Challenge For Cappies

[red team]

Here's a challenge for you Capitalist sympathisers.

Attempt to disprove that following the logic of your system results in the following situations.

They all cause hardships, unnecessary labour, inefficiencies and environmental destruction where none would exist before, so if you can't disprove that the Capitalist system allows for the following scenarios to be possible then Capitalism isn't really a humane or progessive system as you supporters claim it is. If it isn't a humane system then why would the majority of humanity ever support it since it would be going against their interests? Then wouldn't the rebellion and the fall of the Capitalist system be inevitable? :D


1. A factory dumps toxic industrial waste into a previously clear and drinkable river introducing pollution into it where none exist before. What previously could have been a freely available natural resource for farming irrigation or domestic water supplies is destroyed. A bottled water company comes along which may or may not be owned by the same people who own the factory and starts operations to fullfil a need, by charging a fee for this service of course, in providing fresh water by purifying the water from the same river or stream through burning fuel to run the water purification equipment. The justification for profiting off of providing what previously was a freely available natural resource is of course the same tired excuse spouted by the cunning financial tricksters throughout the ages and that is the "need" for supporting "administrative" costs. What was freely available before now costs more fuel to make available again introducing an real physical inefficiency which costs the previous consumers of this freely available resource extra labour and wages which is of course all "earned" back by the same people who own the factory and water bottling plant. The burnt fuel which of course is not the responsibility of the owners of either the factory or the water bottling plant blows out of the huge exhausts of both places to degrade the air quality and cause long term harm to the climate system.

2. The owners of a insurance company for housing insurance is losing business because nobody is buying insurance for their relatively safe houses. The quickest solution to this problem is to subcontract an arsonist to burn down a few houses without sprinkler systems. Having the fear of losing their place of shelter put into them, the owners of old, shoddy houses instead of buying sprinkler systems which are expensive to install in houses that were never planned with one opts to buy insurance from your insurance company thus solving the problem of the company gaining customers and thus revenue which otherwise would not have been necessary with the proper fire fighting equipment installed in the old houses through government housing support programs.

3. The health industry in the process of staying in business charge everybody an expensive fee for diseases which root cause is the malnutrition caused by a junk food diet and lack of exercise, but instead of lowering the cost and encouraging public awareness of the importance of nutritious foods and exercises, a food industry is developed where cheap to make (and therefore profitable), but nutritionally questionable food is the lowest in cost and is mass produced for consumption by a constantly sick population which visits the doctor ever so often because of ill health caused by non-nutritious foods. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.

4. A public transportation system and urban planning in which decentralizes business and industry so that people can get to work within a short distance of where they live is scrapped in favour of a centralized urban planning scheme where suburbs are located far away from a central business core in "downtown" and effective public transit infrastructure is destroyed in favour of a car industry and car culture which burns more fuel than was previously necessary when cars inevitably gets stuck in traffic jams where independent cars all heading in different directions meet in traffic intersections designed by morons. So now instead of short distances to workplaces in transit times measured in minutes we have long distances to work with transit times measured in hours. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.

[RevMARKSman]

Great examples but with one problem: No rivers are drinkable unless you want to either: 1) boil the water for x minutes corresponding to your elevation or 2) get giardia.

[cubist]

actually if you dig down about 1 ft away from the river bank down below the river water you will find water that toxins and poisons have been filtered out bythe mud,

so you can drink river water.

[colonelguppy]

i don't oppose government environmental protection

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Why can't your glorious free market regulate the industrial and agricultural sectors' generation of pollution?

[pusher robot]

1. A factory dumps toxic industrial waste into a previously clear and drinkable river introducing pollution into it where none exist before. What previously could have been a freely available natural resource for farming irrigation or domestic water supplies is destroyed. A bottled water company comes along which may or may not be owned by the same people who own the factory and starts operations to fullfil a need, by charging a fee for this service of course, in providing fresh water by purifying the water from the same river or stream through burning fuel to run the water purification equipment. The justification for profiting off of providing what previously was a freely available natural resource is of course the same tired excuse spouted by the cunning financial tricksters throughout the ages and that is the "need" for supporting "administrative" costs. What was freely available before now costs more fuel to make available again introducing an real physical inefficiency which costs the previous consumers of this freely available resource extra labour and wages which is of course all "earned" back by the same people who own the factory and water bottling plant. The burnt fuel which of course is not the responsibility of the owners of either the factory or the water bottling plant blows out of the huge exhausts of both places to degrade the air quality and cause long term harm to the climate system.

A. You are assuming no regulation of the navigable waters, which may be invalid. Even a capitalist system could contemplate civil regulation for resources subject to the "tragedy of the commons." Thus, the problem could be avoided by doing as the United States has - declare all navigable waters to be property of the government, which is charged with regulating their use in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner.
B. A capitalist government would have a robust civil court system, so that farmers and others with usufructuary rights would have to be compensated for the degredation in their water supply. What you propose is not a new development - property rights have evolved to accomodate such things going as far back as early English common law.
C. Your point about ineffeciency is based on assumptions that may not be true. Even with re-cleaning and bottling the water to be made potable, it may still cost less than to not emit the contaminants in the first place. Unless you believe that there is an intrinsic value to uncontaminated water, it may sometimes be socially desirable to pollute the water in exchange for some other value.


2. The owners of a insurance company for housing insurance is losing business because nobody is buying insurance for their relatively safe houses. The quickest solution to this problem is to subcontract an arsonist to burn down a few houses without sprinkler systems. Having the fear of losing their place of shelter put into them, the owners of old, shoddy houses instead of buying sprinkler systems which are expensive to install in houses that were never planned with one opts to buy insurance from your insurance company thus solving the problem of the company gaining customers and thus revenue which otherwise would not have been necessary with the proper fire fighting equipment installed in the old houses through government housing support programs.

A. Arson is already a severe crime in every capitalist society, punishable by, at minimum, huge fines and long terms of imprisonment. To argue that capitalists condone an activity so punishable is, frankly, ridiculous.


3. The health industry in the process of staying in business charge everybody an expensive fee for diseases which root cause is the malnutrition caused by a junk food diet and lack of exercise, but instead of lowering the cost and encouraging public awareness of the importance of nutritious foods and exercises, a food industry is developed where cheap to make (and therefore profitable), but nutritionally questionable food is the lowest in cost and is mass produced for consumption by a constantly sick population which visits the doctor ever so often because of ill health caused by non-nutritious foods. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.

A. If people are dissatisfied with their health care treatment, they will seek out more satisfactory treatment. In a free market, people who are constantly sick will continue looking for doctors who will make them well. Faced with a demand for different advice, competing health care providers will provide it. In point of fact there is absolutely no shortage of real-life medical professionals issuing the warnings you describe and urging better diet and exercise. The real problem is the unwillingness of people to exercise or give up their cheap, tasty junk food - for whatever reasons, they have decided it isn't worth the health benefits. Similarly, there is no shortage of health warnings for smoking, yet people still choose to smoke. Ineffecient? Perhaps - but freedom is inefficient by nature. The goal is to make sure that an ineffeciency is justly allocated.



4. A public transportation system and urban planning in which decentralizes business and industry so that people can get to work within a short distance of where they live is scrapped in favour of a centralized urban planning scheme where suburbs are located far away from a central business core in "downtown" and effective public transit infrastructure is destroyed in favour of a car industry and car culture which burns more fuel than was previously necessary when cars inevitably gets stuck in traffic jams where independent cars all heading in different directions meet in traffic intersections designed by morons. So now instead of short distances to workplaces in transit times measured in minutes we have long distances to work with transit times measured in hours. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.
You are reversing cause and effect. It wasn't urban planning that forced people to flee to the suburbs, it was flight to the suburbs that forced decentralized planning. People left the cities because the liked having their own little house with their own little yard, with lower population densities. Does this cause some businesses to profit and others to suffer? Of course, just like people preferring chicken to fish would be good for KFC and bad for Red Lobster. Your question is irrelevant because you haven't proven the premise that under socialism, people wouldn't still rather live in a low-density neighborhood - unless you plan to move people into the cities by force. Capitalists would not contemplate such a violation of personal autonomy.

[Dr Mindbender]

Regarding the example on rivers- red team could have mentioned the fishing industry. Lets say in our hypothetical river we have a colony of salmon, but along comes a polluting company who kill off the fish. Using the process red team mentioned the capitalist could filter the water for a charge of course, and build their own fish farm in it where before there was a free source of fish.

As for the health industry, Sure, people can choose which doctor they want under a private economy but if doctor A charges a sum that i can afford but offers a lousy service, and doctor B charges a sum which is outside my price range but offers the treatment i need then that illusion of 'choice' is next to meaningless and Im pretty screwed arent i?

[pusher robot]

Regarding the example on rivers- red team could have mentioned the fishing industry. Lets say in our hypothetical river we have a colony of salmon, but along comes a polluting company who kill off the fish. Using the process red team mentioned the capitalist could filter the water for a charge of course, and build their own fish farm in it where before there was a free source of fish.

My rebuttal points still stand. If you own a right to fish the river, then a degradation of that interest is clearly actionable in civil court.


As for the health industry, Sure, people can choose which doctor they want under a private economy but if doctor A charges a sum that i can afford but offers a lousy service, and doctor B charges a sum which is outside my price range but offers the treatment i need then that illusion of 'choice' is next to meaningless and Im pretty screwed arent i?

The free market provides an obvious disincentive to this outcome. Doctor B will try to get his price to a level that you can afford because for all possible prices where the marginal revenue is greater than zero, revenue from Price(B)*1 > revenue from Price(A)*0. If he simply cannot lower his costs that much, then that means that you cannot even cover the actual costs of treating you, and you are asking him to sacrifice of himself for your own gain.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 12, 2007 10:13 pm

As for the health industry, Sure, people can choose which doctor they want under a private economy but if doctor A charges a sum that i can afford but offers a lousy service, and doctor B charges a sum which is outside my price range but offers the treatment i need then that illusion of 'choice' is next to meaningless and Im pretty screwed arent i?

The free market provides an obvious disincentive to this outcome. Doctor B will try to get his price to a level that you can afford because for all possible prices where the marginal revenue is greater than zero, revenue from Price(B)*1 > revenue from Price(A)*0. If he simply cannot lower his costs that much, then that means that you cannot even cover the actual costs of treating you, and you are asking him to sacrifice of himself for your own gain.
Profit of doctors is more important than health of patients? And you wonder why we call you heartless?

So, how is it that you sleep at night?

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)My rebuttal points still stand. If you own a right to fish the river, then a degradation of that interest is clearly actionable in civil court.[/b]
The 'ownership' of the river is a moot point. If prior to the industrialisation the river was providing a free source of nourishment (and possibly water as red team pointed out) and this changes then clearly it is a violation against the interests of the community in general, especially those that cant afford whatever service company x is providing.

pusher robot

The free market provides an obvious disincentive to this outcome. Doctor B will try to get his price to a level that you can afford because for all possible prices where the marginal revenue is greater than zero, revenue from Price(B)*1 > revenue from Price(A)*0. If he simply cannot lower his costs that much, then that means that you cannot even cover the actual costs of treating you, and you are asking him to sacrifice of himself for your own gain.
If both doctors are working within a nationalised industry, it no longer becomes an issue. I would rather live in a society where everyone has access to competent healthcare, rather than just a few elite members of society having excellent service and everyone else having nothing.

[pusher robot]

Profit of doctors is more important than health of patients? And you wonder why we call you heartless?

I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.


If prior to the industrialisation the river was providing a free source of nourishment (and possibly water as red team pointed out) and this changes then clearly it is a violation against the interests of the community in general.

How can you know that for certain? Perhaps the industry produces something far more valuable to the community than fish. Which community is better off? That which lives on subsistence activity and needs the fish to live? Or that which has high-paying factory jobs and can afford to trade for whatever food they wish?


I would rather live in a society where everyone has access to competent healthcare, rather than just a few elite members of society having excellent service and everyone else having nothing.

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

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.
[/b]
The ruling class demand that all sorts of workers commit themselves to a particular industry or sector where there are opportunity shortages without any sort of moral dilemma. In the UK certainly, doctors within the NHS live very comfortably so your concerns for the doctors general happiness are irrelevant.

Originally posted by pusher [email protected]

How can you know that for certain? Perhaps the industry produces something far more valuable to the community than fish. Which community is better off? That which lives on subsistence activity and needs the fish to live? Or that which has high-paying factory jobs and can afford to trade for whatever food they wish?

Nutrition and water are base needs. Most factories tend to utilise base ingredients to manufacture goods which are less versatile, so the chances are the factory will not be of greater use than had they not been there. The local inhabitants of this theoretical place could quite easilly catch the fish, and trade the fish at a higher value than whatever the capitalists are willing to pay them for it.
Furthermore, factory jobs in practice seldomly tend to be 'highly paid'

pusher robot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
I was hoping for a discernable response rather than a link with very ambiguous intent.
What a cop-out.

[luxemburg89]

In the UK certainly, doctors within the NHS live very comfortably so your concerns for the doctors general happiness are irrelevant

That's very true. My uncle is a doctor on the NHS and he has no complaints.

pusher robot is here displaying his true motive: to provoke us. He also shows that, for all his 'apparent' intelligence, he is still an absolute wanker at heart. He does, despite any declaration henceforth, support a system by which a person's health is held to ransom. He believes that even those who cannot afford operations should have to pay for them.


I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.

And yet you happily acknowledge and support a system that actively enslaves workers and holds the sick to ransom? You are the one who is sick, and no amount of money will help you relieve your sickness. I hope you choke on your greed. I hope the chains with which your system constrains those who suffer for your 'comfort' will one day be used to strangle you.

pusher robot likes to try and take the moral highground, I say we push him off his great height.

[Rollo]

" You'll work for me or you won't work at all "

Yay for the abolishment for slavery.

[Publius]

I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.


That's because you don't live in a place where you can hear the sick and the dying.

I'm sure you can find a widow ruined by the medical industry to wail and keep you up at night, if you really tried.

[pusher robot]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13, 2007 01:52 am


I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.


That's because you don't live in a place where you can hear the sick and the dying.

I'm sure you can find a widow ruined by the medical industry to wail and keep you up at night, if you really tried.
This is simply reasoning by emotion. I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors. I give zero credence to the "more empathetic than thou" argument-by-feeling.

I was asked to defend certain things, and I defended them with logical arguments. So far, the chief response has been to essentially accuse me of not caring enough. I will not play that game. My emotions, my feelings, even my motivations are irrelevancies. If you disagree with my premises, argue the premises. If you disagree with my deductions, argue the deductions. Arguing that I simply don't understand the mystical truth of communism only convinces me that it is nothing more than religion-in-fact.


The ruling class demand that all sorts of workers commit themselves to a particular industry or sector where there are opportunity shortages without any sort of moral dilemma.

They are in no position to make such demands. They can make offers for exchange, and that is all.


In the UK certainly, doctors within the NHS live very comfortably so your concerns for the doctors general happiness are irrelevant.
First, do you deny the net outflow of physicians from the UK to the US exists? Secondly, it proves my point. Even in NHS, doctors are well-compensated for their work. Indeed, their high wages are guaranteed by force of law. I was responding to the hypothetical that a doctor is obligated to treat patients at his own expense, which clearly is not the case even in NHS. Agreed?



Nutrition and water are base needs. Most factories tend to utilise base ingredients to manufacture goods which are less versatile, so the chances are the factory will not be of greater use than had they not been there. The local inhabitants of this theoretical place could quite easilly catch the fish, and trade the fish at a higher value than whatever the capitalists are willing to pay them for it.

There's no inherent validity to that assumption. Fish may be abundant up the river and of value only to those who need it for immediate suvival. Perhaps the industry is a productive oil well producing raw materials many times the value of the fish destroyed. It all depends on context-specific conditions.


Furthermore, factory jobs in practice seldomly tend to be 'highly paid'

They are compared to subsistence living.



pusher robot is here displaying his true motive: to provoke us. He also shows that, for all his 'apparent' intelligence, he is still an absolute wanker at heart.

Sophistic bluster. Also irrelevant.


He believes that even those who cannot afford operations should have to pay for them.

Oh? Where did I say any such thing? Perhaps I only argued that the surgeon should not be forced to bear the costs...


I hope you choke on your greed. I hope the chains with which your system constrains those who suffer for your 'comfort' will one day be used to strangle you.

I hope your hate keeps you warm. It's obvious you don't understand my motives at all.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)They are in no position to make such demands. They can make offers for exchange, and that is all.[/b]
Absolutely they are in a position to make such demands . The priveliged establishment are the ones dominating the workplaces and universities. They are the ones guarding all the doors and holding all the keys. The working man has 2 choices, 1-work for the employing capitalist class(who generally as a rule of thumb presides over most employment opportunities within a given area) whom dictates all terms of employment or 2-destition. Any suggestion of choice is practically whimsical; and nothing more than an illusion.

Originally posted by pusher [email protected]

There's no inherent validity to that assumption. Fish may be abundant up the river and of value only to those who need it for immediate suvival. Perhaps the industry is a productive oil well producing raw materials many times the value of the fish destroyed. It all depends on context-specific conditions.
I fail to understand why the process of harvesting the fish oil must be carried out by the capitalist factory. All they will do is crush the fish livers to extract the afforementioned oil (which anyone could do) and flog it to the general public at extortionate prices in order to pay for the packaging.
Regarding your point about job creation, fisherman live considerably better off than the average factory worker. In Scotland, some earn about £1000 a week (about $1700 of your US dollars)

pusher robot

First, do you deny the net outflow of physicians from the UK to the US exists? Secondly, it proves my point. Even in NHS, doctors are well-compensated for their work. Indeed, their high wages are guaranteed by force of law. I was responding to the hypothetical that a doctor is obligated to treat patients at his own expense, which clearly is not the case even in NHS. Agreed?

No not agreed. Most British doctors I have encountered enjoy 6-figure incomes and by in large, very dignified standards of living as luxembourg was kind enough to point out was the case with his uncle. I am not aware of any 'mass migration' of british doctors to the united states. Over here we have a lot of migrant Filipino medical staff, but in the Phillipines they have a privatised medical system so it says more about your ideaology than it does about ours.


...When pusher robot posts am I the only one that imagines 'the architect' from the Matrix in my head? :lol:
http://home.lbcc.cc.ca.us/~mlawrence/Phil%206/architect%20close.jpg

[pusher robot]

The working man has 2 choices, 1-work for the employing capitalist class(who generally as a rule of thumb presides over most employment opportunities within a given area) whom dictates all terms of employment or 2-destition.

I disagree with this characterization. First, by portraying all employment opportunities as a single class, you artificially lump together many discrete choices to make it appear as though there are only two choices. I could claim, for example, the gross unfairness of the fact that if I want to buy a car, my only options are to buy one with wheels or not buy one at all; but of course, this is not in itself evidence of collusion on behalf of car manufacturers to force me into buying a car with wheels. Likewise, it is simply not the case that all employers are engaged in a giant conspiracy to effect a certain result. In reality, each employer is competing against the others for the pool of available workers, creating a plethora of distinct and different choices.

Second, a large segment of the "working class" do not work for a "capitalist" at all, in proportions that vary depending on the attractiveness of employment opportunities; they work for the government or for themselves, so your statement is empirically false.


Any suggestion of choice is practically whimsical; and nothing more than an illusion.

Isn't this really just a profound-sounding way of saying that your ideal choice isn't offered? It is actually an very self-centered point of view. "I can't get exactly what I want, therefore, all the choices are meaningless."


I fail to understand why the process of harvesting the fish oil must be carried out by the capitalist factory. All they will do is crush the fish livers to extract the afforementioned oil (which anyone could do) and flog it to the general public at extortionate prices in order to pay for the packaging.

I was talking about petroleum oil, but it doesn't matter. The answer is that there is no reason at all that the process must be carried out by a capitalist factory. It simply happens to usually work out that way because whoever takes the initiative and underwrites the risk of building the factory ends up owning it. But to be certain, if the people in that community wanted to start a cooperative nonprofit corporation that sells the oil at wholesale to the general community, no capitalist ought to object to that. They will, of course, still have to compete against other corporations that may believe they can offer the product for an even lower price by lowering the costs of production, which is good. Lower costs are a good thing.


Regarding your point about job creation, fisherman live considerably better off than the average factory worker. In Scotland, some earn about £1000 a week (about $1700 of your US dollars)True, but those fisherman are hardly performing what we would call "subsistence" fishing. They don't need those fish to survive. They only need them for profit. If they could make $2000 a week pumping oil and killing fish, they would likely do that.


No not agreed. Most British doctors I have encountered enjoy 6-figure incomes and by in large, very dignified standards of living as luxembourg was kind enough to point out was the case with his uncle.

Well what then are you disagreeing about? I said that doctors in NHS are well-compensated for their work and that they don't perform it at their own expense. You responded by saying, no, they make 6-figure incomes and have high standards of living. Huh? It appears we are saying the same thing.


I am not aware of any 'mass migration' of british doctors to the united states.

No mass migration, but the flow is extremely unidirectional. See, e.g., this chart from an article in the NEJM which indicates a sample annual migration of 79 doctors from the US to UK and 3,439 doctors from the UK to the US: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/17/1810/F1.


Over here we have a lot of migrant Filipino medical staff, but in the Phillipines they have a privatised medical system so it says more about your ideaology than it does about ours.

The statistics indicate that more than three times more doctors left the UK for the US than entered the UK from all locations. For every one doctor that came into the UK, at least ten left it. If you believe that this speaks as to ideological merits, than I am afraid that the facts say the exact opposite that you seem to think they do.

EDIT:

...When pusher robot posts am I the only one that imagines 'the architect' from the Matrix in my head?
I take that as a compliment! He was by far the most logical character in the entire trilogy.

[luxemburg89]

This is simply reasoning by emotion. I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors.

Typical Capitalist - no soul, no emotion. It wasn't your 'logic' or 'rational' thinking that won the second world war, it was the dedicated emotions of the anti-fascists. You talk as if you are far better than us, perhaps you're right in one sense, none of us would be able to sleep at night supporting a system that exploits so many. For that, you must be congratulated, but I would also like you to tell me how your system plans to cure this:

http://www.mrdowling.com/611starving.jpg
http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/hires-image/...starving_bw.jpg (http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/hires-image/child_starving_bw.jpg)
http://community.iexplore.com/photos/journ...mallAngola5.jpg (http://community.iexplore.com/photos/journal_photos/SmallAngola5.jpg)

Talk of your costs, benefits, incentives and rational factors all you want pusher robot, it's the bare emotions that will save people, and overthrow your system. If you have kids pusher robot I want you to know that they are only not starving by an accident of birth, people in Africa and other places across the world starve because your system benefits you. Every penny more for you is a penny less for those who need it - such is the nature of capitalism. The cost is human life, and the benefit, to you, is that your pathetic soulless existence continues; the incentives are you getting rich at the expense of others, your 'rational factors' are pathetic. We ask you again, how do you sleep at night?

With as much hate as 8am will allow,
Lux :angry:

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 12, 2007 11:08 pm
I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.

What are you talking about? Enslaving doctors? :lol: It is deeply offensive to the millions of people who still suffer the horrors of slavery worldwide to claim that high earning doctors who simply get paid for through a national health service rather than by charging their patients are slaves.

Incidentally this is a favourite topic of my Mother, who is a doctor herself. Her opinion? Any doctor acting out of a desire for money rather than out of a medical vocation is incapable of acting in their patient's best interests and should be struck off the medical register.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:05 am
This is simply reasoning by emotion. I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors. I give zero credence to the "more empathetic than thou" argument-by-feeling.

And here you are making a huge mistake. Here is a couple of documentaries that were on television a few months ago. The first points out the general flaw in presuming everyone is a rational actor in the way you perceive it. Both show the flaws in applying it to medicine, but the second does so particularly well. Thre was a third episode as well. I will post it when I find a working link to it.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...rap+adam+curtis (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8372545413887273321&q=the+trap+adam+curtis)

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...rap+adam+curtis (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7849982478877371384&q=the+trap+adam+curtis)

[red team]

A. You are assuming no regulation of the navigable waters, which may be invalid. Even a capitalist system could contemplate civil regulation for resources subject to the "tragedy of the commons." Thus, the problem could be avoided by doing as the United States has - declare all navigable waters to be property of the government, which is charged with regulating their use in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory manner.

Only if can assume that government officials can't be bribed which also assumes that the business interests which holds the money of society would put up for election a candidate of strong moral character that would uphold the public interest in all cases without being swayed by the same people who put him/her up there to be chosen by the ignorant public in the election show in the first place.

A very strange assumption...


B. A capitalist government would have a robust civil court system, so that farmers and others with usufructuary rights would have to be compensated for the degredation in their water supply. What you propose is not a new development - property rights have evolved to accomodate such things going as far back as early English common law.

Again, this assumes that free resources that may be used by people with less money than people with money invested resources by people who have the money to pay for very expensive (from a money perspective) resources are equally valuable in money driven economy.

A very strange assumption...

Particularly given that this scenario is very likely:

Natural diamonds which have the richest deposits in parts of the African continent have no utility outside of the jewelry industry which mainly serve to increase the already bloated pretentiousness, vanity and arrogance of the moneyed classes since they are usually the ones who are most likely to able to afford them in the first place. There are already processes available for industrial diamonds useful for applications in those areas so the natural diamonds are only demanded because of their cosmetic value.

For most people in Africa, their main demand is food, shelter and a good education for their children. Quite simple and utilitarian needs, but for a diamond company whose needs are non-utilitarian, but monetary, developing better farming equipment and techniques for the "poor" people of the African continent is worthless as compared to mining diamonds and hiring local militia (as they very often do) in both terrorizing the locals to leave the diamond fields and to serve as foremans and guards for their diamond mining operations.

So now you have this situation where diamonds, which are nothing more than hard shiny stones, are more expensive and therefore valuable to a company with money to invest than food, shelter and sometimes the lives of people who have no money, but could collectively have more food, shelter and education than the people demanding the diamonds if given the resources to develop these things. So you really have a contradiction, where diamonds which are useless from a utility perspective are more valuable than investment needed to provide for actually useful products like food, shelter and education, again from a utility perspective.


C. Your point about ineffeciency is based on assumptions that may not be true. Even with re-cleaning and bottling the water to be made potable, it may still cost less than to not emit the contaminants in the first place. Unless you believe that there is an intrinsic value to uncontaminated water, it may sometimes be socially desirable to pollute the water in exchange for some other value.

That's the most ridiculous thing I have read.

The net energy expended in regaining a lost, but useful resource is more than the energy needed to utilize the same resource if it was left alone, therefore it took more labour, energy and resources in building up and running machinery, infrastructure and manual work than when there was the original problem that was needed to be solved by creating the factory, assuming that there was indeed a real problem that the factory was created to solve.

To take your point to it's absurd, silly conclusion it's as if I use by bare fists to hammer down a nail on a machine that makes bandages, so that I can bandage-up my now bloodied fist. It never occurred to you to use a hammer on the nail to create the bandage making machine, but if it did occur to you, it would also occur to you that you don't need a bandage in the first place and you would use your tools to make something else more useful, since that would be (surprise, surprise!) a net gain in the use of energy and resources.

The whole point of the first scenario I presented was to find a contradiction between utility and value as represented by money and commodities which are traded for money because they have a monetary value. Does monetary value equate with utility, answer: not always. Does creating monetary value destroy utility that is could creating something which is valuable in terms of money destroy something else which is valuable in utility, but not in monetary value, answer: sometimes.
But the way in which a money circulation economy runs means that actual needs that may or may not be fulfilled are irrelevant to the creating of new artificial "needs" that are more lucrative in monetary value, but may or may not be actually useful, which backs up my point that Capitalism is not a humane (which is synonymous with utilitarian) system. It runs on its own monetary logic.


A. Arson is already a severe crime in every capitalist society, punishable by, at minimum, huge fines and long terms of imprisonment. To argue that capitalists condone an activity so punishable is, frankly, ridiculous.

Not, necessarily. I'm simply pointing out the reverse scenario of what happens all the time with financially induced arson. A failing business which have fire insurance burns down their own store in order to recover some of the insurance money which is sort of like hoping for a fire to break out in an old, shoddy buildings without proper firefighting equipment or failing that, simply buy an old, rickety house and set it on fire yourself, so instead of building sturdy structures with proper fire equipment a disaster lottery is set up for fearful people to buy into. But, with plenty of century old structures with bad wiring dotting the cities of every industrialized country in the world, I'm exaggerating a bit on intent (but only a little).

Further, I'm pointing out the fact that motivation for destructive and often criminal behaviour could also be the same motivation for a business which "cures" it. If I'm a computer technician which helps people get rid of software viruses on their computer, my best friend from a business perspective would be software virus writer and my worst enemy, again from a business perspective, would be a secure, hard to infect computer system that is user friendly.

But, I'm singling out insurance for another reason and that is the whole concept of insurance stinks of a protection racket where instead of intentional acts of harm being perpetrated, the owners of the insurance racket gets rich from the insecurity of people over some disaster that might happen. If I'm paying for insurance for something that might occur, but never does over the time that I'm paying you then shouldn't I be entitled to have my money back? If I don't get my money back then what is it exactly that I'm purchasing since the whole point of insurance is to set up a fund to cover my costs if some disaster does occur? If you keep my money then aren't you being dishonest about what I'm purchasing since insurance really is a wager against disaster, but you're still keeping my money even though you've lost that wager? I have no problem with a reserve disaster fund that is set up as a non-profit service, since we live in a messy world where even the most stringent safeguards can't guarantee that a rare occurence of a disaster cannot happen, but what exactly is a for profit insurance company "earning" for their investors when insurance policy holders pay money to insure for events that never happen? And, this is not a trivial question as some of the richest corporations in the world are insurance companies.

Further, since insurance companies operate on profit they would do everything to keep their profits high, even though disaster may have affected the majority of the insurance holders by sneakily avoiding payout by manipulating the wording of the contract to only cover certain situations that could only occur in a fantasy world. Take hurricane insurance versus flood insurance for instance where flooding would mean the overflowing of water in causing the destruction of your house, but not by excessive precipitation as would occur in hurricane weather. Yes, the insurance would still be valid, but only if the water fairy magically caused a overflowing of the river. It would seem that insurance company executives and investors are ethically only one step above your average mobster who is threatening people for "protection" money.

Let's compare their implied salespitch:

Mafia: "If you don't pay protection money, I can't guarantee your safety".
But, if you do pay, the only protection you'll get is from their violence.

Insurance company: "If you don't pay protection money, I can't guarantee your safety".
But, if you do pay, you'll only get protection if you can prove to them that you didn't do it yourself.
But, also if it only covers certain situations, but not others.


A. If people are dissatisfied with their health care treatment, they will seek out more satisfactory treatment. In a free market, people who are constantly sick will continue looking for doctors who will make them well. Faced with a demand for different advice, competing health care providers will provide it. In point of fact there is absolutely no shortage of real-life medical professionals issuing the warnings you describe and urging better diet and exercise. The real problem is the unwillingness of people to exercise or give up their cheap, tasty junk food - for whatever reasons, they have decided it isn't worth the health benefits. Similarly, there is no shortage of health warnings for smoking, yet people still choose to smoke. Ineffecient? Perhaps - but freedom is inefficient by nature. The goal is to make sure that an ineffeciency is justly allocated.

No, it is a matter of fostering a healthy culture and education which focuses on critical thinking both of which are not in the interest of people making money from shoddy goods and services (which are cheaply made) sold to stupid, gullible people. If you think all cultures are created equal then are you agreeing that "voluntary" wife immolation upon a husband's death. is a worthy cultural artifact from Hindu India to preserve? What about "honor" killings for rape victims as practiced in Islamic culture? Bounded feet in feudal China? A mass consumer culture of superficiality, selfishness, stupidity and gullibility fits perfectly with a mass consumer society. Health is simply another mass-produced commodity to be consumed if you get sick from consuming mass-produced (and cheap) junk food and narcotics in Capitalism when health used to mean the fostering of good lifestyle habits and food helpful in attaining health and preventing sickness in addition to curative medicine.


You are reversing cause and effect. It wasn't urban planning that forced people to flee to the suburbs, it was flight to the suburbs that forced decentralized planning. People left the cities because the liked having their own little house with their own little yard, with lower population densities. Does this cause some businesses to profit and others to suffer? Of course, just like people preferring chicken to fish would be good for KFC and bad for Red Lobster. Your question is irrelevant because you haven't proven the premise that under socialism, people wouldn't still rather live in a low-density neighborhood - unless you plan to move people into the cities by force. Capitalists would not contemplate such a violation of personal autonomy.

So are you saying that people in crowded, dirty and high rent cities like Hong Kong, prefer living that way if they weren't presented with some other way of living as planned out in a rational way? I really failed to see why they would put up with it if given a viable alternative.

Further, work like every other institution in society can be structured to be as decentralized as people living in the suburbs are used to decentralized residences. There are many cities in the world including American cities where schools and other public places are decentralized to serve the local neighborhood where they reside. It doesn't really make sense to have little Johnny and Jenny wake up to go to the downtown megatower elementary school. No, it doesn't work that way, but perhaps when all the schools have been privatized then going to Trump Towers elementary or Microsoft high in their gleaming downtown glass tower campuses would not seem strange, but having workplaces as centralized as it is now is the same social engineering scenario only that most people including you don't realize it because you don't question the justification of it being done that way. I do.

But, why is big businesses centralized and schools so far aren't? Hierarchicial structures where power and wealth is centralized at the top of the pyramid mirrors itself in the hierarchical architecture of the urban society. There are gleaming office towers in "downtown" Rio De Janeiro and Buenos Aires as well as in New York which the major difference being that cities in "developing" world have downtown cores surrounded by a enclosing arc of slums. Who works in the downtown core and who can afford to live in luxury highrise condominiums near the downtown core? It makes sense though. A hierarchical command structure like a corporation implies a head quarters and who would like their head quarters to look like an ordinary functional office rather than a shining glass palace to demonstrate your wealth and glory? To borrow a phrase from street jargon: bling, bling which goes without saying is more important than low rise functional buildings like schools, health clinics and libraries for the "poor" commoners which isn't bling, bling.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:05 am
This is simply reasoning by emotion. I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors. I give zero credence to the "more empathetic than thou" argument-by-feeling.

That is until someone suggests communal working, then you get very emotional and pull out your "slavery" claim. Double standards much?


I was asked to defend certain things, and I defended them with logical arguments.

You were asked to prove that capitalism is humane, as such emotional arguments are unavoidable.


So far, the chief response has been to essentially accuse me of not caring enough. I will not play that game. My emotions, my feelings, even my motivations are irrelevancies.

That would be perfectly true if we were not discussing how what you support is, as well as inefficient (as has been pointed out in other threads.) is also completely heartless (a claim which you seem to be putting every effort into proving.).


If you disagree with my premises, argue the premises. If you disagree with my deductions, argue the deductions. Arguing that I simply don't understand the mystical truth of communism only convinces me that it is nothing more than religion-in-fact.

The elephant in the room that you seem to be ignoring (and that I have been guilty of ignoring in the past) is that human beings are emotional entities and therefore any system under which they live has to satisfy them not only physically (food on the table, medical care and that kind of thing) but emotionally too.

There are many other threads where your "logic" is appreciated as an argument, but here it is *logical* to appeal to emotion because the damned argument is about emotion.

As a side note: Do you have many friends? Or did they all get sick of you never doing anything nice for them because it ran against your principles of "costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors"?

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)
Likewise, it is simply not the case that all employers are engaged in a giant conspiracy to effect a certain result. In reality, each employer is competing against the others for the pool of available workers, creating a plethora of distinct and different choices. [/b]
It is within their interests to engage in this 'giant conspiracy'. Without a pool of struggling and desperate have nots, they would lose their constant supply of cheap labour. The plethora of choices you speak of is pathetic, because they will only extend it as much as possible in order to keep their costs to a minimum. So in effect, they are constantly striving to reduce the living standards of their workforce.

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)
Second, a large segment of the "working class" do not work for a "capitalist" at all, in proportions that vary depending on the attractiveness of employment opportunities; they work for the government or for themselves, so your statement is empirically false.[/b]
Again, the point is moot. Capitalist governments and the capitalist class work together for a common interest. Irrevertably, this is contrary to the interest of the average person.

Originally posted by pusher robot

Isn't this really just a profound-sounding way of saying that your ideal choice isn't offered? It is actually an very self-centered point of view. "I can't get exactly what I want, therefore, all the choices are meaningless."
Generally speaking, yes the choices are meaningless. Certainly in my experience available work is generally an alienating ordeal with little purpose than the seperate the ordinary worker from his/her value of labour.

Originally posted by pusher robot

I was talking about petroleum oil, but it doesn't matter. Indeed, in any case i fail to see how that applies to our hypothetical 'fishing' community.

Originally posted by pusher robot

The answer is that there is no reason at all that the process must be carried out by a capitalist factory. It simply happens to usually work out that way because whoever takes the initiative and underwrites the risk of building the factory ends up owning it. But to be certain, if the people in that community wanted to start a cooperative nonprofit corporation that sells the oil at wholesale to the general community, no capitalist ought to object to that. They will, of course, still have to compete against other corporations that may believe they can offer the product for an even lower price by lowering the costs of production, which is good. Lower costs are a good thing.
In practice, the corporations cannot afford to charge less because they have to pay for packaging, factory overheads and logisitical expenses. In fact, when bigger brands become more prominent they start charging simply because of the brand name notoriety. Naomi Klein argues this case excellently in 'no logo'.

pusher [email protected]

True, but those fisherman are hardly performing what we would call "subsistence" fishing. They don't need those fish to survive. They only need them for profit. If they could make $2000 a week pumping oil and killing fish, they would likely do that.
I was simply pointing out that the fishermen of our imaginary town could sell the fish themselves directly for a much higher value, rather than having some profit hungry fat cat buy the river for himself off an individual representitive and give the inhabitants meagre paying jobs for the privelege.

pusher robot

No mass migration, but the flow is extremely unidirectional. See, e.g., this chart from an article in the NEJM which indicates a sample annual migration of 79 doctors from the US to UK and 3,439 doctors from the UK to the US: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/17/1810/F1.
In any case its beside the point. I dont dispute that some doctors pursue higher wages, or even that the US system can provide that. Your original insinuation was that government paid doctors are slaves. Bearing in mind that they are free to go anytime they want, if they were treated like slaves then i dare say a lot more than 3000 would have left. Our argument was, morally speaking which system provides all in all the best service for patients? Despite its faults (for which it has capitalist bureaucracy to thank), for many of its employees the NHS is a source of great pride, even patriotism that regardless of who you are or your financial status you will be guaranteed medical attention.

[Publius]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:05 am




This is simply reasoning by emotion.


Yes it is.

I'm responding in-kind to your insipid 'slave' comment.



I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors.

Well, rational actors are a myth. There's your first problem.

If you want to talk about cost, talk about how the the NHS in Britain costs 60% of what the US spends on health care and delivers superior service, so much so that poor Britons are healthier than wealthy Americans.

Explain to me with your voodoo economics how the 'costs' and 'benefits' play out there, I'm dying to hear it.



I give zero credence to the "more empathetic than thou" argument-by-feeling.

Well, that's good.



I was asked to defend certain things, and I defended them with logical arguments.

But not with facts.

The healthiest nations in the world, to a 'T', have nationalized health care. They pay less than we do, they get better results.

The health care industry, as in HMO's, spend something like 30 to 40% of their money on advertising and administration.

Please, tell me how that's more efficient than a government monopoly that has no need to advertise and can reduce administrative costs via economies of scale.

Is that not logical enough? I even threw in some capitalist jargon.



So far, the chief response has been to essentially accuse me of not caring enough. I will not play that game. My emotions, my feelings, even my motivations are irrelevancies. If you disagree with my premises, argue the premises. If you disagree with my deductions, argue the deductions. Arguing that I simply don't understand the mystical truth of communism only convinces me that it is nothing more than religion-in-fact.

If that's you case than please stop with this annoying non-argument that anything that isn't free market capitalism is 'slavery'.

It's non-sense, it's bankrupt, and it's just as blatant and vacuous an attempt at appeal to emotion as what I was dealing. But I guess when it comes from your side ("Oh, look at the poor oppressed doctor!") it's 'logical argument' that follows deductively from your 'premises', and when I point out the common-sense reality of your system (That working class people get the shaft on A DAILY BASIS) it's me grasping at emotional straws. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Your pie-in-the-sky theoretical slavery trumps my real-world emotional hand-wringing via actual examples. Right?

[pusher robot]

You were asked to prove that capitalism is humane, as such emotional arguments are unavoidable.

Well then this thread is a silly waste of time. You want me to prove that capitalism doesn't make you feel bad? Sorry, I can't do that.


Do you have many friends? Or did they all get sick of you never doing anything nice for them because it ran against your principles of "costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors"?


Emotions are a good basis to build personal relationships, but logic is the proper tool to build a society. So to answer your question, I have plenty of friends - we hang out, talk about common interests, and help each other out because we have an emotional connection. But it doesn't subordinate logic, or our social bonds. None of my friends would permit himself to be continuously exploited by the others. Some of my friends are poorer than the others, but you can be sure that while the poorer ones graciously accept the generous hospitality of the richer ones, they would never make demands upon them, and while the richer ones are liberal with their friends, they would never permit a friend to become a dependent. To do any of these things would destroy the mutual respect that the very friendship is based on.


That is until someone suggests communal working, then you get very emotional and pull out your "slavery" claim. Double standards much?
Fair enough, "slavery" is a loaded word. I'll try to think of something less dysphemistic.


Natural diamonds which have the richest deposits in parts of the African continent...
No African country save perhaps South Africa is remotely capitalist in government, so your example signifies, if anything, the failure of anarchy.

Does monetary value equate with utility, answer: not always.
When doesn't it? I think your mistake is in assuming that "utility" means "usefulness for some purpose." But it doesn't, it only means "usefulness for satisfying some human want." If there appears to be a contradiction, it is likely because the people themselves have strange wants. I agree that the intense desire for natural diamonds is an illogical, strange want - but it does objectively exist, therefore diamonds have utility.


But, I'm singling out insurance for another reason and that is the whole concept of insurance stinks of a protection racket where instead of intentional acts of harm being perpetrated, the owners of the insurance racket gets rich from the insecurity of people over some disaster that might happen.
Nobody is forced to buy insurance. They buy it because even if they never use it, it provides them a great service - ease of mind, and the freedom not to have to plan for disasters. Even if, at the end of your life, you turn out never to have needed fire insurance, you have gained a life free of worrying about being ruined by fire. That has to be worth something.


Insurance company: "If you don't pay protection money, I can't guarantee your safety".
But, if you do pay, you'll only get protection if you can prove to them that you didn't do it yourself.
But, also if it only covers certain situations, but not others.
People can self-insure if they want to, and plenty of people do it all the time. Insurance companies provide protection to people who can't afford to self-insure - essentially, they allow people to insure themselve on an installment plan.


So are you saying that people in crowded, dirty and high rent cities like Hong Kong, prefer living that way if they weren't presented with some other way of living as planned out in a rational way? I really failed to see why they would put up
with it if given a viable alternative.

No, I'm saying they'll take a viable alternative whether it's "planned out in a rational way" or not.

No, it is a matter of fostering a healthy culture and education which focuses on critical thinking both of which are not in the interest of people making money from shoddy goods and services (which are cheaply made) sold to stupid, gullible people.
I am not arrogant enough to presume to substitute my judgment of what is good for other people for their own. I've long ago accepted that people will have different priorities than me, and different preferences, and different values entirely, and that doesn't necessarily make them stupid or wrong.


What are you talking about? Enslaving doctors? laugh.gif It is deeply offensive to the millions of people who still suffer the horrors of slavery worldwide to claim that high earning doctors who simply get paid for through a national health service rather than by charging their patients are slaves.
I didn't claim that. I never claimed that. I argued that forcing a doctor to treat people at his own expense would be tantamount to slavery. If he is being handsomely compensated with money collected by force of law, he is not treating people at his own expense, is he?

[Publius]

No mass migration, but the flow is extremely unidirectional. See, e.g., this chart from an article in the NEJM which indicates a sample annual migration of 79 doctors from the US to UK and 3,439 doctors from the UK to the US: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/17/1810/F1.


This makes it even MORE funny.

The UK is kicking our capitalist ass with one hand tied behind its back!

They spend 60% as much as we do, they lose 3,500 doctors a year, to us, and a poor Briton is still healthier than a wealthy American! That's too good to make up!

Here we go: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4965034.stm



The healthiest Americans had similar disease rates to the least healthy English, the Journal of the American Medical Association study found.

The joint team from University College London, the University of London and health research organisation Rand Corporation, chose two groups of comparable white people from large, long-term health surveys in the US and in England.

In total, the study examined data on around 8,000 people in the two countries.

Each group was divided into three socio-economic groups based on their education and income.

They then compared self-reports of chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke and lung disease.

The American group reported significantly higher levels of disease than the English.


So the healthiest Americans, presumably those in the highest socio-economic bracket, though not necessarily, are similar in health to the least healthy English. Maybe they need to send MORE doctors over.

[pusher robot]

Your original insinuation was that government paid doctors are slaves.

No. Those of you who think so missed my point. Doctors in NHS are well-compensated. They profit handsomely from their medical practice. That is because even a quasi-socialist program recognizes the injustice in forcing a doctor to treat patients at his own expense. My comment was in response to Jazzratt's insinuation that the profit of the doctor was of no importance. If the doctor's profit is of no importance, and your health is the only thing of importance, then you have...made an "involuntary servant" out of the doctor.

NHS is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT an example of this; the doctors profit much from their work.



This makes it even MORE funny.

The UK is kicking our capitalist ass with one hand tied behind its back!

Do I really need to point out that correlation is not causation?

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 02:51 pm

No African country save perhaps South Africa is remotely capitalist in government, so your example signifies, if anything, the failure of anarchy.

No offence, but I think we are going to have to add Africa to the list of topics you know nothing about. With it's high levels of state opwnership in the economy and heavy use of affirmative action South Africa is one of the less capitalist countries in Africa. Granted the more modern African countries such as Algeria, Libya (the richest country in Africa I was surprised to learn) and Egypt don't have much free market capitalism (though they do have state capitalism) but in sub-saharan Africa and the surrounding areas it positively thrives. Kenya for example is well known for having a very pro-capitalist governemnt and plenty of free market capitalism, and we were all having a good snigger on the main part of the board the other day by the Von Mises institute choosing the proclaim Somalia as the most capitalist country in the world (what does that tell you?)

As for calling Africa a failure of anarchy, well not really being an anarchist myself I am perhaps not the best person to defend it, but excessive government power and strong men leaders were not what I understood anarchy to be.

[Publius]

No. Those of you who think so missed my point. Doctors in NHS are well-compensated. They profit handsomely from their medical practice. That is because even a quasi-socialist program recognizes the injustice in forcing a doctor to treat patients at his own expense. My comment was in response to Jazzratt's insinuation that the profit of the doctor was of no importance. If the doctor's profit is of no importance, and your health is the only thing of importance, then you have...made an "involuntary servant" out of the doctor.

NHS is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT an example of this; the doctors profit much from their work.


Forgive me, then, I'm just gunshy when I hear libertarians say 'slavery'. Images of zombie hordes mouthing "taxation is slavery! taxation is slavery!" come to my mind.

Well then if this were your point, I guess I'm compelled to agree: if doctors were held as slaves and forced to work for less than nothing, they would be slaves.

But I think you're somewhat avoiding the point: you don't actually support the NHS do you?



Do I really need to point out that correlation is not causation?

I didn't claim that.

I'm saying that even though doctors are leaving their country en masse, they still kick our ass.

And that's sad.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 02:51 pm
I am not arrogant enough to presume to substitute my judgment of what is good for other people for their own.
Except you tell them they must live under free market capitalism regardless of whether it is good for them or not.

[pusher robot]

But I think you're somewhat avoiding the point: you don't actually support the NHS do you?

No, but not because I think it enslaves doctors. I don't support it because I don't think it works as well.


I didn't claim that.

I'm saying that even though doctors are leaving their country en masse, they still kick our ass.

Your basing that on metrics that have nothing whatsoever to say as to why Britons are healthier than Americans. You are making an unwarranted assumption that it is because of quality of healthcare delivered. It could just as well be the case that Americans have better healthcare but unhealthier lifestyles; the same metrics would result.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+--> (pusher robot)No. Those of you who think so missed my point. Doctors in NHS are well-compensated. They profit handsomely from their medical practice. That is because even a quasi-socialist program recognizes the injustice in forcing a doctor to treat patients at his own expense. My comment was in response to Jazzratt's insinuation that the profit of the doctor was of no importance. If the doctor's profit is of no importance, and your health is the only thing of importance, then you have...made an "involuntary servant" out of the doctor.

NHS is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT an example of this; the doctors profit much from their work.[/b]



this was your response when jazzrat said that it is better for doctors to work within the public sector:

Originally posted by pusher [email protected]

I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.


pusher robot

No, but not because I think it enslaves doctors. I don't support it because I don't think it works as well.
Hmm do i detect back-peddling?

[pusher robot]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+June 13, 2007 03:38 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ June 13, 2007 03:38 pm) this was your response when jazzrat said that it is better for doctors to work within the public sector:

pusher robot

I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery. [/b]
This is the entire post:

Profit of doctors is more important than health of patients? And you wonder why we call you heartless?

So, how is it that you sleep at night?

Where are you getting "public sector" from? Do you deny that public sector doctors profit from their work?

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by pusher robot+June 13, 2007 03:40 pm--> (pusher robot @ June 13, 2007 03:40 pm)
Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 13, 2007 03:38 pm
this was your response when jazzrat said that it is better for doctors to work within the public sector:

pusher robot

I would say that you seek to enslave doctors by treating them merely as a means to your health and demanding that they sacrifice themselves for your benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.
This is the entire post:

Profit of doctors is more important than health of patients? And you wonder why we call you heartless?

So, how is it that you sleep at night?

Where are you getting "public sector" from? Do you deny that public sector doctors profit from their work? [/b]
No im not denying that, but generally within their means to warrant the work they do and to live comfortably. Being a pro-capitalist, it may surprise you to learn that some doctors do they work they do because they enjoy it. Money isnt always the primary motive.

The NHS is a government owned entity. It is therefore publicly owned. Therefore those who work within it are public-sector workers.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:37 pm

Your basing that on metrics that have nothing whatsoever to say as to why Britons are healthier than Americans. You are making an unwarranted assumption that it is because of quality of healthcare delivered. It could just as well be the case that Americans have better healthcare but unhealthier lifestyles; the same metrics would result.
The trouble is that Britons are known for having amongst the least healthy lifestyles in the world. Certainly we smoke and drink more and our obesity rates are similair.

You are trying to argue without the slightest grasp of facts and it is making you look silly.

It doesn't surprise me though, you are coming from a tradition that regards empirical evidence as worthless.

[cormacobear]

Pusher Robot
Post: 6


A .
You are assuming no regulation... reasonable and non-discriminatory manner.

Which they fail to do. As is clearly proven by the constant use of the coast guard by the DEA to enforce a Marijuana policy designed to imprison as much unskilled labour as is possible. Whereby they falsly inflate the optimism of unemployment figures, again artificially speeding the consolidation of wealth.



B. A capitalist government would have a robust civil court system, so that farmers and others with usufructuary rights would have to be compensated for the degredation in their water supply. (or more likely be destroyed by the application of legal efforts metered out by wealth. Inequality before the law is a fundamental nescessity in a capitalist society) What you propose is not a new development - property rights have evolved to accomodate such things going as far back as early English common law.



C. Your point about ineffeciency is based on assumptions that may not be true. ( Capitalisms parasitic attempt to maximize inefficiency for profit. “ http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db...rds=1&ww=1&en=1 (http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=4231&view_records=1&ww=1&en=1) ) “Even with re-cleaning and bottling the water to be made potable, it may still cost less than to not emit the contaminants in the first place. Unless you believe that there is an intrinsic value to uncontaminated water, it may sometimes be socially desirable to pollute the water in exchange for some other value.

US law is clear that CEO’s are liable if they knowledgeably choose an action, despite being more ethical that is less profitable for the board of investors.



You are reversing ..... into the cities by force. Capitalists would not contemplate such a violation of personal autonomy. (Capitalists have Ford and IBM helped the Nazis massacre. Chili, Cuba...the list is endless

The increased construction of accessible condensed urban homes, condos, and apartments lowers the costs of ownership and increases urban productivity and liveability.



QUOTE
Regarding the ...and build their own fish farm in it where before there was a free source of fish.


My rebuttal points still stand. If you own a right to fish the river, then a degradation of that interest is clearly actionable in civil court.



The concentrated pollution by Pig farms in domestic waters clearly shows the inability of the capitalist system to protect human interests where profits can be made by a tiny minority.



QUOTE
As for the health industry, Sure, people ... meaningless and Im pretty screwed arent i?

The free market provides ... for your own gain.


Too many documentary films already explain the inherent cruelty of the worlds last private for profit health care system.



QUOTE
Profit of doctors is more important than health of patients? And you wonder why we call you heartless?


I would say that ... benefit alone. I sleep very comfortably opposing slavery.


That is not the opinion of the majority of doctors in the public health system in every other organized nation.

[U]And more...

QUOTE (Publius @ June 13, 2007 01:52 am)
QUOTE
I would say that ...than religion-in-fact.
[/QUOTE]

The CEO of a pharmaceutical Corperation can be taken to court for allowing a cure to go to market if that company controlled the treatment market and lost value by that decsion.. How does the for profit system benefit the pool of knowledge that is man.



QUOTE
The ruling class demand that all sorts of workers commit themselves to a particular industry or sector where there are opportunity shortages without any sort of moral dilemma.


They are in no position to make such demands. They can make offers for exchange, and that is all.


Bend knee to a wealthy overlord and I won’t make you starve. Nice offer.



QUOTE
In the UK certainly, doctors within the NHS live very comfortably so your concerns for the doctors general happiness are irrelevant.

First, do you deny the net outflow of ...case even in NHS. Agreed?


US patients risk prison to be treated by Cuba’s benevolent socialist healthcare system.




QUOTE
Furthermore, factory jobs in practice seldomly tend to be 'highly paid'


They are compared to subsistence living.


In which countries?



QUOTE
The working man has 2 choices, 1-work for the employing capitalist class(who generally as a rule of thumb presides over most employment opportunities within a given area) whom dictates all terms of employment or 2-destition.


I disagree with this characterization. ... the pool of available workers, creating a plethora of distinct and different choices.

Second, a large segment of the "working class" ... so your statement is empirically false.

Therefore presenting two pro capitalist parties as representing the entire spectrum and controlling media provides a competitive ideology that is in itself defeatist.


Blah...Blah Blah...
I can defeat any position a capitalist can defend the science is complete and capitalism is indefensible. why should we bother to respond to such blather?
This is an example of why every debate must continually be rehashed if your not there for the the first 30 minutes your in for pages and pages.

[Publius]

No, but not because I think it enslaves doctors. I don't support it because I don't think it works as well.


But it does. There lies the rub.



Your basing that on metrics that have nothing whatsoever to say as to why Britons are healthier than Americans. You are making an unwarranted assumption that it is because of quality of healthcare delivered. It could just as well be the case that Americans have better healthcare but unhealthier lifestyles; the same metrics would result.

It hardly matters. Britons ARE healthier than people in the US. Period. Now if you want to say that this has nothing to do with health policy, with the quality of care, with the level of health education delivered, etc., that's perfectly fine.

But I don't think you're credible.

I will say this, and tell me if you disagree: Britons are healthier than Americans, in part, because their health care system provides better, more equitable care.

See, that's basic fact. They offer better, more equitable care. Indisputable. Now if you want to claim that this has nothing to do with why they live longer, go right ahead. But ask yourself why you're being so skeptical on this point when you no doubt except inductive proofs far less rigorous than this on a daily basis.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Demogorgon+June 13, 2007 02:19 am--> (Demogorgon @ June 13, 2007 02:19 am)
pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:05 am
This is simply reasoning by emotion. I am willing to talk about costs, benefits, incentives, and rational actors. I give zero credence to the "more empathetic than thou" argument-by-feeling.

And here you are making a huge mistake. Here is a couple of documentaries that were on television a few months ago. The first points out the general flaw in presuming everyone is a rational actor in the way you perceive it. Both show the flaws in applying it to medicine, but the second does so particularly well. Thre was a third episode as well. I will post it when I find a working link to it.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...rap+adam+curtis (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8372545413887273321&q=the+trap+adam+curtis)

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...rap+adam+curtis (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7849982478877371384&q=the+trap+adam+curtis) [/b]
If people are NOT the rational actors which PR supposes, then it would seem that the REvlefters have the bigger problem here. The revlefters can be passionate all they want about the exploited workers of the world, but at some point, even in a socialist community those workers still have to work. Passion does not distribute goods, and socialism likes to proclaim (when it is suitable for their argument) the supposed scientific nature of socialism.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Demogorgon+June 13, 2007 10:27 am--> (Demogorgon @ June 13, 2007 10:27 am)
pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 02:51 pm
I am not arrogant enough to presume to substitute my judgment of what is good for other people for their own.
Except you tell them they must live under free market capitalism regardless of whether it is good for them or not. [/b]
No, what is said is that free market IS better for people, including the workers, despite the arguments to the contrary.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 12, 2007 06:41 pm
Nutrition and water are base needs. Most factories tend to utilise base ingredients to manufacture goods which are less versatile, so the chances are the factory will not be of greater use than had they not been there. The local inhabitants of this theoretical place could quite easilly catch the fish, and trade the fish at a higher value than whatever the capitalists are willing to pay them for it.

They could indeed trade the fish at a higher value (naturally in doing so, they are working within a capitalist structure. It is doubtful such options would be available in a socialist community). Of course, that would mean the fishermen must spend the day out on the water, then return and figure out how to distribute the fish. It affords little time for R&R. It seems more reasonable to let someone else figure out that aspect of production, even if it cuts into the fisherman's profit a bit.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 01:26 am

No, what is said is that free market IS better for people, including the workers, despite the arguments to the contrary.
But he hasn't offered us any proof. If he had his way we would all be forced to suffer free market capitalism and not have any opportunity to find out if there is a beter alternative. And I don't just mean he would restrict us from trying socialism, I mean he would restrict us from trying social democracy as well and even capitalism as it is currently practiced in places like America as he would have his extreme vision of it enforced on everybody.

And there is no way in hell that his extreme vision of capitalism is the best for people, not even most capitalist thinkers would claim that

[luxemburg89]

No, but not because I think it enslaves doctors. I don't support it because I don't think it works as well.


Does it not? Well pre-NHS Britain was a damn-site worse than post-NHS Britain (I'm not going to use the USArse here because, as those who read the Guardian yesterday will know, their health system is an abomination). People who could not afford to go to a doctor had to see - well the only word for them is - an apothecary or other amateur medicinal practitioners. Even an idiot, like pusher robot, could see the problem with this. The alternatives were to break the family bank account (if they had one) to try and pay for it, use traditional family medicinal methods (which are bollocks) or to die. For those that could afford healthcare well huzzah for them eh? Well a rich **** with a slight cough getting preferential treatment over a poor man with tuberculosis hardly seems fair - but that's the way it works. Although the diseases may have changed, privitised medicine remains the same; it hold people to ransom for their health. This is not always the fault of the doctors; moreover the fault of, once again, Capitalism

Lux

[ZX3]

Originally posted by STJ+June 14, 2007 10:50 am--> (STJ @ June 14, 2007 10:50 am)
pusher [email protected] 13, 2007 03:03 pm

Your original insinuation was that government paid doctors are slaves.

No. Those of you who think so missed my point. Doctors in NHS are well-compensated. They profit handsomely from their medical practice. That is because even a quasi-socialist program recognizes the injustice in forcing a doctor to treat patients at his own expense. My comment was in response to Jazzratt's insinuation that the profit of the doctor was of no importance. If the doctor's profit is of no importance, and your health is the only thing of importance, then you have...made an "involuntary servant" out of the doctor.

NHS is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT an example of this; the doctors profit much from their work.



This makes it even MORE funny.

The UK is kicking our capitalist ass with one hand tied behind its back!

Do I really need to point out that correlation is not causation?
This country's healthcare system is a fucking mess. We will continue see helthcare costs rise and policy coverage shrink. There are over 43 million Americans with no health insurance. We need NHC you selfish asshole. :angry: [/b]
There are about 43 million people without health insurance in the USA. Back in 1993, there was 41 million people, with a smaller overall population.

Are these uninsured in 2007 the same as in 1993? Of course not. That 43 million is a constantly flucuating group; people who lose their jobs and thus their employer-owned policies; young adults who are freshly off their parent's coverage and think they are indestructable, thus no need to pay for insurance; immigrants fresh off the boat without a pot to piss in who have more pressing concerns.

There really is no solution. An NHS system simply throws everyone in the same pile, and rations and regulates out the healthcare. An idividual owned system would seem to work best, as it allows people to control their healthcare, and what is that they wish to be covered.

[Dr Mindbender]

What good is private healthcare to greater society if only a small clique at the top can afford it? You mentioned that many working class americans get cover as part of their employment contracts. What of those on welfare who need urgent treatment ? They seem pretty screwed. Or is this part of the Bush strategy for reducing unemployment stats? :angry:

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 12:10 am

There are about 43 million people without health insurance in the USA. Back in 1993, there was 41 million people, with a smaller overall population.

Are these uninsured in 2007 the same as in 1993? Of course not. That 43 million is a constantly flucuating group; people who lose their jobs and thus their employer-owned policies; young adults who are freshly off their parent's coverage and think they are indestructable, thus no need to pay for insurance; immigrants fresh off the boat without a pot to piss in who have more pressing concerns.

There really is no solution. An NHS system simply throws everyone in the same pile, and rations and regulates out the healthcare. An idividual owned system would seem to work best, as it allows people to control their healthcare, and what is that they wish to be covered.
You aren't a fan of facts are you? 43 million people without health insurance is 43 million regardless of whether it is a fluctuating number or not. And then of those who have insurance, how many are lucky enough to have insurance that covers them fully for everything?

Compare that to what I have got where I am covered for everything (except for having to pay £6.40 per prescription but that will be abolished in Scotland soon and some dental and opticians fees), I can essentially slep sound knowing that serious illness cannot bankrupt me (which is a damn good thing given I did fall ill not long ago, I don't know what I would have done without the NHS, gone begging to my parents presumably). Now you may turn around and say well that is smashing but you must be paying a fortune in taxes for this. Except that our healthcare costs 40% les per capita than American healthcare does. We are making a brilliant saving, presumably as Publius points out due to administrative savings (though that does eed a bit of shaking up) and the lack of need for advertising. And believe me we have no shortage of Doctors either despite what Pusher Robot claims. One of the reasons why Doctors earn slightly (only slightly less) here than in America is because we have so many graduating here (and the NHS has a full employment policy) that it is difficult to find employment for them all and putting wages too high would have us deluged by them.

Given all this, and given the same scenario plays out across virtually al public health systems against private health systems you do not have a leg to stand on. What you are going to resort to doing is claiming the empirical evidence must be wrong because it does not fit your theoretical model.

[red team]

You were asked to prove that capitalism is humane, as such emotional arguments are unavoidable.
Well then this thread is a silly waste of time. You want me to prove that capitalism doesn't make you feel bad? Sorry, I can't do that.

Only if you think human life is a silly waste of time. Human life evolved with people feeling bad when they are in a bad situation for a reason. If people didn't feel bad in a bad situation they wouldn't survive. With the majority of people feeling bad in Capitalism (or in any other price system since Socialism is really another name for state Capitalism) the system wouldn't survive and rebellion is inevitable unless you give the majority of the population lobotomies.



Natural diamonds which have the richest deposits in parts of the African continent...

No African country save perhaps South Africa is remotely capitalist in government, so your example signifies, if anything, the failure of anarchy.

Anarchy is simply another more corrupt version of Capitalism while warlordism is decentralized Capitalism both of which exist in Africa.

As for social system which is different from economic system, Capitalism can exist within liberal democracies as well as authoritarian autocracies.



Does monetary value equate with utility, answer: not always.

When doesn't it? I think your mistake is in assuming that "utility" means "usefulness for some purpose." But it doesn't, it only means "usefulness for satisfying some human want." If there appears to be a contradiction, it is likely because the people themselves have strange wants. I agree that the intense desire for natural diamonds is an illogical, strange want - but it does objectively exist, therefore diamonds have utility.

Are we playing word games now?

utility means usefulness and desire means wants which are entirely different in meaning.

Are you admitting now that when monetary economics states "utility" it simply manipulates the word utility to mean the desires of people with money to spend? If that's true then that really begs the question of why the desires of people with more money trumps the desire of people with less money or no money and how they came about that massively unequal amount of money in the first place? Further if desires overrides usefulness then doesn't that create the possiblity of a situation where destructive or negligent desires or desires motivating actions that are destructive or negligent interferes with the people whose desire are for the utility of useful products and services?

And for the final illuminating question exposing the nature of the monetary system, how is it that people with such useless desires such as diamonds come about such massive amounts of money to enable destructive acts in securing this product when money it is assumed is the aggregate measure of "value" as accumulated through trading in a monetary system? Unless money is as useless and ambiguous a concept as "utility" or "value"? If your concept of value is to be consistent then it should be universally interchangeable as if I measured value in food, money or diamonds. If I switch it around so that the purchaser of the diamond have the equivalent monetary amount in food to satisfy those malnourished African diamond mine workers and the workers have the diamonds instead then neither party would find the switched wants valuable even though they are of equivalent monetary value which contradicts my previously mention assumption of monetary economics for money being an aggregate storehouse of value for everything that consumers find valuable traded for money in a society. So unless you find the majority of consumers desiring vanity diamonds more than utilitarian food and shelter this assumption is proven false. So much for money as representing some fuzzy value being a universal measure of anything.

I simply exposed money for what it truly is, a self-justifying tautology for those who have the most of it to fulfill their desires in anyway they wish or in otherwords a means of control for those who regard money as no object over those who have an absence of it.



But, I'm singling out insurance for another reason and that is the whole concept of insurance stinks of a protection racket where instead of intentional acts of harm being perpetrated, the owners of the insurance racket gets rich from the insecurity of people over some disaster that might happen.

Nobody is forced to buy insurance. They buy it because even if they never use it, it provides them a great service - ease of mind, and the freedom not to have to plan for disasters. Even if, at the end of your life, you turn out never to have needed fire insurance, you have gained a life free of worrying about being ruined by fire. That has to be worth something.

In other words, "I'll make you feel good over something that may never happen and if it doesn't happen I'll keep your money anyway".
Plus: I'll try to weasel my way out of paying you if too many disasters happen because I gave away your money, which was nothing more than "feel good" money, to those who really deserved it, that is the rich owners of the insurance company and not the actual victims of the disasters whom you pretend to set up the insurance fund to help.



Insurance company: "If you don't pay protection money, I can't guarantee your safety".
But, if you do pay, you'll only get protection if you can prove to them that you didn't do it yourself.
But, also if it only covers certain situations, but not others.
People can self-insure if they want to, and plenty of people do it all the time. Insurance companies provide protection to people who can't afford to self-insure - essentially, they allow people to insure themselve on an installment plan.

Not the point. Insurance is as silly a concept as "value" in a economy that is resource based and not debt or barter based.



So are you saying that people in crowded, dirty and high rent cities like Hong Kong, prefer living that way if they weren't presented with some other way of living as planned out in a rational way? I really failed to see why they would put up
with it if given a viable alternative.

No, I'm saying they'll take a viable alternative whether it's "planned out in a rational way" or not.

So who or what is going to help make that happen for them? The fairy sky wizard? The economy is runned with the motive of accumulating more "value" in some way, but only if its valuable for the people involved in building a decentralized neighborhood irrelevant of whether it is valuable for people who wants to live there which means only the people with both the money and the desire can this be done. Does this explain that it is often only the rich who live in idyllic, peaceful country homes rather than the poor?

It seems obvious enough so it would means the rich can plan for this lifestyle and the poor can settle for the dirty, crowded metropolis.



No, it is a matter of fostering a healthy culture and education which focuses on critical thinking both of which are not in the interest of people making money from shoddy goods and services (which are cheaply made) sold to stupid, gullible people.

I am not arrogant enough to presume to substitute my judgment of what is good for other people for their own. I've long ago accepted that people will have different priorities than me, and different preferences, and different values entirely, and that doesn't necessarily make them stupid or wrong.

I operate in the real world, not in some Libertarian fantasy daydream. As for how that operates it means that people with different cultures congregate among themselves and some cultures are far superior than others which means for every ruling class there is social engineering that takes place whether you want to admit it or not. Some people however are left to rot in poverty without further development or hope for something better which you can see in every poor neighborhood of the world. They then develop their own brutal and cruel cultures and ways of survival. Would you like to visit them? But, it's more likely they would visit you sometimes. :lol:

[krankrank]

Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

[Axel1917]

Of course their system is humane; in bourgeois society, humane means whatever the bourgeoisie want it to mean, i.e. that anything that defends profits is good, not matter how many countless millions of people it kills every year.

[krankrank]

"... The Norm consisting of health, the archaic creditor-debtor relation and the money-form (Geldform) may be modified politically, economically and ideologically, ethnically, historically and socially as differently as it may be. To have carved it by the means of coercive adaptation as a suchlike in each brain, heart and hormone balance, and be it by killing and, in the near future, by manufacturing mass wise human clones who suit to their standardized design, is and remains both the equally revealed as the most-secretly protected creation of medical doctors; namely from biology to factor "Psy". ..."

From: Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

" ... The social-synthetic function of money (Sohn-Rethel*) is, therefore, the mimicry and consequence of that of the medical doctor: to protect oneself from sickness, which is being detected by the medical doctor as supernumerariety, one goes to the doctor and pays in cash (presents, sacrificial offers, social welfare contributions). It is true that K. Marx located the genesis of the "theoretical subject" (soul, psyche, subjectivity) in the economic detaching of the money-function from the money-matter and, thus, in the act of equating man to money; however, this is only one moment, and precisely the economic one. The other moment, precisely the one that is the social-politically primary propelling and the finally decisive moment, is rooting in the act of equating man to "health", to which is attributed a medi-cynical significance, that is in the iatrocratically determined otherness. Racism is the term-camouflage of this otherness by which the medical doctor, shrugging his shoulders, is getting out of it and by which the "political educated citizen" is covering up the homicidal-monopolistic activity of the nice doctor. Any racism is iatro-racism. ..."

"... When it serves the purpose of health, medical doctors are allowed to grant reprieve to their prisoners by killing them. Be they children whose scalps are to be taken (Auschwitz), be they prisoners who are to be denigrated and killed by driving them to commit suicide (SUICIDE = HOMICIDE) (they call that: Action Mercy killing). ... Because it serves to health, there is the new euthanasia-campaign (better: euthaNAZI) ... "

From: Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

" ... The attack against all determination (= medical determination) is the conditio sine qua non of all subversion and the via regia leading to the unconscious consisting of health and money. In the act of treating-being treated, this is as obvious as tangible. But pathopractice, the practice strengthened by the force of illness, cast it to the winds. ..."

From: Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

[Dimentio]

I am not sure what do you may mean by that, but I like you. :P

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 14, 2007 09:35 pm
What good is private healthcare to greater society if only a small clique at the top can afford it? You mentioned that many working class americans get cover as part of their employment contracts. What of those on welfare who need urgent treatment ? They seem pretty screwed. Or is this part of the Bush strategy for reducing unemployment stats? :angry:
There is a government run health care system called Medicaid for the poor where the government pays for mdical needs.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Demogorgon+June 15, 2007 03:44 am--> (Demogorgon @ June 15, 2007 03:44 am)
[email protected] 15, 2007 12:10 am

There are about 43 million people without health insurance in the USA. Back in 1993, there was 41 million people, with a smaller overall population.

Are these uninsured in 2007 the same as in 1993? Of course not. That 43 million is a constantly flucuating group; people who lose their jobs and thus their employer-owned policies; young adults who are freshly off their parent's coverage and think they are indestructable, thus no need to pay for insurance; immigrants fresh off the boat without a pot to piss in who have more pressing concerns.

There really is no solution. An NHS system simply throws everyone in the same pile, and rations and regulates out the healthcare. An idividual owned system would seem to work best, as it allows people to control their healthcare, and what is that they wish to be covered.
You aren't a fan of facts are you? 43 million people without health insurance is 43 million regardless of whether it is a fluctuating number or not. And then of those who have insurance, how many are lucky enough to have insurance that covers them fully for everything?

Compare that to what I have got where I am covered for everything (except for having to pay £6.40 per prescription but that will be abolished in Scotland soon and some dental and opticians fees), I can essentially slep sound knowing that serious illness cannot bankrupt me (which is a damn good thing given I did fall ill not long ago, I don't know what I would have done without the NHS, gone begging to my parents presumably). Now you may turn around and say well that is smashing but you must be paying a fortune in taxes for this. Except that our healthcare costs 40% les per capita than American healthcare does. We are making a brilliant saving, presumably as Publius points out due to administrative savings (though that does eed a bit of shaking up) and the lack of need for advertising. And believe me we have no shortage of Doctors either despite what Pusher Robot claims. One of the reasons why Doctors earn slightly (only slightly less) here than in America is because we have so many graduating here (and the NHS has a full employment policy) that it is difficult to find employment for them all and putting wages too high would have us deluged by them.

Given all this, and given the same scenario plays out across virtually al public health systems against private health systems you do not have a leg to stand on. What you are going to resort to doing is claiming the empirical evidence must be wrong because it does not fit your theoretical model. [/b]
My initial comment regarding health care in the USA was to note that the problem is too much health care: In NYC, hospitals being CLOSED due to a glut in hospitals. In many cities, ordinances are being debated and enacted to regulate the opening of medical clinics; they are all over the place. That problem is a far better problem to have than one where there are not ENOUGH hospitals, as is the case in the UK.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

the fact alone that 43 million people in an imperialist empire (AKA that it has stolen the amount of wealth is has) like the US don't have healthcare is inhumyne. I don't care weither its a smaller percentage (but more overall people), its an absurd amount of people without a basic humyn right; the right to be treated when they are sick!

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:27 pm
My initial comment regarding health care in the USA was to note that the problem is too much health care: In NYC, hospitals being CLOSED due to a glut in hospitals. In many cities, ordinances are being debated and enacted to regulate the opening of medical clinics; they are all over the place. That problem is a far better problem to have than one where there are not ENOUGH hospitals, as is the case in the UK.
We are not short of doctors or hospitals. However you are still dancing around the central point. That we have better quality healthcare despite paying 40% less and having similarly unhealthy lifestyles. Do you have an explanation for this other than ignoring it?

You say that lots of clinics open up in America? So what, they are just more profit seeking clinics for the rich, there are shit loads of private clinics in this country too that the wealthy can use if they are so inclined. But most of us aren't so lucky that we can aford all the medical fees we would have to pay in this case.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:39 pm
the fact alone that 43 million people in an imperialist empire (AKA that it has stolen the amount of wealth is has) like the US don't have healthcare is inhumyne. I don't care weither its a smaller percentage (but more overall people), its an absurd amount of people without a basic humyn right; the right to be treated when they are sick!
People are not denied treatment when they are sick in the USA.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Demogorgon+June 18, 2007 04:59 am--> (Demogorgon @ June 18, 2007 04:59 am)
[email protected] 17, 2007 11:27 pm
My initial comment regarding health care in the USA was to note that the problem is too much health care: In NYC, hospitals being CLOSED due to a glut in hospitals. In many cities, ordinances are being debated and enacted to regulate the opening of medical clinics; they are all over the place. That problem is a far better problem to have than one where there are not ENOUGH hospitals, as is the case in the UK.
We are not short of doctors or hospitals. However you are still dancing around the central point. That we have better quality healthcare despite paying 40% less and having similarly unhealthy lifestyles. Do you have an explanation for this other than ignoring it?

You say that lots of clinics open up in America? So what, they are just more profit seeking clinics for the rich, there are shit loads of private clinics in this country too that the wealthy can use if they are so inclined. But most of us aren't so lucky that we can aford all the medical fees we would have to pay in this case. [/b]
There was a nice story a few weeks ago about how because of the health care rationing in the UK, people are progressing further in colon cancer than need be; they are not being treated in a timely fashion. And the big problem has been shortage of hospital beds, which means there is a shortage of hospitals.

The private clinics popping up in the USA are designed to accept MEDICAID patients- that is to provide medical care for the poor, and open in poor neighborhoods.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 12:52 pm
[QUOTE=Demogorgon,June 18, 2007 04:59 am] There was a nice story a few weeks ago about how because of the health care rationing in the UK, people are progressing further in colon cancer than need be; they are not being treated in a timely fashion. And the big problem has been shortage of hospital beds, which means there is a shortage of hospitals.

The private clinics popping up in the USA are designed to accept MEDICAID patients- that is to provide medical care for the poor, and open in poor neighborhoods.
Oh sure there is a shortage of hospital beds, that is always an issue. That isn't caused by a shortage of hospitals, that is caused by shortages in inpatient facilities due to right wing governments cutting back on spending on areas other than direct medical care.

And of course medical care is rationed. Until we have unlimited levels of it, it is rationed. In Britain it is rationed on the basis of most needy first, in America on the basis of Highest Paying first.

Nobody is sayingour system is perfect. How could it be in capitalist society? But it is a damn site better than America's.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 08:00 am

[QUOTE=Demogorgon,June 18, 2007 04:59 am] There was a nice story a few weeks ago about how because of the health care rationing in the UK, people are progressing further in colon cancer than need be; they are not being treated in a timely fashion. And the big problem has been shortage of hospital beds, which means there is a shortage of hospitals.

The private clinics popping up in the USA are designed to accept MEDICAID patients- that is to provide medical care for the poor, and open in poor neighborhoods.
Oh sure there is a shortage of hospital beds, that is always an issue. That isn't caused by a shortage of hospitals, that is caused by shortages in inpatient facilities due to right wing governments cutting back on spending on areas other than direct medical care.

And of course medical care is rationed. Until we have unlimited levels of it, it is rationed. In Britain it is rationed on the basis of most needy first, in America on the basis of Highest Paying first.

Nobody is sayingour system is perfect. How could it be in capitalist society? But it is a damn site better than America's.
In the USA, that shortage of hospital beds is NOT a problem- it doesn't exist.

In the uSA, anyone can get medical care, regardless of ability to pay.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 01:17 pm

In the USA, that shortage of hospital beds is NOT a problem- it doesn't exist.

In the uSA, anyone can get medical care, regardless of ability to pay.
There is certainly a bed shortage problem in America, I have seen it with my own eyes. It doesn't get the same attention as it does here as it is not Government responsibility to the same extent.

And no, not everyone can get medical care regardless of ability to pay, many lose out, either getting nothing or getting a less effective form of treatment to save on cost, and there is of ourse the problem as well that American healthcare is almost entirely based around curing problems that have already come up rather than preventing them. To do that would be bad business after all.

And you are still dancing around this specatcular elephant in the corner that we are getting better quality healthcare at a lower cost.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 01:17 pm
In the USA, that shortage of hospital beds is NOT a problem- it doesn't exist.

In the uSA, anyone can get medical care, regardless of ability to pay.
Is anyone else reminded of that Iraqi minister who was saying how the US were getting their arses handed to them when it was so obvious he was lying?

[krankrank]

I am not sure what do you may mean by that, but I like you.
(Serpent on June 17, 2007 03:55 pm):
... Because of its being so obvious as the palms of one’s hands, it is so difficult to get it into one’s head that the pretext of health is being used as the first as well as the last justification of all violent power of the medical-doctors' class (Heilsgewalt), and this goes beyond of and is superior to any ideology and any culture, any production and any politics. ... the violence of salus (HEIL, HEALTH) does not need nor ideological nor any other catalyst to convert from the subliminal latency of the medical monopoly of homicide into the virulence of mass-extermination. Because for the sake of health, they are ready to do anything, the people and the victims and the victors …

From: Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

So, again:
" ... The attack against all determination (= medical determination) is the conditio sine qua non of all subversion and the via regia leading to the unconscious consisting of health and money. In the act of treating-being treated, this is as obvious as tangible. But pathopractice, the practice strengthened by the force of illness, cast it to the winds. ..."

From: Numbers, numbers and supernumeraries (http://www.spkpfh.de/Numbers_and_supernumeraries.htm)

[ZX3]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 09:06 am


And you are still dancing around this specatcular elephant in the corner that we are getting better quality healthcare at a lower cost. [/quote]
No, not dancing around at all.

I recognise the argument: The UK is able to provide a greater service, for less of a cost. Therefore, it is successful because everyone is covered, and resources can be direted to other areas of the economy and country.

What I don't understand is why a socialist should trumpet it. It is after all, an argument based entirely upon capitalist economic calculations. Lower costs, including labor (ie doctor's compensation) is trumpeted as a good objective and result (and why are lower costs, so often panned by socialists in other aspects of society, so praiseworthy by socialists when it comes to medicine??).

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 05:41 pm

No, not dancing around at all.

I recognise the argument: The UK is able to provide a greater service, for less of a cost. Therefore, it is successful because everyone is covered, and resources can be direted to other areas of the economy and country.

What I don't understand is why a socialist should trumpet it. It is after all, an argument based entirely upon capitalist economic calculations. Lower costs, including labor (ie doctor's compensation) is trumpeted as a good objective and result (and why are lower costs, so often panned by socialists in other aspects of society, so praiseworthy by socialists when it comes to medicine??).
The NHS was a voctory for socialism within a capitalist system. It has been damaged since then of course, but its basic form is still there.

And what are you talking about regarding costs? I don''t think you understand economics very well. Low costs are only criticised when they are being lowered in a manner that harms workers or provides an inferiot service or whatever. The NHS is not doing either in order to lower its costs (well some of its low paid workers are hurt of course, but no more than in a system like Americas). The lower costs come due to the fact that a nationalised health system is plainly more effective and efficient than a privitised one.

All the cappies here seem to be able to say about this is that it can't possibly be the case because it doesn't suit their views.

[ZX3]

Originally posted by Demogorgon+June 22, 2007 01:19 pm--> (Demogorgon @ June 22, 2007 01:19 pm)
[email protected]une 22, 2007 05:41 pm

No, not dancing around at all.

I recognise the argument: The UK is able to provide a greater service, for less of a cost. Therefore, it is successful because everyone is covered, and resources can be direted to other areas of the economy and country.

What I don't understand is why a socialist should trumpet it. It is after all, an argument based entirely upon capitalist economic calculations. Lower costs, including labor (ie doctor's compensation) is trumpeted as a good objective and result (and why are lower costs, so often panned by socialists in other aspects of society, so praiseworthy by socialists when it comes to medicine??).
The NHS was a voctory for socialism within a capitalist system. It has been damaged since then of course, but its basic form is still there.

And what are you talking about regarding costs? I don''t think you understand economics very well. Low costs are only criticised when they are being lowered in a manner that harms workers or provides an inferiot service or whatever. The NHS is not doing either in order to lower its costs (well some of its low paid workers are hurt of course, but no more than in a system like Americas). The lower costs come due to the fact that a nationalised health system is plainly more effective and efficient than a privitised one.

All the cappies here seem to be able to say about this is that it can't possibly be the case because it doesn't suit their views. [/b]
Okay. Low costs are criticised only when they hurt the workers (by this I suppose you mean as a reflection of their compensation). So lowering labor costs can be advantageous to the socialist community, to a certain point.

What is the knowledge which the socialist community uses to determine that point?

[MarcX]

Originally posted by red [email protected] 11, 2007 08:45 am
Here's a challenge for you Capitalist sympathisers.

Attempt to disprove that following the logic of your system results in the following situations.

They all cause hardships, unnecessary labour, inefficiencies and environmental destruction where none would exist before, so if you can't disprove that the Capitalist system allows for the following scenarios to be possible then Capitalism isn't really a humane or progessive system as you supporters claim it is. If it isn't a humane system then why would the majority of humanity ever support it since it would be going against their interests? Then wouldn't the rebellion and the fall of the Capitalist system be inevitable? :D


1. A factory dumps toxic industrial waste into a previously clear and drinkable river introducing pollution into it where none exist before. What previously could have been a freely available natural resource for farming irrigation or domestic water supplies is destroyed. A bottled water company comes along which may or may not be owned by the same people who own the factory and starts operations to fullfil a need, by charging a fee for this service of course, in providing fresh water by purifying the water from the same river or stream through burning fuel to run the water purification equipment. The justification for profiting off of providing what previously was a freely available natural resource is of course the same tired excuse spouted by the cunning financial tricksters throughout the ages and that is the "need" for supporting "administrative" costs. What was freely available before now costs more fuel to make available again introducing an real physical inefficiency which costs the previous consumers of this freely available resource extra labour and wages which is of course all "earned" back by the same people who own the factory and water bottling plant. The burnt fuel which of course is not the responsibility of the owners of either the factory or the water bottling plant blows out of the huge exhausts of both places to degrade the air quality and cause long term harm to the climate system.

2. The owners of a insurance company for housing insurance is losing business because nobody is buying insurance for their relatively safe houses. The quickest solution to this problem is to subcontract an arsonist to burn down a few houses without sprinkler systems. Having the fear of losing their place of shelter put into them, the owners of old, shoddy houses instead of buying sprinkler systems which are expensive to install in houses that were never planned with one opts to buy insurance from your insurance company thus solving the problem of the company gaining customers and thus revenue which otherwise would not have been necessary with the proper fire fighting equipment installed in the old houses through government housing support programs.

3. The health industry in the process of staying in business charge everybody an expensive fee for diseases which root cause is the malnutrition caused by a junk food diet and lack of exercise, but instead of lowering the cost and encouraging public awareness of the importance of nutritious foods and exercises, a food industry is developed where cheap to make (and therefore profitable), but nutritionally questionable food is the lowest in cost and is mass produced for consumption by a constantly sick population which visits the doctor ever so often because of ill health caused by non-nutritious foods. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.

4. A public transportation system and urban planning in which decentralizes business and industry so that people can get to work within a short distance of where they live is scrapped in favour of a centralized urban planning scheme where suburbs are located far away from a central business core in "downtown" and effective public transit infrastructure is destroyed in favour of a car industry and car culture which burns more fuel than was previously necessary when cars inevitably gets stuck in traffic jams where independent cars all heading in different directions meet in traffic intersections designed by morons. So now instead of short distances to workplaces in transit times measured in minutes we have long distances to work with transit times measured in hours. Again inefficiencies where none was before, but profit for those who can manipulate these inefficiencies for their own gain.
it is all possible

but there is also Laws and punishment.