When Mitt Romney becomes president.... *FLUX THREAD!*

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I think capitalism is good. But what we have in the US right now is NOT free capitalism. Everyone should live under the same rules. Unfortunately, the wealthy class are in bed with the government. Democrats and republicans! There are billionaires that pay less taxes then I do at $30K. And the government insists on bailing out failing companies. If they fail, let them die. The market doesn't want your company anymore because it sucks. So go bankrupt and allow rising competitors flourish which the market deems worthy. Not who the government deems worthy!!

I agree with a lot of those sentiments but I think that real change cannot occur if one believes in some of the basic misconceptions within those sentiments. You note for example that “what we have in the US right now is NOT free capitalism.” The reality, though, is that there has never been free capitalism in the US nor has there been historically in any first world country. And the reason why is transparent – free market capitalism is typically disastrous. Part of the reason why it is disastrous is because without public intervention, the public suffers dramatically because they are far more easily exploited by the ownership class. Keep in mind that in a capitalist system, a worker sells their labor to an owner who buys their labor from them at the lowest possible price so that they can make the highest amount of profit and the only people who are in a legitimate position to decide the terms of this relationship are the owners/shareholders, while the laborer gets absolutely no say, despite the fact that the owner is appropriating the product of their labor and selling it on the market for their own personal profit. This is textbook exploitation. There are ways to make this less exploitative - so, for instance, there might be mechanisms put in place where labor has some kind of bargaining power (i.e. unions). This allows labor to play some role in deciding the terms of the relationship. However, in a true capitalist system, allowing mechanisms that give workers some say in the owner/worker relationship is considered antithetical. And so, the population at large can become easily exploted.

The other reason why free market capitalism is disastrous is because markets are inherently inefficicent because risk is typically under-priced. So for example, when we sell cars we don’t take into account the cost of things like environmental degradation, issues surrounding oil including shortages and international affairs. Those aren’t taken into account because the cost is felt by people not involved in the immediate transaction. Now this inherent market inefficiency ultimately becomes really dangerous when it is transplanted on the larger scale of financial markets. So if an investment firm takes a risk with an investment, the firm calculates the risk for themselves into the cost to cover personal losses but they don’t calculate the risk of the investment going so poorly that it crashes the entire financial system. And this is what happened in 2008. And it was only able to happen because the Clinton administration had dismantled the New Deal legislation (the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933) that de-regulated the financial institutions allowing them to self-destruct by allowing for a system that encouraged excessive risk taking – the very thing that caused the major economic crises to occur in the first place that government intervention curtailed successfully. Again this had nothing to do with companies failing because the market didn’t want them, whatever that means. In fact, these companies failed because the market itself is faulty and if a capitalist market is going to exist (and I don’t believe it should because of the reasons I’ve outlined) then it does need to be regulated or else it will inevitably destroy itself and all the people in it (which is what is really important and at stake in these discussions).

And you’re right, the public pays for it but what they are paying for are the inherent failures of a de-regulated free market system that encourages corporate coups that allowed Goldman Sachs to force sub-prime mortgages on families that could not re-pay it and dice up those mortgages as assets to sell and then to bet against. And the public then ultimately pays to stabilize the very system that led to the crisis in the first place. And this is, of course, why no first world country could ever allow for a free market system because the public is crucial because they need to subsidize the failures of this system. This is also why, for the most part, it was the public that subsidized the major economic developments within the United States throughout the 20th Century and provided the social welfare net for concentrated wealth and power but not because they chose to. Had they been given a choice to either develop a sustainable economic system or to fund short-term industrial development, my hunch is they would have chosen the latter. But we’ll never know because the people are not allowed that choice – they are to be mostly kept out of the major decisions that occur in this façade of a democracy. My guess is that this choice is kept from the public because if they did choose the former – a sustainable economic system – they would be depriving major gains from the owners of the country – namely, the capitalist class of concentrated wealth and power.  And if that minority of the population self-destructs as is inevitable, and is in fear of losing the gains they made, they don't have to worry too much because the public will be there to save them in the end.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

The threat of violence IS human nature.

I'm not sure what that means.

Then you have so disappeared up your own theological existence that you have lost contact with how life really is.

Maybe. But personally I think that breezy, unspecified references to "human nature" tell us exactly nothing about "how life really is." Its merely a tiresome cliche that people throw around as if it had some real meaning. After all, if I asked you how the threat of violence is human nature, you wouldn't be able to explain it without resorting to vague generalizations that make some pretense of understanding the world and human history as a whole.

[guitarfool2002]

Human nature and interaction has a lot more meaning in everyday life than throwing around statistics, theories, and numbers in order to prove some notion of "fact" over what people will offer in face-to-face, direct contact with each other in "everyday life".

This is the problem I have: There is an undercurrent of not only lessening the notion of individuality but also attempts at dehumanization within certain political and social philosophies. If collectivism is the goal, you're potentially removing not only the rights of the individual, but you're also removing the very notion of individuality.

The reasons why too many academics and intellectuals seek to dismiss the influence on human nature and human behavior in general is because, first, every human is an individual with individualized behavior, responses, and reactions. That, by nature, would make the notion of collectivism all but impossible outside of a think tank, and it would be harder to prove certain theories and "facts" using demographic and group-based data based on assumed and potential behavior within that group.

Second, facts and figures are not substitutes for a living, breathing human. I laugh whenever the role of the individual is lessened in favor of academic theory and/or fact-gathering and analysis.

The second one is possibly due to a number of academics and intellectuals not being directly exposed through human interaction to enough of the segments of society which exist through data as numbers, demographics, or anonymous test subjects.

If people are reduced to demographics and numbers, they are easier to predict and therefore easier to control (i.e. rule-govern-lead-etc). Unfortunately for too much of academia, that unpredictability is what makes people individuals, and individuals are often the ones to generate true change and innovation while being told by larger groups not to step out of line.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

http://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Human nature and interaction has a lot more meaning in everyday life than throwing around statistics, theories, and numbers in order to prove some notion of "fact" over what people will offer in face-to-face, direct contact with each other in "everyday life".

I do in fact believe in some sort of human nature but to believe that you can enounter human nature simply by making "face-to-face direct contact" with other people is bizarrely incomprehensible. If you believe that direct contact is the best way to understand human nature, you would have to have direct contact with every human being on earth now, and every human being that has been on earth since the beginning of time. Can you please explain to me how this is possible? I mean, you certainly can't say that because you've seen several if not many examples of something that it must exist amongst everyone. After all, that's the foundation of most racist arguments.

Again, I believe in human nature. I just don't believe in throwing the term around willy-nilly as a way of justifying one's own personal beliefs.

This is the problem I have: There is an undercurrent of not only lessening the notion of individuality but also attempts at dehumanization within certain political and social philosophies. If collectivism is the goal, you're potentially removing not only the rights of the individual, but you're also removing the very notion of individuality.

Quite the opposite. In fact, Adam Smith was quite correct when he noted that it was the division of labor that essentially de-humanized people and made them  "ignorant and stupid" because in such a system, people are reduced to performing "a few very simple operations" and even then, those operations are basically dictated by a dominant force. By contrast, federated, de-centralized systems of free association allow people to pursue the areas that they are particularly interested in and to focus on them within the community. Unlike under capitalism, people can decide for themselves the kind of society they would like to see - the kinds of things it would focus on, the kind of work to be done, etc. If anything, collective societies foster a kind of independence and creative freedom that capitalist systems severely limit, as noted by the very framers of the economic philosophy.

The reasons why too many academics and intellectuals seek to dismiss the influence on human nature and human behavior in general is because, first, every human is an individual with individualized behavior, responses, and reactions. That, by nature, would make the notion of collectivism all but impossible outside of a think tank, and it would be harder to prove certain theories and "facts" using demographic and group-based data based on assumed and potential behavior within that group.

Again, though, if I asked you to explain why "human nature" requires that certain political notions must not work, you wouldn't be able to explain it. Especially in light of evidence, e.g. the anarchist collectives in the Second Spanish Republic, the Italian factory occupations, the Argentina take overs, the kibuttz organizations in Israel, etc. It's not as if the facts matter when we have breezy, unspecified references to "human nature". I mean who can argue with that?

Second, facts and figures are not substitutes for a living, breathing human. I laugh whenever the role of the individual is lessened in favor of academic theory and/or fact-gathering and analysis.

Such as? Give one example.

The second one is possibly due to a number of academics and intellectuals not being directly exposed through human interaction to enough of the segments of society which exist through data as numbers, demographics, or anonymous test subjects.

Groundless assumption.

If people are reduced to demographics and numbers, they are easier to predict and therefore easier to control (i.e. rule-govern-lead-etc). Unfortunately for too much of academia, that unpredictability is what makes people individuals, and individuals are often the ones to generate true change and innovation while being told by larger groups not to step out of line.

You're presenting a fairly vague notion of "academia" and this allows you to make all sort of absurd and groundless claims - like they have not been "directly exposed through human interaction to enough of the segments of society which exist through data as numbers, demographics, or anonymous test subjects." How do you know this? Have you obtained the cultural-socio background of every academic? Do you honestly believe that I am to take these claims seriously based on this sweeping notion of academia?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

http://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0

Great video.

[Heysaboda]

Why do Mittens Romney and Paul Ryan look like a couple of morticians?

Just sayin'

 

[guitarfool2002]

http://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0

I have that on VHS!    Watched that and other Carlin tapes my freshman year at college.

Pass this on to those who believe the crap coming out of the conventions when they talk about "middle class" and the notion of "creating jobs".

Carlin is a libertarian. It's funny to watch certain political factions try to claim ownership. And pathetic when folks think they'll get into Carlin's "club" by voting a certain way.

It's all on the individual, to do what you can do and ultimately find happiness in spite of politics.

And if someone thinks it's impossible, go find a group of like-minded nihilists to dine with twice a month. 

[Chocolate Shake Man]

http://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0

I have that on VHS!    Watched that and other Carlin tapes my freshman year at college.

Pass this on to those who believe the crap coming out of the conventions when they talk about "middle class" and the notion of "creating jobs".

Carlin is a libertarian. It's funny to watch certain political factions try to claim ownership. And pathetic when folks think they'll get into Carlin's "club" by voting a certain way.

It's all on the individual, to do what you can do and ultimately find happiness in spite of politics.

And if someone thinks it's impossible, go find a group of like-minded nihilists to dine with twice a month.  

It's funny because he says the exact same thing about the American Dream in this video that I said, and all I got was a barrage of insults from you.

Carlin is not a libertarian in the Ayn Rand/Ron Paul individualist sense. As this video suggests, his views reflect the more traditional version of socialist libertarianism that I espouse. Here is a quotation of Carlin's from his book Napalm & Silly Putty:

One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is "Libertarian." People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bulls#!t political philosophy.

[guitarfool2002]

Good ol' rockandroll calling plays from the same dusty and battle-scarred playbook.

I'm beginning to think you have such an elevated view of your opinions and how they were shaped that you think everyone else should just concede outright to that superiority of knowledge and accept that the theories you espouse on this forum are "the truth" - no one dare challenge it lest they and the opinions be mocked as "groundless" "absurd" or whatever adjective fits the mold.

The fact is, it's not even about the debate or the discussion - it's about the fight itself. Or proving something so incorrect that the battle to do just that becomes a personal justification for a set of beliefs. It's not even about trading ideas, or stating ideas - it's about proving another ideology that much "wrong" that the only way to delegitimize both it and the person stating that belief would be to label it "absurd" or "groundless".

I'll have a debate anytime with anyone, but debate isn't the goal here.

If my ideas and opinions will be mocked and labeled absurd, that's fine, I have a thick skin and I can return the favor anytime.  

It's comforting to know that:
1. Those expressing the most forceful anti-capitalist and anti-United States views in this forum are neither registered voters nor American citizens, so the opinions expressed are welcome but ultimately nothing but words typed on a message board. An actual vote weighs more. Nice to see the viewpoint from afar, though. Maybe I should speak up more forcefully on all the ways Europe is currently f***ed up.

2. Communism will never thrive in America.

[guitarfool2002]

http://youtu.be/i5dBZDSSky0

I have that on VHS!    Watched that and other Carlin tapes my freshman year at college.

Pass this on to those who believe the crap coming out of the conventions when they talk about "middle class" and the notion of "creating jobs".

Carlin is a libertarian. It's funny to watch certain political factions try to claim ownership. And pathetic when folks think they'll get into Carlin's "club" by voting a certain way.

It's all on the individual, to do what you can do and ultimately find happiness in spite of politics.

And if someone thinks it's impossible, go find a group of like-minded nihilists to dine with twice a month.  

It's funny because he says the exact same thing about the American Dream in this video that I said, and all I got was a barrage of insults from you.

Carlin is not a libertarian in the Ayn Rand/Ron Paul individualist sense. As this video suggests, his views reflect the more traditional version of socialist libertarianism that I espouse. Here is a quotation of Carlin's from his book Napalm & Silly Putty:

One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is "Libertarian." People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bulls#!t political philosophy.

Nah, Carlin is a nihilist and an absolute cynic above everything else.

I found him funny, perceptive, and very much interesting. However, the one thing he lacked especially in his political monologues was a solution, or a way to change what got him so pissed off about the current state of affairs.

I think it's easier to mock and critique than it is to actually develop an alternative plan, and it seems that Carlin is ultimately suggesting a nihilistic worldview, if you accept the system is as bad as his monologue. So what would Carlin suggest we do if we agree with him? The act of saying "yeah, he's right!" means nothing if there is no alternative.

But mark my word, you won't hear Carlin name-checked when someone in the Democratic or Republican party suggests creating jobs...because the "jobs" and the "middle class" of the 2012 elections are the very same suckers who Carlin suggests have been f***ed by the system.

Forward, indeed...

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Good ol' rockandroll calling plays from the same dusty and battle-scarred playbook.

I'm beginning to think you have such an elevated view of your opinions and how they were shaped that you think everyone else should just concede outright to that superiority of knowledge and accept that the theories you espouse on this forum are "the truth" - no one dare challenge it lest they and the opinions be mocked as "groundless" "absurd" or whatever adjective fits the mold.

In that case, please answer the questions I posed: How do you know this? Have you obtained the cultural-socio background of every academic? If you can answer these questions, I will take back what I said about your claim that academics and intellectuals have not been "directly exposed through human interaction to enough of the segments of society which exist through data as numbers, demographics, or anonymous test subjects."

The fact is, it's not even about the debate or the discussion - it's about the fight itself. Or proving something so incorrect that the battle to do just that becomes a personal justification for a set of beliefs. It's not even about trading ideas, or stating ideas - it's about proving another ideology that much "wrong" that the only way to delegitimize both it and the person stating that belief would be to label it "absurd" or "groundless".

Like I said on the other thread, in a post you didn't respond to, I present ideas and solutions all the time. You don't like them, so they don't count.

1. Those expressing the most forceful anti-capitalist and anti-United States views in this forum are neither registered voters nor American citizens, so the opinions expressed are welcome but ultimately nothing but words typed on a message board. An actual vote weighs more. Nice to see the viewpoint from afar, though. Maybe I should speak up more forcefully on all the ways Europe is currently f***ed up.

Sorry, but where do you think I'm from?

2. Communism will never thrive in America.

And what do you think will, given that capitalism never has thrived in America. Again, you don't like the solutions proposed, so they don't count. You are right to a certain degree though - no leftist system can possibly thrive in a state that where the American Left  have been disenfranchised, marginalized, and de-legitimized to the point where it is virtually impossible for anyone on the left to seriously participate in the American political process.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Okay, this is going to seem a bit vain but I am currently having a difficult time justifying to myself my participation in these political threads anymore. On a previous thread, I justified it this way:

"I respect people enough to believe that they can make up their own minds on these issues. However, I do believe that in order to make up one’s own mind it is important to look at a variety of perspectives and I am offering one. This is why I’ve urged others on this board to contribute here if they want to because the more voices there are the better. So all I’m doing is offering my perspective and if people want to come away reading this agreeing or disagreeing with that perspective, that’s perfectly fine. If they want to investigate the things that I’ve said for themselves and make up their own minds based on those investigations, even better. But my goal is certainly not to shape opinions."

Nevertheless, what I feel is that not many people (and I'm thinking about the ones who specifically read these threads) particularly care about my perspective at this point, which is perfectly fine. But if that's the case, it's just better for me not to contribute since I try to put some effort into these posts and try to present as compelling an argument as I possibly can. I'm just curious if there is anyone left who is still interested in these posts because I've collected some of the responses that I have received over the past year or so and it seems that I have taken a fair amount of personal attacks. Here is a sample of some of the responses to my posts and my views, including stuff from this thread:

Stop playing the victim

"Rock and Roll" 's posts illustrate exactly why political discourse is impossible in this country.

I really hope "Rock and Roll" that you don't truly believe that you represent the forces of sweetness and light

That's not politics or opinion -- it's fact. It's sad that someone needs to explain this -- which speaks volumes of just how much our education system has failed you

With all due respect, that's just crazy

Please, for the love of God, think about what you're saying.

This is not semantics. It's fundamental. Understanding this will help untwist your mind.

And you don't understand a thing I'm saying!!!! Hahaha!

Maybe you just need a job.

That's looney tunes. No one's going to take you seriously saying wild stuff like that. Common sense (installed in our proverbial motherboard at the factory) will cause people to quickly understand you're either dishonest or gravely misinformed.

I'll just savor this last quote as the glittering jewel of Looney Toon Leftism that it is.

You Flat Earth'ers are totally hilarious!!

How can you make a coherent argument when you throw out such gibberish terms?

Catch up, hoss...it's 2012 now.

I was right about you being in academia, right? Perhaps you need to start occupying 'reality street'.

You're preaching hokum

Whoever dressed you this morning put your right shoe on the left foot

A total nonsense statement unsupported by reality

What surprises me is to find such a choice specimen of V. Lenin's "useful idiot" brigade on a Beach Boys site

What kind of academic bubble do you exist in?

Have you held a responsible job in the non-academic (i.e: real) world? Lived away from your parents for longer than a semester at a time?

Either you have lived in a bubble, or have not spoken to or even have seen enough people

I'll have a two word response that begins with the letter "F" and ends with the word "you”

Then you have so disappeared up your own theological existence that you have lost contact with how life really is.

--

Now, guitarfool takes issue with my use of terms "groundless" and "absurd" but it seems to me that's fairly lightweight compared to some of the ongoing personal shots. Now, I'm thick skinned as well and don't particularly care about the personal shots. But I'm simply not willing to continue this if that's the only type of response that my posts generate. My secret hope is that there are others who may agree with some of the stuff I write but don't necessarily say anything. And, I should say that some of you (I'm thinking in particular of hypehat, rab, Smile Brian, Erik H and The Real Beach Boy) have been damn complimentary at times so there is that. But I have the sneaking feeling that there is simply no audience for these posts, which is perfectly fine. But I am just curious because I should probably spend less time doing this and more time in my "bubble" since I'll be teaching a course starting next week.

[Dunderhead]

rockandroll, your passion is admirable, but I think your understanding of what capitalism is, is frankly colored in an inappropriately political way. The idea of free market capitalism is not that it's some system that a country adopts or decides to have. It's not an ideology in any way shape or form. One of the real problems facing political discourse today is that capitalism has been hypostatized by the left, it's been transformed into a objective ideology in which people supposedly place their trust, it's been conflated with the institution of the stock market and the existence of corporations. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of the bitter rhetoric coming from the Democratic left, and the strawman argument that has every Republican in the country praising the "job creators".

Free market capitalism is the absence of a system, it's an organic process of change and balance. Pure free market capitalism is anarchy, to say that it doesn't or has never existed in the United States is a complete non sequitur. All forms of government, any laws of any kind limit free market capitalism because they limit choices and options available to the individual member of society. The more the government does to limit the number of options that citizens have, the less free the market is. The point of the constitution is that it explicitly states the ways in which the government can limit the choices of the individual. Pure free market capitalism is pure freedom of the individual, constitutional free market capitalism is the liberty of the individual to do whatever he or she pleases within reason. The essence of free market capitalism is adaptation, it's like water, whatever the circumstances are, whatever the ecological and social realities are, an economy that's free (i.e. one where all the participants are free) will end up taking a shape that conforms to the demands of the present.

The misconception here is that free market capitalism is being treated as some top down system imposed upon individuals when it's exactly the opposite of that, it's the understanding that the economy is made up of millions of unique individuals with non-overlapping needs, and that when those people all have the freedom to do what they think is best for themselves, the economy as a whole will adapt and provide the most efficient outcomes. Unfortunately the failure of communism is precisely this, not only in a practical sense, but also in a purely theoretical sense, communism is unable to provide efficient outcomes due to imperfect information. Communism treats the economy as a sheet of steel, which needs to be pounded into a particular shape to satisfy current needs. Free market capitalism sees the economy as flowing water made up of millions of individual drops all changing and flowing as one, perfectly changing to meet the necessities of circumstance.

The problem with our system today, is that it is an authoritarian cabal of price fixers. Corporations only have as much power as the government gives them, and the problem that Democrats all seem incapable of realizing, is that giving people money to do things destabilizes the economy by artificially disturbing the balance between supply and demand. It certainly feels all warm and fuzzy to pass some bill giving $100,000,000 for student loans, or a couple of billion bucks to poor people trying to buy homes, but these actions have dramatic and unintended consequences, they artificially inflate demand for certain goods and services and cause the price to rise in proportion. The government is then trapped in a vicious circle, the more subsidies they make, the higher price will climb, the higher price climbs, the more subsidies needed to maintain the former equilibrium. This is what creates bubbles, this is why the price of health care is so high, this is why the cost of education has been rising at something like 400% above inflation each year, and this is exactly the reason why the housing market crashed. To believe that it's simply some corporations doing evil things and not being regulated properly is naive in the extreme, the government not only tolerated but encouraged the predatory behaviour of lenders as it was the only way for the government to continue growing the housing market.

Our problem today is that the government allows itself the right to tell individual citizens what to spend money on. Regulations are used by corporations not to control their own behaviour, but to limit the influence of their competitors. The government insulates major companies (the auto-manufacturers for example) from having to answer to consumer demand. We keep companies like GM in business, we protect their market share at the expense of consumer choice. If consumers don't want to buy the products that GM sells, then GM should go bankrupt, which would create room for smaller and more innovative companies to expand into. But we reenforce GM's control and influence, and prevent the market from adapting. And I find it very insulting that Obama continuously touts his belief in alternative energy and innovation while in the same breath he extolls the government intervention in the auto industry that directly interferes with very innovation he's constantly harping on about.

The Free Market is NOT the thing that needs to be limited and controlled, the government's ability to regulate and make decisions on behalf of individual consumers is what we should be worried about. Because that's the thing that stifles innovation, progress, growth, adaptation, and balance. 

[Heysaboda]

Romney and the rest of the Republicans seems like a bunch of really soulless robots... (three dots) ... What truly horrible, creepy, pathetic human beings they are.

BTW

The Electoral map is totally against Romney at this point, and he has no better than a 25% chance of winning the Electoral College.

Republicans, in 2016, nominate someone with some b@lls.  Get a grip.

"Swiss bank accounts are people too." -- Romney

JEEZ

[Chocolate Shake Man]

rockandroll, your passion is admirable, but I think your understanding of what capitalism is, is frankly colored in an inappropriately political way. The idea of free market capitalism is not that it's some system that a country adopts or decides to have. It's not an ideology in any way shape or form.

You should tell that to the people who created the philosophy. Contrary to the current rhetorical fabrications that are being spewed out by pro-corporate idealogues, free market capitalism is not simply some notion of one person trading his goods with another person. A market needs more than two people in order to exist and a market place, which free market capitalism depends on is entirely artificially constructed and must be ultimately imposed by someone or a group of people. Furthermore, capitalism whether it is free market or anything demands private ownership and private ownership does not occur organically. What my understanding of capitalism is colored by, ultimately, is the arguments of the people who created the term capitalism in the first place and constructed the economic philosophy. It is certainly not colored by contemporary movements that have attempted to radically re-define what capitalism is, as your entire post did, in order to pass off an inherently exploitative and fundamentally babaric system as "natural" (I'm quite certain your definition of capitalism as "flowing water made up of millions of individual drops all changing and flowing as one" didn't come from John Stuart Mill...).   Neither the documentary record of capitalist philosophy nor the historical record of economic systems suggest that to be the case at all. The emergence of capitalist markets was borne out of a huge struggle because it had to be forcibly and coercively imposed onto people who were engaging in a more collective way.

Notice, of course, that these claims about capitalism are very prevalent now because the major capitalist victories have been won and the collective spirit has been beaten with bloody vengeance out of people. It is only now, when capitalism has become such an inherent part of our day to day existence that we can talk about it as if it were natural in the same way that people talked about how slavery was natural before that system was largely dismantled in the industrialized world. It is only now, where the market system has imposed an environment that compels us to act in specific ways, that we can actually believe that our behavior comes from within rather than being shaped from without. We're not born with markets in our blood, we're born into a market context that shapes are behavior. And this is why it is only now that people make these arguments and why you won't find a single article before the industrial revolution that has any trace of people talking about the naturality of market systems - though, interestingly enough, you will find people advocating for communist systems pre-Marx. If the market system was natural and organic, rather than a environment that produces subjects, it would have been recognized as such before the conception of these terms. It wasn't. I would suggest that you familiarize yourself with the actual history of these terms.

One of the real problems facing political discourse today is that capitalism has been hypostatized by the left, it's been transformed into a objective ideology in which people supposedly place their trust,

It was always that, and understood that way by the central framers of the ideology who were not leftists by current standards, by any means.

Free market capitalism is the absence of a system, it's an organic process of change and balance. Pure free market capitalism is anarchy...Pure free market capitalism is pure freedom of the individual, constitutional free market capitalism is the liberty of the individual to do whatever he or she pleases within reason. The essence of free market capitalism is adaptation, it's like water, whatever the circumstances are, whatever the ecological and social realities are, an economy that's free (i.e. one where all the participants are free) will end up taking a shape that conforms to the demands of the present.

That's completely false. Maybe if you were making an argument for simply "free markets" like the ones that a socialist like Proudhon supported, you might be more convincing but throwing capitalism into the mix, which demands private ownership of the means of production and you have completely lost any sense of "organic processes" and "anarchy."

Furthermore, let's look at your claim - that a free market capitalist system is organic and this system will end up taking a shape that conforms to the demands of the present. Okay - let's say the present is this: It's you, your hypothetical or real female significant other and your baby. What happens there? Well, if what you're saying is correct, naturally the baby dies because the baby cannot survive in an environment where people don't put the needs of others in front of their own and the baby cannot offer anything of value to trade for food and care. My guess is that since the species has survived to this point, it was decided at the very origins of human development that it is crucial to take care of people who are unable to take care of themselves or provide anything of equal value in return for that care. If there's anything that's organic, it's that.

Or take another situation - the demands of the present are you and your family. So, you sit down to dinner and what do you do? Well, according to you, biologically, you and your brothers and sisters and parents barter the soup. Elsewhere, you determine the relative value of things in the family by competing for them. According to you, it's all one can do now to fight the overwhelming biological urge to make dinner to sell to your family.

Complete hogwash.

All forms of government, any laws of any kind limit free market capitalism because they limit choices and options available to the individual member of society. The more the government does to limit the number of options that citizens have, the less free the market is. The point of the constitution is that it explicitly states the ways in which the government can limit the choices of the individual. Pure free market capitalism is pure freedom of the individual, constitutional free market capitalism is the liberty of the individual to do whatever he or she pleases within reason.

And I suppose "within reason" entails controlling one's own work, being able to profit off of the fruits of one's own labor, deciding how long one should work, etc. None of those choices are available to the majority of people in a free market capitalist system.

The misconception here is that free market capitalism is being treated as some top down system imposed upon individuals when it's exactly the opposite of that, it's the understanding that the economy is made up of millions of unique individuals with non-overlapping needs, and that when those people all have the freedom to do what they think is best for themselves, the economy as a whole will adapt and provide the most efficient outcomes.

How do we know this?

Unfortunately the failure of communism is precisely this, not only in a practical sense, but also in a purely theoretical sense, communism is unable to provide efficient outcomes due to imperfect information. Communism treats the economy as a sheet of steel, which needs to be pounded into a particular shape to satisfy current needs. Free market capitalism sees the economy as flowing water made up of millions of individual drops all changing and flowing as one, perfectly changing to meet the necessities of circumstance.

Those words are all very pretty, but also meaningless.

Corporations only have as much power as the government gives them,

In reality, it's the opposite.

and the problem that Democrats all seem incapable of realizing, is that giving people money to do things destabilizes the economy by artificially disturbing the balance between supply and demand.

Suppy and demand are artificial concepts to begin with. They are derived from the belief that commodities have no fixed source. Take food, for example: there is unlimited food because food can always been grown. But supply chains are artificially created when you limit the amount of food that is available to the public, which works to artificially create more demand. If you abolish the profit motive, you would not need to withhold products to create a demand. This is what makes the free market system so inherently inefficient.

It certainly feels all warm and fuzzy to pass some bill giving $100,000,000 for student loans, or a couple of billion bucks to poor people trying to buy homes, but these actions have dramatic and unintended consequences, they artificially inflate demand for certain goods and services and cause the price to rise in proportion. The government is then trapped in a vicious circle, the more subsidies they make, the higher price will climb, the higher price climbs, the more subsidies needed to maintain the former equilibrium. This is what creates bubbles, this is why the price of health care is so high,

The reason why health care prices are so high is because of the amount of money invested into private companies wasting money on research and development to concoct copycat drugs to compete in the marketplace and because of the outlandishly high administrative costs of private healthcare in comparison to public healthcare systems and because the United States is the only country in the industrialized world where it is illegal for the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. This is why countries with more socialized health care systems are far cheaper than the US system. But by your logic, they should be more expensive since the government is even more involved in those health care systems.

and this is exactly the reason why the housing market crashed. To believe that it's simply some corporations doing evil things and not being regulated properly is naive in the extreme, the government not only tolerated but encouraged the predatory behaviour of lenders as it was the only way for the government to continue growing the housing market.

Do you honestly believe that the government was profiting as much as the corporate world was profiting as a result of the Clinton Administration de-regulating the financial institutions?

Our problem today is that the government allows itself the right to tell individual citizens what to spend money on.

The government as controlled by corporate interests, yes.

Regulations are used by corporations not to control their own behaviour, but to limit the influence of their competitors. The government insulates major companies (the auto-manufacturers for example) from having to answer to consumer demand. We keep companies like GM in business, we protect their market share at the expense of consumer choice. If consumers don't want to buy the products that GM sells, then GM should go bankrupt, which would create room for smaller and more innovative companies to expand into.

No, that's not true. People aren't just waiting with X money to shift from one corporation to another. The real world does not work that way. What you're not taking into account is that desire for products is largely created and is largely a function of the imposed capitalist model. Furthermore, this sounds really inefficient - a system that because it is driven by profit, companies go bankrupt left, right, and centre because they are not producing for personal need but are instead producing a surplus value so that the owner can profit.

The Free Market is NOT the thing that needs to be limited and controlled, the government's ability to regulate and make decisions on behalf of individual consumers is what we should be worried about.

What we should be worried about is calling human beings "individual consumers." I agree that the government should not decide where the public spends its money, and said as much in the post you responded to. Like I said, had the public been given an option between creating a sustainably economy or funding the major industrial developments of the 20th century, they most likely would have chosen the former.

[Dunderhead]

Furthermore, let's look at your claim - that a free market capitalist system is organic and this system will end up taking a shape that conforms to the demands of the present. Okay - let's say the present is this: It's you, your hypothetical or real female significant other and your baby. What happens there? Well, if what you're saying is correct, naturally the baby dies because the baby cannot survive in an environment where people don't put the needs of others in front of their own and the baby cannot offer anything of value to trade for food and care. My guess is that since the species has survived to this point, it was decided at the very origins of human development that it is crucial to take care of people who are unable to take care of themselves or provide anything of equal value in return for that care. If there's anything that's organic, it's that.

Or take another situation - the demands of the present are you and your family. So, you sit down to dinner and what do you do? Well, according to you, biologically, you and your brothers and sisters and parents barter the soup. Elsewhere, you determine the relative value of things in the family by competing for them. According to you, it's all one can do now to fight the overwhelming biological urge to make dinner to sell to your family.

I won't take the time to respond to all of your points, because I just don't have the energy. I will make a brief comment about this though, simply because I think you're misunderstanding what it means to do the best thing for yourself. People have their own subjective values, most people value the life of their child, the fact that they are willing to make sacrifices for their child isn't some smoking gun that economics can't wrap its' head around. Doing what's best for yourself, is not just about ensuring your own immediate survival no matter what, doing what's best for yourself involves doing things that bring you happiness, and emotional peace of mind. Sacrificing your own life to save the life of your child is just a case where a parent values their child's life more than their own in a particular circumstance.
I guess we'll just have to disagree, you're clearly really invested in your opinions and there isn't anything wrong with that. Personally I think we're just talking about totally different things, and I doubt we'd even be able to agree on a definition of the free market. I may agree with you as to the points you're making within the conceptual frame your imposing, but I'd also say that I think that frame is fundamentally flawed, history seen through the lens of Marx as opposed to history seen through the lens of fact. I'm an empirical economist by education and a scholar of 18th century history and philosophy by trade, and I think that you're way off base in the way you're trying to paint the history of capitalism (a liberal idea) and modern economics.

But hey, that's cool, I don't resent you or anything because you have a different world view. You're just expressing your beliefs. I certainly don't believe that I have it all figured out or anything, and I wish I had the patience and temperament to hash it out with you, but I always regret getting into political discussions. Suffices to say, we simply don't see eye to eye on the issue, and that there's probably something useful and worthwhile in both of our arguments.

Take it easy rockandroll, you're a good poster and your presence on SS is certainly appreciated by everyone.  

[guitarfool2002]

Good ol' rockandroll calling plays from the same dusty and battle-scarred playbook.

I'm beginning to think you have such an elevated view of your opinions and how they were shaped that you think everyone else should just concede outright to that superiority of knowledge and accept that the theories you espouse on this forum are "the truth" - no one dare challenge it lest they and the opinions be mocked as "groundless" "absurd" or whatever adjective fits the mold.

In that case, please answer the questions I posed: How do you know this? Have you obtained the cultural-socio background of every academic? If you can answer these questions, I will take back what I said about your claim that academics and intellectuals have not been "directly exposed through human interaction to enough of the segments of society which exist through data as numbers, demographics, or anonymous test subjects."

The fact is, it's not even about the debate or the discussion - it's about the fight itself. Or proving something so incorrect that the battle to do just that becomes a personal justification for a set of beliefs. It's not even about trading ideas, or stating ideas - it's about proving another ideology that much "wrong" that the only way to delegitimize both it and the person stating that belief would be to label it "absurd" or "groundless".

Like I said on the other thread, in a post you didn't respond to, I present ideas and solutions all the time. You don't like them, so they don't count.

1. Those expressing the most forceful anti-capitalist and anti-United States views in this forum are neither registered voters nor American citizens, so the opinions expressed are welcome but ultimately nothing but words typed on a message board. An actual vote weighs more. Nice to see the viewpoint from afar, though. Maybe I should speak up more forcefully on all the ways Europe is currently f***ed up.

Sorry, but where do you think I'm from?

2. Communism will never thrive in America.

And what do you think will, given that capitalism never has thrived in America. Again, you don't like the solutions proposed, so they don't count. You are right to a certain degree though - no leftist system can possibly thrive in a state that where the American Left  have been disenfranchised, marginalized, and de-legitimized to the point where it is virtually impossible for anyone on the left to seriously participate in the American political process.

I feel much like Fishmonk has just posted - At this time of the year it does get busy for me and I just don't have the time to post every answer to every question or request for proof, or facts, or whatever else. Such is the nature of life, I simply don't have the time but try to keep at least a few coals burning in the stove.

I will answer the first part specifically, with a question: Have you obtained the cultural-socio background of every member of the "Tea Party", of every "Republican", or of any group which you've disagreed or criticized in the past?

The knife does indeed cut both ways - I never claimed to know each and every academic-intellectual-scholar-whatever, but I was making a general statement with a bit of an ulterior motive in mind. Take it from me - not all people who would call themselves "Republicans" or "conservatives" or Tea Party members are the same, nor do they share a lock-step, group-think mentality on all issues.

Yet has that stopped folks from over-generalizing and stereotyping *those* people?

So let me get it straight - in order to make a blanket statement about academics who may put data ahead of actual people, a requirement was in place to get to know tens of thousands of academics across the US and elsewhere before making a generalization.

Is the same requirement in place the next time someone is out to bash or belittle someone who identifies themselves as part of a group like the Tea Party based on the assumptions about that group?

I like hearing all solutions, too - however in all honesty the solutions and models being proposed, I feel, would work better on paper and in theory than if actually applied to the US at any point at least in my lifetime and subsequent generations. The voters of this country have been split on ideology 50/50 for about a decade now, and in order to transform both the nation's infrastructure, system of government, and the mindset of the electorate, and short of a scorched-earth reset mode back to basic surviving off the land, the system currently in place will remain in place by default and by necessity. And, the folks who have accumulated certain levels of wealth and power are simply not going to give it up or hand over control of that wealth and power to someone else in the name of ideology, again at least in my lifetime. That's just practical, realist thinking at work.

I'd like to hear solutions or ideas more firmly rooted in realism instead of idealism, or those ideas which could actually be hashed out, debated and discussed, and applied in a real world setting where everyday people would not be expected to change radically from what they have done to live or survive everyday. And yes, that includes those who are successful capitalists, unless the expectation is that these folks will have their wealth and power seized by force for the greater good... That was a joke. Sort of.

[guitarfool2002]

On a more personal note, addressing rockandroll's comments, I gathered you were a citizen of Canada from previous discussions...is this the case or am I just way off?

And I really don't wish to see anyone leave the discussions or quit voicing opinions or anything of the sort. I will be honest though and say that the tone of some of these political-ideological discussions can get a little too...stubborn? I'm defining stubborn as unwilling to acknowledge the validity of a counterpoint to a held opinion, or an opinion offered as fact. Disagreeing is expected, but the lack of acknowledgement that another side other than your own has some validity can be off-putting at best and downright frustrating at worst. At least perhaps give off something of a respectful vibe to opinions even in the midst of a heated debate, because sometimes it feels like a "my way or the highway" kind of deal at work, and it stops being an interesting debate and moves into mudslinging territory. The reactions start coming from the gut-level rather than the mind, and it feels more like a battle. If I wanted that, I can watch any number of pundits on TV, and those folks pretending to be political commentators.

I'm just asking to consider how some statements and adjectives may be perceived when read by other eyes, that's all. And I'll readily admit to being as guilty as anyone for doing the same thing.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I won't take the time to respond to all of your points, because I just don't have the energy. I will make a brief comment about this though, simply because I think you're misunderstanding what it means to do the best thing for yourself. People have their own subjective values, most people value the life of their child, the fact that they are willing to make sacrifices for their child isn't some smoking gun that economics can't wrap its' head around. Doing what's best for yourself, is not just about ensuring your own immediate survival no matter what, doing what's best for yourself involves doing things that bring you happiness, and emotional peace of mind. Sacrificing your own life to save the life of your child is just a case where a parent values their child's life more than their own in a particular circumstance.

But it seems to me that you were suggesting that we naturally behave in a free market system, which you described as an "organic process of change and balance." You also seem to be saying something different, that people naturally act according to "what they think is best for themselves" and that can be not in accordance with the free market system - in fact, it seems to be that our most important human relationships don't act in accordance with this "organic process". You also say a third thing which is that people can act against their own best interests - indeed sacrificing your life for another simply isn't doing what is best for yourself, especially in the case that you are referring to, it's doing what's best for someone else - though how they can do that with the other two suppositions is entirely unclear.

Seems to me, too, that this ultimately leads to a lot of awkward wrenching to try and demonstrate that general good deeds (making dinner for the family, driving people home from parties) are done in the name of self-interest rather than for the interests of others. Usually it involves coming up with hypothetical scenarios that could possibly (but wouldn't definitely) result from those good deeds that would favor the person who did them.

Personally I think we're just talking about totally different things, and I doubt we'd even be able to agree on a definition of the free market.

Well, but that's an issue that's not really up for debate. I think too, as I alluded to above, that it is crucial to not conflate free markets in general with free market capitalism, especially in light of the fact that in the 19th century, you have anarcho-socialists like Proudhon advocating for mutualism which takes free markets into account, but also is virulently anti-capitalism because it is against an antagonistic relationship between owners and labor.

I may agree with you as to the points you're making within the conceptual frame your imposing, but I'd also say that I think that frame is fundamentally flawed, history seen through the lens of Marx as opposed to history seen through the lens of fact. I'm an empirical economist by education and a scholar of 18th century history and philosophy by trade, and I think that you're way off base in the way you're trying to paint the history of capitalism (a liberal idea) and modern economics.

Fair enough - I'd be curious to know how you think it's off base though. And are you referring specifically to my point that environment produces subjects? I suppose that's something that Marx and I might slightly agree on.

Take it easy rockandroll, you're a good poster and your presence on SS is certainly appreciated by everyone.  

Thanks! Same goes for you.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

I feel much like Fishmonk has just posted - At this time of the year it does get busy for me and I just don't have the time to post every answer to every question or request for proof, or facts, or whatever else. Such is the nature of life, I simply don't have the time but try to keep at least a few coals burning in the stove.

Same here!  

I will answer the first part specifically, with a question: Have you obtained the cultural-socio background of every member of the "Tea Party", of every "Republican", or of any group which you've disagreed or criticized in the past?

Well, I would certainly avoid making presumptions that generalized about every member of the Tea Party and every member of the Republican party, yes. When I refer to the Tea Party or the Republican party, or, let's say, the Bolsheviks or the Spanish anarchists, I refer to the guiding ideology that is at the very heart of these groups. And it does become easier to make generalizations about the groups as a whole because they are ideological groups. Meaning those who enter into those groups more than likely agree with the prevailing central ideologies behind them to a certain degree. In your examples, this is more true of the TP than the Republican party because in the case of the latter, the party has been around for a long time and has shifted ideologies in that span of time so that there are those within the party now who hold ideological viewpoints that once pinned the party together but no longer do, which is why Ron Paul does not share the views of Mitt Romney. So the examples you bring up are kind of special examples and can't fully compare to say, something like academia, which is not an ideological group. In the same sense, Italians are not an ideological group. In other words, you don't have to hold certain kinds of belief in order to legitimize yourself as an Italian. Therefore to make sweeping statements about Italians makes no sense.

So let me get it straight - in order to make a blanket statement about academics who may put data ahead of actual people, a requirement was in place to get to know tens of thousands of academics across the US and elsewhere before making a generalization.

I think that generalizations are usually a pretty bad idea no matter what.

I like hearing all solutions, too - however in all honesty the solutions and models being proposed, I feel, would work better on paper and in theory than if actually applied to the US at any point at least in my lifetime and subsequent generations.

OK..but why?

The voters of this country have been split on ideology 50/50 for about a decade now,

I feel compelled to always make this case with everyone and perhaps it is unnecessary but I don't think the voters are split on ideology because they are basically presented with one ideology. You don't see a mainstream left wing party in the United States, for example, like you see in many other industrialized countries.

and in order to transform both the nation's infrastructure, system of government, and the mindset of the electorate, and short of a scorched-earth reset mode back to basic surviving off the land, the system currently in place will remain in place by default and by necessity.

Sometimes I feel that's the case but mostly I feel like that's how everyone within a long-running system that eventually changed has felt.

And, the folks who have accumulated certain levels of wealth and power are simply not going to give it up or hand over control of that wealth and power to someone else in the name of ideology, again at least in my lifetime. That's just practical, realist thinking at work.

I dig.

I'd like to hear solutions or ideas more firmly rooted in realism instead of idealism, or those ideas which could actually be hashed out, debated and discussed, and applied in a real world setting where everyday people would not be expected to change radically from what they have done to live or survive everyday.

Well, I think we're talking about a few things there. First of all, I don't particularly think that the solutions I offer are "idealism" since they've worked in reality, typically much better than the systems they've replaced. So as far as I can tell, the solutions that I propose are realistic. And I agree that these solutions should "be hashed out, debated and discussed" before being implemented, which is why the solutions I am proposing would take a lot of time. Regarding everyday people being "expected to change radically from what they have done to live or survive everyday" is not framed correctly, I don't think. It's not what should be expected of people, but what people want from their society - and that should be a decision made by them not for them. And my hunch is that if you talk to people about the possibilities of a society in which they get to control their own resources, have control over the work they do, etc. that they would want that. The problem is is that those ideas not only aren't options for people, they aren't even presented as options to people, since that point of view is not represented at the political level. And I think the reason it's not represented is because if it was, it would be very popular. But you can't have that in a capitalist society. So again, you don't force it on people, but you do communicate with people and hopefully begin to consider the kind of society that those people would like to see.

[Chocolate Shake Man]

On a more personal note, addressing rockandroll's comments, I gathered you were a citizen of Canada from previous discussions...is this the case or am I just way off?

No, you're correct. And by the way, you can feel absolutely free to criticize Canadian politics - chances are more than likely that I'll agree. Remember that there isn't a state in the world that can foster the kind of system that I would agree with, since states are inherently power centres.

And I really don't wish to see anyone leave the discussions or quit voicing opinions or anything of the sort. I will be honest though and say that the tone of some of these political-ideological discussions can get a little too...stubborn? I'm defining stubborn as unwilling to acknowledge the validity of a counterpoint to a held opinion, or an opinion offered as fact. Disagreeing is expected, but the lack of acknowledgement that another side other than your own has some validity can be off-putting at best and downright frustrating at worst. At least perhaps give off something of a respectful vibe to opinions even in the midst of a heated debate, because sometimes it feels like a "my way or the highway" kind of deal at work, and it stops being an interesting debate and moves into mudslinging territory. The reactions start coming from the gut-level rather than the mind, and it feels more like a battle. If I wanted that, I can watch any number of pundits on TV, and those folks pretending to be political commentators.

I'm just asking to consider how some statements and adjectives may be perceived when read by other eyes, that's all. And I'll readily admit to being as guilty as anyone for doing the same thing.

I'm sorry that I came off that way. I guess that part of my training has led me to do two things: speak my point of view with conviction but also, that you agree that the other point is valid the moment you engage with it. I don't want to speak ill of anyone here so I will encourage you to look back on some of the posts from previous threads. You will notice that there are some posts (not of yours) that I just don't touch with a ten-foot poll and the reason why is because I don't think they're doing anything other than hurling invective or simply not saying anything that actually encourages or wants a response. In my mind, it seems that if I am responding to you, it means that I am taking what you say seriously, even if I am arguing against it. But I will try to have more control over my tone.

[GreatUrduPoet]

On a more personal note, addressing rockandroll's comments, I gathered you were a citizen of Canada from previous discussions...is this the case or am I just way off?

No, you're correct. And by the way, you can feel absolutely free to criticize Canadian politics - chances are more than likely that I'll agree. Remember that there isn't a state in the world that can foster the kind of system that I would agree with, since states are inherently power centres.

And I really don't wish to see anyone leave the discussions or quit voicing opinions or anything of the sort. I will be honest though and say that the tone of some of these political-ideological discussions can get a little too...stubborn? I'm defining stubborn as unwilling to acknowledge the validity of a counterpoint to a held opinion, or an opinion offered as fact. Disagreeing is expected, but the lack of acknowledgement that another side other than your own has some validity can be off-putting at best and downright frustrating at worst. At least perhaps give off something of a respectful vibe to opinions even in the midst of a heated debate, because sometimes it feels like a "my way or the highway" kind of deal at work, and it stops being an interesting debate and moves into mudslinging territory. The reactions start coming from the gut-level rather than the mind, and it feels more like a battle. If I wanted that, I can watch any number of pundits on TV, and those folks pretending to be political commentators.

I'm just asking to consider how some statements and adjectives may be perceived when read by other eyes, that's all. And I'll readily admit to being as guilty as anyone for doing the same thing.

I'm sorry that I came off that way. I guess that part of my training has led me to do two things: speak my point of view with conviction but also, that you agree that the other point is valid the moment you engage with it. I don't want to speak ill of anyone here so I will encourage you to look back on some of the posts from previous threads. You will notice that there are some posts (not of yours) that I just don't touch with a ten-foot poll and the reason why is because I don't think they're doing anything other than hurling invective or simply not saying anything that actually encourages or wants a response. In my mind, it seems that if I am responding to you, it means that I am taking what you say seriously, even if I am arguing against it. But I will try to have more control over my tone.

Bingo! I nailed it right out of the box: rockandroll = Canadian citizen/academic worker/doctrinaire Marxist. That explains everything.

[hypehat]

Does it explain the massive stick up your arse?

[stack-o-tracks]

so the tree that he got it on with was a little kinky. what of it?