Intention Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 anyone here read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"? she says the economy should be like the US's seperation of church and state... She uses the An!@#$%^&*rust laws as an example. An!@#$%^&*rust laws were made when railroad companies got to big. They gpt to big because the government gave them subsidies and encourages their growth. Under the anti-trust laws:If you charge to high, you can be charged: "coercive monopoly"If you charge at the average price of others: "conspiracy, collusion"If you charge too low: "unfair compe!@#$%^&*ion." She justifies countless innovations that could have been but weren't, because of the businessman's fear of being prosecuted. She also indicts the state itself as the reason war's around (if asked i will type out her warrants as to why the state even functionally NEEDS war to work) and how it will inevitably lead to downfall. Below is a debate a fellow and i had on the subject. letter one. 1:NitroDart> surely living in the fertile land of USA beats the sands and AIDS ridden Ghana life ..you said earlier that you wouldnt want your children to work the farm. Well, how do you think these lands got so fertile? we FARMED them! With the government gone and companies in, we can develop ways to turn that soil into production.... The sand could be used for silicon, which would power cheap computers..Ghana would become a computer manufacturing Capital, and have alllll the money it needed for food. With no government, the money goes straight to the people. Statism justifies alot of things. World War 2...war over land. War to keep the Governments at bay. You cant have a dictator without something to dictate..eh? In 20 years, the USA will run out of seafood if it continues to pollute the way it does (ill get you the actual evidence if you need it...its in Debate class ats chool). But...under Anarcho-Capitalism, the people will have a direct profit motive to keep the country clean. since the people would own the land, they keep it clean. You can pollute..but not in my ocean. his response..you said earlier that you wouldnt want your children to work the farm. I think you took that out of context....first, the fertile land of the USA means all the resources we have...trees, farming, healthy supply of vegetation. You just don't get that in Ghana or most of Africa. And kids in America can't even begin to work until they are 14-15 yrs old. Well, how do you think these lands got so fertile? we FARMED them! With the government gone and companies in, we can develop ways to turn that soil into production.... Land doesn't become fertile overnight....it takes decades, maybe centuries....you could work your whole life and not see the very lands you pull your crop from ever become fertile.....then take a setback 4-5 times from extreme drought. The sand could be used for silicon, which would power cheap computers..Ghana would become a computer manufacturing Capital, and have alllll the money it needed for food. With no government, the money goes straight to the people. You think that the people of Ghana have the educational resources to produce chips?! They can barely read and write. It's still THEIR country...you can't just go in and expect to take over. You will surely get dead. Statism justifies alot of things. World War 2...war over land. War to keep the Governments at bay. You cant have a dictator without something to dictate..eh? Where are you going with that? In 20 years, the USA will run out of seafood if it continues to pollute the way it does (ill get you the actual evidence if you need it...its in Debate class ats chool). But...under Anarcho-Capitalism, the people will have a direct profit motive to keep the country clean. since the people would own the land, they keep it clean. You can pollute..but not in my ocean. Ha....consider this....what if Microsoft owned those oceans. They could charge any price they want, they could cater only to the super rich, and more than half the country would die from starvation. Corporations are NOT the solution....they are simply a peice of the puzzle, but someone (the State) will have to maintain that sense of weights and balances. And yes, if our oceans become that bad, you can bet for sure that the US Government will pay many firms to start cleaning them up. Careful how you spread the wealth. my response... I think you took that out of context....first, the fertile land of the USA means all the resources we have...trees, farming, healthy supply of vegetation. You just don't get that in Ghana or most of Africa. And kids in America can't even begin to work until they are 14-15 yrs old. Exactly. Allow direct corporate intervention and they can make the land fertile. It's been done before. And besides, refer to the computer chip argument, ill get down to that in a few seconds..they could just buy their food Land doesn't become fertile overnight....it takes decades, maybe centuries....you could work your whole life and not see the very lands you pull your crop from ever become fertile.....then take a setback 4-5 times from extreme drought. Thats a Statist view..."your...you...". It might take my whole life, but overall it will be for the good of the community. You think that the people of Ghana have the educational resources to produce chips?! They can barely read and write. It's still THEIR country...you can't just go in and expect to take over. You will surely get dead. Statism. We dont "go in", "take over". We're against heirarchy, remember WE provide the machines and brain for the production -- we hire them so gather the sand, run the machines, after years of working, the Ghanians (that how you say that?) will be experienced enough to run the machines, even form their own businesses. Where are you going with that? I'm saying, you've yet to really implicate the idea of anarcho-capitalism...and here I am, tying in the idea of Statism with war, ruin, and more. Ill get to this on the bottom. Ha....consider this....what if Microsoft owned those oceans. They could charge any price they want, they could cater only to the super rich, and more than half the country would die from starvation. Corporations are NOT the solution....they are simply a peice of the puzzle, but someone (the State) will have to maintain that sense of weights and balances. And yes, if our oceans become that bad, you can bet for sure that the US Government will pay many firms to start cleaning them up. Careful how you spread the wealth. With no government to regulate, lets just say certain companies would find it "unworthy" to try to become dominating. Because domination leads to Heirarchy, a self-fufilling Statist prophecy. The USGov makes smallish treaties and worthless plans, but in the end it wont matter, the environment will be destroyed. Pweople will want to live in Ghana _____ I dont advocate full-blown anarcho-capitalism, it was just for the purposes of that debate. But what are your thoughts on a pure l!@#$%^&*aiz-fiere economy? Personally, i think depressions would end...recessions, sure, but depressions are all empirically government-created, however inadverdant it may seem. They should totally become hands-off. Education could be privatized as well--the standard of living would skyrocket. Teachers would only get good pay if they taught well. And "dishonest" busniesses? Well, without government regulations to dilude progress and inhibit prosecution, these dirty businesses with their bad reputations will go out of business flat out. No government aid. And almost all sources of this bad practies were government-related: a guy gets a money grant for a new business, spends all the money and tricks his customers.
madhaha Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 Humans can not be trusted to even Try to do the best for the community or even their species. The difference between the sociopolitical systems are largely irrelevant until you can instil a strong sense of justice and morality in the country. Whatever system you use, people will never be happy when they're abused be it via the state, via corporations or just good old fashioned family to family bullying. Anarchy, democracy, socialism, capitalism, communism, no-one cares so long as things appear to be fair. But justice and morality are not simple issues that can be fixed and the few in power that genuinely want to confront these issues are overwhelmed by the mul!@#$%^&*ude. In my own personal view, I belief our only hope is that a just system emerges by chance and that we enjoy it while it lasts. In all probability none of us will ever see it.
Yupa Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 there's just too many -*BAD WORD*- people - they want money, not what's right capitalism bites ...and who cares about Ghana?(it's not really a desert, anyways)
Intention Posted January 9, 2004 Author Report Posted January 9, 2004 Capitalism's intrinsic values require justice and "whats right" to function--Observe what happens with -*BAD WORD*- like enron happens. You know why enjron happened--government regulations interfered with the investigation, and it was too late. The thing about corporate rule...if you "abuse" the people, they can just buy from elsewhere. If the Government bullies you, you have to move your entire life. I mean, sure, they might all be bullying, but you can evaluate it deontologically, only utilitarianist methods really ever solve in the real world.
Yupa Posted January 9, 2004 Report Posted January 9, 2004 capitalism is like a loophole in our morality: capitalism is good the point is to make money anything that makes you money (legally) is good duh...good job, re-*BAD WORD*-s
Aileron Posted January 10, 2004 Report Posted January 10, 2004 Well, the thing about capitalism is that as long as the system is free market, the only way a person can make money for themselves is by providing some kind of service for the community. Yes, people are often greedy and selfish, but capitalism is a method of turning those negative energies into positive output for the community as a whole. ...that is ofcourse, !@#$%^&*uming the system is free market The problem is that it is rarely free market. When we are talking small local establishments, capitalism works fine. However, when we get into large multinational corporations, it changes. As corporations gain size, they gain power over their industry. As they gain power, they eventually am!@#$%^&* enough to take the free market out of the system. Overall, government intervention should only be applied to keep the system a free market one. However, this debate was closed in the 1920's. Lets move on. The problem today is that companies are focusing their capital on investment of capital rather than production of a hardcore good or service. Enron, just before their collapse, owned no physical electrical equipment. They made most of their money by buying and selling time on other companies' equipment. They produced nothing. They provided nothing. They did nothing at all in the real world. This is hardly the result of any inherint flaw in capitalism. Under the theorhetical base capitalism, if one produces nothing, one gains nothing. Thus, the source must exist in a problem in the legal system. In my opinion, we could change many of the problems with capitalism by doing the following. 1) Stop considering corporations as persons by legal standards. They are not people, they are organizations with people making the decisions. Under the current system, the decision makers are not accountable for their mistakes - the corporation is. A CEO could make horrible and immoral decisions, but it is his company who pays the price. We could administer justice a lot better if we could attack the people instead of the organizations. 2) Give tax breaks for desireable behaviors. Want a corporation to produce hard product instead of investing? Give them a break for every item they produce. Want a corporation to hire more employees? Give them a tax break for every dollor they spend on an employee. Want a corporation to stay domestic? Tax break (and tariffs). Want a corporation to not produce as much pollution? You get the idea. 3) Stop going after the big guys and start going after the bad guys. Face it, Microsoft is a huge corporation, but all in all it is pretty clean as far as corporations go. Its more domestic then foreign, and makes most of its money making a quality hardcore product. (If you think Windows isn't a quality product, try teaching your grandparents how to use Linux.) The point is while Microsoft was put to trial for very loose violations of anti-trust laws, Enron was breaking virtually every law in the book. We need to start paying attention to what companies do, not how big they are. Microsoft was huge, but wasn't hurting anybody. Enron was smaller, but screwed a lot of shareholders and employees. We need to stop worrying about the elephants and pay more attention to the lions.
madhaha Posted January 10, 2004 Report Posted January 10, 2004 Amusing to see communist arguments being used for a capitalist cause. Once upon a time a man once said that every member of society should be a productive worker and that the bourgeois were making everyone suffer by doing little/no work while consuming a disproportionately huge amount of resources. His solution was for all labour and all resources to be shared equally. The communist system is now regarded as practically unfeasible. Aileron says that corporations are consuming huge amounts of wealth while producing nothing. His solution is to break up corporations that do not produce good and services and force everyone to be productive via compe!@#$%^&*ion with the losers remaining poor, starved, dead or whatever and the winners being rich and prosperous. I regard this system as practically unfeasible and probably more unstable. As I've said before, people don't care what system they live under, its the amount they get screwed that counts.
Aileron Posted January 11, 2004 Report Posted January 11, 2004 You misinterpreted my arguement. The meaning of Marx's claim was that the rich don't have to do hard work to remain rich. This is true, but that was not my point. My point was that currently, it is more profitable to invest in ideas than goods or services. You can make more money by buying stocks than by building a factory and producing something. The thing is that a company that does this is effectively removing themselves from capitalist theory. Basically, I'm saying that capitalism is good in theory and bad in practice, and government intervention should exist just enough to maintain the ideal state. Also recognize that money is an idea. Unlike real objects, money can be created and destoyed. It is possible for two people to interact and both to profit. Capitalism is not a system of winners and losers. It is a system of mutual benefit. If both parties do not benefit, then it isn't capitalism. The point is just because one guy is rich doesn't mean tha somebody else lost money. The chief criticism of capitalism is the presence of losers. When two things compete, invariably one must lose. However, there are two things that redeem capitalism. The first is that it is not the goal to defeat the compe!@#$%^&*ion, but to make money yourself. If he made 5 mil and you made 2 mil, you still won because how much he made should be irrelevent to you. However, sometimes, particularly in employment situations, a loser is required for another to gain. That is merely life. Sometimes people lose. The only thing we can do is limit the number of losers and limit how much they lose. That is my reasoning behind point 2. The more people that are hired, the less losers there are. However, overall this whole debate is completely and utterly irrelevent. Capitalism is forced upon us by our current level of technology and our environment. If we switched to any other system, it would invariably collapse back into capitalism. That is what communism did. When they tried to impliment it, they screwed up. Instead of public ownership, it became government ownership. Instead of classless society, it became the opposite. Basically, when they tried to impliment it, all they really did was make the government one big corporation. To look at what it would take to remove capitalsim, lets look at the last system of fuedalism. When was fuedalism destroyed? Was it when humanity decided it was immoral for a local barony to rule a serf's life? Was it when serfdom was destroyed? It was not. When most countries freed their serfs, most of them merely started working freely under practically the same cir-*BAD WORD*-stances. Instead of being bound to the land by legal forces, they were bound by economic forces. Fuedalism was destroyed by the second cultural and industrial revolutions. It was only until a farmer could make more money by leaving the farm and moving to the city did fuedalism get truly destroyed. The same thing happened to the hunter-gatherer societies. They did not end until the first agricultural revolution. Thus, no matter how much we want to, capitalism cannot be removed by any means. In order to remove it, we will need a second industrial revolution as well as something else. Capitalism will remain in place until our level of technology makes it obsolete.
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