Capitalism is...Slavery; Democracy is Not

[westwall]

Do you believe the present labor of the world creates all wealth?

CH Douglas apparently did not.

He believed the cultural inheritance of society was primary among the factors of production.
That's why each generation doesn't have to reinvent the wheel: "We are merely the administrators of that cultural inheritance, and to that extent the cultural inheritance is the property of all of us without exception."

As I understand Social Credit it's the dividend on that common property of cultural inheritance that provides an annual stipend to all citizens regardless of whether they choose to work or not. Those who choose to work are not supporting those who don't. They are choosing to increase their personal income in exchange for their time and labor.

Any workers who choose to quit work would still receive an annual dividend assured by the National Dividend and Compensated Price.

Social Credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When no one works, all starve. Do you understand that fact? Or can't you get it through that thick skull of yours that nothing in life is free. At some point all things that are consumed must be made, harvested, built, etc. Are you so dense that you can't understand that?

What do you do when no one produces anything? Quit dodging the question slick.

Where did I say no one will work?
Slick?

Did you ever hear of the Industrial Revolution?
Is that a new concept for you?

Maybe you should stop trying to comprehend the answer to a question you're too stupid to understand?

You're the dodge here, Slick.
And you're not very good at it.

I am not dodging anything buckwheat. Here is your original post...

"When the Industrial Revolution began many believed humanity would eventually be freed from the need to work for its basic subsistence. I think we've reached that point for many Americans.

A Guaranteed Annual Wage for all US citizens would be independent of any income earned from other sources, and for those who refuse to work would allow them a roof over their heads and regular meals.

The money for such a program already exists, imho.
It's locked away in hedge funds and tax shelters and Government Sachs.
For thousands of years government has redistributed wealth upwards.
That could easily be reversed."




I highlighted the relevent part. Theorists who lack actual real world experience, or those who ignore human nature, never take into account that if a group is allowed to exist without contributing to the overall group. the rest of the group resents that fact. In primitive times the workers killed the slackers. Only in modern times have the slackers been able to survive because the governments have deemed it mandatory that the workers MUST support the slackers. If the workers don't they are either killed or placed in prison. Are you following here slick?

In a social credit world, where governement evidently doesn't exist, how do the slackers get anything when ALL become slackers? C'mon theory boy, answer the question.

You whine about us all being slaves and your very epitome of "fairness" requires slavery of the workers to support the slackers. How are you going to enforce that? Hmmmm?

Think bucko think. We're talking real world now, not some fantasy story land here. Real people living in the real world. Something you clearly have never done.

 

[daveman]

Or maybe you're too STUPID to see how the rich take what they want from you without resorting to using a gun?

Or maybe you haven't made the case. How do they take from us without using a gun?

If you studied the industrial revolution then you would know how.

Non-answer. Who's forcing you to buy their products?

 

[daveman]

Daveman, did you know that your avatar says all there is to know about you? What were you? A fighter pilot or simply an unfortunate soldier plagued by PTSD?

You do know that there are more jobs in the Air Force than just pilot, right? Idiot.

I have no PTSD. And the fact that a terrorist supporter like you doesn't like what I say is merely proof that the things I say are right.

Daveman, you did not answer my question!

Yes, I did. But you apparently need to be spoonfed. Too dumb to see the obvious without it being REALLY obvious. Not surprising, really.

By the way, a soldier is an active, a loyal, or a militant follower of an organization which in this case is national armed force.

Follower? No. A member.

What were you, Daveman? A fighter pilot - trained assassins whose only purpose for being is to destroy - or a soldier plagued by PTSD?

Neither. I was not a Soldier, I was an Airman. I was a generator mechanic. I never fired a shot in anger, nor was I ever fired upon directly, although I was in the neighborhood when chickenshit terrorists fired random rockets into the bases I was at and then ran away like cowards.

Does that answer your stupid little question?

 

[Contumacious]

The implied SOCIAL CONTRACT in a capitalistic society is that the CAPITALIST will retain a larger share of the profits that they might othersise be entitled to so that there will be pools of capital available for future investments.

HUH?

WHO the fuck determines how much profit he is "entitled"

.

 

[lehr]

Confused about the fundamental conflicts regarding proper distribution of power?

"Listen, for example, to liberal economist Lester Thurow who writes that 'democracy and capitalism have very different beliefs about the proper distribution of power.

"'One believes in a completely equal distribution of political power, "one man [sic] one vote," while the other believes that it is the duty of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of business and into extinction. "Survival of the fittest" and inequalities in purchasing power are what capitalist efficiency is all about.

"'Individual profit comes first and firms become efficient to be rich. To put it in its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery. Democracy is not.'"

Capitalism and Democracy Don't Mix Very Well ::: International Endowment for Democracy

capitalism is slavery ! yep - you are right - that is why senior citizens living in florida keep taking leaky old boats to CUBA ! -

 

[georgephillip]

Or maybe you're too STUPID to see how the rich take what they want from you without resorting to using a gun?

Or maybe you haven't made the case. How do they take from us without using a gun?

By shifting the burden of taxation off FIRE sector incomes and onto wage labor.

 

[georgephillip]

You really don't expect anything rational from someone who believes that nonsense, do you?

What's rational about killing children for money?

Then you oppose abortion.

In cases of rape or incest?

What's your standard for abortion?

"A surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates a pregnancy by removing the fetus; a therapeutic abortion. It is a non-contraceptive form of birth control."

"A human embryo after the 8th week of gestation.

My suggestion is to make the definition of "life" consistent with the legal definition of "death"

Once the voltage in the brain of the embryo/fetus/child becomes measurable, any surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates the pregnancy would be homicide.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/induced_abortion

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fetus

 

[georgephillip]

Or maybe you're too STUPID to see how the rich take what they want from you without resorting to using a gun?

Or maybe you haven't made the case. How do they take from us without using a gun?

If you studied the industrial revolution then you would know how.

One of the talking points for the Industrial Revolution was the machine will eventually do all the work for humanity. We've reached that point in parts of the US rust belt; however, capitalists have acquired an ever increasing share of national wealth and income over the last forty years, and they see no reason to live up to their part of the social contract.

Workers get 99 weeks of unemployment and then they're told to hand over their Social Security on the way out of town.

The billions of dollars the rich have stolen from labor over the last forty years could go to productive use if government taxed the rich at the same levels it did in the 70s. Instead, today government chooses to borrow from the richest 1% even after Wall Street brought the planet to its financial knees.

Republicans OR Democrats?
There is no lesser economic evil anymore.

 

[daveman]

What's rational about killing children for money?

Then you oppose abortion.

In cases of rape or incest?

What's your standard for abortion?

"A surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates a pregnancy by removing the fetus; a therapeutic abortion. It is a non-contraceptive form of birth control."

"A human embryo after the 8th week of gestation.

My suggestion is to make the definition of "life" consistent with the legal definition of "death"

Once the voltage in the brain of the embryo/fetus/child becomes measurable, any surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates the pregnancy would be homicide.

induced abortion - Wiktionary

fetus - Wiktionary

The Constitutional option would be for each state to decide.

But you don't much care for the Constitution, do you?

 

[beowolfe]

Without competition, capitalism would not flourish.
It serves little to no purpose for "the economically fit to drive the unfit out of business and into extinction".

Tell that to microsoft.

 

[georgephillip]

The implied SOCIAL CONTRACT in a capitalistic society is that the CAPITALIST will retain a larger share of the profits that they might othersise be entitled to so that there will be pools of capital available for future investments.

THAT is the justification for capitalism and when that social contract is done fairly and squarely its a DAMNED FINE SYSTEM.

Sadly, what has been happening under the noses of the American public is that that is NOT what has been happening ENOUGH.

Much of the capital that we and our forefathers created (by our labors) that was amassed (by the capitalists) is now being reinvested in FOREIGN indistrial growth

Now that in itself is NOT a bad thing for mankind, but it plays hell on the working classes which originated that capital.

That capital investment begins creating goods that are then sold BACK INTO the society which formerly was creating wealth, hence putting the workers of that nation out of work, and forcing the consumer to buy foreign made goods instead of locally made goods.

And that is EXACTLY why free trade, as currently designed, is bankrupting this nation;s formerly working classesm why so many of us are on food stamps, why unemployment is becoming entrenched, why the real estate crises really happened, why our states are going down, etc etc..

Well if we realy want to do unvest capital to the emerging economies, if we want the capital that the American workers of the past created, that the American capitalists retained for future investment in America, but then choose to invest it in places where the return on it was better, then the workers ought to SHARE in those foreign investments opprotunities....only they cannot since it is not THEIR capital, is it?.

And this reallocation of capital from the socierty that created it, to a society that can use it more efficiently, is in large part why our social contract is no longer working all that well.

Again I will remind you that the reallocation of capital thanks to FREE TRADE is going to seem like a very small problem indeed, compared to the outcome of more efficent production that is taking place thanks to techology.

Again, the capitalists will benefit from the increases in efficiency, but the working class (and the redudant classes of workers, thanks to technology) have no means to gain any benefit from this change in productivity.

This is why unions, which were a fairly good system for modifying the social contract in the late industrial revolution, will be sorely missed now that the USA has pretty much neutered them.

Eventually the supply side will have so much capital invested in techology producing (fewer humans needed) industry , and the demand side will so little capital to buy the goods manufactured, that some radical changes in the social contract will have to happen. (what those change might be can range from utopian visions of techology really serving mankind to culling the herd of unnecessary humans nightmares)

Eventually we either become the technology drven leisure society that we used to read about in my Weekly Reader, or bloody revolutions of the haves v the have nots are inevitable.

There's also a significant pile of money created by the labor of previous generations that is being used as gambling chips in Wall Street's casino. We are at the stage where capitalism becomes a revolutionary force after it emasculates government. Either workers will demand what's been stolen from them over the last two generations, or the fascists will take what little labor has left.

Revolution doesn't offer Silver Medals.

 

[dblack]

Or maybe you're too STUPID to see how the rich take what they want from you without resorting to using a gun?

Or maybe you haven't made the case. How do they take from us without using a gun?

By shifting the burden of taxation off FIRE sector incomes and onto wage labor.

So, in other words, the stuff we were talking about earlier, getting the government to do their dirty work for them. Taxes are collected via force of law (guns).

I'm always struck by the irony of citing a history of people using government to acquire power and wealth as an indictment of the free market, when it's actually an indictment of allowing the state manipulative power over the economy.

 

[georgephillip]

When no one works, all starve. Do you understand that fact? Or can't you get it through that thick skull of yours that nothing in life is free. At some point all things that are consumed must be made, harvested, built, etc. Are you so dense that you can't understand that?

What do you do when no one produces anything? Quit dodging the question slick.

Where did I say no one will work?
Slick?

Did you ever hear of the Industrial Revolution?
Is that a new concept for you?

Maybe you should stop trying to comprehend the answer to a question you're too stupid to understand?

You're the dodge here, Slick.
And you're not very good at it.

I am not dodging anything buckwheat. Here is your original post...

"When the Industrial Revolution began many believed humanity would eventually be freed from the need to work for its basic subsistence. I think we've reached that point for many Americans.

A Guaranteed Annual Wage for all US citizens would be independent of any income earned from other sources, and for those who refuse to work would allow them a roof over their heads and regular meals.

The money for such a program already exists, imho.
It's locked away in hedge funds and tax shelters and Government Sachs.
For thousands of years government has redistributed wealth upwards.
That could easily be reversed."




I highlighted the relevent part. Theorists who lack actual real world experience, or those who ignore human nature, never take into account that if a group is allowed to exist without contributing to the overall group. the rest of the group resents that fact. In primitive times the workers killed the slackers. Only in modern times have the slackers been able to survive because the governments have deemed it mandatory that the workers MUST support the slackers. If the workers don't they are either killed or placed in prison. Are you following here slick?

In a social credit world, where governement evidently doesn't exist, how do the slackers get anything when ALL become slackers? C'mon theory boy, answer the question.

You whine about us all being slaves and your very epitome of "fairness" requires slavery of the workers to support the slackers. How are you going to enforce that? Hmmmm?

Think bucko think. We're talking real world now, not some fantasy story land here. Real people living in the real world. Something you clearly have never done.

Here's a real world I've known that I suspect you haven't.

In April of 2008 I lost my shelter and 99% of all my material possessions and spent the next 14 months sleeping beneath a bridge. During that time I received about $200 every month in food stamps and another $200 every month in cash.

On my own I decided to volunteer 8 hours a day five days a week at a local ADHC.
Since there were few to no jobs around for a 60 year-old unskilled male.)

Was I "working" or was I a "slacker"?

My labor wasn't going to make some rich parasite even richer, so I'm guessing a well-conditioned slave like you will say I was a welfare cheat.

Spend 14 months under a bridge, bitch.

Then whine some more about the real world.

 

[the_IRF]

The Smallest Government always → The Biggest || Economic Freedom → Slavery ! ! ! ~ The Story of Your Enslavement ~ YouTube - ‪The Story of Your Enslavement‬‏

 

[westwall]

Where did I say no one will work?
Slick?

Did you ever hear of the Industrial Revolution?
Is that a new concept for you?

Maybe you should stop trying to comprehend the answer to a question you're too stupid to understand?

You're the dodge here, Slick.
And you're not very good at it.

I am not dodging anything buckwheat. Here is your original post...

"When the Industrial Revolution began many believed humanity would eventually be freed from the need to work for its basic subsistence. I think we've reached that point for many Americans.

A Guaranteed Annual Wage for all US citizens would be independent of any income earned from other sources, and for those who refuse to work would allow them a roof over their heads and regular meals.

The money for such a program already exists, imho.
It's locked away in hedge funds and tax shelters and Government Sachs.
For thousands of years government has redistributed wealth upwards.
That could easily be reversed."




I highlighted the relevent part. Theorists who lack actual real world experience, or those who ignore human nature, never take into account that if a group is allowed to exist without contributing to the overall group. the rest of the group resents that fact. In primitive times the workers killed the slackers. Only in modern times have the slackers been able to survive because the governments have deemed it mandatory that the workers MUST support the slackers. If the workers don't they are either killed or placed in prison. Are you following here slick?

In a social credit world, where governement evidently doesn't exist, how do the slackers get anything when ALL become slackers? C'mon theory boy, answer the question.

You whine about us all being slaves and your very epitome of "fairness" requires slavery of the workers to support the slackers. How are you going to enforce that? Hmmmm?

Think bucko think. We're talking real world now, not some fantasy story land here. Real people living in the real world. Something you clearly have never done.

Here's a real world I've known that I suspect you haven't.

In April of 2008 I lost my shelter and 99% of all my material possessions and spent the next 14 months sleeping beneath a bridge. During that time I received about $200 every month in food stamps and another $200 every month in cash.

On my own I decided to volunteer 8 hours a day five days a week at a local ADHC.
Since there were few to no jobs around for a 60 year-old unskilled male.)

Was I "working" or was I a "slacker"?

My labor wasn't going to make some rich parasite even richer, so I'm guessing a well-conditioned slave like you will say I was a welfare cheat.

Spend 14 months under a bridge, bitch.

Then whine some more about the real world.

I lived for seven years in a truck when I was a kid nimrod, I KNOW what poor is, my family didn't even get your 200 a month. We had to work hard to get enough food to eat. The fact that you made it to 60 years of age with no marketable skill speaks volumes about what a pathetic individual you are. I will be 65 in a few months and I worked my ass off because i didn't like being poor. i am now very comfortable and will never have to live in a truck again.

Of course I have marketable skills. You're a whiner who expects everyone else to take care of you because your to fucking lazy to make something of yourself. You are a sad pathetic failure and that is on you! You could have done something different but you chose to be a slacker. Guess what, being a slacker has a cost, or didn't your mommy read you the story about the grasshopper and the ant?


I notice you used the term shelter. So here's my hypothesis on your life. Mom and dad took care of you for your entire life. You lived with them and partied till the sun came up, lived the life of a bohemian and generally lazed about. Then, one by one your poor (exceptionally long suffering) parents passed away. Your siblings (who actually made something of themselves) sold the house out from under you and when you weren't able to make the payments on your storage unit you lost that stuff too. That about sum up your life?

Life sucks but at some point you have to take ownership of your decisions. You have no skills at the age of 60! That means you have basically been an infant your whole life. You made the decisions that landed YOU in YOUR predicament.

Oh and next time try begging. Out here the beggers make about 2 grand a month. Or are you too lazy to do that?

 

[the_IRF]

George Carlin ~ The American Dream ~ http://bit.ly/Asleep-2-Believe-It

 

[georgephillip]

Then you oppose abortion.

In cases of rape or incest?

What's your standard for abortion?

"A surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates a pregnancy by removing the fetus; a therapeutic abortion. It is a non-contraceptive form of birth control."

"A human embryo after the 8th week of gestation.

My suggestion is to make the definition of "life" consistent with the legal definition of "death"

Once the voltage in the brain of the embryo/fetus/child becomes measurable, any surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates the pregnancy would be homicide.

induced abortion - Wiktionary

fetus - Wiktionary

The Constitutional option would be for each state to decide.

But you don't much care for the Constitution, do you?

Not the parts that condoned slavery.

 

[daveman]

In cases of rape or incest?

What's your standard for abortion?

"A surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates a pregnancy by removing the fetus; a therapeutic abortion. It is a non-contraceptive form of birth control."

"A human embryo after the 8th week of gestation.

My suggestion is to make the definition of "life" consistent with the legal definition of "death"

Once the voltage in the brain of the embryo/fetus/child becomes measurable, any surgical or medicinal procedure that terminates the pregnancy would be homicide.

induced abortion - Wiktionary

fetus - Wiktionary

The Constitutional option would be for each state to decide.

But you don't much care for the Constitution, do you?

Not the parts that condoned slavery.

Oh, you mean the parts that were superseded by the 13th Amendment 146 years ago?

Moron.

 

[georgephillip]

Or maybe you haven't made the case. How do they take from us without using a gun?

By shifting the burden of taxation off FIRE sector incomes and onto wage labor.

So, in other words, the stuff we were talking about earlier, getting the government to do their dirty work for them. Taxes are collected via force of law (guns).

I'm always struck by the irony of citing a history of people using government to acquire power and wealth as an indictment of the free market, when it's actually an indictment of allowing the state manipulative power over the economy.

Possibly there would be less irony if a market free of FIRE sector influence came into existence.

The rich control today's free market in the same way they control the state's manipulative power over the economy, imho. This latest economic crisis has highlighted how big business, the richest 5% of Americans and the state conspire to socialize cost and privatize profit for the benefit of the few.

One unspoken rule is that their victims will be encouraged to focus its rage on the state only, as if the other two groups were also victims. Have the capitalists gone one bridge too far this time?

Richard D Wolff thinks it's possible:

"We are in the early years of what already is and will likely continue to be an exceptionally long-lived capitalist crisis.

"The mass of Americans still mostly watch in stunned shock as the capitalism that they so long celebrated as 'delivering the goods' instead delivers one bad after another. Many keep hoping this downturn will pass and prosperity will resume, or that they individually will escape.

"Some do that very American thing and blame politicians and the state, ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the unemployed were laid off by private enterprises, the vast majority of homeowners were foreclosed on by private banks, and the vast majority of the still employed have had their benefits and job security reduced by private employers.

"A crucial part of the hegemonic alliance among big business, the richest 5 percent, and the state is the role of the state as the socially acceptable object of anger, protest, and rage deflected from the economic power and privileges of its hegemonic partners.

Prospects for the U.S. Left: Not Bad At All | Professor Richard D. Wolff

 

[georgephillip]

I am not dodging anything buckwheat. Here is your original post...

"When the Industrial Revolution began many believed humanity would eventually be freed from the need to work for its basic subsistence. I think we've reached that point for many Americans.

A Guaranteed Annual Wage for all US citizens would be independent of any income earned from other sources, and for those who refuse to work would allow them a roof over their heads and regular meals.

The money for such a program already exists, imho.
It's locked away in hedge funds and tax shelters and Government Sachs.
For thousands of years government has redistributed wealth upwards.
That could easily be reversed."




I highlighted the relevent part. Theorists who lack actual real world experience, or those who ignore human nature, never take into account that if a group is allowed to exist without contributing to the overall group. the rest of the group resents that fact. In primitive times the workers killed the slackers. Only in modern times have the slackers been able to survive because the governments have deemed it mandatory that the workers MUST support the slackers. If the workers don't they are either killed or placed in prison. Are you following here slick?

In a social credit world, where governement evidently doesn't exist, how do the slackers get anything when ALL become slackers? C'mon theory boy, answer the question.

You whine about us all being slaves and your very epitome of "fairness" requires slavery of the workers to support the slackers. How are you going to enforce that? Hmmmm?

Think bucko think. We're talking real world now, not some fantasy story land here. Real people living in the real world. Something you clearly have never done.

Here's a real world I've known that I suspect you haven't.

In April of 2008 I lost my shelter and 99% of all my material possessions and spent the next 14 months sleeping beneath a bridge. During that time I received about $200 every month in food stamps and another $200 every month in cash.

On my own I decided to volunteer 8 hours a day five days a week at a local ADHC.
Since there were few to no jobs around for a 60 year-old unskilled male.)

Was I "working" or was I a "slacker"?

My labor wasn't going to make some rich parasite even richer, so I'm guessing a well-conditioned slave like you will say I was a welfare cheat.

Spend 14 months under a bridge, bitch.

Then whine some more about the real world.

I lived for seven years in a truck when I was a kid nimrod, I KNOW what poor is, my family didn't even get your 200 a month. We had to work hard to get enough food to eat. The fact that you made it to 60 years of age with no marketable skill speaks volumes about what a pathetic individual you are. I will be 65 in a few months and I worked my ass off because i didn't like being poor. i am now very comfortable and will never have to live in a truck again.

Of course I have marketable skills. You're a whiner who expects everyone else to take care of you because your to fucking lazy to make something of yourself. You are a sad pathetic failure and that is on you! You could have done something different but you chose to be a slacker. Guess what, being a slacker has a cost, or didn't your mommy read you the story about the grasshopper and the ant?


I notice you used the term shelter. So here's my hypothesis on your life. Mom and dad took care of you for your entire life. You lived with them and partied till the sun came up, lived the life of a bohemian and generally lazed about. Then, one by one your poor (exceptionally long suffering) parents passed away. Your siblings (who actually made something of themselves) sold the house out from under you and when you weren't able to make the payments on your storage unit you lost that stuff too. That about sum up your life?

Life sucks but at some point you have to take ownership of your decisions. You have no skills at the age of 60! That means you have basically been an infant your whole life. You made the decisions that landed YOU in YOUR predicament.

Oh and next time try begging. Out here the beggers make about 2 grand a month. Or are you too lazy to do that?

Never say never, grasshopper.

You could well live long enough to look back on that truck as your golden years.
Your hypothesis on my life is as inaccurate as everything else you post, but begging seems like it's worked pretty well for you.
Did your mama read you the fable about the American Dream.

Your life seems way beyond pathetic to me.
Slave.