Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

[TakeAStepBack]

The concept you are trying to convey is ridiculously simple. "Using money to make money" does not even begin to touch what a capitalist does. Dblack explained it quite succinctly in post #95.

The difference between someone who invests into a companies stock vs. someone who owns/operates that company, is the very difference I tried to explain. An investor invests. They are using wealth for the purpose of either 1)maintaining its value through holdings or 2) attempting to increase it. On the other hand, a capitalist is making decisions about the company the investor bought stock in. The capitalists, just like the fisherman, allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears.

The fisherman, which you said is not a capitalist, does this very thing too. He heads out in the morning, using resources he has procured, to maximize his day of fishing to reap the benefit of a profit at the end of a day. He will choose where to fish, what type to attempt as catch, what lures, line and poles, what boat, etc...he is allocating his resources to maximize his returns and satisfy his consumer base.

There is nothing simple about this subject and by attempting to do so, we run roughshod over it, mislabel things, misunderstand others and generally end up with a shmorgusboard of what amounts to crap. The type of crap where people try to pass off corporatism for capitalsim and then prescribe a fix to it. It's a huge problem.

 

[Richard-H]

In my view, the biggest problem with discussions like this is that most people really don't get what capitalists do. But anyone who's been heavily involved in trying to run a command economy gets a crash course.

I recall, back in the nineties, attending a presentation by an ex-Soviet bureaucrat discussing just this issue. He highlighted how incredibly difficult it is to efficiently allocate labor and resources across a large, diverse nation. Top-down management of such a thing just doesn't work. Adequately supplying people with the goods and services they want, requires decentralized systems that can tightly monitor consumer demand. Pursuing this goal generally points to a distributed system of individual resource 'managers', who are tasked with maximizing consumer satisfaction.

Naturally, you want the most skilled of these 'managers' to handle the bulk of the resources, so a system that allocates more resources to the 'managers' who most successfully allocate their resources makes the most sense.

i won't belabor the point further, as I'm sure you see where this is headed. In a free market, we call these managers 'capitalists'. They are in charge of allocating labor and resources in society to meet the needs and wants of consumers. We channel more of our resources to those who do this successfully, in the form of profits, and deny them to those who fail, in the form of losses.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assigning moral value to this allocation, assuming that wealth "ought" to go to the most virtuous people, and be denied to those we find repugnant. But in reality, it's all about how efficiently they use their wealth. If they make good calls and allocate it usefully, we want them handling more of our money. It's not a question of providing them with a privileged lifestyle, it's about giving them more power to allocate more resources, because they've proven they can do it well.

According to the statistics given in the OP video, capitalism has been a gross failure at allocating resources.

On the other hand, for the average Soviet citizen, communism worked very well at allocating resources. Nobody was wealthy, but everyone had food, housing, education, employment, medical care and retirement.

What the Soviet System lacked was innovation, personal freedom and personal wealth.

In our capitalist system the vast majority do not have personal freedom or wealth. The freedoms protected from government encroachment are often taking away by the economic system.

That leaves innovation as the one benefit in a capitalist society.

So we get cell phones & Hollywood. But with those we also get joblessness, homelessness, outrageously priced education, lack of retirement, and hunger for millions of Americans.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assigning moral value to this allocation, assuming that wealth "ought" to go to the most virtuous people, and be denied to those we find repugnant. But in reality, it's all about how efficiently they use their wealth. If they make good calls and allocate it usefully, we want them handling more of our money. It's not a question of providing them with a privileged lifestyle, it's about giving them more power to allocate more resources, because they've proven they can do it well.

Absolutely right. Which is essentially nothing more than dogma slathered heavily in hyperbole.

You believe that because you just contribute and you don't own that you should only be given what has been subjectively defined by the "owner". Under capitalistic/corporatism principles that would be as little as possible. I say that the owner wouldn't be an owner of anything, if there weren't people to help build the business. A co-op makes perfectly good sense to me. Everyone working toward the common good. Everyone contributing, so everyone prospering.

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

People can go ahead and pool resources for a co-op. Nothign is stopping them.

 

[Richard-H]

The concept you are trying to convey is ridiculously simple. "Using money to make money" does not even begin to touch what a capitalist does. Dblack explained it quite succinctly in post #95.

The difference between someone who invests into a companies stock vs. someone who owns/operates that company, is the very difference I tried to explain. An investor invests. They are using wealth for the purpose of either 1)maintaining its value through holdings or 2) attempting to increase it. On the other hand, a capitalist is making decisions about the company the investor bought stock in. The capitalists, just like the fisherman, allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears.

The fisherman, which you said is not a capitalist, does this very thing too. He heads out in the morning, using resources he has procured, to maximize his day of fishing to reap the benefit of a profit at the end of a day. He will choose where to fish, what type to attempt as catch, what lures, line and poles, what boat, etc...he is allocating his resources to maximize his returns and satisfy his consumer base.

There is nothing simple about this subject and by attempting to do so, we run roughshod over it, mislabel things, misunderstand others and generally end up with a shmorgusboard of what amounts to crap. The type of crap where people try to pass off corporatism for capitalsim and then prescribe a fix to it. It's a huge problem.

According to your definition, a communist manager would be a capitalist:

"The capitalists...allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears"

Sounds like a job for the Politburo....

I think that you have your semantics backwards.

Remember the root of the word Capitalist is "capital".

 

[TakeAStepBack]

In my view, the biggest problem with discussions like this is that most people really don't get what capitalists do. But anyone who's been heavily involved in trying to run a command economy gets a crash course.

I recall, back in the nineties, attending a presentation by an ex-Soviet bureaucrat discussing just this issue. He highlighted how incredibly difficult it is to efficiently allocate labor and resources across a large, diverse nation. Top-down management of such a thing just doesn't work. Adequately supplying people with the goods and services they want, requires decentralized systems that can tightly monitor consumer demand. Pursuing this goal generally points to a distributed system of individual resource 'managers', who are tasked with maximizing consumer satisfaction.

Naturally, you want the most skilled of these 'managers' to handle the bulk of the resources, so a system that allocates more resources to the 'managers' who most successfully allocate their resources makes the most sense.

i won't belabor the point further, as I'm sure you see where this is headed. In a free market, we call these managers 'capitalists'. They are in charge of allocating labor and resources in society to meet the needs and wants of consumers. We channel more of our resources to those who do this successfully, in the form of profits, and deny them to those who fail, in the form of losses.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assigning moral value to this allocation, assuming that wealth "ought" to go to the most virtuous people, and be denied to those we find repugnant. But in reality, it's all about how efficiently they use their wealth. If they make good calls and allocate it usefully, we want them handling more of our money. It's not a question of providing them with a privileged lifestyle, it's about giving them more power to allocate more resources, because they've proven they can do it well.

According to the statistics given in the OP video, capitalism has been a gross failure at allocating resources.

On the other hand, for the average Soviet citizen, communism worked very well at allocating resources. Nobody was wealthy, but everyone had food, housing, education, employment, medical care and retirement.
What the Soviet System lacked was innovation, personal freedom and personal wealth.

In our capitalist system the vast majority do not have personal freedom or wealth. The freedoms protected from government encroachment are often taking away by the economic system.

That leaves innovation as the one benefit in a capitalist society.

So we get cell phones & Hollywood. But with those we also get joblessness, homelessness, outrageously priced education, lack of retirement, and hunger for millions of Americans.

tell that to the millions of people who were killed from starvation, disease, state coercion or breaking the multitude of rules a communist dictatorship creates.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

The concept you are trying to convey is ridiculously simple. "Using money to make money" does not even begin to touch what a capitalist does. Dblack explained it quite succinctly in post #95.

The difference between someone who invests into a companies stock vs. someone who owns/operates that company, is the very difference I tried to explain. An investor invests. They are using wealth for the purpose of either 1)maintaining its value through holdings or 2) attempting to increase it. On the other hand, a capitalist is making decisions about the company the investor bought stock in. The capitalists, just like the fisherman, allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears.

The fisherman, which you said is not a capitalist, does this very thing too. He heads out in the morning, using resources he has procured, to maximize his day of fishing to reap the benefit of a profit at the end of a day. He will choose where to fish, what type to attempt as catch, what lures, line and poles, what boat, etc...he is allocating his resources to maximize his returns and satisfy his consumer base.

There is nothing simple about this subject and by attempting to do so, we run roughshod over it, mislabel things, misunderstand others and generally end up with a shmorgusboard of what amounts to crap. The type of crap where people try to pass off corporatism for capitalsim and then prescribe a fix to it. It's a huge problem.

According to your definition, a communist manager would be a capitalist:

"The capitalists...allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears"

Sounds like a job for the Politburo....

I think that you have your semantics backwards.

Remember the root of the word Capitalist is "capital".

Good fuycking god. i give up. You're not cut out for this stuff. How can a communist manager be a capitalist? Arent' we missing some very key components of capitalism....yet again? Yes we are.

THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP AND MEANS OF PRODUCTION.

Good god. i'm gonna sign off before my head explodes form all this stupidity.

 

[Richard-H]

The concept you are trying to convey is ridiculously simple. "Using money to make money" does not even begin to touch what a capitalist does. Dblack explained it quite succinctly in post #95.

The difference between someone who invests into a companies stock vs. someone who owns/operates that company, is the very difference I tried to explain. An investor invests. They are using wealth for the purpose of either 1)maintaining its value through holdings or 2) attempting to increase it. On the other hand, a capitalist is making decisions about the company the investor bought stock in. The capitalists, just like the fisherman, allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears.

The fisherman, which you said is not a capitalist, does this very thing too. He heads out in the morning, using resources he has procured, to maximize his day of fishing to reap the benefit of a profit at the end of a day. He will choose where to fish, what type to attempt as catch, what lures, line and poles, what boat, etc...he is allocating his resources to maximize his returns and satisfy his consumer base.

There is nothing simple about this subject and by attempting to do so, we run roughshod over it, mislabel things, misunderstand others and generally end up with a shmorgusboard of what amounts to crap. The type of crap where people try to pass off corporatism for capitalsim and then prescribe a fix to it. It's a huge problem.

According to your definition, a communist manager would be a capitalist:

"The capitalists...allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears"

Sounds like a job for the Politburo....

I think that you have your semantics backwards.

Remember the root of the word Capitalist is "capital".

Good fuycking god. i give up. You're not cut out for this stuff. How can a communist manager be a capitalist? Arent' we missing some very key components of capitalism....yet again? Yes we are.

THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP AND MEANS OF PRODUCTION.

Good god. i'm gonna sign off before my head explodes form all this stupidity.

You're the one that wrote:

""The capitalists...allocates resources and labor to efficiently and effectively satisfy consumers of its wears"

It's by your definition, not mine that equates communist managers with capitalists.

Maybe you should think before you type.

 

[JoeNormal]

Large corporations have a huge advantage because they engage in collusion with legislators. That's what coporatism is. The bedding of favored economic entities that grow powerful through their partner, the legislator.

in captialism, legislators do not write legislation that curtails or destroys competition for the purposes of favoritism. The key component of corporatism is the coercion, corruption and fraud of government. Not of corporations having an advantage.

Ok, I see the distinction that you make. Still, I think that government is only a convenient medium through which corporations gain SOME advantage. Without government intervention, the corporations would devise their own dirty tricks and even though corporations take advantage of government cronyism to some extent, government provides a more level playing field than would exist without it.

Pure unadulterated nonsense. The ONLY reason that todays large corporatoins have gotten the advantages they have is because the government is fully corrupted and willing to get in bed with favored corporations. Writing laws for them (or, having them write them and simply passing them off and selling them to the public...see ACA and just about every single law authored of any importance economically over the last 100 years). It IS THE advantage they receive and that is what corporatism is all about. Corrupt government who shouldn't be meddling in economic affairs at all except to settle contractual disputes and cases of fraud.

Corporations that "devise their own dirty tricks" under a government kept in check and to its proper rule would be guilty of crimes which try to use coercion or other similar methods to sabotage capitalism.

Simplistic at best. You apparently see no need for regulation regarding pollution, safety, resource allocation or anything else. If you can't see how corporations (or maybe I should narrow that to corporate officers) use any and all means at their disposal to gain advantage, you've never worked at a very high level inside of one.

 

[Richard-H]

In my view, the biggest problem with discussions like this is that most people really don't get what capitalists do. But anyone who's been heavily involved in trying to run a command economy gets a crash course.

I recall, back in the nineties, attending a presentation by an ex-Soviet bureaucrat discussing just this issue. He highlighted how incredibly difficult it is to efficiently allocate labor and resources across a large, diverse nation. Top-down management of such a thing just doesn't work. Adequately supplying people with the goods and services they want, requires decentralized systems that can tightly monitor consumer demand. Pursuing this goal generally points to a distributed system of individual resource 'managers', who are tasked with maximizing consumer satisfaction.

Naturally, you want the most skilled of these 'managers' to handle the bulk of the resources, so a system that allocates more resources to the 'managers' who most successfully allocate their resources makes the most sense.

i won't belabor the point further, as I'm sure you see where this is headed. In a free market, we call these managers 'capitalists'. They are in charge of allocating labor and resources in society to meet the needs and wants of consumers. We channel more of our resources to those who do this successfully, in the form of profits, and deny them to those who fail, in the form of losses.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assigning moral value to this allocation, assuming that wealth "ought" to go to the most virtuous people, and be denied to those we find repugnant. But in reality, it's all about how efficiently they use their wealth. If they make good calls and allocate it usefully, we want them handling more of our money. It's not a question of providing them with a privileged lifestyle, it's about giving them more power to allocate more resources, because they've proven they can do it well.

According to the statistics given in the OP video, capitalism has been a gross failure at allocating resources.

On the other hand, for the average Soviet citizen, communism worked very well at allocating resources. Nobody was wealthy, but everyone had food, housing, education, employment, medical care and retirement.
What the Soviet System lacked was innovation, personal freedom and personal wealth.

In our capitalist system the vast majority do not have personal freedom or wealth. The freedoms protected from government encroachment are often taking away by the economic system.

That leaves innovation as the one benefit in a capitalist society.

So we get cell phones & Hollywood. But with those we also get joblessness, homelessness, outrageously priced education, lack of retirement, and hunger for millions of Americans.

tell that to the millions of people who were killed from starvation, disease, state coercion or breaking the multitude of rules a communist dictatorship creates.

Surprisingly enough, the vast majority of the people imprisoned and executed under Lenin and Stalin where communists - those that believed in the idealistic communism. Lenin & Stalin were not really communists - they used the political slogan-ism of communism, but really installed personal dictatorships.

Funny, but my wife's family openly ran a farm and sold produce at the local market throughout the Soviet era. They were never arrested by the communists.

 

[shikaki]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

 

[Contumacious]

People have very differing opinions on what the term "Capitalism" means.

I have my own simple definition which makes sense and which segregates a lot of business activity from "Capitalism".

Capitalism is using money to make money..

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control."

.

 

[dblack]

In my view, the biggest problem with discussions like this is that most people really don't get what capitalists do. But anyone who's been heavily involved in trying to run a command economy gets a crash course.

I recall, back in the nineties, attending a presentation by an ex-Soviet bureaucrat discussing just this issue. He highlighted how incredibly difficult it is to efficiently allocate labor and resources across a large, diverse nation. Top-down management of such a thing just doesn't work. Adequately supplying people with the goods and services they want, requires decentralized systems that can tightly monitor consumer demand. Pursuing this goal generally points to a distributed system of individual resource 'managers', who are tasked with maximizing consumer satisfaction.

Naturally, you want the most skilled of these 'managers' to handle the bulk of the resources, so a system that allocates more resources to the 'managers' who most successfully allocate their resources makes the most sense.

i won't belabor the point further, as I'm sure you see where this is headed. In a free market, we call these managers 'capitalists'. They are in charge of allocating labor and resources in society to meet the needs and wants of consumers. We channel more of our resources to those who do this successfully, in the form of profits, and deny them to those who fail, in the form of losses.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assigning moral value to this allocation, assuming that wealth "ought" to go to the most virtuous people, and be denied to those we find repugnant. But in reality, it's all about how efficiently they use their wealth. If they make good calls and allocate it usefully, we want them handling more of our money. It's not a question of providing them with a privileged lifestyle, it's about giving them more power to allocate more resources, because they've proven they can do it well.

According to the statistics given in the OP video, capitalism has been a gross failure at allocating resources.

On the other hand, for the average Soviet citizen, communism worked very well at allocating resources. Nobody was wealthy, but everyone had food, housing, education, employment, medical care and retirement.

What the Soviet System lacked was innovation, personal freedom and personal wealth.

In our capitalist system the vast majority do not have personal freedom or wealth. The freedoms protected from government encroachment are often taking away by the economic system.

That leaves innovation as the one benefit in a capitalist society.

So we get cell phones & Hollywood. But with those we also get joblessness, homelessness, outrageously priced education, lack of retirement, and hunger for millions of Americans.

Hmm... had a longish conversation a few weeks ago with a woman who grew up on Soviet Russia, and she told a far different story. In fact, she said the personal freedom issues were largely overblown. Not that they weren't real (especially regarding political dissidents), but on a day to day basis, you had plenty of personal freedom. Her memories weren't of lacking freedom, but of wearing shoes that didn't fit because the shoe store was only restocked twice a year, and if you didn't take what was available, when it was available, you simply did without. Her complaints were mostly around the things that you claim 'worked very well'.

That's anecdotal, so I'm certainly willing to look at whatever evidence you base your claims on, but I've read other accounts that back up her story and show resource allocation to be the single biggest problem of running a command economy under socialism.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

There is no dogma here. The problem is, we don't have a capitalist system to bounce examples off from. In my profession, I negotiated the terms of my employment and was free to decline and sign on with another firm doing what I do.

If your example is going to be "the machine shop janitor doesn't get to negotiate the compensation of his employment", then yes. You're going to get a much different result. Or a burger flipper, or a cashier, or a greeter, or waiter, etc...and the reason has everything to do with what i indicated. Thats how the labor market works under current conditions. Low skilled workers dont have negotiating power. Period. It's not evil or the business owners fault for not paying a fucking janitor 75K a year. Thats market forces. If sweeping the floor required skills that were beyond the scope of a coordinated monkey, then their negotiating power would increase exponentially. Let me know when that happens.

 

[Richard-H]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

Funny how pro-capitalists always see capitalism thru the rosy glasses of perfect utopian capitalism without seeing the realities.

Kinda reminds me of those that believed in utopian communism.

 

[healthmyths]

I can summarize the video, but definitely worth the watch!! Very sharp and insightful Harvard Economist.

He provides examples of how capitalism has failed the American people. He offers "Economic Democracy" as the alternative.
Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate shareholders to a larger group of public stakeholders that includes workers, customers, suppliers, neighbors and the broader public. No single definition or approach encompasses economic democracy, but most proponents claim that modern property relations externalize costs, subordinate the general well-being to private profit, and deny the polity a democratic voice in economic policy decisions.[1] In addition to these moral concerns, economic democracy makes practical claims, such as that it can compensate for capitalism's claimedly inherent effective demand gap.

1) You are using the Internet -- Courtesy of Capitalism-->profits-- taxes-- DARPA!
2) 52 percent, now say they own stock outright or as part of a mutual fund or self-directed retirement account
Dow hits 15000, but percentage of Americans owning stocks hits a low. Why? - CSMonitor.com
3) The DJI has since it's inception appreciated in value:
Since first closing at 62.76 on February 16, 1885, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased steadily to today: 15,764.13 199% per year .
4) People in poverty in the USA get:

a) Free Cell phone (my cell phone I PAY is about $100/month)
if the poor person receives just one of the below FREE entitlements:
* Food stamps * Medicaid * Section 8 * Supplemental Security Income * National School Lunch Program

b) 40 million Americans on food stamps get $200/month in free food.

it cost $75.7 billion in 2011 compared to $35 billion in 2008; and enrollment has hit an all-time high of 46.7 million recipients. Meanwhile, the number of children receiving free school lunches has inflated from 18 to 21 million — an unprecedented jump —
about 2.1 million households (6 million) use Section 8 the Housing Choice Voucher program, pays a large

c) portion of the rents and utilities of or the Housing Choice Voucher Program up to $1,000 /month in FREE housing...

So these people get
=== $ 5,666 in EIC cash,
=== $12,000 free housing ,
=== $ 2,400 free food,
=== $ 1,200 in free cell phone plus
=== $ 5,000 a year in free health care from Medicaid.
So this is about $26,000 a year in FREE MONEY, free goods and free services...

What OTHER economy in the world has 20 million people GETTING $26,000 a year in FREE CELL/housing/food?
Who is paying for it? Taxes from individuals most working for for-profits that pay taxes...
AGAIN tell me how BAD capitalism has been to these people that are RICHER then the richest people in the 1800s when NONE of the above was available MUCH LESS THE
INTERNET!!!

 

[Contumacious]

[

Funny how pro-capitalists always see capitalism thru the rosy glasses of perfect utopian capitalism without seeing the realities.

Kinda reminds me of those that believed in utopian communism.

Its kinda hard to see the "realities" when the system is not allowed to exist.

.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

Funny how pro-capitalists always see capitalism thru the rosy glasses of perfect utopian capitalism without seeing the realities.

Kinda reminds me of those that believed in utopian communism.

No one said anything about utopia, dullard. There are pitfalls and negative aspects of everything human related. The idea though, is to maximize freedom for the individual. For someone who doesn't even understand capitalism, it's of no consequence what you really think. We dont have capitlaism anyway. How's your system working out? Pretty fucking poorly, fella.

 

[Richard-H]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

There is no dogma here. The problem is, we don't have a capitalist system to bounce examples off from. In my profession, I negotiated the terms of my employment and was free to decline and sign on with another firm doing what I do.

If your example is going to be "the mechine shop janitor doesn't get to negotiate the compensation of his employment", then yes. You're going to get a much different result. Or a burger flipper, or a cashier, or a greeter, or waiter, etc...and the reason has everything to do with what i indictaed. Thats how the labor market works under current conditions. Low skilled workers dont have negotiating power. Period. It's not evil or the business owners fault for not paying a fucking janitor 75K a year. Thats market forces. If sweepong the floor required skills that were beyind the scope of a coordinated monkey, then their negotiating power would increase exponentially. Let me knwo when that happens.

The flaws in your argument are:

1. Capitalists control the market-value of labor by choosing what to invest in and what not to invest in. If they refused to invest in businesses that need mechanical engineers, then your market value would drop like a rock and you'd be making as much as a janitor.

2. "Market-Value" is determined by whatever is the least that can be paid to the most desperate laborers. Wages are not determined by the actual value of the work performed. Without people flipping hamburgers there would be no McDonalds. Labor is hired because labor is needed. Unions try to force management to pay on par with the value of the work done, not the minimum that the most desperate worker will accept.

3. Most white collar workers...especially managers and executives...are not needed to run successful businesses. Labor is needed. The reason why white collars are paid so much is not due to capitalism, it's due to the financial elite maintaining the socio-economic order of their choosing. Most college grads have no productive skills whatsoever.

 

[shikaki]

No, i believe that contractual agreements, made from negotiations between myself and an owner/operator/manager, will determine what i will be given as compensation for my expertise/skills/labor.

Under capitalism, that isn't as little as possible. It is the market value from which all things within a sector determine. This will very greatly dependent upon what expertise/skill/labor I bring to the table. An in-house mechanical engineer is going to have more negotiating power over the contract with the owner than the guy who sweeps the metal shaving up on a machine shop floor. This is labor market economics. A business owner who tries to undercut labor market forces by paying experts and skilled workers far less than the market would dictate, will find themselves lsing good labor to competition. And therefore, handicapped.

People who "help build the business" are compensated for their efforst based on their contract. the owner owns because they have ventured the captial to bring a product or service to market adn have allocated resources to do so competitively. Under corporatism, legislators readily aid owners in maximizing their draw of a sector through competition crushing rules that keep others out of a sector.

This is your dogma...For every example supporting your dogma I can find just as many supporting mine. If you were honest you would agree this example provided by you would be a fine "absolute" example of how things work in a more perfect world, but then reality sets in for the majority and it is very contrary. You imply that every business owner is free from greed and corruption. Business owners decide daily to ship jobs offshore for these very reasons.

There is no dogma here. The problem is, we don't have a capitalist system to bounce examples off from. In my profession, I negotiated the terms of my employment and was free to decline and sign on with another firm doing what I do.

If your example is going to be "the machine shop janitor doesn't get to negotiate the compensation of his employment", then yes. You're going to get a much different result. Or a burger flipper, or a cashier, or a greeter, or waiter, etc...and the reason has everything to do with what i indicated. Thats how the labor market works under current conditions. Low skilled workers dont have negotiating power. Period. It's not evil or the business owners fault for not paying a ****ing janitor 75K a year. Thats market forces. If sweeping the floor required skills that were beyond the scope of a coordinated monkey, then their negotiating power would increase exponentially. Let me know when that happens.

I know medical doctors that don't have the negotiation power you are referring to. So this doesn't just apply to "low skilled" labor as you describe. I know many IT professionals, very skilled, making well into 6 figures, but unemployed because their position has been outsourced to India, China, Russia, etc., simply because it was less expensive, not because the quality of service was better. These dogmatic views of the world are what keeps changes from happening. Everyone puts on their shade of filter for any given situation, greatly skewing the ability to meet in the middle.
Hopefully you can agree that not everyone that is unemployed is unskilled.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

I'm not hear to teach economics to you, fella. That sort of shit will no longer merit a response.