Arguing with a Friedman-ist...help please?

[Weezer]

My posts are the quotes, the plain text is the Friedman-ist's responses.




Socialism is a system that has the economic apparatus in the hands of a government. It's not free, it's a central plan. It's the fatal conceit Hayek talked about, the stuff Mises wrote about in his Socialism. The idea that a government can gather all the knowledge that the price system gathers is patently absurd. How can it allocate scarce resources efficiently when it can't even run public schools effectively?

Socialism in the hands of a government? I'm okay with that. I'd rather have the economy in the hands of a government I have a voice in, rather than a market where my voice is more limited.
Understand that your choice in the market is less limited than with a government. You vote each day with your dollars on what to buy, you choose and somebody else chooses. You like one item, somebody else likes an item you hate. You both buy what you like and are on your way. Both of you win. And if there's an item that people want, an entrepreneur will ultimately be there to fill in the gap.

In contrast, the best one could hope for in a "one size fits all" socialist economy is that the majority gets what they want and the minority is left in the dust. Do you honestly think there will be more choice when entry into the market is limited by the government? France's government, for instance, tried to get into the computer business with the Minitel. Now they're dinosaurs! (http://www.minitel.com/terminaux_public.htm)

http://www.minitel.com/images/Icons/magisclub.gif


I'm not arguing for a Great Man version of history or for some bureaucrats to have 110% control of the state, did you miss the part where I said the economy is controlled by the majority of the population? You're making assumptions, but nice try.
Currently the economy is controlled by the consumers. The big companies and brands we see every day don't cater to the tastes of the rich. Wal-Mart and supermarkets aren't expensive specialty stores.

And you assume that majority control would, in practice, be any different from authoritarian means of control.


In socialism, the farmer and butcher can still cooperate. The small business of the farmer and butcher , at least in places like America who's socialism will develop in a more market socialist fashion because of the American consciousness and culture, will more likely still be able to exist. The farmer and butcher's interests could also be inputted in a local worker's council.
What about a large factory farmer? What about an industrial butcher? Do you honestly think it is moral to steal the property of other human beings?

So what if the farmer and butcher's interest is inputted in the local worker's council? Right now their interest is represented in the market, and more efficiently too. The market is inherently efficient, if worker's council's were more efficient they would be a large part of the market.


I'm not arguing for a zombie revival of the USSR and obviously there were many economic and social problems, but many of those problems were caused by civil war because of the unnecessary intervention of Czechoslovakia, Australia, Canada, the UK, Japan, the USA, Serbia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, AND the civil war caused by the loyalist White Russian movement. If Western powers had stayed out of Russia, Russian socialism would have been able to develop normally, without bureaucratic deformations or the polices of War Communism. Capitalism and Imperialism destroyed any cause of real socialism happening in Russia and the socialist revolutions in the 20th century following it.
So it's all the fault of the big bad capitalists and there's not one iota of blame on the economic system? Give me a break. It's not like they had a minor economic downturn. There were people starving in mass numbers.


You're saying this in a time where the gap between in the rich and poor in the US is at its biggest point in decades. I can get my socialist buddies over at another forum to dig up those statistics if you'd like.
vDhcqua3_W8


There's a reason why the poor don't raise themselves in poor countries, there's nothing to raise themselves on!
There's a reason the poor do raise themselves out of poverty in capitalist countries. There's freedom to buy, freedom to sell, freedom to try, and freedom to fail.


The USSR collapsed when it developed capitalist policies, though it never was really socialist as it is. But now thanks to the USSR's collapse, Russia has the birth rate of a third world country! I used to have a chart of these statistics comparing modern Russia vs. "Red" Russia, but the site removed it. I found the image on SS too.Here's the closest thing I could find, showing how Russia's quality of life has been since the collapse of the USSR and it ain't pretty. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVH9FWrLnNs)
http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/Russia
Russia's economic freedom is in the bottom half of all countries in the world. It's below such "juggernauts" as Haiti, Kenya, and Vietnam.


Why is the worker making shoes in a factory? Because he knows he will die without the salary he gains from it.
So, will people not work in your socialism? Mankind has had to work to feed himself since time immemorial.


But the materials the shoes are made of are cheaper than the shoe is sold for, the worker gets part of the profit from the shoe he produced.
Like I said, it takes risk to accumulate capital. The worker forgoes the risk in order for the safety and steadiness of the wage.


Look, capitalism has its placed in history. Capitalism has brought us many great things, the bourgeoisie, the class that caused the capitalist revolution, virtually invented human rights and invented industrial production.
Not only has capitalism brought us great things, it continues to bring us great things. Looks like you're trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.


Capitalism is a part of human history. But it will fade away. Every economic system will. Capitalism works. Feudalism worked. Slave societies worked. Pre-civilization worked.
None of those pre-capitalist societies worked as well as capitalism. None advanced like capitalism.


Socialism will work.
That remains to be seen.


Calling greed "self-interest" doesn't make it any better. Greed is not a virtue. Greed is a motivation and an obsession.
RWsx1X8PV_A


Is theft legitimate because of it's a part of how capitalism works?
The free market is based on voluntary exchange, not theft. Don't give me that crap.


Is taking over countries and overthrowing leaders in the interests of corporations theft?
Yes, but that's not the free market. I have never been an advocate of the violation of rights. Capitalism isn't the collusion of corporations and government.


Good to know!
In capitalism each individual is able to take stock of his own situation and plan for himself. Each person is inherently limited by the situation he is in, but aren't we all?



I see nothing with this quote or really see anything that my post disagrees with. Capitalism formed the material conditions for socialism. And socialism will supersede capitalism.
Then let us have laissez-faire, and don't try to stop it.


If a major factor of socialism is left out like democratic control of means of production, it isn't socialism. Sorry.
"Socialism (pronounced /ˈsoʊ̯ʃəɫɪzm̩/) is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled cooperatively, or a political philosophy advocating such a system." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Last time I checked, publicly owned meant government owned.


India did not accept a form of socialism, if anything a social democracy. I'm not saying capitalism can't work. Capitalism works! It really does! But it will end.
India adopted policies restricting the market, and I would say it wasn't unlike a market based socialism that you seem so keen on wanting in America.


/Endquote

If you can think of any responses, please post them, or if you need any clarification on the posts, just ask me.

[Sensible Socialist]

Understand that your choice in the market is less limited than with a government. You vote each day with your dollars on what to buy, you choose and somebody else chooses. You like one item, somebody else likes an item you hate. You both buy what you like and are on your way. Both of you win. And if there's an item that people want, an entrepreneur will ultimately be there to fill in the gap.

In contrast, the best one could hope for in a "one size fits all" socialist economy is that the majority gets what they want and the minority is left in the dust. Do you honestly think there will be more choice when entry into the market is limited by the government? France's government, for instance, tried to get into the computer business with the Minitel. Now they're dinosaurs! (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.minitel.com/terminaux_public.htm)


People don't have ultimate sway with their dollars. They are limited by the small number of companies producing a product and are also limited by which products the location they shop at will stock. For common items like milk, if I go to my local grocery store, there are two brands there. What is a consumer supposed to do if they dislike both? This same problem occurs with numerous items. The fact of the matter is you cannot simply withold your money from companies you dislike unless you would like to starve. Because people do not have sufficient means to live without purchasing from companies (or in capitalist mindset, buying what you like) there is no way to effectively voice your opinion. Whereas if the control was not in the hands of companies, people could directly influence the production of goods.



What about a large factory farmer? What about an industrial butcher? Do you honestly think it is moral to steal the property of other human beings?

Considering each has stolen and destroyed the land of the people, have sickened and caused the deaths of the people, I'd say it's a fair trade if their land was used to help people instead of hurt them.



Like I said, it takes risk to accumulate capital. The worker forgoes the risk in order for the safety and steadiness of the wage.


That may be true if all workers would rather be working for others than themselves. The risk to start a business comes about because capital is concentrated in the hands of the few, causing workers who want to escape their exploitation to submit themselves to the owners of that capital (banks, etc.).



None of those pre-capitalist societies worked as well as capitalism. None advanced like capitalism.


That doesn't mean there isn't anything better. Medical procedues have gotten more advanced, yet we don't sit back and proclaim ourselves done.



The free market is based on voluntary exchange, not theft. Don't give me that crap.


I don't voluntarily give someone my money for food; I do it so I don't die. The threat of death negates all concepts of voluntary exchange.


Yes, but that's not the free market. I have never been an advocate of the violation of rights. Capitalism isn't the collusion of corporations and government.

It's an inherent result, considering the accumulation of wealth and the profit motive causes companies to do whatever they can to grow, which includes lobbying for lax industry laws and buying off politicians.


Last time I checked, publicly owned meant government owned.

Nowhere does it say that "government" means the large institution of the state. A workers council is still a form of governance.

[Judicator]

The fact of the matter is you cannot simply withold your money from companies you dislike unless you would like to starve. Because people do not have sufficient means to live without purchasing from companies (or in capitalist mindset, buying what you like) there is no way to effectively voice your opinion. Whereas if the control was not in the hands of companies, people could directly influence the production of goods.

You can't buy less of *all food*, but there are literally millions of different food choices, probably tens of thousands of SKUs at any given grocery store. You have to purchase from someone, but you have a lot of choice. If government controlled production, you buy from one entity which can almost never go bankrupt no matter how inefficient.



I don't voluntarily give someone my money for food; I do it so I don't die. The threat of death negates all concepts of voluntary exchange.


The concept of working to avoid starvation seems antiquated in developed countries. Poor people in the US are fat.



It's an inherent result, considering the accumulation of wealth and the profit motive causes companies to do whatever they can to grow, which includes lobbying for lax industry laws and buying off politicians.


Companies can only do this if government is large, at which point you are already moving away from capitalism.

[Ocean Seal]

If capitalism works to the benefit of the majority then why is most of the world poor. We are not against capitalism mainly on the basis of decentralization, but rather because capitalism is oligarchy. It is the concentration of wealth, power, and the tools to achieve such power in the hands of the very few and the suffering of the very many. Also such a structure prevents future progress because the market economy cannot deal with abundance in certain areas nor does it deal with the fact that the profit economy tends to be shortsighted and that often times it is a sacrifice for the great majority of workers and peasants.

[Sensible Socialist]

You can't buy less of *all food*, but there are literally millions of different food choices, probably tens of thousands of SKUs at any given grocery store. You have to purchase from someone, but you have a lot of choice. If government controlled production, you buy from one entity which can almost never go bankrupt no matter how inefficient.
Exactly why socialism is worker's control of the means of production, and not some single government agency you seem to be envisioning.


Poor people in the US are fat.
I spent some time looking up the appropriate statistics to counter this, but I think it's obvious to everyone here that you're a dolt. So, fuck off.


Companies can only do this if government is large, at which point you are already moving away from capitalism.
They could probably do it easier if the government was small, whatever that means. As soon as you have a group of very wealthy people, they will do whatever it takes to preserve power. This includes influencing and bribing those in government power.

[Dean]

Currently the economy is controlled by the consumers. The big companies and brands we see every day don't cater to the tastes of the rich. Wal-Mart and supermarkets aren't expensive specialty stores.

The fundamental question here is who control the economy. It is argued that consumers control the economy by way of their purchases. But this means that consumer funds are directly related to the incentives process of production - so as workers have less money relative to capitalists, the production process slows.

Money is economic power, in other words. The free market is like a "democracy" in which power is purchased and sold, with a few managing the system to maintain their own shares of power. People like to look for expensive or excessive trades to prove capitalism's faults, but that's not necessary. All that is needed is to show that the capitalist is in a position of unique power, and holding that position perpetuates that power without necessarily adding any value (indeed, if he were adding value, he would be a laborer and not full a capitalist).


The whole argument against tax hikes and government spending reads like the old adage: don't bite the hand that feeds. This betrays an underlying dynamic to the "job creator" phenomenon: "job creators" enjoy their status as such only because they restrict, rather than expand our ability to create jobs. In the past, lords, kings and slavers all enjoyed the same status. They were job creators insofar as it profited them to create jobs, and the same is true of capitalists today.

Like the serfs before them, the proletarian class is being crowded out of their dividend. Perhaps counter-intuitively, capitalism - like feudalism before it - has gotten only too efficient to sustain itself. It's just too good at making sure capitalists are the sole beneficiaries of the exchange process - it was only in a desperate attempt to maintain the system that consumer credit has been expanded since the 1970s. Even that is viewed as "too socialist" so the capitalist class is cutting off consumer spending power; in effect, destroying its own foundation.
The Job Creator's Tragedy
(http://thethinred.blogspot.com/2011/07/job-creators-tragedy.html)
So we can see that control over the economy is not held by consumers. It's not held by workers acting as suppliers of labor, or as consumers. It is solely held by those who own and manage the means of production to their own ends. The thing is - usually the capitalists claim the same thing, but with the caveat about consumer purchasing power. It's a smokescreen.

Those who have studied history would argue that the fact that kings were beholden to the protection of their serfs were controlled by the latter is no different. But the fact is that consumer demand, or serf protection, is only one concern for those who control an economic system with many facets.

[#FF0000]

The concept of working to avoid starvation seems antiquated in developed countries. Poor people in the US are fat.

And yet horrendously malnourished because the cheapest, fastest food is unhealthy, and for many, especially those in cities, decent food is inaccessible.


Companies can only do this if government is large, at which point you are already moving away from capitalism.

Maybe your rainbow fairy fantasy world where capitalism means hard work wins the day, but, unfortunately, what you see every day is what capitalism actually is. Sorry to break it to you.

[Demogorgon]

My posts are the quotes, the plain text is the Friedman-ist's responses.
I'll answer this as if I was responding directly to the person you are arguing with. Feel free to copy and paste my responses.


Understand that your choice in the market is less limited than with a government. You vote each day with your dollars on what to buy, you choose and somebody else chooses. You like one item, somebody else likes an item you hate. You both buy what you like and are on your way. Both of you win. And if there's an item that people want, an entrepreneur will ultimately be there to fill in the gap. Only if you are fine with everyone having a vastly different number of votes. If you happen to have a low number of votes, you are unable to demand something you want or need. Also the notion that entrepreneurs come in to invent brand new products in response to previously untapped demand is pretty doubtful. The development of new technology and hence new products is heavily funded by Governments because capitalists are often unwilling to take the risk there.
quote]
In contrast, the best one could hope for in a "one size fits all" socialist economy is that the majority gets what they want and the minority is left in the dust. Do you honestly think there will be more choice when entry into the market is limited by the government? France's government, for instance, tried to get into the computer business with the Minitel. Now they're dinosaurs! (http://www.minitel.com/terminaux_public.htm)The Mintel was very successful and was of a higher quality than many of the private computers available at the time. Is the argument that a thirty year old computer is obsolete because it was Government backed seriously being made here? Have the privately made computers of the time stayed in general usage?


Currently the economy is controlled by the consumers. The big companies and brands we see every day don't cater to the tastes of the rich. Wal-Mart and supermarkets aren't expensive specialty stores.Not really. THe financial markets are probably the most important part of capitalism now, not the consumer markets. As we are so tragically seeing over the last forty eight hours. Again.

Which leads me to a brief aside. In the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, the market zealots were left lost for words for a brief period of time. Their policy proposals having disastrously failed. But soon they had come up with excuses, were blaming the problem on "the left", more right wing Governments came to power, the financial markets returned to their old ways. And here we are again. What is the excuse going to be this time?


And you assume that majority control would, in practice, be any different from authoritarian means of control.

Whereas minority control is the epitome of freedom?

Do you honestly think it is moral to steal the property of other human beings? That rather depends on what you mean by "steal". If you use the word in a different way from normal, you can't expect the same moral connotations to simply transfer.


So what if the farmer and butcher's interest is inputted in the local worker's council? Right now their interest is represented in the market, and more efficiently too. The market is inherently efficient, if worker's council's were more efficient they would be a large part of the market.
The market can be described as inherently efficient if there is no market failure, which means there is perfect competition, no externalities and so forth.

In other words the market is not inherently efficient at all.

youtube video about rich and poorNo, first of all, real wages for the majority have declined somewhat and that has been compensated for by more readily available credit, allowing consumption to continue to rise. But if you raise consumption through credit rather than through wages it will come back and bite you in the end. Anyone struggling under debt knows that.

Secondly once an economy exceeds a GDP per capita of around ten thousand dollars (GDP is a rubbish measure BTW, but we'll use it for now) absolute gains for the poor count for less and less versus relative gains. So even if there was a slight absolute gain (which there wasn't), if it was offset by a larger relative loss, that would definitely lead to a lower quality of life (which it has).


http://www.heritage.org/index/Country/Russia
Russia's economic freedom is in the bottom half of all countries in the world. It's below such "juggernauts" as Haiti, Kenya, and Vietnam.
With the heritage foundation naturally being a completely impartial and credible source. Even if you do accept it, regardless of whether Russia meets your definition of a "free" economy, it is definitely a capitalist one. The entry on Russia praises it at being at the "forefront of fiscal freedom", in other words low flat taxes. Not my definition of freedom, but there it is. Surely that should count in Russia's favour to a capitalist.


So, will people not work in your socialism? Mankind has had to work to feed himself since time immemorial.
No, here is the problem. You cannot go from "people need to eat" to "anything people do in order to facilitate that must be consensual". If you claim that selling your labour is voluntary, because people do it, you are simply assuming away any possible alternatives that the system shuts out.


Like I said, it takes risk to accumulate capital. The worker forgoes the risk in order for the safety and steadiness of the wage.

Risk in investment is not a zero sum game. In the long run there are always more winners than losers. Therefore it makes sense for society to collectively take on all investment. It will always gain in the long run and it will become democratic. There is simply no need for the capitalists beyond the fact that the economic system is set up in this way.

None of those pre-capitalist societies worked as well as capitalism. None advanced like capitalism.Many of them advanced considerably. But that is not the point. It makes no sense to go from "capitalism has advanced" to "the future holds nothing better".


The free market is based on voluntary exchange, not theft. Don't give me that crap.
Only presuming that you accept libertarian definitions of "voluntary" and "theft". Lest we forget many Libertarians view selling oneself into indentured servitude or even outright slavery as "voluntary", so that should tell as a lot about the definitions being use. Again words with positive connotations in their general usage cannot simply be said to continue to be positive when their definition changes.


Yes, but that's not the free market. I have never been an advocate of the violation of rights. Capitalism isn't the collusion of corporations and government.
Capitalism does not translate as "free market", there have been a wide variety of capitalist systems, some not very focussed on "free market" policies at all. The whole notion of a free market is an abstraction anyway. A truly free market is purely theoretical and could not exist. Any exchange remains dependent on the laws and norms of the society it is taking place in.

[Jose Gracchus]

The idea of some Friedmanite clown arguing that COMPUTERS of all things are better because of market-fairy-bullshit "freedom to fail" is hilarious. Ask him who financed the R&D for the networks, for the fundamental science, for the early processors, etc. The entire expense for building up this massive industry was the state sector, which absorbed losses and unproductive production for decades before consumer-end applications became all-the-rage.

[Judicator]

Exactly why socialism is worker's control of the means of production, and not some single government agency you seem to be envisioning.

This would still be under control of companies, whose shareholders happened to be workers



I spent some time looking up the appropriate statistics to counter this, but I think it's obvious to everyone here that you're a dolt. So, fuck off.

Obviously you read the statistics, noticed that I'm right, and couldn't come up with anything better than that insult.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/diet-nutrition/story/2011/07/Southerners-poor-have-highest-rates-of-obesity/49173468/1

"Nearly 34% of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year are obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn more than $50,000 a year."


They could probably do it easier if the government was small, whatever that means. As soon as you have a group of very wealthy people, they will do whatever it takes to preserve power. This includes influencing and bribing those in government power.

If government were small, there would be less money to give to corporations in the first place, and the $50-100bil we spend on agricultural subsidies is much more noticeable when it makes up 20% of the budget rather than a small fraction.

[Psy]

The idea of some Friedmanite clown arguing that COMPUTERS of all things are better because of market-fairy-bullshit "freedom to fail" is hilarious. Ask him who financed the R&D for the networks, for the fundamental science, for the early processors, etc. The entire expense for building up this massive industry was the state sector, which absorbed losses and unproductive production for decades before consumer-end applications became all-the-rage.

True also can throw in the question of roads, the US government was substituting roads before the Model T to increase the efficiency of horse drawn carriages by starting to build intercity roads before there was gas to tax. Then you have zoning laws that forces business to subsidize the cost of parking cars.

[#FF0000]

Obviously you read the statistics, noticed that I'm right, and couldn't come up with anything better than that insult.

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/diet-nutrition/story/2011/07/Southerners-poor-have-highest-rates-of-obesity/49173468/1

"Nearly 34% of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year are obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn more than $50,000 a year."

Did you just ignore my post?

[Madslatter]

Obviously you read the statistics, noticed that I'm right, and couldn't come up with anything better than that insult.

"Nearly 34% of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year are obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn more than $50,000 a year."

And yet you ignored #FF0000 who stated the medically accurate part of the American obesity problem. The poor quality of affordable food. Thus an American is likely to be both fat as hell and have incredible malnutrition. Not only has this been well documented in medical journals, but helps explain the stats. Go around a grocery store and do some comparison. It's expensive to eat healthy.

[Judicator]

And yet horrendously malnourished because the cheapest, fastest food is unhealthy, and for many, especially those in cities, decent food is inaccessible.


So now the argument about wage slavery would go "the poor are forced to work because if they don't they will be malnourished?"

If they are so poor why on earth would they spend money on more calories than they need? Why spend $2 on a double cheeseburger when you can spend $1 on a single?



Maybe your rainbow fairy fantasy world where capitalism means hard work wins the day, but, unfortunately, what you see every day is what capitalism actually is. Sorry to break it to you.

How is rewards for "hard work" relevant to the question of how much corporations can extract from a large government versus a small one?



Secondly once an economy exceeds a GDP per capita of around ten thousand dollars (GDP is a rubbish measure BTW, but we'll use it for now) absolute gains for the poor count for less and less versus relative gains. So even if there was a slight absolute gain (which there wasn't), if it was offset by a larger relative loss, that would definitely lead to a lower quality of life (which it has).


I think you misunderstand absolute gains. If I have more real income, then by definition I can buy more stuff. You don't deposit relative income in the bank, or use it to buy consumer goods. More real income means the person who could afford 1 of everything in the CPI can now afford 1.1 of everything in the CPI, so to speak.

Also you ignore a primary point of the video - that young people starting off are "poor" but as time goes on accumulate wealth and are no longer poor. You have to look at how cohorts perform.

[Madslatter]

As time goes on to accumulate wealth, the wealthy accumulate wealth, and everybody has accumulated wealth. I used to have $20, now I have $30. My boss used to have $200, now he has $800. I now actually have less money because my $30 now isn't worth as much as the $20 used to be worth. This is called inflation.

Why do you spend $2 on a double as opposed to $1 for a single? Probably because it actually fills you up, even if it is deadly for your health (which many don't really know about). More importantly, there are billions of people that are unable to afford even shitty food, despite working very hard under the worst conditions, because they aren't paid anywhere near a subsistence wage. The market encourages this under all forms of capitalism, more so under some forms than others. Your Chicago school economists might call it 'development', but more accurately its a form of slavery that is just as indefensible.

[RED DAVE]

Companies can only do this if government is large, at which point you are already moving away from capitalism.Are you still dishing out that old bullshit about capitalism and large governments being incompatible? Do you also believe the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea dry shod?

RED DAVE

[Judicator]

As time goes on to accumulate wealth, the wealthy accumulate wealth, and everybody has accumulated wealth. I used to have $20, now I have $30. My boss used to have $200, now he has $800. I now actually have less money because my $30 now isn't worth as much as the $20 used to be worth. This is called inflation.

Right, which is why you make comparisons in real income. If your real income goes from $20 to $21 you're economically better off, regardless of what other people are making.


Why do you spend $2 on a double as opposed to $1 for a single? Probably because it actually fills you up, even if it is deadly for your health (which many don't really know about). More importantly, there are billions of people that are unable to afford even shitty food, despite working very hard under the worst conditions, because they aren't paid anywhere near a subsistence wage. The market encourages this under all forms of capitalism, more so under some forms than others. Your Chicago school economists might call it 'development', but more accurately its a form of slavery that is just as indefensible.

"Filling you up" sounds more like pleasure. I doubt your claim about ignorance of the health consequences. Smokers know about the dangers of cigarettes and still smoke. It doesn't take rocket science to know McDonald's can't be healthy.

"Development" for some countries is when the 99% of the population living in squalor drops to 90%. You still complain that 90% are living in squalor, and ignore the 9%. Then when capitalism brings the number of people living in squalor down to 10%, you complain that they lack adequate access to medical care, all the while blaming capitalism for anything that goes wrong.

[CommunityBeliever]

Also you ignore a primary point of the video - that young people starting off are "poor" but as time goes on accumulate wealth and are no longer poor. You have to look at how cohorts perform.

Marxists analyse conditions in terms of two social classes: the workers (owners of personal property) and the capitalists (owners of private property) not in terms of income.

For workers increased income may not translate into anything concrete as you may have to pay increased fees to local capitalist (e.g your local landowner), so you have to consider *net income* or the income that you have left after fees.

The increase in net income will still only translate into more personal property for the worker (e.g televisions, cars, clothes, etc) they won't own private property (e.g factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, etc) so they will remain in the same social class. Our goal as communists is to collective the private property to end the exploitation.


"Filling you up" sounds more like pleasure. I doubt your claim about ignorance of the health consequences. Smokers know about the dangers of cigarettes and still smoke. It doesn't take rocket science to know McDonald's can't be healthy.Cigarette companies as well as food companies understand and utilise the process of exploiting people through addictions. They typically target young children with advertisements and free samples that way they can get those individuals addicted before they learn "rocket science," but of course we have to worry about the *evil government* coming in to protect children from this sort of exploitation.


"Development" for some countries is when the 99% of the population living in squalor drops to 90%. You still complain that 90% are living in squalor, and ignore the 9%. Then when capitalism brings the number of people living in squalor down to 10%, you complain that they lack adequate access to medical care, all the while blaming capitalism for anything that goes wrong.I can't speak for anyone else, but Marxists don't "blame capitalism for it's successes," we just recognize socialism would be a more productive system within present conditions.

[Demogorgon]

I think you misunderstand absolute gains. If I have more real income, then by definition I can buy more stuff. You don't deposit relative income in the bank, or use it to buy consumer goods. More real income means the person who could afford 1 of everything in the CPI can now afford 1.1 of everything in the CPI, so to speak.

Did you stop to think before you wrote that, or did you really think that I didn't know what "absolute" and "relative" mean?

The point in case anyone else has missed it, is that once you know you have a roof over your head and food on the table your absolute income starts to matter less, because how much in the way of goods and services you can afford has to be measured up against things like how long you can expect to live, how healthy you are, what your chances of being a victim of crime are and so on. These things are much more based around equality, that is to say, the relative gains of the poorest, than they are on absolute gains or losses.

[RGacky3]

This would still be under control of companies, whose shareholders happened to be workers


Not neccessarily.


"Nearly 34% of adults who earn less than $15,000 a year are obese, compared with 24.6% of those who earn more than $50,000 a year."


Not due to having too much good food, because you cannot afford food with any nutrition, btw, many other statistics show real food insecurity.

Food without nutrition goes straight to fat.


If your real income goes from $20 to $21 you're economically better off, regardless of what other people are making.


No, because it other people are making more then the market will cater less to you, and cater more to them, also you'll have a higher cost of living.


I doubt your claim about ignorance of the health consequences. Smokers know about the dangers of cigarettes and still smoke. It doesn't take rocket science to know McDonald's can't be healthy.

"Development" for some countries is when the 99% of the population living in squalor drops to 90%. You still complain that 90% are living in squalor, and ignore the 9%. Then when capitalism brings the number of people living in squalor down to 10%, you complain that they lack adequate access to medical care, all the while blaming capitalism for anything that goes wrong.

You can blame it when you have other options that would fix it much better without the terrible side consequences.

BTW, this are going WORSE for many people now.

[Judicator]

Are you still dishing out that old bullshit about capitalism and large governments being incompatible? Do you also believe the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea dry shod?

RED DAVE

Are you still responding without bothering to read the thread?



Did you stop to think before you wrote that, or did you really think that I didn't know what "absolute" and "relative" mean?

The point in case anyone else has missed it, is that once you know you have a roof over your head and food on the table your absolute income starts to matter less, because how much in the way of goods and services you can afford has to be measured up against things like how long you can expect to live, how healthy you are, what your chances of being a victim of crime are and so on. These things are much more based around equality, that is to say, the relative gains of the poorest, than they are on absolute gains or losses.

You seemed to believe absolute gains can somehow be "offset" by relative losses. No amount of relative "losses" will counteract the fact that if you have a real income increase you can now buy more food, housing, whatever other CPI components than you could before.

If you have more absolute income, you have more stuff (like a roof over your head and food on the table) regardless of whether your neighbors are living in the same conditions or in mansions.



Marxists analyse conditions in terms of two social classes: the workers (owners of personal property) and the capitalists (owners of private property) not in terms of income.

For workers increased income may not translate into anything concrete as you may have to pay increased fees to local capitalist (e.g your local landowner), so you have to consider *net income* or the income that you have left after fees.

The increase in net income will still only translate into more personal property for the worker (e.g televisions, cars, clothes, etc) they won't own private property (e.g factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, etc) so they will remain in the same social class. Our goal as communists is to collective the private property to end the exploitation.

How is this classification helpful? It puts a retired person living off dividend income and annuities in the same class as a captain of industry, and a CEO in the same class as a worker.

It is simply false that anyone making most of their money from a wage or salary will just plow it all into TVs and stereos. People buy stocks and other financial instruments, in doing so they effectively own some means of production somewhere.


Cigarette companies as well as food companies understand and utilise the process of exploiting people through addictions. They typically target young children with advertisements and free samples that way they can get those individuals addicted before they learn "rocket science," but of course we have to worry about the *evil government* coming in to protect children from this sort of exploitation.

What I don't want is the "evil government" interfering with my consumer sovereignty. If I want to buy and smoke them in my own home, I am in a far better position than any government to decide for myself how much I value my health.

Companies are good at selling people stuff they like...big surprise.


I can't speak for anyone else, but Marxists don't "blame capitalism for it's successes," we just recognize socialism would be a more productive system within present conditions.

Socialism seems like it would be plagued by incentive problems that are even more severe than our current crony capitalism. But that's probably a debate for a separate thread.




Not neccessarily.


Really? What are the alternatives?



Not due to having too much good food, because you cannot afford food with any nutrition, btw, many other statistics show real food insecurity.

Food without nutrition goes straight to fat.


Excess calories go straight to fat. Poor people are fat, that was my only point. I don't know why that's so offensive. They are clearly "well fed" in the sense of quantity.



No, because it other people are making more then the market will cater less to you, and cater more to them, also you'll have a higher cost of living.


The higher cost of living is already factored into the $21 in real income (guess what, real income adjusts for inflation!). Suppliers will still sell stuff to you, and you can buy more of whatever they are selling. Maybe now stores will be 90% upscale and 10% discount rather than the other way around, but you can still shop at the discount section and you have $1 more to do so.



You can blame it when you have other options that would fix it much better without the terrible side consequences.


Fix what much better? Where's the evidence that socialism causes higher growth?

[Madslatter]

Right, which is why you make comparisons in real income.
How about this then: $900 is your real income per month today, last year it was $1000. Your necessary expenses (food for the family, bus fare or gas, rent, etc) per month was $900, now it's $1100. You look for a second job, but nobody is hiring, you go to the government for some help, but it's been slashed and what you have is an extra $50. Your daughter gets an infection and the bill is $5000. How is capitalism working for you?

On the other hand, Lloyd is making 50mil per year (plus bennies and massive stock options). His money goes into an offshore bank to avoid the taxes, and he spends the savings on politicians. Lloyd is a pretty shitty CEO, and his company is about to go bankrupt, so he takes a private company jet to Washington and they bail his company out, costing 2 billion. Because of this he gets a 12 million dollar bonus at Christmas, despite the fact that he laid off a quarter of employees (you are now one of them) and Lloyd's yearly paycheck is getting a raise. He names his new yacht after Barry Goldwater because the man fought for the rights of the American people, or at least the ones that matter.

Happy Judicator?

[Judicator]

How about this then: $900 is your real income per month today, last year it was $1000. Your necessary expenses (food for the family, bus fare or gas, rent, etc) per month was $900, now it's $1100. You look for a second job, but nobody is hiring, you go to the government for some help, but it's been slashed and what you have is an extra $50. Your daughter gets an infection and the bill is $5000. How is capitalism working for you?

On the other hand, Lloyd is making 50mil per year (plus bennies and massive stock options). His money goes into an offshore bank to avoid the taxes, and he spends the savings on politicians. Lloyd is a pretty shitty CEO, and his company is about to go bankrupt, so he takes a private company jet to Washington and they bail his company out, costing 2 billion. Because of this he gets a 12 million dollar bonus at Christmas, despite the fact that he laid off a quarter of employees (you are now one of them) and Lloyd's yearly paycheck is getting a raise. He names his new yacht after Barry Goldwater because the man fought for the rights of the American people, or at least the ones that matter.

Happy Judicator?

Confused, actually. What point are you trying to make with this example? Your original claim seemed to be that even if rich and poor get richer, if the rich get a lot richer this is somehow bad for the poor.

[RGacky3]

Really? What are the alternatives?


Cooperatives, they have a distinct setup, thats actually under capitalism, get rid of capitalism and you won't need an ownership structure.


Excess calories go straight to fat. Poor people are fat, that was my only point. I don't know why that's so offensive. They are clearly "well fed" in the sense of quantity.


A: Its untrue, even fi you are undernourished, meaning you don't get enough nourishment, it does'nt mean your not getting food, you maybe, but your not getting nutrition.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure doctors, the ones that are saying that 1 out of 5 kids are malnourished, know what their talking about.


Fix what much better? Where's the evidence that socialism causes higher growth?

It does'nt claim to cause higher growth, it claims to drop poverty, have a sustainable economy, and raising living standards.

Growth is only the main factor under capitalism, which is one of its major major flaws.

[Demogorgon]

You seemed to believe absolute gains can somehow be "offset" by relative losses. No amount of relative "losses" will counteract the fact that if you have a real income increase you can now buy more food, housing, whatever other CPI components than you could before.

If you have more absolute income, you have more stuff (like a roof over your head and food on the table) regardless of whether your neighbors are living in the same conditions or in mansions.

No, let me try and simplify this to the most basic it can get. Consumption is not the only aspect of well being. Health, education, chances of being a victim of crime and so forth are all highly important as well. All of these are directly related to inequality, or to put it another way, how well off people are relative to one another. If you are able to afford a little more than previously, but your health is failing, your children are getting a rubbish education and you are in constant fear of crime then you are worse off than you were before.

[Kiev Communard]

Confused, actually. What point are you trying to make with this example? Your original claim seemed to be that even if rich and poor get richer, if the rich get a lot richer this is somehow bad for the poor.

Because if "the rich get richer", there is always less possibility for the poor to alleviate their poverty, as their share of total social product experiences a relative decline.

[Judicator]

Cooperatives, they have a distinct setup, thats actually under capitalism, get rid of capitalism and you won't need an ownership structure.

Do you also get rid of property rights? If not, how do you prevent assets from accruing to certain individuals.


A: Its untrue, even fi you are undernourished, meaning you don't get enough nourishment, it does'nt mean your not getting food, you maybe, but your not getting nutrition.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure doctors, the ones that are saying that 1 out of 5 kids are malnourished, know what their talking about.

So poor people in the US are fat and perhaps undernourished. Why vitamin pills are prohibitively expensive is beyond me.


It does'nt claim to cause higher growth, it claims to drop poverty, have a sustainable economy, and raising living standards.

Growth is only the main factor under capitalism, which is one of its major major flaws.

But it doesn't drop poverty. Where are all of the rich communist countries? Modern rich countries are all capitalist, with some reallocation programs to accomplish non-growth goals you mentioned.



No, let me try and simplify this to the most basic it can get. Consumption is not the only aspect of well being. Health, education, chances of being a victim of crime and so forth are all highly important as well. All of these are directly related to inequality, or to put it another way, how well off people are relative to one another. If you are able to afford a little more than previously, but your health is failing, your children are getting a rubbish education and you are in constant fear of crime then you are worse off than you were before.

You pay for healthcare, you can buy your way out of a bad neighborhood, and you can buy education. All of these things are consumption. High real income means you can get more of all of this.



Because if "the rich get richer", there is always less possibility for the poor to alleviate their poverty, as their share of total social product experiences a relative decline.

If the poor have higher real incomes they are already in the process of alleviating their own poverty. Their share of total production is irrelevant. The US today has a much smaller share of world GDP than it did in 1950, but US consumers are much better off today.

[RGacky3]

Do you also get rid of property rights? If not, how do you prevent assets from accruing to certain individuals.


You get rid of land and capital property rights, you prevent it easily, cooperatives democratically allocate compensation, yeah, someone might make more, but not nearly enough to make a serious problem.


So poor people in the US are fat and perhaps undernourished. Why vitamin pills are prohibitively expensive is beyond me.


So basically the doctors and scientists are just dumb, and you know better, your debating science here.


But it doesn't drop poverty. Where are all of the rich communist countries? Modern rich countries are all capitalist, with some reallocation programs to accomplish non-growth goals you mentioned.


Well there were no communist countries, Replacing the capitalist with a commissar is'nt communist or even socialist.

You have some communistic communities and institutions within capitalist countries, that do as they said they would do, such as cooperatives, the zapatista territories, you had anarchist spain (which did better than the other parts of spain dispite having no outside support), ukraine and so on.

You also have countries that have implimented some aspects of socialism, such as co-determination laws, or socializing the productive industries, and those countries, just so happened to do a WHOLE lot better than the countries that believed in a more market fundementalist economy.

Lets look at historically some countries that followed the market fundementalist model,
THe US and the UK after reagen and thatcher (who managed to collapse EVEN with a huge imperialist empire),
Ireland (went through tons of privitizations), Iceland (Milton freedmans wet dream), Argentina pre-2001 (again milton freedmans lovechild), Pinoches Chile, and so on.

But take Norway, with the major productive industries nationalized, or Germany, with a strong co-determination law.

[Judicator]

You get rid of land and capital property rights, you prevent it easily, cooperatives democratically allocate compensation, yeah, someone might make more, but not nearly enough to make a serious problem.


So you still need property rights so they can collect their compensation. You'd also need some form of property rights for jointly owned property.



So basically the doctors and scientists are just dumb, and you know better, your debating science here.


Where are these scientists again?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_undernourished_world_ma p.PNG

I don't know if particular scientists are dumb, but rather dumb individuals are taking their results out of context or cherry picking studies.



Well there were no communist countries, Replacing the capitalist with a commissar is'nt communist or even socialist.

You have some communistic communities and institutions within capitalist countries, that do as they said they would do, such as cooperatives, the zapatista territories, you had anarchist spain (which did better than the other parts of spain dispite having no outside support), ukraine and so on.

You also have countries that have implimented some aspects of socialism, such as co-determination laws, or socializing the productive industries, and those countries, just so happened to do a WHOLE lot better than the countries that believed in a more market fundementalist economy.

Lets look at historically some countries that followed the market fundementalist model,
THe US and the UK after reagen and thatcher (who managed to collapse EVEN with a huge imperialist empire),
Ireland (went through tons of privitizations), Iceland (Milton freedmans wet dream), Argentina pre-2001 (again milton freedmans lovechild), Pinoches Chile, and so on.

But take Norway, with the major productive industries nationalized, or Germany, with a strong co-determination law.


Take a look at how well forced collectivization worked out for China. Then take a look at China after Deng's economic reforms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prc1952-2005gdp.gif

Norway and Germany can remain productive in spite of any counterproductive socialist policies they pass, not because of them. Where is the evidence that socialist policies *cause* increases in productivity?

I don't know that Reagan really made the government much smaller. Moving money from social programs to the military isn't "free market fundamentalism." Neither is lowering taxes but spending more. Thatcher probably did the same thing.

[RGacky3]

So you still need property rights so they can collect their compensation. You'd also need some form of property rights for jointly owned property.


you don't need property laws to have compensation, also no you don't need property laws for collectives. Why would you need it?


Where are these scientists again?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pe..._world_map.PNG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Percentage_population_undernourished_world_ma p.PNG)

I don't know if particular scientists are dumb, but rather dumb individuals are taking their results out of context or cherry picking studies.


The ones that say 1 out of 4 children suffer from food insecurity (http://www.conagrafoodsfoundation.org/child-hunger/child-hunger-statistics.jsp), for example, but I suppose unless the kids are emaciated and literally dying from starvation, its not a big deal .... why are you arguing this?


Take a look at how well forced collectivization worked out for China. Then take a look at China after Deng's economic reforms:


There are a million things wrong with that argument, first of all Chinas forced collectivization did'nt actually transfer the decisoin making to the peasents did they, nor the surplus value, none of that, it was'nt socialism in the least.

Dengs economic reforms did not introduce actual free markets or even real private property rights, it allowed for massiave massiave capital influx and investment, no shit it will help the economy.

Mao's forced collectivization was not socialism in the least.


Norway and Germany can remain productive in spite of any counterproductive socialist policies they pass, not because of them. Where is the evidence that socialist policies *cause* increases in productivity?


Its funny that those with LESS socialist policy collapsed, yet those 2 countries did well, even though according to you their socialist policies hold them back.

Anyway here is the evidence.

Germany has a co-determination law, meaning half the board of directors are representatives of workers (THIS is socialism), which leads to a much more equitable compensation (workers in German factories do very very well), and you won't outsource (because you can't), or cut wages, last time I checked BMW, VW and German industry in other sectors are doing quite well. Also they have laws saying that the community that a factory is in must get the conset of the community before it moves or expands or whatever (again this is a socialist policy), making it harder to outsource unless its absolutely necessary.

Norway's largest industry is nationalized, also other large industries are party nationalized, Which means Norways Oil money belongs to the people of norway, which will in turn be invested in ... Norway, or saved up for ... Norway, and it can be used to fund many other things such as free healthcare, a good pension program and so on without having too high taxes, not only that but it is not subject to market forces so an economic collapse does'nt affect the industry as much as it would otherwise. Norway also has very strong unions making wages relatively high, keeping demand high and so on.


I don't know that Reagan really made the government much smaller. Moving money from social programs to the military isn't "free market fundamentalism." Neither is lowering taxes but spending more. Thatcher probably did the same thing.

well the military is not and never was part of the market, social programs are ... at least now (insurance and so on), cutting taxes is a market fundementalist policy, as is cutting services, and busting unions ... so.

BTW, its not about more or less government, thats not the argument. Socialism does not mean more government, it means more economic democracy (which may or may not include government).

[Madslatter]

dumb individuals are taking their results out of context or cherry picking studies.
I think you just accurately summed up your entire post. The map you linked was equating being undernourished with hunger, which is not necessarily one and the same. While you did just inadvertently start what will be a tendency war by bringing in Mao's collectivization into this, many on revleft will agree that his collectivization was a disaster, but how does that compare with massive raise in production that occurred during Stalin's 5 year plans?

Also, your graph for China is purely GDP, which only measures total wealth. You should have figured out by now that GDP has fuck all legitimacy with socialists. A country with an extraordinarily high GDP can have a majority of it's people in dire poverty, whereas a country with a low GDP can have a much higher level of personal wealth which beats out the wealthy.

And at the end it's back to productivity. Is something counter productive or not? Every way capitalists try and prove that their system is better they always settle on productivity, because that's all we are to them - a cost of production input. Analyzed by number crunchers like efficiency to cost ratios, with no care to quality of life beyond what keeps a worker working.

[Aspiring Humanist]

socialism in the hands of a government? I'm okay with that.

doing it wrong

[Demogorgon]

You pay for healthcare, you can buy your way out of a bad neighborhood, and you can buy education. All of these things are consumption. High real income means you can get more of all of this.

I am getting a little tired of explaining the same thing over and over again. I know that bringing up the real world in conversation with a Libertarian is rather rude, but you will have to forgive me. Real empirical evidence shows that inequality causes all the problems I listed and a rise in relative income will not alleviate it. In some cases the reasons are obvious. A person at the bottom of the social ladder can't move to a better neighborhood because they are still the poorest, regardless of any change in real income.

The key point is that a persons wellbeing is more dependent on their social position than their absolute income (once past the 10,000 dollar threshold). Indeed even those who are in a not so bad position relative to others will still lose out if society is too unequal as such inequality hurts everyone in society. middle class South Africans for instance blatantly have it worse than people of similar incomes in Scotland for instance.

Now I know most Libertarians think that theory is more important than reality and it doesn't matter what really happens so long as their ideological biases are satisfied, but do try to grasp this.

[Kiev Communard]

If the poor have higher real incomes they are already in the process of alleviating their own poverty.

You ignore price increases and the growth of other costs of living.


Their share of total production is irrelevant.

It is incredibly foolish statement.


The US today has a much smaller share of world GDP than it did in 1950, but US consumers are much better off today.

...while they might be much more better off than that (and not suffer from perennial threats of unemployment, downshifting, home foreclosure, etc., if the socialist economy existed in North America.

[Judicator]

you don't need property laws to have compensation, also no you don't need property laws for collectives. Why would you need it?


To prevent anyone else from stealing or destroying collectively run/owned factories.



The ones that say 1 out of 4 children suffer from food insecurity, for example, but I suppose unless the kids are emaciated and literally dying from starvation, its not a big deal .... why are you arguing this?


The point is that many of them are far far away from dying of hunger when so many are fat. I guess some are "food insecure" when they finish 10 boxes of twinkies, and cannot afford to buy more.


There are a million things wrong with that argument, first of all Chinas forced collectivization did'nt actually transfer the decisoin making to the peasents did they, nor the surplus value, none of that, it was'nt socialism in the least.

Dengs economic reforms did not introduce actual free markets or even real private property rights, it allowed for massiave massiave capital influx and investment, no shit it will help the economy.

Mao's forced collectivization was not socialism in the least.

So now collective production that's authoritarian isn't collective?

The household responsibility system is a huge leap ahead of total state ownership on the path towards "real" property rights. Assuming the gains and losses is an essential characteristic of property.



Its funny that those with LESS socialist policy collapsed, yet those 2 countries did well, even though according to you their socialist policies hold them back.

Anyway here is the evidence.

Germany has a co-determination law, meaning half the board of directors are representatives of workers (THIS is socialism), which leads to a much more equitable compensation (workers in German factories do very very well), and you won't outsource (because you can't), or cut wages, last time I checked BMW, VW and German industry in other sectors are doing quite well. Also they have laws saying that the community that a factory is in must get the conset of the community before it moves or expands or whatever (again this is a socialist policy), making it harder to outsource unless its absolutely necessary.

Norway's largest industry is nationalized, also other large industries are party nationalized, Which means Norways Oil money belongs to the people of norway, which will in turn be invested in ... Norway, or saved up for ... Norway, and it can be used to fund many other things such as free healthcare, a good pension program and so on without having too high taxes, not only that but it is not subject to market forces so an economic collapse does'nt affect the industry as much as it would otherwise. Norway also has very strong unions making wages relatively high, keeping demand high and so on.


How does equitable compensation mean higher growth? How do restrictions on the composition of the corporate board mean higher growth? How do restrictions on a company's ability to cut costs help companies remain efficient? Why is outsourcing bad at all?

The stuff about Norway seem more like claims about "State ownership of industry means more money for the state." First, it's unclear that this is more effective that non-ownership coupled with taxation. Also, it's unclear why this would lead to higher growth.



well the military is not and never was part of the market, social programs are ... at least now (insurance and so on), cutting taxes is a market fundementalist policy, as is cutting services, and busting unions ... so.

BTW, its not about more or less government, thats not the argument. Socialism does not mean more government, it means more economic democracy (which may or may not include government).


The military is part of government, and is a huge part of spending. Busting unions is "big government" in the same way busting any other monopoly is big government.

Socialism means more government to the extent you need all of these aid programs along with socialism. Since after all workers aren't really "free" without a cradle to grave welfare state.


You ignore price increases and the growth of other costs of living.

I've said it a lot and I'll say it again. Real income adjusts for changes in the price level.


It is incredibly foolish statement.

Why? Why is share of total production, rather than actual welfare, the most important? It seems to be a common caricature of Marxism but I really wonder if you would rather people be all mediocre and poor than people be somewhat richer and have a few ultra-rich.


...while they might be much more better off than that (and not suffer from perennial threats of unemployment, downshifting, home foreclosure, etc., if the socialist economy existed in North America.

What reason do we have to believe they would be better off? How would you even have an economy if nobody could be fired for subpar performance or obsolescence?



While you did just inadvertently start what will be a tendency war by bringing in Mao's collectivization into this, many on revleft will agree that his collectivization was a disaster, but how does that compare with massive raise in production that occurred during Stalin's 5 year plans?


Are we talking about the effectiveness of planned economies or the effectiveness of collectivization?



Also, your graph for China is purely GDP, which only measures total wealth. You should have figured out by now that GDP has fuck all legitimacy with socialists. A country with an extraordinarily high GDP can have a majority of it's people in dire poverty, whereas a country with a low GDP can have a much higher level of personal wealth which beats out the wealthy.


GDP measures what socialists seem to have no interest in: national wealth. No matter how evenly you divide up a small pie, it's impossible to get a large piece for anyone if your GDP is very low. Also, read about China's growing middle class.



And at the end it's back to productivity. Is something counter productive or not? Every way capitalists try and prove that their system is better they always settle on productivity, because that's all we are to them - a cost of production input. Analyzed by number crunchers like efficiency to cost ratios, with no care to quality of life beyond what keeps a worker working.


And yet, by "not caring about workers" capitalists manage to produce mountains of cheap consumer goods.




Real empirical evidence shows that inequality causes all the problems I listed and a rise in relative income will not alleviate it. In some cases the reasons are obvious. A person at the bottom of the social ladder can't move to a better neighborhood because they are still the poorest, regardless of any change in real income.


There's "real empirical evidence," but you couldn't be bothered to provide a link? It seems illogical to say that poverty related problems will not be alleviated by increased income. The claim that inequality is the root of these problems seems dubious at best, as if the 1000 richest people leaving the US would somehow make healthcare more affordable for the US poor.



The key point is that a persons wellbeing is more dependent on their social position than their absolute income (once past the 10,000 dollar threshold). Indeed even those who are in a not so bad position relative to others will still lose out if society is too unequal as such inequality hurts everyone in society. middle class South Africans for instance blatantly have it worse than people of similar incomes in Scotland for instance.

Now I know most Libertarians think that theory is more important than reality and it doesn't matter what really happens so long as their ideological biases are satisfied, but do try to grasp this.


Are you really just saying monetary income isn't the only relevant variable in overall quality of life? This is obvious. On healthcare etc I was simply making the very narrow point that by definition real income increases make you economically better off. There are other variables that will make you "happier" and to the extent that the existence of the rich fills everyone else with envy, this "hurts everyone in society." Is this all you're saying?

No need to be condescending, it doesn't make your arguments any better.

[RGacky3]

To prevent anyone else from stealing or destroying collectively run/owned factories.


You don't need property laws for that.


The point is that many of them are far far away from dying of hunger when so many are fat. I guess some are "food insecure" when they finish 10 boxes of twinkies, and cannot afford to buy more.


Do you think thats what doctors mean by "food insecure," btw, notice the out of touch clueless and asshole attitude.


So now collective production that's authoritarian isn't collective?


By definition, thats like saying FORCED democracy, if you call it collective, but its still top down decision making, its obviously not collective is it?


The household responsibility system is a huge leap ahead of total state ownership on the path towards "real" property rights. Assuming the gains and losses is an essential characteristic of property.


assuming gains and losses has nothign to do with property, thats production and market. Btw, no one is arguing for total state ownership.


How does equitable compensation mean higher growth? How do restrictions on the composition of the corporate board mean higher growth? How do restrictions on a company's ability to cut costs help companies remain efficient? Why is outsourcing bad at all?


first of all, HIGHER GROWTH IS NOT THE GOAL, a healthy economy is high living standards, second of all, I juts showed you, empirically, how it helps.

and I juts explained it to you. Its pretty simple, in what you quoted I explained it. If outsourcing is'nt bad then the workers and communities would agree to it, it cutting costs is neccessary, then the workers would agree to it.


The stuff about Norway seem more like claims about "State ownership of industry means more money for the state." First, it's unclear that this is more effective that non-ownership coupled with taxation. Also, it's unclear why this would lead to higher growth.


state ownership means more money into the state, it also means it is used for hte public good and is not neccessarily after more and more profit.

Its more effective than taxation because you control how the industry is actually run, and you control everything.

And again, growth is not the point, a good healthy economy is.


The military is part of government, and is a huge part of spending. Busting unions is "big government" in the same way busting any other monopoly is big government.


Busting unions is done by private companies, its not big government AT ALL.


Socialism means more government to the extent you need all of these aid programs along with socialism. Since after all workers aren't really "free" without a cradle to grave welfare state.


No it is'nt, you can cut out property laws and yo uhave a lot less government, a lot of socialism has to do with workers power, infact I don't agree with the welfare state, I'd much rather have stronger unions and worker controlled pension plasn, like comunity banks and so on.

[Demogorgon]

There's "real empirical evidence," but you couldn't be bothered to provide a link? It seems illogical to say that poverty related problems will not be alleviated by increased income. The claim that inequality is the root of these problems seems dubious at best, as if the 1000 richest people leaving the US would somehow make healthcare more affordable for the US poor.
If increased income without any reduction in inequality was a panacea for social ills, surely they would have decreased markedly in he period under discussion (since the seventies). Incomes have increased since then. But most social problems are worse.

Or for an international perspective, a simple demonstration can be seen here.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1006/chart.jpg

Many of the countries nearer the bottom have lower incomes than those at the top. There are considerably more extreme examples as well. Famously the Indian state of Kerala achieved Western levels of literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality etc despite being one of the poorest in India, let alone compared to Western countries. It did so by combating inequality and focusing on social programmes.

You may think this is "illogical" but that is only because you are ignoring the way societies work. The more inequality there is, the more likely it is for Ghettos to emerge for instance. You can see why that might be the case I think?


Are you really just saying monetary income isn't the only relevant variable in overall quality of life? This is obvious. On healthcare etc I was simply making the very narrow point that by definition real income increases make you economically better off. There are other variables that will make you "happier" and to the extent that the existence of the rich fills everyone else with envy, this "hurts everyone in society." Is this all you're saying?
It has nothing to do with "envy", and I'll thank you if that red herring doesn't raise its head again. It is to do with the manner in which human society functions. If there is considerable social stratification that has a profound psychological effect. The more social difference is emphasised the less social harmony there is and that leads to all kinds of problems.

I am sorry if I come across condescending incidentally, but it is tiresome to explain the same thing half a dozen times. If you genuinely don't get my point, you could always look the issue up and see if there is somebody who explains it better than I do.

[Judicator]

You don't need property laws for that.


Stealing is an incoherent concept without the idea of property, as is destruction of property.



Do you think thats what doctors mean by "food insecure," btw, notice the out of touch clueless and asshole attitude.


Yeah, thats the standard definition...when you don't know where/when your next meal is coming. The twinkie example is simply a caricature of how one can be "food insecure" but also well fed.



By definition, thats like saying FORCED democracy, if you call it collective, but its still top down decision making, its obviously not collective is it?


Production quotas are top-down, but the actual production occurs collectively..no individual really owns the land or is entitled to profits from the land.



assuming gains and losses has nothign to do with property, thats production and market. Btw, no one is arguing for total state ownership.


A defining feature of property is assuming the gains and losses associated with the property. If the government takes all of the profits and absorbs the losses of my company, I don't own it in any real sense.



first of all, HIGHER GROWTH IS NOT THE GOAL, a healthy economy is high living standards, second of all, I juts showed you, empirically, how it helps.

and I juts explained it to you. Its pretty simple, in what you quoted I explained it. If outsourcing is'nt bad then the workers and communities would agree to it, it cutting costs is neccessary, then the workers would agree to it.


Growth is the only way to get high living standards. If you have low growth and equality everyone stays poor for a much longer period than necessary.

The claim "Country X does Y and Country X has attribute Q, therefore Y causes Q" isn't a logical argument at all. Outsourcing is bad for the specific workers who are fired, but good for consumers as a whole. Obviously the narrow group who suffers is going to try to push the government into protecting them at the expense of the public.


Its more effective than taxation because you control how the industry is actually run, and you control everything.

And again, growth is not the point, a good healthy economy is.


Government control is precisely why it's less efficient. Shareholders don't care if the CEO is doing a crappy job because there are no shareholders.

Growth is essential for a productive economy. Without growth we are in the stone age forever.



Busting unions is done by private companies, its not big government AT ALL.


Then that's fine...it's just competition. If Walmart can "bust" mom and pop stores good for them...consumers clearly want what Walmart has more than their local stores.



No it is'nt, you can cut out property laws and yo uhave a lot less government, a lot of socialism has to do with workers power, infact I don't agree with the welfare state, I'd much rather have stronger unions and worker controlled pension plasn, like comunity banks and so on.


You don't, but it seems all of the mildly socialist countries you bring up like Norway have cradle to grave welfare states. Coincidence?



If increased income without any reduction in inequality was a panacea for social ills, surely they would have decreased markedly in he period under discussion (since the seventies). Incomes have increased since then. But most social problems are worse.

Or for an international perspective, a simple demonstration can be seen here.


What's the source of this graph?

How about since the industrial revolution? Obviously if you pick any sufficiently short period you can prove any hypothesis...the small company premium appears and disappears depending on what window you look at.


You may think this is "illogical" but that is only because you are ignoring the way societies work. The more inequality there is, the more likely it is for Ghettos to emerge for instance. You can see why that might be the case I think?

In a place like China in 1960, the country is poor so everyone was poor. Today, there's an emerging middle class and a significant number of people are well off or better. Why would this increase in living standards lead to more people living in ghettos than before, when everyone was living in a ghetto?


It has nothing to do with "envy", and I'll thank you if that red herring doesn't raise its head again. It is to do with the manner in which human society functions. If there is considerable social stratification that has a profound psychological effect. The more social difference is emphasised the less social harmony there is and that leads to all kinds of problems.

What is this "psychological effect" you're referring to then? What emotion do people experience when they constantly see those who are better off than they are?

[Azula]

There is a guy in my high school who holds some libertarian convictions. He is an ugly, skinny nerd with rat-coloured hair and big dirty glasses who speak in an irritatingly high-pitch monotonous voice.

I destroyed him.

He shared out his propaganda one day and I became so irritated that I said it like this:

"Shut it up already! You are just a socially handicapped ugly virgin. You will never feel the warmth of a woman and your ideas are just excuses for your bad self-esteem. You should crawl into the corner and never look yourself in the mirror again."

He almost shat himself. And as soon as I show up in the hall he runs away.

Libertarians should not be debated with. They should be ridiculed.

[Per Levy]

@azula: tell me, do you really like the azula character in avatar so much that you modeled after her? i mean everything you say sounds like that character would say in a internet forum. is that your kind of fun or something?

dont get me wrong, i like the azula character, she is interesting, and the avatar show is also pretty allright. i just think that you're a troll that tries to emulated what the azula character would say if she was "communistic".

[Azula]

I am not a troll.

Secondly, I chose Azula as a screenname because she is a strong female character. What I am writing here are my own convictions.

[RGacky3]

Secondly, I chose Azula as a screenname because she is a strong female character. What I am writing here are my own convictions.

Obviously they arn't very strong convictions since you are so afraid of other ideas you want to kill people who have them.


Stealing is an incoherent concept without the idea of property, as is destruction of property.


No its not, ask any child playing with a toy in a playground, he does'nt need ownership over it to be pissed if someone else takes it, or for example any collective situation, if your using something you don't need property ownership over it for someone else taking it to be in the wrong.

THe same with destruction.


Yeah, thats the standard definition...when you don't know where/when your next meal is coming. The twinkie example is simply a caricature of how one can be "food insecure" but also well fed.


And thats perfectly fine, they arn't dying so food insecurity is no problem right?


Production quotas are top-down, but the actual production occurs collectively..no individual really owns the land or is entitled to profits from the land.


Actually no it does'nt look up the history of the USSR, and also production quotas ARE top down, hell, thats how a lot of modern capitalist companies work.

Actually the State owns the land and are entitled to the profits. Learn your history/economics, something you need a lot of help with.


A defining feature of property is assuming the gains and losses associated with the property. If the government takes all of the profits and absorbs the losses of my company, I don't own it in any real sense.


I miss understood what you said, anyway, whats your point.


Growth is the only way to get high living standards. If you have low growth and equality everyone stays poor for a much longer period than necessary.

The claim "Country X does Y and Country X has attribute Q, therefore Y causes Q" isn't a logical argument at all. Outsourcing is bad for the specific workers who are fired, but good for consumers as a whole. Obviously the narrow group who suffers is going to try to push the government into protecting them at the expense of the public.


Growth is the only way under capitalism, because of constantly contracting industries (into fewer hands and using less labor), If you have a socialist system you don't need growth beyond managing population fluxuations, you don't need purpetual growth because you don't have a system of chasing profits.

The claim of comparing economic policies to economic outcomes is pretty standard and is definately logical, its called empirical evidence.

Outsourcing is bad for the workers, and ultimately bad for consumers as a whole, because the workers ARE the consumers and when one company outsources it pressures other companies to do the same. BTW, you have a non profit economy, both workers and consumers win.

(Btw, prices go down somewhat, wages go down a lot, profit margains go up, so ultimately consumers/workers loose more than they gain).

The solution is simple, have industries worker run and non profit, they get higher income, they can keep prices as low as possible because they don't need to make a profit, and they won't outsource unless they absolutely need to.


Government control is precisely why it's less efficient. Shareholders don't care if the CEO is doing a crappy job because there are no shareholders.

Growth is essential for a productive economy. Without growth we are in the stone age forever.


A: Shareholders don't pick the CEO, the board of directors does, and the CEO selects the board of directors, the shareholders just vote yes or no (kind of like the USSR).

B: Most shareholders are not holding shares to get a part of the profits (dividends), they are just paying supply and demand, buying low and selling high, which has very little to do with actual fundementals.

C: Growth is essencial when you have naturally exanding markets and populations and technologies, purpetual growth, i.e. growth no matter what and forced, creates bubbles and ultimately crashes.

Its like cities, cities need to grow to take care of the population growth, but if you have a city that needs to grow 3 to 4% each year dispite the population growth, you'll ahve a problem, that is capitalism.


Then that's fine...it's just competition. If Walmart can "bust" mom and pop stores good for them...consumers clearly want what Walmart has more than their local stores.


Actually its illigal, and actually, your just proving how capitalism does'nt work, and ultimately turns into plutocracy.


You don't, but it seems all of the mildly socialist countries you bring up like Norway have cradle to grave welfare states. Coincidence?


No, its not, because those countries are wealthy enough and sane enough and manage their resources well enough to have those things.

When I said I don't agree with the welfare state, I mean don't agree with a welfare capitalist system of tax and welfare. I think national productive industry should be socialized and workplaces should be under worker control.

WHen you have the surplus value going to the public and the workers, of coarse they'll spend it on social programs, like free healthcare and free elderly care, why would'nt they? Thats a humane and good society.

Whereas in the US, you have all that wealth, but a much shittier standard of living, people work harder, earn less, and get less for their struggles.

[cogar66]

There is a guy in my high school who holds some libertarian convictions. He is an ugly, skinny nerd with rat-coloured hair and big dirty glasses who speak in an irritatingly high-pitch monotonous voice.

I destroyed him.

He shared out his propaganda one day and I became so irritated that I said it like this:

"Shut it up already! You are just a socially handicapped ugly virgin. You will never feel the warmth of a woman and your ideas are just excuses for your bad self-esteem. You should crawl into the corner and never look yourself in the mirror again."

He almost shat himself. And as soon as I show up in the hall he runs away.

Libertarians should not be debated with. They should be ridiculed.

Yeah, you destroyed him alright. :rolleyes: You seem to be very anti-intellectual. You always dismiss opposition and justify it with poor logic. In my Scientific Racists thread you justified it with circular logic, and now you're using ad hominems.

[Demogorgon]

I confess to getting a little weary here, as I have said some of the stuff I am going to say here several times already in this thread. I am starting to doubt if saying it again will make much difference. Still, hope springs eternal.

What's the source of this graph?Not that you couldn't have found this out by looking at the image's URL, but I took it from the University College London website. It was produced by a couple of academics who work there.


How about since the industrial revolution? Obviously if you pick any sufficiently short period you can prove any hypothesis...the small company premium appears and disappears depending on what window you look at.
We could look at a different time period if you want, but it wouldn't make much sense in a discussion about the effects of Friedman style politics. If you wish to broaden it though, we could look at it since the industrial revolution. At first the effects were pretty disastrous for most people actually. If you look at the collapse in life expectancy that Britain experienced for instance, you will see that. Over time some improvements happened. Usually coinciding with Government legislation to force sanitation and similar, but yes people did become better off, to an extent. Though if you look at the way most people were living, you will see the wealth was certainly not "trickling down". In Glasgow, my home city, in 1900 it was the most productive city per capita on earth, an absolute powerhouse of industry and just looking at the buildings built at that time shows the incredible wealth that was flowing through the city. But it wasn't flowing anywhere near the common people. They were living in worse conditions than their ancestors a hundred years or so ago-despite being able to afford more goods and services.

The period where we saw a huge icnrease in the standard of living was of course the post war years from the end of the war until the seventies. The time the French call the "thirty glorious years". There was something unique in that period, it was the only time since the industrial revolution that inequality was decreasing. That was rather embarrassing to Marxists, it must be admitted. After all if capitalism was all of a sudden undoing the inequality it created and giving increased prosperity to everyone, it makes us commies look a bit silly I suppose. Of course that proved to be a Social Democratic aberration and normal service has resumed. I find it telling though that the period of time we saw things getting much better under capitalism was the period of increasing equality (and you will note that that period was not necessarily the period of best economic growth performances depending on what country you were talking about) and the adoption of neo-liberal policies and the subsequent increase in inequality has brought more problems along.



In a place like China in 1960, the country is poor so everyone was poor. Today, there's an emerging middle class and a significant number of people are well off or better. Why would this increase in living standards lead to more people living in ghettos than before, when everyone was living in a ghetto?
Well as I've already said several times, absolute gains see a steady gain until they reach about $10000 per capita. It is after that that equality starts to become the more important factor. As for the ghetto question, It surely must be obvious, the greater the social stratification, the more people of different social groups become separated.


What is this "psychological effect" you're referring to then? What emotion do people experience when they constantly see those who are better off than they are?
A feeling of inadequacy? Resignation? You wan't me to answer envy because it suits your ideology and you want to paint egalitarians as being the truly selfish people, but that isn't what is going on at all. If for instance you are at the bottom of the social ladder, it gets pretty demoralising. Also of course if you are at the bottom of society or even not really part of society at all, your sense of social duty can go. The same goes if you are too high up actually and feel yourself above the rest of people. The difference being that the person at the bottom who loses his social responsibility commits petty crimes. The person at the top contributes to world wide financial meltdown, but I digress.

It isn't just psychological of course. In fact other factors may be even more important. It is simple fact that the best education doesn't go to the poorest for instance, even if they make relative gains, the best is still going to the richest. The same can become true of healthcare and of course all the other goods and services we rely on.

The most important evidence of course is simply the empirical data. I would advise you to look at that rather than retreating into the abstract.

[Judicator]

No its not, ask any child playing with a toy in a playground, he does'nt need ownership over it to be pissed if someone else takes it, or for example any collective situation, if your using something you don't need property ownership over it for someone else taking it to be in the wrong.

What makes the anger justified, if not some concept of property?


And thats perfectly fine, they arn't dying so food insecurity is no problem right?

It doesn't warrant anywhere near the amount of attention starvation would. Kids not having toys on Christmas is sort of a problem, but not a severe enough one to do anything beyond what private charities are doing already.



Actually no it does'nt look up the history of the USSR, and also production quotas ARE top down, hell, thats how a lot of modern capitalist companies work.

Actually the State owns the land and are entitled to the profits. Learn your history/economics, something you need a lot of help with.


Don't see how this is at odds with what I'm saying. We agree that production quotas are top down and that individual ownership didn't exist under collectivization.



I miss understood what you said, anyway, whats your point.


You said "assuming gains and losses has nothign to do with property, thats production and market"...gains and losses have everything to do with property.



Growth is the only way under capitalism, because of constantly contracting industries (into fewer hands and using less labor), If you have a socialist system you don't need growth beyond managing population fluxuations, you don't need purpetual growth because you don't have a system of chasing profits.


So if we had implemented socialism in 1800, growth would have stopped and we would be living with TB and polio and so on today? Sounds great to me.



The claim of comparing economic policies to economic outcomes is pretty standard and is definately logical, its called empirical evidence.


So you're saying you think the argument "Country X does Y and Country X has attribute Q, therefore Y causes Q" is valid for any economic comparison? So for example you think because white and asian countries tend to be more prosperous than other countries, being white or asian causes prosperity?



Outsourcing is bad for the workers, and ultimately bad for consumers as a whole, because the workers ARE the consumers and when one company outsources it pressures other companies to do the same. BTW, you have a non profit economy, both workers and consumers win.


Walmart workers are a tiny fraction of Walmart consumers, so when Walmart outsouces a small group loses and a large group gains. You have a small net gain. When every company does this, consumers win a lot, so you have a large net gain.

I have no idea what you mean by a non profit economy.



The solution is simple, have industries worker run and non profit, they get higher income, they can keep prices as low as possible because they don't need to make a profit, and they won't outsource unless they absolutely need to.

If the workers are making $60,000/year versus $5,000/year for a worker overseas, they would have to charge a much higher price for their products to make up for their high wages.

If the workers controlled the factories "not for profit" why wouldn't they just outsource the work and pay themselves $55,000/year for doing nothing (like capitalists lol)?



A: Shareholders don't pick the CEO, the board of directors does, and the CEO selects the board of directors, the shareholders just vote yes or no (kind of like the USSR).

B: Most shareholders are not holding shares to get a part of the profits (dividends), they are just paying supply and demand, buying low and selling high, which has very little to do with actual fundementals.

C: Growth is essencial when you have naturally exanding markets and populations and technologies, purpetual growth, i.e. growth no matter what and forced, creates bubbles and ultimately crashes.


A) No, they just dump their shares and the company drops in value when the CEO is terrible.
B) Evidence?
C) You seem to be confusing constant growth and perpetual growth.



Actually its illigal, and actually, your just proving how capitalism does'nt work, and ultimately turns into plutocracy.


What's illegal? Union busting? You'd have to specify which techniques...some are some aren't. I was just referring to the legal ways of dealing with unions.

Of course you'd say anything bad for the unions "doesn't work" ignoring growth etc.



WHen you have the surplus value going to the public and the workers, of coarse they'll spend it on social programs, like free healthcare and free elderly care, why would'nt they? Thats a humane and good society.


Why would they? Again a common stereotype of socialism/communism, but you seem to be invoking it here...you believe you can change human nature such that everyone is an altruistic angel.

[Judicator]

Not that you couldn't have found this out by looking at the image's URL, but I took it from the University College London website. It was produced by a couple of academics who work there.


Thats cool, looks like there might be a lot of omitted variables ignored in the graph http://www.nber.org/reporter/spring03/health.html.

"It is also true that both white and black mortality rates are higher in places with a higher fraction black and that, once we control for the fraction black, income inequality has no effect on mortality rates, a result that has been replicated by Victor Fuchs, Mark McClellan, and Jonathan Skinner9 using the Medicare records data. This result is consistent with the lack of any relationship between income inequality and mortality across Canadian or Australian provinces, where race does not have the same salience."


We could look at a different time period if you want, but it wouldn't make much sense in a discussion about the effects of Friedman style politics. If you wish to broaden it though, we could look at it since the industrial revolution. At first the effects were pretty disastrous for most people actually. If you look at the collapse in life expectancy that Britain experienced for instance, you will see that. Over time some improvements happened. Usually coinciding with Government legislation to force sanitation and similar, but yes people did become better off, to an extent. Though if you look at the way most people were living, you will see the wealth was certainly not "trickling down". In Glasgow, my home city, in 1900 it was the most productive city per capita on earth, an absolute powerhouse of industry and just looking at the buildings built at that time shows the incredible wealth that was flowing through the city. But it wasn't flowing anywhere near the common people. They were living in worse conditions than their ancestors a hundred years or so ago-despite being able to afford more goods and services.

I think my original question was about how inequality relates to health outcomes, rather than how the industrial revolution helped or hurt the lower classes. Again I don't see why we are concerned with things other than growth, since the more you grow the easier it is to redistribute if you dislike the incomes people earn while the economy grows.

Friedman style policies existed before he did...maybe not monetarism as an idea but many of the policies he supported had been around as options long before him.



Well as I've already said several times, absolute gains see a steady gain until they reach about $10000 per capita. It is after that that equality starts to become the more important factor.

As for the ghetto question, It surely must be obvious, the greater the social stratification, the more people of different social groups become separated.


We disagree about what's meant by "absolute" I think. I'm only talking about real income, you seem to be talking about social status being more important than real income. I find the "equality is more important than real income" hypothesis dubious because anyone can instantly have higher status by moving to a poor neighborhood, but you don't observe this.


A feeling of inadequacy? Resignation? You wan't me to answer envy because it suits your ideology and you want to paint egalitarians as being the truly selfish people, but that isn't what is going on at all. If for instance you are at the bottom of the social ladder, it gets pretty demoralising. Also of course if you are at the bottom of society or even not really part of society at all, your sense of social duty can go. The same goes if you are too high up actually and feel yourself above the rest of people. The difference being that the person at the bottom who loses his social responsibility commits petty crimes. The person at the top contributes to world wide financial meltdown, but I digress.

There are plenty of poor happy people, so I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. Inadequacy, resignation, and envy appear to the extent you're constantly trying to keep up with the neighbors.


It is simple fact that the best education doesn't go to the poorest for instance, even if they make relative gains, the best is still going to the richest. The same can become true of healthcare and of course all the other goods and services we rely on.

And as long as everyone gets a decent level of service, that seems fine.



The most important evidence of course is simply the empirical data. I would advise you to look at that rather than retreating into the abstract.


The evidence is mixed. (http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic457678.files//HappinessInequality.pdf)

"that these trends [in happiness level] differ from trends in both income growth and income inequality suggests that a useful explanation may lie in the nonpecuniary domain."

[ThePintsizeslasher]

OK to the OP check this:(Fuck I can't post links. Google: "Anarchist FAQ Section C.10" and go to the infoshop.org link.
Goes into massive detail about how neoliberal economics has hurt the poor, decreased economic growth, increased inequality and DECREASED social mobility. Section C 10.3 delves into the negative effects of neoliberalism on the working class specifically.

That video of the economist is misleading since it provides only a snapshot(apparently that guy has no understanding of irony). Yes there is some social mobility, but there was MORE pre-Reagan/Thatcher era as well as less inequality. AND more growth. One has to look at the long run(from as early as the beginning of the twentieth century to the Depression era when statistics on households became more sophisticated) to get an accurate picture. More militant workers, socially democratic gov't, nationalized industries, lead to better growth, equality, and social mobility for more than 3 decades than 3 the decades of neoliberalism we've seen

More from the FAQ on free-market neoliberal myths:
Section C.12
"Doesn't Hong Kong show the potentials of free-market capitalism?"


"Doesn't Chile prove that the free market benefits everyone?"
Section C.11


Also Judicator, I'm not exactly following this thread, but when Thatcher privatized nearly every nationalized industry in Britain, yes thats more free-market.



If the workers are making $60,000/year versus $5,000/year for a worker overseas, they would have to charge a much higher price for their products to make up for their high wages.

If the workers controlled the factories "not for profit" why wouldn't they just outsource the work and pay themselves $55,000/year for doing nothing (like capitalists lol)?
You're still thinking in capitalist terms. There can be no outsourcing, since the workers don't "own" the factory or any "company." Socialist property is usufructory property. Hence why workers would own the product of their labors, no one could take the product of the overseas workers labor, sell it, then only give the worker back a small slice of the profit, which wholly belongs to him.

And overseas workers work for less is because of poorer living conditions and gov'ts hostile labor.

I think thats all I'll contribute, I literally signed up just now and was about to make my first post in Introductions, but had multiple tabs open and got carried away here. I'm going to introductions. Later y'all.(BTW I used to be a Friedmanite:))

[RGacky3]

What makes the anger justified, if not some concept of property?


Its not property at all, its public property, but in use, its not property laws, its not capitalist property.


Don't see how this is at odds with what I'm saying. We agree that production quotas are top down and that individual ownership didn't exist under collectivization.


it was'nt collectivizatoin at all, thats what I'm saying.


So if we had implemented socialism in 1800, growth would have stopped and we would be living with TB and polio and so on today? Sounds great to me.


No dumb ass, I never said growth would stop, I said the purpetual need for growth would'nt have stopped, you still have growth proportional to need.


So you're saying you think the argument "Country X does Y and Country X has attribute Q, therefore Y causes Q" is valid for any economic comparison? So for example you think because white and asian countries tend to be more prosperous than other countries, being white or asian causes prosperity?


Except race is not economic policy is it.


Walmart workers are a tiny fraction of Walmart consumers, so when Walmart outsouces a small group loses and a large group gains. You have a small net gain. When every company does this, consumers win a lot, so you have a large net gain.

I have no idea what you mean by a non profit economy.


yes but overall, you cannot look firm by firm because you have a marketplace, when Walmart does it its also very likely tons of other companies are doing it.

Btw, you don't have to imagen this, the purchasing power of the Average American has been dropping since the 70s.

A non-profit economy is exactly what it sounds like, its an economy that does not require profits.


If the workers are making $60,000/year versus $5,000/year for a worker overseas, they would have to charge a much higher price for their products to make up for their high wages.

If the workers controlled the factories "not for profit" why wouldn't they just outsource the work and pay themselves $55,000/year for doing nothing (like capitalists lol)?


When they move overseas, the prices they cut are small compared to the raise in profits (otherwise they would'nt do it). Also the slight raise in price would'nt mean much considering workers would get more money.

BTW, the solution to outsourcing is ultimately third world workers organizing.

As for your other question of the workers "outsourcing" I don't know, ask the workers in Germany, or the workers in other cooperatives, like mandrigan, probably because they take pride in their work.


A) No, they just dump their shares and the company drops in value when the CEO is terrible.
B) Evidence?
C) You seem to be confusing constant growth and perpetual growth.


A. Not really, as I said most traders have little to do with fundementals, also it does'nt matter if they dump their shares, the CEO still picks the board and the board still picks the CEO, and they control the revenue.

B. Are you really questioning this?

C: Whats the difference, either way my point stands.


What's illegal? Union busting? You'd have to specify which techniques...some are some aren't. I was just referring to the legal ways of dealing with unions.

Of course you'd say anything bad for the unions "doesn't work" ignoring growth etc.


Its illigal to fire people for organizing a union or joining one. BTW, why are you against unions? Arn't you for the free market?


Why would they? Again a common stereotype of socialism/communism, but you seem to be invoking it here...you believe you can change human nature such that everyone is an altruistic angel.

Why would they? I don't know, but they DO, this is reality you are arguing against.

They would because they are giving it to themselves, its a democratic society, so of coarse they would organize it in a way that benefits society.

Its not altruism at all.

[Leftsolidarity]

Poor people in the US are fat.


Complete shit. Ever wonder where your next meal is going to come from? Or if it is going to come at all?

[Demogorgon]

Thats cool, looks like there might be a lot of omitted variables ignored in the graph http://www.nber.org/reporter/spring03/health.html.

"It is also true that both white and black mortality rates are higher in places with a higher fraction black and that, once we control for the fraction black, income inequality has no effect on mortality rates, a result that has been replicated by Victor Fuchs, Mark McClellan, and Jonathan Skinner9 using the Medicare records data. This result is consistent with the lack of any relationship between income inequality and mortality across Canadian or Australian provinces, where race does not have the same salience."
Bringing up race is a pretty weak argument for two reasons. The first is that you then have to explain why race would be a factor. Ultimately you will have to look at inequality for that.

More importantly, I did not give you a comparison of different parts of the United States, I gave you a comparison of several developed nations. The second most unequal country on the chart is Portugal which is pretty homogeneous. It as you can see has a much higher level on the Index than France for instance. A country that is very racially mixed. If you look at those countries in terms of demographics. You will find no correlation between how heterogeneous they are and where they are on the index.

Moreover even the article you quote, as problematic as it is, is still only comparing between different income levels within a society. The crucial point is that inequality hits all of society, though obviously those at the bottom get it worse. The overall "health" of a society can be damaged by being too unequal and the better off will suffer from that to some extent too. Unless you have no contact with the rest of society at all (and I'll spare you the jokes about Libertarians here), that is bound to affect you.


I think my original question was about how inequality relates to health outcomes, rather than how the industrial revolution helped or hurt the lower classes. Again I don't see why we are concerned with things other than growth, since the more you grow the easier it is to redistribute if you dislike the incomes people earn while the economy grows.

You speak as if you have ever read any history. Asking why we should be concerned with things other than growth is like asking why a farmer should be concerned about anything other than how much sun is shining on his crops. Growth is important, but it is not the only thing that matters and in some cases we may even want less of it for the sake of something else (Ireland and Iceland are wishing they had a little less of the kind of growth they were having before the economic crisis for instance).

To pout it in more technical terms the periods of various countries greatest growth in GDP do not necessarily correspond with their greatest increase in HDI, particularly when you control for the GDP portion of the HDI, but the latter is considerably more important.

Perhaps the biggest killer to your argument is the last thirty years though. This discussion started by you complaining about me saying "even if real incomes were increasing..." Notice the words "even if"? In fact despite the fact that there has been economic growth in the last thirty years, real incomes for many have fallen. That is to say that people are not just relatively speaking worse off, but absolutely too. That is why there has been so much more private borrowing since the seventies. That circle had to be squared somehow.


We disagree about what's meant by "absolute" I think. I'm only talking about real income, you seem to be talking about social status being more important than real income. I find the "equality is more important than real income" hypothesis dubious because anyone can instantly have higher status by moving to a poor neighborhood, but you don't observe this.

Well I just pointed out that real income has been falling also. But my point was rather more complicated than "social status" and indeed that's not even a good word for it "social position" would be better.

As for the claim that moving to a poorer neighbourhood could boost your position. I am not even going to point out how stupid that is. If you are still coming up with that after all this effort from me to explain the point, I have evidently failed to do so. Either you are purposefully misunderstanding me or I am not able to make myself clear. I won't pretend to know which it is, but if it is the latter, try reading this for a simple and easy to read explanation:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Equality-Better-Everyone/dp/0241954290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314045986&sr=8-1

Don't bother to post a link to the "rebuttal" book, I already know about that.


And as long as everyone gets a decent level of service, that seems fine.

Maybe it would be, but as there is no example of that in an unequal society in all of human history, we'll leave that to science fiction writers.


The evidence is mixed. (http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic457678.files//HappinessInequality.pdf)

"that these trends [in happiness level] differ from trends in both income growth and income inequality suggests that a useful explanation may lie in the nonpecuniary domain."
I wasn't talking about happiness. In all seriousness I suspect that the most important cause of happiness may be the amount of sunshine. That after all directly produces endorphins. Similarly reported levels of happiness will come down to what people view "happiness" as being. And that is something that varies enormously according to culture.

No we are talking about more tangible things like crime levels, life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy and numeracy rates and so forth.

[Judicator]

Bringing up race is a pretty weak argument for two reasons. The first is that you then have to explain why race would be a factor. Ultimately you will have to look at inequality for that.

More importantly, I did not give you a comparison of different parts of the United States, I gave you a comparison of several developed nations. The second most unequal country on the chart is Portugal which is pretty homogeneous. It as you can see has a much higher level on the Index than France for instance. A country that is very racially mixed. If you look at those countries in terms of demographics. You will find no correlation between how heterogeneous they are and where they are on the index.

Moreover even the article you quote, as problematic as it is, is still only comparing between different income levels within a society. The crucial point is that inequality hits all of society, though obviously those at the bottom get it worse. The overall "health" of a society can be damaged by being too unequal and the better off will suffer from that to some extent too. Unless you have no contact with the rest of society at all (and I'll spare you the jokes about Libertarians here), that is bound to affect you.


Obviously *some* kind of inequality is going to explain differences in health outcomes. The only point of the article is that it is NOT income inequality that explains health outcomes.

If the inequality causes poor health outcome hypothesis is true in general, why is it false across US states and Canadian provinces? Canada is a fairly racially homogeneous society and yet there inequality fails to be a health hazard.

Why would income inequality impact all of society, yet fail to have any statistical impact locally, per the NBER study?



Growth is important, but it is not the only thing that matters and in some cases we may even want less of it for the sake of something else (Ireland and Iceland are wishing they had a little less of the kind of growth they were having before the economic crisis for instance).

To pout it in more technical terms the periods of various countries greatest growth in GDP do not necessarily correspond with their greatest increase in HDI, particularly when you control for the GDP portion of the HDI, but the latter is considerably more important.

Perhaps the biggest killer to your argument is the last thirty years though. This discussion started by you complaining about me saying "even if real incomes were increasing..." Notice the words "even if"? In fact despite the fact that there has been economic growth in the last thirty years, real incomes for many have fallen. That is to say that people are not just relatively speaking worse off, but absolutely too. That is why there has been so much more private borrowing since the seventies. That circle had to be squared somehow.


In your first point you are just saying that growth is important, but also long run rate of growth?

That's fine, but the non-GDP portion of the HDI is partly a policy choice. The GDP always sets the size of the pie the government & individuals have to divide up. If you consistently implement anti-growth policies you'll end up with a much smaller GDP to divide up, which is unambiguously bad.

On your third point, I assume you're just referring to the growth of the bottom income-earners incomes? Doesn't it make more sense to look at a cohort of individuals born in 1950, vs. individuals born in 1960, and so on..and look at where all of these cohorts were at certain ages?



As for the claim that moving to a poorer neighbourhood could boost your position. I am not even going to point out how stupid that is. If you are still coming up with that after all this effort from me to explain the point, I have evidently failed to do so. Either you are purposefully misunderstanding me or I am not able to make myself clear. I won't pretend to know which it is, but if it is the latter, try reading this for a simple and easy to read explanation:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level...4045986&sr=8-1

Don't bother to post a link to the "rebuttal" book, I already know about that.


I'm simply pointing out the absurdity of the claim that what people primarily care about is their own incomes relative to that of their neighbors, or even their fellow countrymen. Finding poorer neighbors is an extremely cheap solution to the problem of being poorer than your neighbors, but nobody does it, so "being poorer than your neighbors" probably isn't the problem.

What region is the relevant one when talking about "inequality?" Obviously, when you use the entire world a as a benchmark, everyone in the US is rich.

Also, this is a debate forum. Not really the place to just say "you're wrong, read these books."



Maybe it would be, but as there is no example of that in an unequal society in all of human history, we'll leave that to science fiction writers.


This is only true to the extent that the definition of "decent" is set by the median/upper median individuals.



I wasn't talking about happiness. In all seriousness I suspect that the most important cause of happiness may be the amount of sunshine. That after all directly produces endorphins. Similarly reported levels of happiness will come down to what people view "happiness" as being. And that is something that varies enormously according to culture.

No we are talking about more tangible things like crime levels, life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy and numeracy rates and so forth.


Earlier you talk of things like inadequacy and psychological harm as the problems with inequality. How is happiness not relevant to the psychological well being of the poor?

Literacy rates and so on go up with absolute income rather than relative income.

[Kiev Communard]

Why? Why is share of total production, rather than actual welfare, the most important? It seems to be a common caricature of Marxism but I really wonder if you would rather people be all mediocre and poor than people be somewhat richer and have a few ultra-rich.

Firstly, in real life the level of "actual welfare", whatever you may choose it to define as, depends directly on the position and total share of the economic group in production, and hence distribution, of the society's resources. You cannot have high level of living without controlling some productive potential, at least indirectly.

Secondly, the "ultra-rich" do not draw their riches from the hot air, while the other members of society are somehow "somewhat richer". If there were an equal amount of small property owners, none of them could have become a billionaire, as the ownership of the vast proportion of the social wealth presupposes the coordination of labour, and the said small producers would not have been too interested in submitting to the will of the one while surrendering the control of their means of production. Therefore capitalism actually rests not on individual private property but on its continuous negation to the majority of society.

[Judicator]

Firstly, in real life the level of "actual welfare", whatever you may choose it to define as, depends directly on the position and total share of the economic group in production, and hence distribution, of the society's resources. You cannot have high level of living without controlling some productive potential, at least indirectly.


Share of economic production is only important insofar as it leads to increases in welfare (which I think of as real income, but feel free to suggest an alternative definition).

What do you mean by productive potential? Means of production? What do you mean by "high?" You can enjoy a high standard of living (by world standards) simply by being born in the US.



Secondly, the "ultra-rich" do not draw their riches from the hot air, while the other members of society are somehow "somewhat richer". If there were an equal amount of small property owners, none of them could have become a billionaire, as the ownership of the vast proportion of the social wealth presupposes the coordination of labour, and the said small producers would not have been too interested in submitting to the will of the one while surrendering the control of their means of production. Therefore capitalism actually rests not on individual private property but on its continuous negation to the majority of society.


So it turns out not all small property owners are equally successful/lucky. Those that were most successful/lucky would make the most money, which they would use to buy more property. Those that were unsuccessful would run out of money and have to get rid of their property.