Capitalist Values [Archive]

Pillar of Maturity

23rd January 2002, 05:14

How can you say that opportunity is created naturally when Bush was picking his nose in front of cameras at a Rangers game after being drunk for 20-something years while people who work their asses off barely have enough money to feed themselves and pay rent, much less own a home?

Bush gets a baseball team after never working.

Workers get evicted after never relaxing.

You've got to realize, people don't have freedom to exercise competencies. It looks like you haven't got a clue how much it costs for a person to start their own business. After that, lots of businesses still fail. (They failed the most under Reaganomics, where Reagan lived and small & independent businesses died.)

Do you really believe that the law is equally applied? Black people make up 12% of the population and 13% of the drug users. And then they manage to make up more than half of the drug convictions. While young black people were rotting in jail, a Republican advisor was in a five-star rehab clinic for his cocaine addiction.

That's not equality. Young black men rotting while the men who put them in prison are in 20/20 human interest pieces?

reagan lives

23rd January 2002, 15:19

What's your point, again? Or do you have one?

If you're born wealthy, like Bush, you have the freedom to do fuck-all for your whole life as long as your trust fund holds, because your parents had the opportunity to become wealthy and the freedom to leave it to their kids so they could do whatever the fuck they want. If you're not born wealthy, you have the opportunity to improve your station in life. If you don't think this is true in America, you've either been fooled by the charlatans and chicaners like those found on this board, or you're just ignorant.

And your misplaced screed about black drug convictions was just that...misplaced. Your numbers (whatever crackpot source you got them from) point to deficencies in law enforcement, not the legal system. A highly effective police force has nothing to do with "capitalist values"...indeed, I'll bet the police do a much better job under communist regimes where individuals have no rights. What I was talking about was everybody being equal before the eyes of the law, and that law being *applied* equally, even if it isn't *enforced* evenly. Am I promoting racial profiling in the police force? Certainly not. I'm just saying it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The relevant point about the law as it relates to the capitalist economic system is that it has to ensure that everyone has equal property rights, and it has to enforce contracts so that people can make capitalism work. I would have figured that a Pillar of Maturity would keep the discussion on topic, being so mature, instead of taking cheap shots at unrelated parts of the American situation. Or maybe you just didn't understand me.

Pillar of Maturity

23rd January 2002, 19:35

Quote: from reagan lives on 4:19 pm on Jan. 23, 2002
If you're born wealthy, like Bush, you have the freedom to do fuck-all for your whole life as long as your trust fund holds, because your parents had the opportunity to become wealthy and the freedom to leave it to their kids so they could do whatever the fuck they want. If you're not born wealthy, you have the opportunity to improve your station in life. If you don't think this is true in America, you've either been fooled by the charlatans and chicaners like those found on this board, or you're just ignorant.Not everyone can afford to go to college, pal. To say that someone really smart who can't go to college and ends up working as a janitor will have the same opportunities as a trust fund baby is naive. No matter what, there is a 1/100 chance that this janitor will ever be able to start his own business. Aside from that, it's very hard for someone without a college education to make any money at all.

My point about the cocaine was relevant because a rich man got to go to a nice clinic for committing the same crime that poor people, who could not afford to go to that clinic, were in jail. Jail for poor people and rehab/Barbara Walters for rich people shows the divide. It's an example of class differences, it wasn't off topic.

peaccenicked

23rd January 2002, 19:42

Quote: from reagan lives on 4:56 am on Jan. 23, 2002
1) Law. Equally applied. Especially the private property variety.
Law? which law, which law of private property. what value?

2) Competence. All individuals have it with respect to their own wants and needs.
Competence. for people to know themselves. Does this apply to criminals?

3) Freedom. To exercise said competencies. This freedom can only be enjoyed when value #1 is satisfied.
what is value #1 but this does not apply to criminals surely

4) Opportunity. Created naturally when the other values are satisfied.
opportunity for whom to do what

5) Enlightenment. See Kant, "What is Enlightenment?"
Could you summarise Kant please.
maybe you might actually start saying something of 'value'

reagan lives

23rd January 2002, 19:45

Ah, but what you failed to show is that class divisions are endemic to capitalist systems any more than they are to other systems. The reason why you failed to show this is because it isn't true. Capitalism erases class structure by creating the middle class and allowing social mobility. You, like most communists, conveniently forget the middle class in all your little economic morality tales, even though they're far and away the most populous group in America. Since you love Marx, you see things in terms of his great lie: that in Capitalism, you're either George W. Bush or you're a janitor. What a fantasy world. No, not everyone can afford to go to a private college. But that doesn't mean that they're stuck being a janitor. What they do have is the opportunity to work hard so they can send their children to college, who in turn can work hard to send their children to a better college (obviously higher education is not the only avenue to success, but you chose it so we'll stick with it). I never said that everybody has the same opportunities. But everyone has the opportunity to increase their wealth.

reagan lives

23rd January 2002, 19:59

Sorry peacenik, you posted while I was writing. It seems to me that you need amplification on almost all of my points.

1) As I explained to the Pillar, the equal application of private property rights is the cornerstone of capitalism. Private property rights have three features, enumerated forthwith:
i. The ability to use your property.
ii. The ability to preclude others from using your property.
iii. The ability to alienate your property.
As long as these abilities are guaranteed to everyone and enforced by a central authority (who enforces these rights without otherwise interfering with the conduct thereof), people can use their property to accumulate wealth.

2) I'm not sure what your point about criminals is. My point is that everyone knows what's good for him or her. Perhaps you're trying to present an abstract hypothetical wherein the good of a person conflicts with the law. I would argue that this is never the case, and let's leave it at that, because to explore it any further would require a foray into the less tangible elements of political theory and philosophy.

3) Value #1 is the equal application of the law, which allows people to excercise their competencies through free trade. People know what they value more or less. If you go to the supermarket and buy a gallon of milk for a dollar, you have decided that the gallon of milk is more valuable to you than the dollar, otherwise you wouldn't trade it. The grocer, for his part, has decided that he likes the dollar better than his milk. You're both happier than you were before. The general welfare is increased. Again, I have no idea what you're alluding to with this criminal business.

4) Kant: "'Have the courage to use your own understanding,' is therefore the motto of the enlightenment." People are smart and don't need to be told what to do. Dependece on others by the populous stunts the growth of society. People need to be able to express their ideas in public, and to make up their minds for themselves. Kant advocated a sort of intellectual capitalism, if you will.

Imperial Power

23rd January 2002, 20:33

Many British do not understand that we don't really have a dividing social system in United States. It's so apparent there because of Feudalism. It's not a case of international politics that is your problem. You would encounter the same problems no matter what your political system socialism or capitialism. The better jobs go to the person with better family name. One of my professors was lecturing on the social systems in Britain today and according to him its almost the worst in Europe.

Moskitto

23rd January 2002, 20:39

Britain is a dictatorship. In Britain the people who have the real power are civil servents. They all asume that the common state school folk are not interested or capable of decision making so they look for new members of the civil service from the private schools like "Eton" "Harlow" etc.

While people can get into the civil service from the state school sector and no one will get to the top if they're an idiot. People at the top echelons get there not by what they know but by who they know.

And the only people who go to these private schools are...

Old money, not middle classes or anyone else.

peaccenicked

23rd January 2002, 20:48

i)the ability to use your property for what
ii) personal property is personal property
iii) alienate you property. what do you mean?

3) There is one law for the rich and one for the poor
whats the use of fining a billionaire

4) Kant was precapitalist

reagan lives

23rd January 2002, 23:05

i) whatever you want, as long as you're not using it to infringe on others' rights.
ii) what?
iii) sell. Get rid of. For instance, if you were to go buy the dictionary/thesaurus that you obviously need, the owner of the bookstore would be alienating his dictionary/thesaurus to you.

3) Listen to yourself. You have two separate statements here. The first one says that there are different laws for the rich and poor. The second one implies that the law is unfair because it is applied equally to the rich and to the poor. Which one is it, peacenick?

4) I agree. What's your point? I didn't say that Kant based his theory of Enlightenment on capitalism, I simply drew an analogy between them. Nice try, though.

Pillar of Maturity

23rd January 2002, 23:15

Quote: from reagan lives on 8:45 pm on Jan. 23, 2002
Capitalism erases class structure by creating the middle class and allowing social mobility. You, like most communists, conveniently forget the middle class in all your little economic morality tales, even though they're far and away the most populous group in America.It is possible to have class structure and a middle class. I never forgot the middle class. What do you want me to say about them? Communism makes everyone middle class and, when done correctly, erases the lower and upper classes. We're discussing Capitalism and Communism. A major difference that might be THE major difference is that there are lower and upper classes in Capitalist societies. Talking about the middle class would be a waste of space because there is a middle class no matter which system you choose.

Many people definitely appreciate being able to send their kids to college, but my point was that George W. Bush's daddy paid for him to drink at an Ivy League school while there are janitors who can barely pay for their kids to eat. I never said that these are the only two possibilities in a Capitalist society, but they are two of many things that would not happen in a Communist society.

reagan lives

24th January 2002, 00:04

"It is possible to have class structure and a middle class."
Middle class implies social mobility. So, if a true middle class is part of a class structure, that structure is fluid and changing within every generation. Which effectively means there is no established class structure at all.

"I never forgot the middle class. What do you want me to say about them?"
I don't want you to *say* anything. I want you to recognize Marx's fundamental lie: that the capitalist system is not simply divided between those who own the means of production and those who they subjugate. This fact is proven by the existence of a middle class.

"Communism makes everyone middle class and, when done correctly, erases the lower and upper classes."
Wrong. Communism makes everyone lower class. It makes everyone dependent. It allows for no personal advancement or wealth acquisition. In other words, it relegates to everyone the precise conditions that leftists contend are forced on the American working class. But since everyone is lower-class, you can fool yourselves into calling it something else.

"Many people definitely appreciate being able to send their kids to college, but my point was that George W. Bush's daddy paid for him to drink at an Ivy League school while there are janitors who can barely pay for their kids to eat."
I've never studied the Bush genealogy, but somewhere not too long ago some Bush was a janitor who could barely pay for his kids to eat.

(Edited by reagan lives at 1:05 am on Jan. 24, 2002)

peaccenicked

24th January 2002, 17:21

Quote: from reagan lives on 1:04 am on Jan. 24, 2002[brCommunism makes everyone lower class.
(Edited by reagan lives at 1:05 am on Jan. 24, 2002)

who told you that? It is a down right lie.
Marx wants a classless society based on share the world's wealth. There is enough to go round.
Why are you trying to distort marx to people who actually read him when you dont. If you do you are guilty of blatant fraud.

peaccenicked

24th January 2002, 19:00

Quote: from reagan lives on 12:05 am on Jan. 24, 2002
i) whatever you want, as long as you're not using it to infringe on others' rights.
ii) what?
iii) sell. Get rid of. For instance, if you were to go buy the dictionary/thesaurus that you obviously need, the owner of the bookstore would be alienating his dictionary/thesaurus to you.

3) Listen to yourself. You have two separate statements here. The first one says that there are different laws for the rich and poor. The second one implies that the law is unfair because it is applied equally to the rich and to the poor. Which one is it, peacenick?

4) I agree. What's your point? I didn't say that Kant based his theory of Enlightenment on capitalism, I simply drew an analogy between them. Nice try, though.

I forgot to answer this crap.
You are against infringing others rights
but you will not listen to the argument that capitalism is legalised theft. The worker is not paid the full value of his labour. He enters into a contract that says work or be poor. The worker is not really free determine and recieve the full value his labour. The employer pinches
some of it goes for valid purposes and some to the maintaince of his own abstract labour, the rest of goes in his bank account for purposes that go way beyond any equality of labour . This is what you support and say has nothing to do with wealth inequality.
ii)Alienating=distributing
ok, as long it is not a swindle.

As to the law being applied equally, formally you are correct but real life does not match the form. The rich get better laywers, get to corrupt policemen,or if they are very lucky get into the whitehouse and illegally bomb other countries and who can do anything about it.

vox

25th January 2002, 07:51

Reagan wrote,

"Middle class implies social mobility. So, if a true middle class is part of a class structure, that structure is fluid and changing within every generation. Which effectively means there is no established class structure at all."

That's not what it means at all. Class mobility doesn't mean that there is no class structure. Indeed, if it did, how could you speak of class mobility in the first place? With no class structure, one cannot rise or sink in class, correct? Of course I'm correct, and, once again, you are wrong.

Since this fallacy is essential to your argument, your entire argument is now shown to be wrong. Now watch me being smug and superior.

vox (when will they ever learn?)

reagan lives

25th January 2002, 16:49

More sophism by vox. What a surprise. We'll make this simple so everyone can understand it, not just super-geniuses like vox, who is so much smarter than everyone else that, indeed, he's the only one who can understand himself. Some would call that "crazy," but not vox...he calls it superiority. Decide for yourselves. But I digress...

Me: Marx's thesis about capitalism is flawed because the middle class breaks down the class structure by providing a great deal of intragenerational social mobility. In essence, the middle class is the antithesis of class (no pun intended).

Voice: You say that the middle class breaks down the class structure. But how can there be a middle class if there's no class structure? I'm right and you're wrong. I am so very right and you are so very wrong that I don't even need to actually make an argument to prove this fact, which should just be blatantly obvious.

Do you see how ridiculous you are, vox? You said:
"Indeed, if it did, how could you speak of class mobility in the first place?"

I never spoke of class mobility...if I did, I misspoke. I speak of social mobility, which only implies a class structure if you've been brainwashed by Marx. Having proven once again that vox is a mindless automaton who, in lieu of actual mental excercise, engages in compulsory intellectual masturbation by preaching to the pinko choir and getting his ass kissed by equally mindless people all day, I will move on to peacenick.

"but you will not listen to the argument that capitalism is legalised theft. The worker is not paid the full value of his labour. He enters into a contract that says work or be poor. The worker is not really free determine and recieve the full value his labour."
Something tells me you've never set foot in an economics classroom. Do so at once, and then we'll talk.

"ii)Alienating=distributing"
No, it doesn't. Look, I'll be careful not to use big words anymore. Alienating means trading. When I said that the third facet of property rights is the ability to alienate one's property, what I should have said is that the third facet of property rights is the ability to trade away one's property. This is not the same as "distributing."

peaccenicked

25th January 2002, 17:31

I have taught economics, but not your weirdo stuff.
You dont make any sense.
Smith. Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Galbraith and any classical economist you can think of would be horrorified at your
degraditon of the subject matter of political economy.

The middle class does not break down the class structure. It is part of the class structure which is insignificant to the the legalised theft that you don't want to talk about. Maybe it is you who should take a class in
in literary comprhension and listening skills.
i've tried, but here is the marx accusing capitalism of legalised theft.
"Yet the possibility now exists for a society where enough can be produced for each to take according to their need. The possibilities posed before mankind by science and new technology were foreseen by Marx over 120 years ago. In one of his notebooks he wrote:

"No longer does the worker insert a modified natural thing as middle link between the object and himself; rather he inserts the process of nature, transformed into an industrial process, as a means between himself and unorganic nature mastering it. In this transformation it is...the development of the social individual which appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth. The theft of alien labour-time, on which the present is based, appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by large-scale industry itself...

"The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the human head... The free development of individuals and hence...the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific, etc., development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them." (Grundrisse)

Guest

26th January 2002, 09:47

What a debate, keep it up fellas!!!!

vox

28th January 2002, 09:27

Ragan wrote:

"I never spoke of class mobility...if I did, I misspoke. I speak of social mobility, which only implies a class structure if you've been brainwashed by Marx."

Reagan also wrote:

"So, if a true middle class is part of a class structure, that structure is fluid and changing within every generation."

Those are Reagan's words, not mine, and they are all right here in this thread. He writes of a class structure, and then denies it, though it's plain for all to see. He did, indeed, speak of a class structure.

Disregarding all the insults he directed at me, and at my comrades, his point seems to be that "social mobility," what most people call class mobility, means that there is no class structure, though he himself used class structure in his previous post in a futile and desperate attempt to gain credibility.

There is, of course, much greater class mobility in capitalism than in any other socio-political system. Anyone can get rich. It's (almost) true. However, and herein lies the rub, not EVERYONE can get rich. So, while class mobility is certainly a very real thing, it doesn't mean very much, for the economic pyramid remains constant, only the names of the people supporting it change. And that, my friends, is the real problem, isn't it? It's a perfect example of the disparity in wealth that capitalism demands as a result of its proper function.

Reagan doesn't get it, and never will. He's a vapid thing, it seems, and a thing to be pitied rather than reviled.

Regardless, I'm still right, reagan lies, and you're still wrong.

Love,

vox

PS No response to my other posts? Why reagan, one might even think that you're incapable of answering. I know that I certainly do.