Welfare-State Capitalism

[Capitalist Lawyer]

I question if any market can truly be totally free. There are many things that can muck up the works, including and other than government. That said, the market is the best tool available to point to what should be produced, what should be cut etc. Does it maximize consumer welfare? Depends on what you mean by "welfare." By nature, welfare requires some value judgement, but makets function fine without making such judgements. So I would prefer to leave them out.


I want the government to protect my property from everyone's pollution, which comes onto my property without my permission.

Strong government institutions are needed to create an atmosphere conducive to capitalism.

Read the book, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, , by Hernando de Soto. He explains how ineffectual governments keep capital from being raised in many less-developed countries.


As for health care and social spending, these only acknowledge that we place value on human beings even when markets do not. We may get rid of an auto plant that is no longer useful, but we will not do so with people.


I don't believe economic freedom belongs in the same category as the others. For example, you and I can hold the same religous beliefs, opposite beliefs or even no beliefs at all. What I do does not impact what you do. Not so with economics. Economics is all about you an I competing for the same goods and services. What you have, I cannot have.

Additionally, unlike political freedom, there is no "I won't participate" option in economics. All of us must provide for ourselves, for most of us, that means we MUST work. A libertarian would dispute this, but it is so obvious to most people that any politician making such an argument would be a laughing stock. It also explains why social spending remains popular. By insuring ourselves against the worst of possible economic outcomes, we secure the knowledge that even in the worst case we will be able to meet our minimal needs.

In this sense, the welfare state is actually liberating, which explains why it endures.


As for workers and wages. Workers compete for the best jobs, lowering wages and decreasing benifits. It is called supply and demand.


Now, I don't want "minimal government intervention" in the economy. Look how well we have done doing things as we do.

No thank you Libertarians.

[JKP]

Statist.

[STI]

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else,

Imperialism?

[Capitalist Lawyer]

Why so very few replies?

[Ol' Dirty]

Because everyone knows you are "Simply Dim."

You're talking to the wrong people, if you want to talk about authoritatian theories in a positive light.

[red team]

I want the government to protect my property from everyone's pollution, which comes onto my property without my permission.


Ownership is subjective nonsense that ultimately cannot be logically proven. In the end all ownership claims is derived from the fact that our present economic system evolved from a past society that is based on conquest. This is not surprising since all society needs to go through a predatory stage in development due to the scarcity of resources. The scarcity of resources in turn are caused by the feebleness of productive technologies. In an environment of abundance the concept of ownership is as impossible as it is counter-productive and anti-social. Clearly we are not at that stage in human history yet in which material abundance can be produced with minimal human effort. Therefore, hoarding or in other words ownership claims and conquest is inevitable. A sustainable egalitarian system is only possible and desirable in an environment of abundance. If the feebleness of technology in a given society makes that an impossibility what can only be expected if such an egalitarian system is enforced is mandatory egalitarian destitution as well as mandatory egalitarian toil which is not exactly progressive :lol: .



Strong government institutions are needed to create an atmosphere conducive to capitalism.


Capitalism is a social-economic system suited to particular stage of development in human history. Even though defenders of this particular system which is often also its biggest beneficiaries state with conviction that it is the best system to generate material abundance and is the final stage in human history or as Francis Fukuyama states The End of History. It is neither and Capitalism will have its period of decline as a functional system. Strong government institutions will attempt to delay the inevitable decline through use of coercive methods and deflect the causes of social disintegration by blaming them on entirely subjective reasons like morality or ethics. Subjective codes of "ethical" behaviour which undoubtedly provides cohesion to a society to prevent it from regressing into barbarism ultimately is only functional based on the consensus of the participants of a given society. And the consensus of any given participant is determined by a combination of factors including: position in the social hierarchy, material well-being, probability for success in any particular endeavor including "crime", probability of failure and/or in the case of crime the severity of punishment. When all legal avenues to material gain is no longer sufficient to supply material well being to the majority of the people in a society, anti-social behaviour like crime will inevitably increase when in the cost-benefit analysis of desperate people the costs involved from the failure of a criminal endeavor no longer matters when the high probability of physical extinction is present, but those defending a system in decline who are unable or unwilling to admit to the fact of its decline will look for causes in "morality" and apocalyptic mysticism in explaining the cause.



As for health care and social spending, these only acknowledge that we place value on human beings even when markets do not. We may get rid of an auto plant that is no longer useful, but we will not do so with people.


In a commodity system in which goods and services is valuated, utility is secondary to surplus value. To talk of "usefulness" in a price system is meaningless. Economic utility takes precedence over practical utility since economic "growth" is the driving force in all human endeavors. Commodities which are of questionable utility are nevertheless produced because "it pays the rent" so to speak. Of course there are commodities which are useful in a utilitarian sense, but whether or not these get produced and produced in what amounts depends on the interests of those owning the financial resources of society.



I don't believe economic freedom belongs in the same category as the others. For example, you and I can hold the same religous beliefs, opposite beliefs or even no beliefs at all. What I do does not impact what you do. Not so with economics. Economics is all about you an I competing for the same goods and services. What you have, I cannot have.


The phrase: "What you have, I cannot have" is really only applicable in a environment of scarcity. Furthermore, in a price system like Capitalism in which commodities are valuated according to its availability, scarce commodities are valued as well as highly valuated which makes scarce diamonds valued as well as highly expensive although the utility of diamonds for everyday use is null. In an environment of abundance this is no longer applicable, but the question becomes whether or not science and technology can develop under a scarcity based price system like Capitalism to the point where if these technologies were fully applied it would make the system unsustainable and therefore obsolete. Or in other words can an economic system develop productive forces like manufacturing technologies to a point where said technologies is detrimental to the very system which produced it? These ultimately depends on factors such as whether or not substitutes to productive technologies like extremely cheap labour is sustainable in the long run against the cost of research and development of productive technologies and its implementation. If that is not the case or if productive technologies could coexist alongside labour intensive production without severely compromising the stability of the economic system then it may not be surprising that a high-tech feudalism may arise.



Additionally, unlike political freedom, there is no "I won't participate" option in economics. All of us must provide for ourselves, for most of us, that means we MUST work. A libertarian would dispute this, but it is so obvious to most people that any politician making such an argument would be a laughing stock. It also explains why social spending remains popular. By insuring ourselves against the worst of possible economic outcomes, we secure the knowledge that even in the worst case we will be able to meet our minimal needs.


Work is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Lottery winners never work in a job they don't like performing in the first place so if they still work it cannot be understood in the traditional meaning of the word. However, if everybody is a lottery winner in the actual physical meaning of the word where everybody is all materially abundant with further production of physical abundance assured then the statement "everybody MUST work" is ABSOLUTELY false. When someone wins a lottery at the present moment what's really happening is that they are attaining abstract debt tokens which may or may not correspond to actual physical wealth depending on whether or not the confidence of currency to be exhanged with physical commodities actually holds up. Example, if you've won the lottery in the midst of a currency collapse, what exactly have you won? A pile of paper with pictures on them? :lol:



In this sense, the welfare state is actually liberating, which explains why it endures.


A welfare state is only sustainable in a closed economy like a national economy. National economies are breaking down in the face of an integrated global economy which ironically is made possible by advances in information technology. Financial transactions can move from one part of the globe to another almost instantaneously which make inefficiencies in surplus value accumulation like welfare state policies punishable by loss of value, but since practically every economy in the world operates on value, that's the only thing that matters.



As for workers and wages. Workers compete for the best jobs, lowering wages and decreasing benifits. It is called supply and demand.


Only partially true. Supply and demand related to value accumulation not quantifiable physical abundance.



No thank you Libertarians.


Agreed, but libertarianism is more than "minimal government interference". It is a fundamentalist secular religion which places individual freedom over individual pragmatism. People are pragmatic in that they rely on "collective" structures and institutions so they don't need to devote resources to do it themselves. There are plenty of example around in contemporary society which if replaced by the libertarian alternative will result in mutual hostility and slaughter. Check out Somalia if don't think otherwise.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Welfare Capitalism does not work and the United States is a perfect example. Those who are wealthy and those that choose not to work are the majority recepients of welfare.

A personal example of this for what its worth:

I will not go into the gory details but a little over a year ago my wife and I seperated(back together currently) because she gave a member of her familly acess to our bank account which was emptied. My wife took her famillies side. I was homeless and had ten dollars in my wallet. I begrudgingly went to the government for help because I did not wish to freeze to death. They would not help me because I was employed and did not have my son with me. They were going to put my on a waiting list for an apartment but did not because I did not have a permanent address. Do not know what part of homeless they did not understand :rolleyes:

To make a long story short I swallowed my pride and borrowed money from my sister to get an apartment(paid back). I have been paying taxes for 19 years and wonder what the hell I am paying for.

[Guerrilla22]

As for workers and wages. Workers compete for the best jobs, lowering wages and decreasing benifits. It is called supply and demand

Actually its called exploitation. Companies lower wages and cut benefits when they could easily make cuts in other sectors, like their own profit margins, which in many cases are in ther millions and billions, like the Ford Motor Company, who recently announced numerous layoffs. They get away with it because they can.

[apathy maybe]

As for workers and wages. Workers compete for the best jobs, lowering wages and decreasing benifits. It is called supply and demand.
Wrong. Why are garbage collectors payed so little? Why if there is so little competition for shit jobs, do they still get payed little? Why do the good jobs get the best pay?

[Capitalist Lawyer]

QUOTE

I want the government to protect my property from everyone's pollution, which comes onto my property without my permission.




Ownership is subjective nonsense that ultimately cannot be logically proven. In the end all ownership claims is derived from the fact that our present economic system evolved from a past society that is based on conquest. This is not surprising since all society needs to go through a predatory stage in development due to the scarcity of resources. The scarcity of resources in turn are caused by the feebleness of productive technologies. In an environment of abundance the concept of ownership is as impossible as it is counter-productive and anti-social. Clearly we are not at that stage in human history yet in which material abundance can be produced with minimal human effort. Therefore, hoarding or in other words ownership claims and conquest is inevitable. A sustainable egalitarian system is only possible and desirable in an environment of abundance. If the feebleness of technology in a given society makes that an impossibility what can only be expected if such an egalitarian system is enforced is mandatory egalitarian destitution as well as mandatory egalitarian toil which is not exactly progressive .


QUOTE

Strong government institutions are needed to create an atmosphere conducive to capitalism.




Capitalism is a social-economic system suited to particular stage of development in human history. Even though defenders of this particular system which is often also its biggest beneficiaries state with conviction that it is the best system to generate material abundance and is the final stage in human history or as Francis Fukuyama states The End of History. It is neither and Capitalism will have its period of decline as a functional system. Strong government institutions will attempt to delay the inevitable decline through use of coercive methods and deflect the causes of social disintegration by blaming them on entirely subjective reasons like morality or ethics. Subjective codes of "ethical" behaviour which undoubtedly provides cohesion to a society to prevent it from regressing into barbarism ultimately is only functional based on the consensus of the participants of a given society. And the consensus of any given participant is determined by a combination of factors including: position in the social hierarchy, material well-being, probability for success in any particular endeavor including "crime", probability of failure and/or in the case of crime the severity of punishment. When all legal avenues to material gain is no longer sufficient to supply material well being to the majority of the people in a society, anti-social behaviour like crime will inevitably increase when in the cost-benefit analysis of desperate people the costs involved from the failure of a criminal endeavor no longer matters when the high probability of physical extinction is present, but those defending a system in decline who are unable or unwilling to admit to the fact of its decline will look for causes in "morality" and apocalyptic mysticism in explaining the cause.


QUOTE

As for health care and social spending, these only acknowledge that we place value on human beings even when markets do not. We may get rid of an auto plant that is no longer useful, but we will not do so with people.




In a commodity system in which goods and services is valuated, utility is secondary to surplus value. To talk of "usefulness" in a price system is meaningless. Economic utility takes precedence over practical utility since economic "growth" is the driving force in all human endeavors. Commodities which are of questionable utility are nevertheless produced because "it pays the rent" so to speak. Of course there are commodities which are useful in a utilitarian sense, but whether or not these get produced and produced in what amounts depends on the interests of those owning the financial resources of society.


QUOTE

I don't believe economic freedom belongs in the same category as the others. For example, you and I can hold the same religous beliefs, opposite beliefs or even no beliefs at all. What I do does not impact what you do. Not so with economics. Economics is all about you an I competing for the same goods and services. What you have, I cannot have.




The phrase: "What you have, I cannot have" is really only applicable in a environment of scarcity. Furthermore, in a price system like Capitalism in which commodities are valuated according to its availability, scarce commodities are valued as well as highly valuated which makes scarce diamonds valued as well as highly expensive although the utility of diamonds for everyday use is null. In an environment of abundance this is no longer applicable, but the question becomes whether or not science and technology can develop under a scarcity based price system like Capitalism to the point where if these technologies were fully applied it would make the system unsustainable and therefore obsolete. Or in other words can an economic system develop productive forces like manufacturing technologies to a point where said technologies is detrimental to the very system which produced it? These ultimately depends on factors such as whether or not substitutes to productive technologies like extremely cheap labour is sustainable in the long run against the cost of research and development of productive technologies and its implementation. If that is not the case or if productive technologies could coexist alongside labour intensive production without severely compromising the stability of the economic system then it may not be surprising that a high-tech feudalism may arise.


QUOTE

Additionally, unlike political freedom, there is no "I won't participate" option in economics. All of us must provide for ourselves, for most of us, that means we MUST work. A libertarian would dispute this, but it is so obvious to most people that any politician making such an argument would be a laughing stock. It also explains why social spending remains popular. By insuring ourselves against the worst of possible economic outcomes, we secure the knowledge that even in the worst case we will be able to meet our minimal needs.




Work is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Lottery winners never work in a job they don't like performing in the first place so if they still work it cannot be understood in the traditional meaning of the word. However, if everybody is a lottery winner in the actual physical meaning of the word where everybody is all materially abundant with further production of physical abundance assured then the statement "everybody MUST work" is ABSOLUTELY false. When someone wins a lottery at the present moment what's really happening is that they are attaining abstract debt tokens which may or may not correspond to actual physical wealth depending on whether or not the confidence of currency to be exhanged with physical commodities actually holds up. Example, if you've won the lottery in the midst of a currency collapse, what exactly have you won? A pile of paper with pictures on them?


QUOTE

In this sense, the welfare state is actually liberating, which explains why it endures.




A welfare state is only sustainable in a closed economy like a national economy. National economies are breaking down in the face of an integrated global economy which ironically is made possible by advances in information technology. Financial transactions can move from one part of the globe to another almost instantaneously which make inefficiencies in surplus value accumulation like welfare state policies punishable by loss of value, but since practically every economy in the world operates on value, that's the only thing that matters.


QUOTE

As for workers and wages. Workers compete for the best jobs, lowering wages and decreasing benifits. It is called supply and demand.




Only partially true. Supply and demand related to value accumulation not quantifiable physical abundance.


QUOTE

No thank you Libertarians.




Agreed, but libertarianism is more than "minimal government interference". It is a fundamentalist secular religion which places individual freedom over individual pragmatism. People are pragmatic in that they rely on "collective" structures and institutions so they don't need to devote resources to do it themselves. There are plenty of example around in contemporary society which if replaced by the libertarian alternative will result in mutual hostility and slaughter. Check out Somalia if don't think otherwise.


I have no idea what the hell you just said.

And how come there aren't too many replies to my thread? Have I convinced all of you that the extreme left nor the extreme right is the correct way of going about things?

[JudeObscure84]

No he is right. Not even Alan Greenspan, a high ranking Randian, believes in a fully free market anymore.

Contrary to populat belief, not even Hayek believed in a full free market.

But with that being saidd one can be a capitalist in favor of government intervention and some methods of welfare without being a socialist.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 21 2006, 02:39 AM
I question if any market can truly be totally free. There are many things that can muck up the works, including and other than government. That said, the market is the best tool available to point to what should be produced, what should be cut etc. Does it maximize consumer welfare?
No. Go to a larger supermarket the toothpaste section is a good place to start and observe how many difrent but almost idententical types of things are produced. It is such a waste.

[Atlas Swallowed]

Originally posted by Capitalist [email protected] 7 2006, 03:25 AM
I have no idea what the hell you just said.

And how come there aren't too many replies to my thread? Have I convinced all of you that the extreme left nor the extreme right is the correct way of going about things?
That is childish logic. I do not understand therefore it is wrong :rolleyes:

Non-response is agreement :blink:

I hope you are not a defense lawyer, it would be a shame if someones future depended on your ability to defend them :)

[Storming Heaven]

I want the government to protect my property from everyone's pollution, which comes onto my property without my permission.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Pollution enters your property without your permission?! Dear Lord!! I wonder why that is?

My friend, it is capitalism that allows pollution to become a problem in our world.It does this because it privatises the benefits (i.e. profits) while socialising the costs of production (e.g. pollution). Since those who make decisions in industry are the same people who receive a the benefits - dispraportionatly to the costs - the chance of them making a good decision (by weighing cost and benefit against each other) is insanely low! The capitalist owner sees millions of dollars of profit where many locals see the polluted waterways and foul fumes. And you wonder why pollution is a problem?

But perhaps, as you mention, the government can provide protection against the pollution generated by big corperates; through the imposition of fines or some other measure. It sounds like a solid plan, until you realise that the biggest polluters - those who will be negativly affected by the proposed regulation - are the same people who fund the government! No effective regulation is possible - if it imacted severy enough upon profits to acheive it's stated goal, then the polluters would pull their support for the government...