Thomas Sowell appreciation thread

2

Comments

  • jono
    jono Members Posts: 30,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I agree with some of what you said. It is true ideals are taken and manipulated however I disagree with Greenspan's situation being one of them. An accurate situation would be calling ? a socialist or a Christian.

    I fully believe in bankers and the meat/food/gambling/communications industries having agents in the government. I've been proven right. When someone attempts to argue that left is right and black is white then you know they are full of ? .

    Now here is where I disagree:
    On top of all that earlier you said something even I
    didn't claim which was that the government was
    conspiring with the bankers and had allies at all
    levels within the government, so based off of this
    wouldn't it be logically sound to curtail some of
    the governments power?
    It's like the government
    is a fighter jet and the bankers, corporations, etc.
    are the pilots, why would you keep on upgrading
    the jets hardware?

    Yes if I believed that would help I would totally agree. The question of corruption isn't only in the regulators and regulations but in government's structure. For instance, what prevents individuals with agendas from penetrating government? Nothing. That wouldn't change, a person can still run for elected office and do the bidding of their corporate buddies. Its the same thing they do today.

    The whole idea that the market will "correct" or "regulate" itself is false as well. An example: say a company pollutes the water and a class action lawsuit against them looks to prove such. If they are proved to be guilty does it change their behavior? No, it doesn't. It happens today, companies get busted doing tons of illegal and unethical actions and at most their stock drops a few points and they lose a little money (obviously it will be chump change and not enough to make any serious dent). The market doesn't then "correct" it, the stock goes back up after a certain amount of time and the damn water is still polluted.
  • NeighborhoodNomad.
    NeighborhoodNomad. Members Posts: 2,731 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • IronWord
    IronWord Members Posts: 10
    jono wrote: »
    The lack of government intervention is what caused this meltdown. Like I said there wasn't a meltdown before regulation was taken away.

    Not really. For over 70 years the united states government promoted 3 entities Moodies, Fitch and S&P to provide ratings for aggregated debt vehicles. This was a special exception and prevented alternative market outcomes from providing rating for financial instruments that provoked the sub-prime implosion.

    Free market capitalism is not the problem the problem is political capitalism or a few political elites deciding what is the correct way financial institutions should evolve. The problem with this method of elitism is it ignores epistemological constraints with respect to human perception. Knowledge is simply not centralized in a few people and even it was democracy is a TERRIBLE mechanism to extracting this knowledge.

    Also the federal government has pursued a policy of promoting personal home ownership for decades via ? Mae/Freddie Mac. Both D's and R's wanted to increase home ownership and so both parties are complicit in the synthesis of tremendous volumes of debt instruments which where then poorly rated by the three institutions that where granted monopoly privilege..

    To complicate this lenders or creditors have been bailed out on multiple occasions over a period of 30 years by the US perverting their incentives in that they can lend to various debtors but if the creditor doesn't do his work and ensure the potential debtor is likely to pay them back the creditor can pretty much rest assured that the federal government will make them whole via taxpayer money. That itself is the very definition of socialism.

    The united states has been shielding institutions from failure for decades. You cannot have capitalism when the dominate firms are either given their position by government law or they retain their position despite their errors due to government assistance.

  • Swiffness!
    Swiffness! Members Posts: 10,128 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    Thomas Sowell is just another one of them ? conservaturds cite as a reference to Prove They're Not Racist™. ? dat ? . He's a racism apologist and wrote columns supporting every terrible policy the Republicans have pushed in the past 30 years, including the Iraq War from start to finish.

    What's next, a Alan Keyes or Larry Elder appreciation thread?
  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    ^^^^^Real ? . I keep on trying to tell people that the op
    Swiffness! wrote: »
    Thomas Sowell is just another one of them ? conservaturds cite as a reference to Prove They're Not Racist™. ? dat ? . He's a racism apologist and wrote columns supporting every terrible policy the Republicans have pushed in the past 30 years, including the Iraq War from start to finish.

    What's next, a Alan Keyes or Larry Elder appreciation thread?

    Can you find the article where he says he supports the Iraq war? Not doubting you, just curious.

  • Ounceman
    Ounceman Members Posts: 6,702 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    jono wrote: »
    Anyone who promotes "laissez faire capitalism" shouldn't have an appreciation thread...jussayin.

    What's so bad about laissez faire capitalism?

    You do know that the most prominent and influential anarchists through history (prodhoun, spooner, tucker, bakunin) were against that very same thing right?
  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ounceman wrote: »
    jono wrote: »
    Anyone who promotes "laissez faire capitalism" shouldn't have an appreciation thread...jussayin.

    What's so bad about laissez faire capitalism?

    You do know that the most prominent and influential anarchists through history (prodhoun, spooner, tucker, bakunin) were against that very same thing right?

    No doubt. Things like Anarcho-capitalism is often too radical for most people so I at least try to meet them halfway at laissez faire.
  • heyslick
    heyslick Members Posts: 1,179
    I wondered what this man stands for - the truth will set you free - right? He does 'tell it like it is' so do most/many a lot of black folks consider him to be a ? ? - even tho I hate that term. What the ? !

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_q4FA9kUQ&feature=related
  • heyslick
    heyslick Members Posts: 1,179
    edited September 2012
    Thomas Sowell - I love this guys viewpoint....yeah these damn whiners don't appreciate anything

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3vZ8_XCMfA&feature=player_embedded
  • Plutarch
    Plutarch Members Posts: 3,239 ✭✭✭✭✭
    heyslick wrote: »
    I wondered what this man stands for - the truth will set you free - right? He does 'tell it like it is' so do most/many a lot of black folks consider him to be a ? ? - even tho I hate that term. What the ? !

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_q4FA9kUQ&feature=related

    I dont see him as a "? ", even though I don't use that term either. But I do see him as being very biased and maybe even a bit arrogant. You can't be biased and truthful at the same time, so I can't give him too much praise. Though I do agree with him on a few social and economic points, which is not surprising because he is a libertarian after all. It just seems that he oversimplifies some issues.
  • Plutarch
    Plutarch Members Posts: 3,239 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    heyslick wrote: »
    Thomas Sowell - I love this guys viewpoint....yeah these damn whiners don't appreciate anything

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3vZ8_XCMfA&feature=player_embedded

    Ugh I hate fox. Watching that clip was like what I'd imagine watching Oprah would've been like or what the Republican convention probably was like. No clashing of ideas, no real argumentation, no nothing. Nothing but everybody agreeing with each other, pushing their shared propaganda, and patting each other on the back. Just preaching to the choir. What a joke. They could've at least gave him tougher questions than the softball ones they asked or at least had another guest with an opposite viewpoint to debate the issues. The damn fox anchor might as well have been a thomas sowell groupie the way he was acting all giddy and ? . /rant

    What he said about the OM made me think of this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUjFRfCbY20
  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    He's not perfect but he at least tries to properly diagnose the problems of the black community, instead of blaming them on cliches that lie outside of our control.

    It's also telling his message hasn't changed since the 60's or 70's while the status of the black community has gotten progressively worse. While his analysis of the causal factors may not be directly provable it's worth looking in to.
  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    what has thomas sowell done that any of us should be appreciative of?

    dude is an apologist for the status quo....sowell doesn’t even support minimum wage laws....

    even had the nerve to once argue that the Black middle class grew at a faster rate pre-Civil Rights Act and affirmative action, than afterward. well, when you have a small starting base and get increases, the rate is going to be bigger than if you have a large base and get increases. lol...

    unlike he would like you to believe socialism and liberal policies has NOT lead to societal breakdown or the state of the black community. whether these policies have worked or not, are an attempt to right these wrongs

    the state of the black community is actually a direct result of 400 years of slavery, jim crow , institutional racism, ? , reaganonimcs, the war on drugs, inept/underfunded public school system....and capitalism

    the very nature of capitalism creates a disadvantaged underclass. couple this with racism, and you have the us of a.
    whether or not you have these "safety nets" the real problem will continue to persist

    the only real solution is following the lead of social democratic countries...


  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ounceman wrote: »
    jono wrote: »
    Anyone who promotes "laissez faire capitalism" shouldn't have an appreciation thread...jussayin.

    What's so bad about laissez faire capitalism?

    You do know that the most prominent and influential anarchists through history (prodhoun, spooner, tucker, bakunin) were against that very same thing right?

    No doubt. Things like Anarcho-capitalism is often too radical for most people so I at least try to meet them halfway at laissez faire.

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.




  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    what has thomas sowell done that any of us should be appreciative of?

    Read some of his work.
    dude is an apologist for the status quo....sowell doesn’t even support minimum wage laws....

    Minimum wage actually hurts small business owners and lowers employment opportunities. Rather than hiring someone at a wage the business owner could afford often they forego hiring that person altogether. Same with big business. People want US jobs to stop being shipped overseas. Well overseas countries don't have the same constrictive wage laws. You can't have it both ways. Personally I'd rather work and make something than remain unemployed and make nothing.
    even had the nerve to once argue that the Black middle class grew at a faster rate pre-Civil Rights Act and affirmative action, than afterward. well, when you have a small starting base and get increases, the rate is going to be bigger than if you have a large base and get increases. lol...

    Well you just admitted it was true so...*shrugs*
    unlike he would like you to believe socialism and liberal policies has NOT lead to societal breakdown or the state of the black community. whether these policies have worked or not, are an attempt to right these wrongs

    Here's the thing: the only thing that can ultimately help and improve the black community is the black community itself. Not some store-bought bureaucrat who gets paid either way. Or some band-aid on a shotgun wound social policy. These people don't care and they can't see the subtle nuances and attention to detail required to mend things. What these social policies do is absolve people of real responsibility while making it seem as if they really care. It also creates a dependent class that can be used as collateral by the government. This dependent class is at the mercy of politicians whims.
    the state of the black community is actually a direct result of 400 years of slavery, jim crow , institutional racism, ? , Reaganomics, the war on drugs, inept/underfunded public school system....and capitalism

    6 of these 9 things you listed are old elements that have been present in the black community for over a century. Yet the black community has been able to sustain itself in spite of them. ? , the war on drugs, and Reaganomics were all destructive elements for certain but I refuse to believe those three things were enough to send the black community into the downward spiral it's in now. Anyway all those things were state-enforced policies. Slavery was a legal institution corroborated in the US constitution. So basically we're supposed to believe the very same institution that put us in the position we're in today is the same one that is supposed to improve it?
    the very nature of capitalism creates a disadvantaged underclass. couple this with racism, and you have the us of a.
    whether or not you have these "safety nets" the real problem will continue to persist

    China didn't start seeing major growth until it started opening up markets and embracing capitalism. There is nothing wrong with capitalism in its purest form. The problem is people observe the crony capitalism that occurs now in the US between politicians and the government and conclude that all capitalism is bad. Crony capitalism is bad. Free-market capitalism is good. We haven't seen free-market capitalism in nearly 100 years. Free-market capitalism devoid of government corruption is the economic system closest to reality we know of.
    the only real solution is following the lead of social democratic countries...

    Like Greece right? Cause they're doing so well.



  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012
    @highrevolutionary

    lol @ your refusal to accept the truth....

    and no I am not against totally against capitalism. done some good for china, even though the state actually owns everything. just feel we need balance for there to be true progress and racial equality.

    as is capitalism here in america coupled with the war on drugs, inept ? school system, institutionalized racism etc will continue serve as a obstacle to the progression of blacks, as it done since we were freed from enslavement....

    the basic law of inflation dictates that in a capitalistic society there always has to be poor people or a underclass, and usually a lot of them. gov't assistance for the poor increased as the living wage began to fade from existence.... inner cities began their decline as poverty increased and so the upwardly mobile started to flee to the suburbs. the people who were left there lost the industries that employed them and the tax base that supported their public services... this disproportionately effected blacks

    further deregulation will just cause the second class status of blacks to be deepened by color blind free market forces. and we will continue to be exploited , discriminated against when it came to economic opportunities and systematically denied jobs...

    and letting the market decide the future will only guarantee that even more jobs will be outsourced....

    for every greece there's a norway, denmark or sweden mixed economies that boast low unemployment rates, low poverty rates and our very business friendly. we need to take their lead, and invest even more into our people, instead of slashing funding to social programs that provide many with the means to survive..

    maybe i am being naive but a democracy/government is not inherently a bad idea. just as we elected men who thought it was should be legal to enslave another human being, the country elected men who voted in the Civil rights act so.... *shrugs*








  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    The guards can demand what they want, doesn't mean the market will give it to them. I can demand 1 hundred million dollars for my little niece's crayon sketches, but will I get it? Not likely. There will competing guard services if one tries to price itself to high. Just as there are store-brand products that are cheaper than its name-brand variants. If all else fails one could just train their own guards. And who says an anarcho-capitalist society can't have patriotism or religion?
    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    This makes no sense, You're creating premises with flawed conclusions. Also when you get a chance research the FED and the damage its done to the US money supply.
    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    These things wouldn't be a significant enough portion of the economy to "dillute the capital". Whatever that even means.
    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    I'm not sure you understand how markets work.
    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.

    Anarcho capitalism isn't meant to be imposed, it's a voluntary system.
  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    The guards can demand what they want, doesn't mean the market will give it to them. I can demand 1 hundred million dollars for my little niece's crayon sketches, but will I get it? Not likely. There will competing guard services if one tries to price itself to high. Just as there are store-brand products that are cheaper than its name-brand variants. If all else fails one could just train their own guards. And who says an anarcho-capitalist society can't have patriotism or religion?
    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    This makes no sense, You're creating premises with flawed conclusions. Also when you get a chance research the FED and the damage its done to the US money supply.
    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    These things wouldn't be a significant enough portion of the economy to "dillute the capital". Whatever that even means.
    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    I'm not sure you understand how markets work.
    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.

    Anarcho capitalism isn't meant to be imposed, it's a voluntary system.

    i was kind of distracted when i wrote that

    but my point was without capitalism can only exist if wage slavery exists....wage slavery, the idea that social coercion is the basis for capitalism and is an inevitable part of capitalism....

    however in a society without a state, let’s say that half of the world was socialist and the means of production were public, and the other half of the world is anarcho-capitalist, I would argue that anarcho-capitalism would become economically and inevitably impossible. workers drive the capitalist modes of production. if the worker decides not to be a guard, factory worker, etc can enter a commune, create a product, receive its full compensation as well as being able to control it, AND work without a boss, then he will do so....

    everything is "voluntary" right?

    right now if you take away the government/state corporations will take over... yet they will still need to regulate the lives of the workers with police, laws, etc... these corporations whose sole purpose is to make a profit will just replace the government....FASCISM w/ out the state

    i would also argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions....


  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    The guards can demand what they want, doesn't mean the market will give it to them. I can demand 1 hundred million dollars for my little niece's crayon sketches, but will I get it? Not likely. There will competing guard services if one tries to price itself to high. Just as there are store-brand products that are cheaper than its name-brand variants. If all else fails one could just train their own guards. And who says an anarcho-capitalist society can't have patriotism or religion?
    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    This makes no sense, You're creating premises with flawed conclusions. Also when you get a chance research the FED and the damage its done to the US money supply.
    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    These things wouldn't be a significant enough portion of the economy to "dillute the capital". Whatever that even means.
    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    I'm not sure you understand how markets work.
    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.

    Anarcho capitalism isn't meant to be imposed, it's a voluntary system.

    i was kind of distracted when i wrote that

    but my point was without capitalism can only exist if wage slavery exists....wage slavery, the idea that social coercion is the basis for capitalism and is an inevitable part of capitalism....

    however in a society without a state, let’s say that half of the world was socialist and the means of production were public, and the other half of the world is anarcho-capitalist, I would argue that anarcho-capitalism would become economically and inevitably impossible. workers drive the capitalist modes of production. if the worker decides not to be a guard, factory worker, etc can enter a commune, create a product, receive its full compensation as well as being able to control it, AND work without a boss, then he will do so....

    everything is "voluntary" right?

    right now if you take away the government/state corporations will take over... yet they will still need to regulate the lives of the workers with police, laws, etc... these corporations whose sole purpose is to make a profit will just replace the government....FASCISM w/ out the state

    i would also argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions....

    There's always going to be disparities in income. Even in a communist country like China there are people living on slave wages and other people who are worth billions. You can't eliminate these discrepancies no matter what kind of economic system you run. Unless of course you run some kind of staunch totalitarianistic system where the state owns everything and levels the playing the field forcibly. This is how China used to be run, and still largely is.
    The problem with this model is it destroys individualism and reduces people to mere cogs in the machine. Then people are surprised when things like this happen (WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqVYUzHc5L8

    In case you haven't seen or heard the story and didn't want to watch the video, it's a video of a 2 year old Chinese girl being run over twice and 18 people walking right by her while she lies in a pool of her own blood. When this video first surfaced a lot of people were condemning the Chinese and calling them savages but what do you expect from a society where the state controls everything? People automatically defer to the state in all matters, even those as urgent as a dying child in the street. This is what occurs in the black community today, btw. Instead of the onus being on the people in said community to fix their situation people defer to a state that is at best indifferent to the situation to fix things.

    Conversely Capitalism rewards individualism, it rewards innovation. If I invent something that revolutionizes the way people live, and/or something the masses truly enjoy, I deserve to be compensated for that.

    As for most workers eventually deciding to work for themselves in an anarcho-capitalist society, as someone who is working towards working for himself, I don't think so. Working for yourself is at least twice as hard as working for someone else. A lot of people just aren't cut out for it. Otherwise more people would be doing it now.

    Dissolving the government would be disastrous at this point in time, but not because the corporations would take over. Remember a corporation is a legal fiction born out of the government. Without government perks and protection the corporation would have a fraction of the strength it has now. In fact without the government corporations would cease to exist as we knew them. Also corporations wouldn't have the luxury of the FED to inflate the money supply to fund the military. That's another benefit of no government; competing currencies (look up the liberty dollar).

    The real reason dissolving government today would be disastrous is so many people are dependent on the system it would misplace large groups of the population. I'm not for dissolving the government tomorrow or even ten years from now. And I believe the system is going to collapse eventually anyway.

    Oh and the government didn't invent roads/energy/communication it simply took their markets over.
  • IronWord
    IronWord Members Posts: 10
    edited September 2012
    I think it's pretty wrong-headed to say the state is the only thing that stands between the peoples freedom and the corporations from taking over and imposing some sort of dystopian nightmare over everybody. All to often the state itself serves the interests of corporations and even fashions laws specifically for them. Even smaller businesses and lobbies for floral arrangement and deck-sealant get regulatory privilege. This makes it harder for new entrants to capture some margin of market share from the established firm and ensures monopoly pricing will be imposed on the population.

    Why does this belief that the state is acting benevolently maintain itself when the state was itself directly responsible for slavery to begin with as well as the Jim Crow laws.

    The real irony is that systems like democracy ensure that corporate interests have more power because democracy is a bad system for making decisions and it does not incentivize informed selection. Also democracy does not provide a rapid means of institutional disloyalty to be exercised. Under democracy you have "voice" but 1/1.5 hundred million of a voice which is basically nothing, the elite wipe the crumbs off their table at you and you happily thank them for them and proclaim your freedom. Markets provide voice via marketing research and surveys but they also provide "exit".

    We exercise exit often in our social relationships by terminating relationships with people who we find to be corrosive or engage in unhealthy habits yet we are denied this freedom under democratic systems of government. Most decisions are packaged together, that being defense, regulation, infrastructure etc. These systems need to be separated to better assess the performance of their managers yet they are aggregated.

    In addition without exit we are denied the ability to experience opportunity costs. We cannot easily effectively perceive if institutional selections are suboptimal because other institutional selections are clearly outperforming. A clothing line, a car , a home appliance. If we select the wrong one we are better able to see what would have been if we had selected the right one because "other" people are able to experience and display the optimal choice. Under democracy your forced to consume the goods and services of the winner, that isn't freedom.
  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    The guards can demand what they want, doesn't mean the market will give it to them. I can demand 1 hundred million dollars for my little niece's crayon sketches, but will I get it? Not likely. There will competing guard services if one tries to price itself to high. Just as there are store-brand products that are cheaper than its name-brand variants. If all else fails one could just train their own guards. And who says an anarcho-capitalist society can't have patriotism or religion?
    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    This makes no sense, You're creating premises with flawed conclusions. Also when you get a chance research the FED and the damage its done to the US money supply.
    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    These things wouldn't be a significant enough portion of the economy to "dillute the capital". Whatever that even means.
    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    I'm not sure you understand how markets work.
    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.

    Anarcho capitalism isn't meant to be imposed, it's a voluntary system.

    i was kind of distracted when i wrote that

    but my point was without capitalism can only exist if wage slavery exists....wage slavery, the idea that social coercion is the basis for capitalism and is an inevitable part of capitalism....

    however in a society without a state, let’s say that half of the world was socialist and the means of production were public, and the other half of the world is anarcho-capitalist, I would argue that anarcho-capitalism would become economically and inevitably impossible. workers drive the capitalist modes of production. if the worker decides not to be a guard, factory worker, etc can enter a commune, create a product, receive its full compensation as well as being able to control it, AND work without a boss, then he will do so....

    everything is "voluntary" right?

    right now if you take away the government/state corporations will take over... yet they will still need to regulate the lives of the workers with police, laws, etc... these corporations whose sole purpose is to make a profit will just replace the government....FASCISM w/ out the state

    i would also argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions....

    Conversely Capitalism rewards individualism, it rewards innovation. If I invent something that revolutionizes the way people live, and/or something the masses truly enjoy, I deserve to be compensated for that.

    As for most workers eventually deciding to work for themselves in an anarcho-capitalist society, as someone who is working towards working for himself, I don't think so. Working for yourself is at least twice as hard as working for someone else. A lot of people just aren't cut out for it. Otherwise more people would be doing it now.

    Dissolving the government would be disastrous at this point in time, but not because the corporations would take over. Remember a corporation is a legal fiction born out of the government. Without government perks and protection the corporation would have a fraction of the strength it has now. In fact without the government corporations would cease to exist as we knew them. Also corporations wouldn't have the luxury of the FED to inflate the money supply to fund the military. That's another benefit of no government; competing currencies (look up the liberty dollar).

    The real reason dissolving government today would be disastrous is so many people are dependent on the system it would misplace large groups of the population. I'm not for dissolving the government tomorrow or even ten years from now. And I believe the system is going to collapse eventually anyway.

    Oh and the government didn't invent roads/energy/communication it simply took their markets over.

    it wouldn't work in 10 years or EVER....or at least not for very long. and its implementation would cause lot of people will suffer tremendously

    what we know as corporations today will just be replaced with warlords and land lords...

    and just in terms of the basic tools necessary to make capitalism run, such as implementing a form of currency, you need centralized authorities in place, and overseeing and regulating it. those with the most resources or/and "capital" will be the ones making the rules. that’s also known as fascism. not a free society as placing the word "anarchy" before capitalism would suggest...

    and still ...

    if everything was indeed voluntary and there was a system of free association where the means of production are commonly owned, it will inevitably lead to the diminish of capitalism, as the workforce will soon depart from the realm of the capitalist. like i was saying if we all had the opportunity to work for ourselves to make a greater profit, the majority of us would...

    the only reason why more of us don't do it now is because we lack the proper resources and capital... working for another’s profit so you can shelter yourself and your family is not a “natural” state of affairs... most of us work within the system only to survive bruh....

    in reality the only type of capitalism that is even close to anarchism is bartering which is only found in pre-industrial tribal societies. and they only thrived because they were close-knit communities probably with traditional theocratic political systems....

    and of course the government didn't invent roads and such, but without the government would the internet be what it is today? and who would maintain highways and bridges? who would help to fund medical and technological advancements in their infancy?

  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 2012

    anarcho-capitalism would be damn near impossible to implement...

    for one the cost of protecting property rises dramatically as the amount of property owned increases, without a state... absentee ownership is necessary to become accumulate real wealth. most of the wealthy own stock in large corporations that have many factories, retail outlets, offices,etc all over

    the property needs to be protected not only from domestic and foreign forces. therefore the mass accumulation and concentration of "capital" would be impossible...without patriotism or religion, "guards" will demand vast salaries that will drain the rich, since tax payers won't be paying for them...police and military protection is the biggest subsidy that the state gives to the rich....

    The guards can demand what they want, doesn't mean the market will give it to them. I can demand 1 hundred million dollars for my little niece's crayon sketches, but will I get it? Not likely. There will competing guard services if one tries to price itself to high. Just as there are store-brand products that are cheaper than its name-brand variants. If all else fails one could just train their own guards. And who says an anarcho-capitalist society can't have patriotism or religion?
    furthermore, without a state-protected banking/financial system, no longer will the constant inflating the money supply, destroy the ability of people to save, forcing them to borrow in order to start or expand a business, to buy a home or a car. which directly concentrates the supply of capital in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people, destroying savings and feeding effective purchasing power to those with higher credit ratings. this drives down wages and makes people dependent on those who still have large amounts of capital to hire them. accumulating endless high profits is well nigh impossible... and lead to dilution of capital....

    This makes no sense, You're creating premises with flawed conclusions. Also when you get a chance research the FED and the damage its done to the US money supply.
    “intellectual property” wouldn’t exist, so any business model that relies on patents and copyrights to make money would not exist either furthering the dilution of capital

    These things wouldn't be a significant enough portion of the economy to "dillute the capital". Whatever that even means.
    as the price of capital is diluted, the share of production that goes to the workers increases. what we would eventually see is a permanent global labor shortage. companies would compete for workers, rather than the other way around

    it would more so look like anarcho-socialism, than a capitalist society

    I'm not sure you understand how markets work.
    and at the end of the day there is no way to impose it on a community that wants to operate a different way.

    Anarcho capitalism isn't meant to be imposed, it's a voluntary system.

    i was kind of distracted when i wrote that

    but my point was without capitalism can only exist if wage slavery exists....wage slavery, the idea that social coercion is the basis for capitalism and is an inevitable part of capitalism....

    however in a society without a state, let’s say that half of the world was socialist and the means of production were public, and the other half of the world is anarcho-capitalist, I would argue that anarcho-capitalism would become economically and inevitably impossible. workers drive the capitalist modes of production. if the worker decides not to be a guard, factory worker, etc can enter a commune, create a product, receive its full compensation as well as being able to control it, AND work without a boss, then he will do so....

    everything is "voluntary" right?

    right now if you take away the government/state corporations will take over... yet they will still need to regulate the lives of the workers with police, laws, etc... these corporations whose sole purpose is to make a profit will just replace the government....FASCISM w/ out the state

    i would also argue that a large established government is necessary to provide the most basic infrastructure like roads/energy/communication and to regulate individual companies and environmental conditions....

    There's always going to be disparities in income. Even in a communist country like China there are people living on slave wages and other people who are worth billions. You can't eliminate these discrepancies no matter what kind of economic system you run. Unless of course you run some kind of staunch totalitarianistic system where the state owns everything and levels the playing the field forcibly. This is how China used to be run, and still largely is.
    The problem with this model is it destroys individualism and reduces people to mere cogs in the machine. Then people are surprised when things like this happen (WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC MATERIAL):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqVYUzHc5L8

    In case you haven't seen or heard the story and didn't want to watch the video, it's a video of a 2 year old Chinese girl being run over twice and 18 people walking right by her while she lies in a pool of her own blood. When this video first surfaced a lot of people were condemning the Chinese and calling them savages but what do you expect from a society where the state controls everything? People automatically defer to the state in all matters, even those as urgent as a dying child in the street. This is what occurs in the black community today, btw. Instead of the onus being on the people in said community to fix their situation people defer to a state that is at best indifferent to the situation to fix things.

    @ so your solution is to do what exactly?

    and lol @ your attempt to compare the inclination of the people in china with the plight of african americans ...

    not saying things are perfect they way they are, its nowhere near perfect. but freeing the market is not the solution. think back in the day segregationist and bigots disguised themselves as free market advocates and libertarians to keep blacks from acquiring marketing access to the white majority.... free market forces were partly responsible for the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and fair wages that inner city and suburban blacks once enjoyed, and the pollution of our air/water which as disproportionately effected black neighborhoods

    so i have concerns about what libertarianism or what a "free market" means for black people more specifically when it comes to property rights because very few of us control much property. because I know from experience that if there is anything that keeps people of color from acquiring wealth and security it's the fact that we have very little control over the land we live on....

    that's why i feel with a lil more tweaks and proper regulation a mixed economy like the one we have here in america works best. we just need take the money out of politics and better policy making ...which will probably never happen . but we have here now better than a color blind, profit driven market that's absent of any incentive to conserve the environment...
  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2012
    No shots but you have to do more research desertrain. And I'm not saying that because you disagree with me.
  • desertrain10
    desertrain10 Members Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭
    No shots but you have to do more research desertrain. And I'm not saying that because you disagree with me.


    Lol. Just tryna figure out how u can be for anarcho capitalism when it requires the very thing u supposedly oppose: centralized authority

    How would this profit driven free soceity be achieved?

  • High Revolutionary
    High Revolutionary Members Posts: 3,729 ✭✭✭✭✭
    No shots but you have to do more research desertrain. And I'm not saying that because you disagree with me.


    Lol. Just tryna figure out how u can be for anarcho capitalism when it requires the very thing u supposedly oppose: centralized authority

    How would this profit driven free soceity be achieved?

    But it doesn't require centralized authority; communism requires centralized authority.

    If you're going to criticize it criticize it for relevant reasons. When you get a chance read over this wikipedia page.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism