Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

[abbielives!]

the best response to that question i have come across

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM

[Bilan]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 09:46 pm
Chomsky is a millionaire
Proof?

--
And also, yeah, it's a pretty great response.
Noam Chomsky is pretty awesome.

And on that note, have you seen "chomsky on anarchism"?

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 26, 2007 06:16 am



im curious how you guys resond when people say capitalism is making life better
I think the last time I heard anyone say that, Abbie was still living.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chomsky is brilliant, but as he gets older he wanders off the point too much.

But he is still ace.

Even if he is rich (a fact yet to be proven -- I think much of it is held in trust for his children), he uses his wealth to reach wider and wider audiences. Can you imagine Bill Gates doing what Chomsky does?

And thanks for posting this AbbieLives.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 10:12 am
Chomsky is brilliant,
He is. Especially as a linguist.

Luís Henrique

[Red Scare]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 04:48 pm
I think the worst thing he's done was to support the democrats in an election...
Did he honestly believe they're were going to end the war?
He should have remembered that back in the Vietnam war era there was an election in which LBJ was considered the peace candidate. When he got elected he increase troop levels in Vietnam and didn't end the war.
Even now I doubt the next president would end the war.....

i totally agree, none of the democratic candidates are really going to make social change or pull out of iraq, they are just going to be greedy capitalists sitting around, doing nothing, and making money. then when election time swings bac around again they are going to change their act, appear to really care, and do all sorts of crap so they can be lazy again for another four more years..... sad how democracy (not really a republic) has turned into this, when moderate leftists are greedy capitalist facists.........

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Especially as a linguist.

I disagree; his theory is highly confused. His anti-imperialism is what I meant.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by Bite the [email protected] 25, 2007 12:51 pm

And also, yeah, it's a pretty great response.
Noam Chomsky is pretty awesome.

And on that note, have you seen "chomsky on anarchism"?

yeah it's ok, i wish people would go into more detail about somethings, like what it is people did in spain to gain such mass support, or what you do after your group gets bigger than an affinity group, my group used to get upwards of twenty people but it shrank back down because we could not find a way to involve them or distingush between people who are serious or those just along for the ride

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by CornetJoyce+June 26, 2007 06:37 am--> (CornetJoyce @ June 26, 2007 06:37 am)
abbielives!@June 26, 2007 06:16 am



im curious how you guys resond when people say capitalism is making life better
I think the last time I heard anyone say that, Abbie was still living. [/b]

really??? i get it all the time :angry:

how did you respond?

[Bilan]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 28, 2007 06:19 am--> (abbielives! @ June 28, 2007 06:19 am)
Bite the [email protected] 25, 2007 12:51 pm

And also, yeah, it's a pretty great response.
Noam Chomsky is pretty awesome.

And on that note, have you seen "chomsky on anarchism"?

yeah it's ok, i wish people would go into more detail about somethings, like what it is people did in spain to gain such mass support, or what you do after your group gets bigger than an affinity group, my group used to get upwards of twenty people but it shrank back down because we could not find a way to involve them or distingush between people who are serious or those just along for the ride [/b]
There are texts on that sort of thing, like the ones on Zabalaza.net.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 06:57 pm
LH:


Especially as a linguist.

I disagree; his theory is highly confused. His anti-imperialism is what I meant.
And confused and brilliant are mutually exclusive?

Whatever the fate of general grammatics in the future, they certainly were decisive to enhance scientifical thought and research in the field.

On his anti-imperialism, it is certainly more confused than his linguistics, and a lot less brilliant. Linguistics would not be the same thing without Chomsky, but anti-imperialism would only lack some spice without him.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 03:13 pm
they are just going to be greedy capitalists sitting around, doing nothing, and making money.
What they do is a full lot worse than doing nothing.


then when election time swings bac around again they are going to change their act, appear to really care, and do all sorts of crap so they can be lazy again for another four more years.....

Lazy isn't an apt word to describe the behaviour of these ladies and gentlemen; they are certainly a lot busy screwing us. In this, they can be infatigable.


sad how democracy (not really a republic) has turned into this, when moderate leftists are greedy capitalist facists.........

Democrats are not moderate leftist by no stretch of imagination; they are radical right-wingers who have the sence of pretending to be moderate to make votes.

Luís Henrique

[Political_Chucky]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+June 28, 2007 06:59 am--> (Luís Henrique @ June 28, 2007 06:59 am)
Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 06:57 pm
LH:


Especially as a linguist.

I disagree; his theory is highly confused. His anti-imperialism is what I meant.
And confused and brilliant are mutually exclusive?

Whatever the fate of general grammatics in the future, they certainly were decisive to enhance scientifical thought and research in the field.

On his anti-imperialism, it is certainly more confused than his linguistics, and a lot less brilliant. Linguistics would not be the same thing without Chomsky, but anti-imperialism would only lack some spice without him.

Luís Henrique [/b]
Out of curiousity and without diving too deep into it, what has Chomsky been credited with in the field of Linguistics?

[CornetJoyce]

Originally posted by abbielives!+June 27, 2007 08:22 pm--> (abbielives! @ June 27, 2007 08:22 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 06:37 am

abbielives!@June 26, 2007 06:16 am



im curious how you guys resond when people say capitalism is making life better
I think the last time I heard anyone say that, Abbie was still living.

really??? i get it all the time :angry:

how did you respond? [/b]
I probably said something like "You mean the rich guys you work for are making life better for you and not the other way around? Gee, that's soooo sweet of them. Why on earth do they do that, I wonder..."

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Political_Chucky+June 28, 2007 11:14 pm--> (Political_Chucky @ June 28, 2007 11:14 pm)
Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 28, 2007 06:59 am

Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 06:57 pm
LH:


Especially as a linguist.

I disagree; his theory is highly confused. His anti-imperialism is what I meant.
And confused and brilliant are mutually exclusive?

Whatever the fate of general grammatics in the future, they certainly were decisive to enhance scientifical thought and research in the field.

On his anti-imperialism, it is certainly more confused than his linguistics, and a lot less brilliant. Linguistics would not be the same thing without Chomsky, but anti-imperialism would only lack some spice without him.

Luís Henrique
Out of curiousity and without diving too deep into it, what has Chomsky been credited with in the field of Linguistics? [/b]
Wiki: Generative Linguistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_linguistics)

When I say Chomsky's linguistic work is brilliant, I am not saying that his conceptions are necessarily right; science advances by setting and destroying paradigms. Chomsky's ideas have became the paradigm in the field of linguistics (which means they are now under attack - you will certainly find people that will try to sell you the idea that his work is not important since it has been disproved by new research: proportions aside, this is the equivalent to saying that Newton was negligible because Einstein's gravitation theory replaced it).

Luís Henrique

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by Bite the hand+June 28, 2007 08:21 am--> (Bite the hand @ June 28, 2007 08:21 am)
Originally posted by abbielives!@June 28, 2007 06:19 am

Bite the [email protected] 25, 2007 12:51 pm

And also, yeah, it's a pretty great response.
Noam Chomsky is pretty awesome.

And on that note, have you seen "chomsky on anarchism"?

yeah it's ok, i wish people would go into more detail about somethings, like what it is people did in spain to gain such mass support, or what you do after your group gets bigger than an affinity group, my group used to get upwards of twenty people but it shrank back down because we could not find a way to involve them or distingush between people who are serious or those just along for the ride
There are texts on that sort of thing, like the ones on Zabalaza.net. [/b]

care to recomend any?

[Ander]

Chomsky rambled more than a drunken sailor in that one...Going off on a tangent, much?

[abbielives!]

soooooooooooooo, what do other people say when people say capitalism is making life better?

[funkmasterswede]

Originally posted by abbielives!@July 01, 2007 03:30 am
soooooooooooooo, what do other people say when people say capitalism is making life better?
Personally, what I would say is that in a globalized world, we cannot simply look at the conditions of our community or even in our nation. Neoliberal capitalism, has most definitely provided cheaper and more extensive luxuries to the west, then did the keynesian system prior to it. But, I guess I use a guilt tactic in order to show that the current system provides a benefit to us, but only through making other's in developing nations truly oppressed. The only reason we all have luxuries is because generally Western nations are no longer associated with industrial production. To call someone working class within a western nation now is more of a way of desribing income and power. Rather than a term that usually has the connotations of those who produce the goods for society. If people in the developing world were treated justly, and not oppressed through the IMF and the WTO and corporate interests, the aggregate level of affluence in the west would decrease. So capitalism is entirely partial it generally supports the affluent colonial nations and will provide them with greater affluence, however it does so at the cost of productive labour in de facto colonies. If you support neoliberal capitalism and oppression it can make your life better, but so can forcing a homeless person to do your job.

There is something innate to human nature. I feel that most people have difficulty coping with the fact that one's own necessary egoism will be detrimental to all those around them. Every time I eat, I am taking from the collective pot of food in the world. Most people, after having this explained to them, realize the global social costs of neoliberal capitalism.

Also, I feel that Huxley was right on the money with his comments regarding a future society and how the "fetishization of commodities" to use a Marxian term, would lead to a society of blind consumption and irrelevance. Consumption is not done for consumptions sake, it has become a rational end in itself. People give up their freedom and work jobs that do not fulfill them and then the state and the capitalist give us our technology and we promise to never question the system. I see state capitalism as a movement towards a dystopian future. Institutions socialize people into their current views in exchange for luxury. Capitalism leaves no room for human fulfillment.

[gilhyle]

Here is a capitalist response to the question:

"The global economy is in the midst of the greatest boom of all times. It started when the cold war ended, leading to an unprecedented period of free trade. It really took off after China joined the World Trade Organisation on December 11, 2001.

Never before have so many people around the world experienced such a rapid increase in their standards of living and wealth. The previous great global boom occured during the 1950s and the 1960s and benefitted about 300m people as Japan and Europe were rebuilt following the devastation of the second world war, and the US retooled from a wartime to a peacetime economy. The rest of the world was mostly left out of this boom. Now, at least 3bn people are benefitting from globalisation - the rapid integration of national markets for goods and services, capital and labour through free trade.......So, is our global prosperity just a cyclical phenomenon - the consequence of liquidity-inflated bubbles, which may be starting to burst.? I dont think so. I think it wil be sustained for many years as globalisation continues to increase the wealth of nations, which should absorb the shock waves when bubbles inevitably burst along the way , as some are doing right now.

The OECD's industrial production index is up 10 per cent since the end of 2001. A broader index which includes six big emerging economies is up a whopping 30 percent since then. .....The OECD core consumer price inflation rate has remained remarkably stable at between 1 and 2 percent since 2003, That's because all those relatively scarce commodities have been converted into a glut of consumer goods. Manufacturers cant raise their prices because of global competition. So they have been buying capital equipment to boost their productivity, which has mostly offset rising materials costs and maintained high profitability......

The clear and present danger for the global boom is a credit crunch. ...Over the last couple of years, Wall Street's alchemists discovered how to convert junk morgages, bonds and loans into AAA credits.....This is really the first big stress test of the global boom. We are about to find out how much of it has been driven by financial alchemy. We are also about to find out the extent to which the global economy still depends on the U.S....In my opinion the world economy has become less U.S.-centric....I also expect that the bursting of the alchemy buble in the credit markets wont seriously disrupt the global boom. The enormous wealth of nations created by globalisation should act as a powerful shock abosrber."

Edward Yardeni, Financial Times, P. 36 August 1 2007


Striking claim, isnt it, 'the greatest boom of all time'? .....hard to build a revolution in the middle of that !!