforwardly that you bought it and your flaunting the receipt around.

Like I said, I don't apply the one-drop argument because it is a fallacy. I tend to look at situations more specifically and individually in order to prevent any hasty generalizations.

[Havet]

I like agorism and some forms of free-market socialism but even many of them admit that the deregulation policies are nothing more than ploys to implement more corporatism. Chomsky has been pointing this out for years.

I agree completely. In fact, I made a thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/naomi-klein-shock-t117114/index.html?t=117114) about writter Naomi Klein exposing that situation (that "free-market" capitalists try to use "free-market" rethoric in order to push corporatist agenda).


And, contrary to lies by Miseans and others ignorant of political science - it was not 'democracy' that led to Nazis and fascism, who actually opposed democracy, but weak states that did not have a balance of power in their economies, a balance of power created by democracy and ensuring everybody has some property. In America, workers are smashed all the time, in France and other places the people riot if the corporations/governments get too greedy. This is because one country understands the political implications of great inequality and the other does not - or at least will forget about it at times by focusing on single issues like abortion.

I'm not sure I understand you well in the beginning. Are you criticizing parliamentary democracy, as opposed to direct democracy, and that the first (in a weakened version) led to the rise of fascist ideologies to appear, by appeal to emotions and nationalistic feelings?

Because if you are arguing that parliamentary democracy is a good method (I agree its better than fascism, unlike some Miseans), but that one needs a "change in balance of power", then I do not agree, and you shouldn't as well, given the effectiveness of reformism in these late years (/sarcasm).

[Skooma Addict]

One could only advocate closed borders if he magically convince all the communities and people that live in all of the borders (land and sea) to restrict their access. Such decentralized action would be impossible unless there was a massive indocrination propaganda. there wouldn't be any benefit with that action. Closed borders promotes incest and inbreeding, impoverishes the community and leads to less creation of wealth, as well as less technological innovation.


I know closing the borders will have negative effects. But I am saying that if you believe the taxpayers own public goods, then it makes sense to say that nobody can enter the country unless they have permission from one of the taxpayers. I am not saying I agree with this, I am just explaining how libertarians who want to close the borders do so for property rights reasons, and not because they are racist or anything like that.


Oh I wouldn't prevent you. It's just that nobody would enforce that contract.

Besides, people are themselves. You cannot alienate yourself as a commodity and be bought or sold in an open market.

The whole concept of voluntary slavery is bunk. If it's slavery, it's not voluntary.

One could draw up a slave contract, but I don't see how its enforceable and doesn't become null and void the minute the "slave" decides to defect. He can't pay out his labor. The only thing that can technically be paid out is something that is alienable from the individual, so it can be legitimately transfered to another owner.

If one owns his actions, why is it that he still ultimately controls his actions?

I agree that the contract probably would not be enforced. At least, not in our culture anyways. I am just saying that preventing me from entering into such a contract is restricting my liberty. But you and I basically agree here.



What do you mean by private suppliers of capital exactly?

The guy who provides the necessary machinery and equipment for the workers to produce a certain product. That guy is a capitalist.

[Havet]

I know closing the borders will have negative effects. But I am saying that if you believe the taxpayers own public goods, then it makes sense to say that nobody can enter the country unless they have permission from one of the taxpayers. I am not saying I agree with this, I am just explaining how libertarians who want to close the borders do so for property rights reasons, and not because they are racist or anything like that.

Well most people who i've talked to that advocate that position do not argue on the "more logically consistent" argument of property rights, but of cultural bias and misinformation (believing in empirical data alone without studying the context).

They usually just come from the "they're stealing our jobs" argument, the "they don't speak the language", etc


The guy who provides the necessary machinery and equipment for the workers to produce a certain product. That guy is a capitalist.

Ok so what about it?

Like I said, I don't like to use the word capitalist or capitalism anymore. Capitalist can easily be replaced by entrepreneur, businessman, bureaucrat, corporatist, fascist, or some other word.

So in a free society, we could see some entrepreneurs and businessmen (in the communities which allowed/tolerated the existence of private property/possession), but they certainly wouldn't have the massive power they have today given the future non-existence of the State.

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

There are, however, some graphs showing the relationship between regulatory environment and business entry density.

The graphs look convincing enough in my view. No qualms there. But, as your excerpt from one of the articles and the graphs themselves point out, the amount of regulation is not the only factor that determines the level of business entry. You made arguments that only emphasize the role of regulation as a barrier to entry and rejected the possible role of other (non-governmental) factors.


To quote the book (page 16):

I don't believe that I ever doubted that collusion was frequently unsuccessful. But some of her conclusions seem to conflict with your free market worldview, that notwithstanding.


It seems like a quality book. It has a thorough analysis of the deregulation of American Telecommunications (which I presume intends the privatization, aka, shift of monopoly).

I was merely trying to show that Kolko’s thesis has been challenged over the years by numerous scholars. I’d have to do more research before I can come to any definite conclusions concerning telecommunications.


Yes, at times, the corporations (big businesses) will try to use the lobbying power to prevent some new legislation (tobacco business, for eg). However, this does not affect my argument that these problems would not exist in a free society because:

No, it doesn’t refute your argument concerning a “free society”, but it does shed doubt on your claim that big business is always “anxiously awaiting” regulation.


Don't put words into my mouth. I never claimed ALL big businesses did that (always lobby to increase power).

Now you’re putting words in my mouth. I never claimed that you claimed that all big businesses always lobby. I only doubted your contention that big businesses are always keen for more regulation.


Like I said, I don't apply the one-drop argument because it is a fallacy. I tend to look at situations more specifically and individually in order to prevent any hasty generalizations.

But we can always safely assume that, as long as there is government oversight of the economy, anything that goes awry is most likely not inherent in the “unfettered free market”, right?

Anyway, you said at first that you “don’t buy” the “one-drop argument”, then you said that you don’t use it the same way that right-libertarians do and now you’re back to saying essentially that you don’t buy it and that it’s a fallacy.

So you’ve made up your mind now that the one-drop argument lacks credibility, right?

[synthesis]

Capitalists could only have acquired so much power and resources that fast through the help of a huge centralized institution with the monopoly of force (a State). If it were capitalists directly that used force to gain their privilege, then they were engaging in statist activity, therefore making them the State.

Then that means this definition of the state is arbitrary and therefore useless. Capitalists do not necessarily need to use force, or the government, to gain a disproportionate degree of control over resources and therefore society.

Any free-market scenario has the overwhelming capability to have immensely unequal distribution of resources and therefore power. With power comes the tendency towards state-like activity, whatever you may call it. That's why an anarchist society can never truly exist without abolishing the market - QED.

[Havet]

The graphs look convincing enough in my view. No qualms there. But, as your excerpt from one of the articles and the graphs themselves point out, the amount of regulation is not the only factor that determines the level of business entry. You made arguments that only emphasize the role of regulation as a barrier to entry and rejected the possible role of other (non-governmental) factors.

Oh yes, I hope you can forgive me if I ever conveyed the belief that only governmental factors restrict competition and entrepreneurship. They are, however, the only ones that massively restrict such factors, at least when comparing with other natural (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry) factors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_exit).


I don't believe that I ever doubted that collusion was frequently unsuccessful. But some of her conclusions seem to conflict with your free market worldview, that notwithstanding.

Oh well, if you could provide some concrete examples?

While I'm at it, i'd also like to point out that often the result for such collusions to fail was due to a force less known to economists (at the time), which is called Diseconomies of Scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseconomies_of_scale). Might be interesting read if you're interested.


I was merely trying to show that Kolko’s thesis has been challenged over the years by numerous scholars. I’d have to do more research before I can come to any definite conclusions concerning telecommunications.

Well, I don't mind waiting. Take your time, if that implies more careful and precise data to be presented.


No, it doesn’t refute your argument concerning a “free society”, but it does shed doubt on your claim that big business is always “anxiously awaiting” regulation.

Now that I think of it, my claim of "anxiously awaiting" does seem a bit over-stretched. After all, any profit-making institution will always try and act in the way which produces more profit, whether that requires collusion with Government or refusal of Government interference.


Now you’re putting words in my mouth. I never claimed that you claimed that all big businesses always lobby. I only doubted your contention that big businesses are always keen for more regulation.

And your doubt is noted.


But we can always safely assume that, as long as there is government oversight of the economy, anything that goes awry is most likely not inherent in the “unfettered free market”, right?

It is certainly dangerous to make such generalizations. So, like I mentioned earlier, let us look at every situation specifically so as to thouroughly analyze any intrinsic features or outside interventions.


Anyway, you said at first that you “don’t buy” the “one-drop argument”, then you said that you don’t use it the same way that right-libertarians do and now you’re back to saying essentially that you don’t buy it and that it’s a fallacy.

So you’ve made up your mind now that the one-drop argument lacks credibility, right?

Oh yes, it certainly lacks credibility, like all methods of hasty generalization. Better to look at each situation individually.

So if you want to discuss any claims of intrinsic market failures, focus on individual cases, so their study is more precise, scientific and error-proof.

[Havet]

Then that means this definition of the state is arbitrary and therefore useless. Capitalists do not necessarily need to use force, or the government, to gain a disproportionate degree of control over resources and therefore society.

orly? Please show concrete examples. If anything, my discussion with Lumpen Bourgeois has shown that vulgar generalistic assertions make a poor case of reason and logic.


Any free-market scenario has the overwhelming capability to have immensely unequal distribution of resources and therefore power. With power comes the tendency towards state-like activity, whatever you may call it. That's why an anarchist society can never truly exist without abolishing the market - QED.

Can you provide a free-market scenario which has created immensely unequal distribution of resources and, more importantly, attribute such hypothetical unequal distribution ONLY to free trade of goods and services?

[synthesis]

orly? Please show concrete examples. If anything, my discussion with Lumpen Bourgeois has shown that vulgar generalistic assertions make a poor case of reason and logic.

Common sense would indicate that free markets have a very high potential to lead to monopolies and other improper distributions of power. If you can simply regard any instance of capitalists asserting power as "state-like activity" then the discussion is pointless.

In any case, it's rather silly for you to ask me to provide a "concrete example." You might as well ask me to provide a concrete example of why God loves midgets.


Can you provide a free-market scenario which has created immensely unequal distribution of resources and, more importantly, attribute such hypothetical unequal distribution ONLY to free trade of goods and services?

Again, your circular logic makes this discussion pointless. There has never been a free-market without a state because free markets lead to, as you call it, "state-like activity."

People are smart. They'll figure out a way to beat your system. Ours, too, but at least we recognize the possibility.

[Havet]

Common sense would indicate that free markets have a very high potential to lead to monopolies and other improper distributions of power.

I'm not interested in common sense, but on logic, reason and empirical evidence, which you fail to provide.


If you can simply regard any instance of capitalists asserting power as "state-like activity" then the discussion is pointless.

I stated that a person, whether capitalist or not, is engaging in statist activity when he "acquires" ownership without going by the prevalent intersubjective criteria for ownership. This had nothing to do with free markets.

Everyone can be a "state" in a free market by simply robbing an individual (in case of possession communities) or a collective (in the case of communes).

The truth is you CAN'T prove absolutely free markets lead to "monopolizations" and other improper distributions of power. All the examples which you might throw at me as proof will have, in one way or another, some sort of Government activity as we know it (through either legislation or regulation).

So if you wish to counter-argument the stance that absolutely free markets always lead to monopolization and improper distributions of power, please do so by providing concrete examples, not stupid generalistic assertions like "it's common sense" or "it's evident", because it is NOT.


Again, your circular logic makes this discussion pointless. There has never been a free-market without a state because free markets lead to, as you call it, "state-like activity."

I never claimed free markets led to state-like activity. I said it was a possibility. Obviously there will be forces to counter those state-like acitivities: worker organization, militias, communities police, perhaps even private defense agencies, just as there will be forces to counter the counter-revolution efforts when trying to establish a communist society.


People are smart. They'll figure out a way to beat your system. Ours, too, but at least we recognize the possibility.

I recognize the possibility in my case as well. The difference is the possibility you envision is different that mine.

[synthesis]

I'm not interested in common sense, but on logic, reason and empirical evidence, which you fail to provide.I don't feel the need to. Your claims are not falsifiable and anyone with a brain can see that your society negates itself.

What happens, for example, when a dominant corporation temporarily drops its prices so low that its competition goes out of business? You have a monopoly, and I hope you're not so naive as to deny that you would need a state to counteract that monopoly. If "worker organizations" work together to use force to overthrow that monopoly then by your own definition they are 1. engaging in "state-like activity" and 2. deconstructing the free-market.

Your politics are simply confused; perhaps it will take you some time to realize this. You want to ride the fence, but it's too sharp to sit on for too long before your ass starts to hurt.

[Skooma Addict]

What happens, for example, when a dominant corporation temporarily drops its prices so low that its competition goes out of business? You have a monopoly, and I hope you're not so naive as to deny that you would need a state to counteract that monopoly.

If a company drops its prices too low, it will run out of business. Also, even if a company could somehow drop its prices and create a monopoly, so what? If it has the lowest prices, then consumers are getting the best deal. Once the company raises its prices, other companies will be able to effectively compete with the company, and it will lose its monopoly status. But this is assuming a Monopoly could even arise in the free market in the first place.

I also like how you say a monopoly is necessary to counteract a monopoly.

[synthesis]

If a company drops its prices too low, it will run out of business.

And if it has large capital reserves?


Also, even if a company could somehow drop its prices and create a monopoly, so what?

So it has total control over a necessary resource. Big fucking deal, right?


If it has the lowest prices, then consumers are getting the best deal.

The cheapest products are the best? Where do you fucking people come from?

By the way, since you clearly don't even understand your own ideology, a monopoly has an inelastic market and therefore has no need to improve its products.


Once the company raises its prices, other companies will be able to effectively compete with the company, and it will lose its monopoly status.

Not if it's an industry like, say, technology, where you need to have immense amounts of capital and expertise to start out with. What other companies, anyways? They all went out of business.


But this is assuming a Monopoly could even arise in the free market in the first place.

:lol:



I also like how you say a monopoly is necessary to counteract a monopoly.

Jesus Christ, read more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act#Purpose). At least the government has the facade of democracy.

[Skooma Addict]

And if it has large capital reserves?

It will go out of business eventually. But they can offer unrealistically low prices and harm their own business all they want. I am fine with super cheap products.



The cheapest products are the best? Where do you fucking people come from?

By the way, since you clearly don't even understand your own ideology, a monopoly has an inelastic market and therefore has no need to improve its products.

I thought we were assuming the products were of equal quality. You said the company became a monopoly by offering the cheapest products. But if its products were the cheapest, yet not the best, then it wouldn't have become a monopoly in the first place.

I see you completely misunderstand what inelastic demand implies. A monopoly must constantly improve or else risk losing its monopoly status. It has absolutely nothing to do with inelastic demand.


Not if it's an industry like, say, technology, where you need to have immense amounts of capital and expertise to start out with. What other companies, anyways? They all went out of business.


Many businesses start with immense amounts of capital. Also, how do you get a monopoly over "the technology industry". New businesses start up all the time.


Jesus Christ, read more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act#Purpose). At least the government has the facade of democracy.


I see you failed to explain how a monopoly would come to exist in the first place. But my point still stands, you want a monopoly to counteract a monopoly.

[1billion]

I don't feel any real need to argue with you self-obsessed wankers, your also a hypocrite, as ls hilighted, I think your whole ideology is ridiculous and insulting to those of us who work for the minimum wage, and I'm under no obligation to do anything else than make it clear I object to your wankery. But I'll do it anyway.

You think we can trust the market and bosses to pay us well?

Is this a joke?:blink:

[Havet]

I don't feel the need to. Your claims are not falsifiable and anyone with a brain can see that your society negates itself.

Great, so your whole argument is based on "I'm right because I know I am right".


What happens, for example, when a dominant corporation temporarily drops its prices so low that its competition goes out of business? You have a monopoly, and I hope you're not so naive as to deny that you would need a state to counteract that monopoly. If "worker organizations" work together to use force to overthrow that monopoly then by your own definition they are 1. engaging in "state-like activity" and 2. deconstructing the free-market.

A corporation is a legal fiction created by the State. In a stateless society, therefore, it would not exist.

And your strawman fails. If it indeed were "natural" for natural monopolies to appear (which we both see as harmful), worker organization seeking to dismantle such monopolies wouldn't be engaging in statist activity because they would be:

1. Acting in self-defense from (indirect) aggression.
2. Since the existence of (let's imagine a scenario) monopolies are harmful to free trade (which they are), then getting rid of monopolies wouldn't be "deconstructing the free market", but preserving it.


Your politics are simply confused; perhaps it will take you some time to realize this. You want to ride the fence, but it's too sharp to sit on for too long before your ass starts to hurt.

I believe it is you hiding under the fence, because deep down you realize you have no logical, reasonable or empirical material to throw at me.

[Havet]

So here are some important conclusions:

- Beware of anyone who discusses removal of minimum wage laws as an end in itself. If minimum wage laws, and other welfare legislation were the only things removed, then effectively workers would become worse off than before. Privilege granted to capital, subsidies to industry, IP laws, corporate charters and corporate laws, anti-discrimination statutes, state ownership of land, currency monopoly, subsidies to infrastructure, regulatory agencies, trade restrictions, licensing schemes and so forth must also be removed.

- Those who argue that minimum wage laws removal alone will improve worker's conditions, by citing examples of countries were such improvements are apparent (See Switzerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Economy), Denmark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Economy) and Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Economy)), forget that it was not only the removal of those laws that increased conditions, but an overall "high amount of free trade" by the removal of some of the existent conditions mentioned above.

- Reformism (even towards the goals mentioned above) is likely to fail due to installed governmental and business interests who are in a privileged position. Strategy? Weaken the State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-economics) and deliver the Revolution, or wait for more class tensions (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/rep1-m19.shtml) and deliver the Revolution.

[MilitantAnarchist]

....Just... Dont get me started....
(i cant even comment, the words 'head', 'up' and 'arse' come to mind...)

[Havet]

....Just... Dont get me started....
(i cant even comment, the words 'head', 'up' and 'arse' come to mind...)

If your participation will bring empirical evidence, rationality, logic and reason to the thread, then go ahead.

Otherwise, and by the words you chose to portray (head, up, arse), don't bother, because ad hominems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) only waste everybody's time.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

- Those who argue that minimum wage laws removal alone will improve worker's conditions, by citing examples of countries were such improvements are apparent (See Switzerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Economy), Denmark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Economy) and Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Economy)), forget that it was not only the removal of those laws that increased conditions, but an overall "high amount of free trade" by the removal of some of the existent conditions mentioned above.
Hahahahahahaha. Free trade benefiting workers? :lol: And you cite two countries from Scandinavia, of all places?

Perhaps you should instead take a look at the massive (http://socialdemokraterne.dk) elephant in the room (http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/#), which is the real explanation for the relative prosperity of workers in those countries (well, as far as internal factors go, anyway; imperialism also plays a big role, of course).

[RebelDog]

Wage slavery in itself should be abolished but the UK minimum wage is a joke amount far from any semblance of common decency. Trying to survive on minimum wage is a sentence. UK labour laws are just about the most regressive in Europe and deliberately vague in order that employers can bend the rules to suit themselves. They can shove the minimum wage, the anti trade-union acts and their power serving laws up their arse. Workers should never expect fairness from those who enforce the theft of their labour or the bastards who are stealing it. The BMW-Mini workers, the Visteon workers and thousands of others treated like shite (as their New-Labour loving union bosses do fuck all) know that all too well. But these workers are now clear about who their enemy is. One reaps what one sows.

[Havet]

Hahahahahahaha. Free trade benefiting workers? :lol: And you cite two countries from Scandinavia, of all places?

Perhaps you should instead take a look at the massive (http://socialdemokraterne.dk) elephant in the room (http://www.socialdemokraterna.se/#), which is the real explanation for the relative prosperity of workers in those countries (well, as far as internal factors go, anyway; imperialism also plays a big role, of course).

Just because it's a socialist party making those changes doesn't mean it's not helping free the market.



Coming from Sweden I also notice that [...] my home country is turning towards libertarian practice. Sweden adopted school vouchers in the early 1990s. The Swedish governmental pension system has been reformed - the system will never pay out more than comes in, and it is partly privatised and fully funded. Major state-owned companies have been sold out, many markets deregulated. Even nuclear power plants have been sold to foreign owners. There is no minimum wage. Immigration from the 25 European Union members is free.

The socialist government, with the support of the former Communist party, recently abolished inheritance tax and the gift tax. Healthcare is to a growing degree produced by private companies - one of the largest hospitals in Stockholm is owned by a for-profit company listed on the stock exchange. The underground in the capital is run by a French company. The taxi business is open for entry and without regulation regarding fares

Source (http://www.stockholm-network.org/downloads/media/d41d8cd9-FT%20-%20250806.pdf)

Now, obviously it still needs a lot of work. IP laws are still kicking hard (through Sweden is the only country in the world with a Pirate Party which elected someone to parliament), and the fact that many people are going to private schools and private hospitals alone means there's still some corporate collusion of business and government.

[eyedrop]

Hayenmill. Do you honestly attribute Sweden and Denmarks workers relative prosperity is because of a great degree of free trade in those contries?

[Havet]

Hayenmill. Do you honestly attribute Sweden and Denmarks workers relative prosperity is because of a great degree of free trade in those contries?

Not only free trade. Also: worker organization (which comes from free association), and larger equality of opportunity (less governmental privilege to employers, businesses, etc).

EDIT: Free trade in itself might improve things but it won't make any subjugation, wage-slavery and established privilege that still exists through some government/State action go away.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Wow, this is like someone bringing up the recent bank nationalizations in the US, attributing them to communism, calling the United States a communist country and then praising communism for all the progress made in America over the past century.

It's so stupid it boggles the mind.

[Dimentio]

So here are some important conclusions:

- Beware of anyone who discusses removal of minimum wage laws as an end in itself. If minimum wage laws, and other welfare legislation were the only things removed, then effectively workers would become worse off than before. Privilege granted to capital, subsidies to industry, IP laws, corporate charters and corporate laws, anti-discrimination statutes, state ownership of land, currency monopoly, subsidies to infrastructure, regulatory agencies, trade restrictions, licensing schemes and so forth must also be removed.

- Those who argue that minimum wage laws removal alone will improve worker's conditions, by citing examples of countries were such improvements are apparent (See Switzerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Economy), Denmark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark#Economy) and Sweden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Economy)), forget that it was not only the removal of those laws that increased conditions, but an overall "high amount of free trade" by the removal of some of the existent conditions mentioned above.

- Reformism (even towards the goals mentioned above) is likely to fail due to installed governmental and business interests who are in a privileged position. Strategy? Weaken the State (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-economics) and deliver the Revolution, or wait for more class tensions (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/rep1-m19.shtml) and deliver the Revolution.

What you forget about Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden is that all these countries have special conditions.

Denmark and Sweden are corporatist systems where the bosses and the unions are supposed to centrally set wage levels. The majority of labour is organised, and there is a social culture sympathetic to egalitarianism. Swedes especially tend to give more than any other nation in the world in charity per capita.

Switzerland has a very small domestic working class. It is relying very much on workers from other countries doing the dirty labour, while the Swiss are either retired or work in the financial sector in general. Its a tax haven, which cannot exist unless it was leeching off most of the world.

[Havet]

What you forget about Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden is that all these countries have special conditions.

Not only special conditions, but special circumstances which allow for some of those special conditions to flourish.


Denmark and Sweden are corporatist systems where the bosses and the unions are supposed to centrally set wage levels. The majority of labour is organised, and there is a social culture sympathetic to egalitarianism. Swedes especially tend to give more than any other nation in the world in charity per capita.

Oh yeah, they are still corporatist systems, but the fact that the majority of labor is organized and that there is a lot of charity per capita means that there is more free association and less governmental barriers that allow for these results, as well as, of course, a social culture and tradition.


Switzerland has a very small domestic working class. It is relying very much on workers from other countries doing the dirty labour, while the Swiss are either retired or work in the financial sector in general. Its a tax haven, which cannot exist unless it was leeching off most of the world.

It would be interesting if you could supply some information regarding the amount of immigration, and the working class.

Anyway, I disagree that there need to be "workhorse" countries like China, in order for there to be rich countries like USA or Switzerland.

Of course this is a nonsense. the USA was lapping up motor cars and televisions while China was still murdering and starving millions of its own people.

The reason the Service industry is big is not because of some market distortion of reality, its because that's whats really important and profitable to people.

While food and mining might seem so important to state-socialists/capitalists, its really not. People don't want to live for the sake of food and mining. The reason why modern economies have a huge percentage of service and a tiny percentage of primary industry, is because its simply not that profitable.

We have pretty much less farmers now than we ever had, yet we have far more food production than ever before. How is this possible? The same way that the machine loom cut the amount of workers needed and boosted the amount of production.

Of course we benefit from other countries that still have a huge portion of industrial business, why wouldn't we? They have much cheaper land and taxes.

What a Chinese person can't (yet) do is take your order at a US restaurant, or design a computer game, or make a film.

And these are all far more valuable, and more importantly harder to do than primary industry jobs.

State-socialists/capitalists always like to look at wealth generation terms of EFFORT rather than SCARCITY. Which of course leads to the faulty labor model of wealth generation.

Brain surgery isn't well paid because it takes a lot of effort, its well paid because not many people can do it, which is because generally its hard to learn and be good at, and it takes a lot of money to learn.

But its faulty logic to then assume that anything that takes a lot of effort must be valuable.

A chinaman breaking his back moving sheet metal in a factory might expend alot of EFFORT, but it is not a scarce skill.

Here in western countries, we have so much money we can take our time learning how to design things, learning about arts and history. In China they have to scrabble around just to get food and clothes.

But of course, they won't and aren't spending life like that for long. As soon as you have made enough money to feed yourself and cloth yourself, you can move on to bigger things, which is why there is now a record number of millionaires in China.

I predict that in 100-200 years the world's markets will be practically indistinguishable. Not that we won't have cultural differences, but ordinary people will be on a much more higher level playing field.

As the Chinese and Indians bring themselves up, eventually they'll start competing at things that where once only the domain of western countries.

[Havet]

http://www.theagitator.com/wp-content/uploads/01-libertarianbwz6rx.jpg

heh, gotta love absolutist propertarian right-libertarian reformists!