Who should own and control the means of production?

[Bern80]

Because top down authoritarian regimes, or control economies are more efficient at competing in the combat capitalism environment. Esp since they are more suitable for corruption schemes, monopoly creation, deferring costs publicly while privatizing profits etc.

Change the law, stop issuing charters to corporations that are not 100% employee owned and see what happens after 40 years.

Capitalism is based on a two class dichotomy, make everybody a "capital"ist and labor at once and see how that works.

IOW remove all the divisions that separate society into classes. No more corporations vs people, just incorporated people. No more ownership vs management, just owner managers and owner laborers.

No more us vs them, just US. No THEM.

You think your divisive system has merits? You couldn't be more wrong.

There is no us vs. them. That's an excuse you made up for your own failings. All there is in a free market is agreements between people. Agreements over compensation for providing goods or services and agreements for compensation for labor skills provided. The reason things are skewed the way they are is because consumers and employees aren't holding up their end of the deal. You want the best outcomes but you want no part in the effort required to achieve those outcomes. You want the system to be more fair? Start standing on principle intead of price point.

We may not have a totally free market, but it's as close as any country has been. The best way of doing things is what prevails in a free market. If your way of doing things really was the best way of doing things that's what would have happened.

 

[loosecannon]

There is no us vs. them.

No, it is the definition of capitalism.

 

[Bern80]

And what is it you think the incentive of capitalism is?

greed, obviously. Power, obviously. Opportunity at other ambitions as well. Capitalism does too good a job of rewarding people for their innovation and hard work, socialism does too poor a job of rewarding people for innovation and hard work.

Capitalism allows the successful free bounty from the treasures of society regardless of whether the successful earned it. Socialism gives that same bounty to everybody regardless of whether they earned it.

Both systems share the exact same flaws only as opposite extremes of the scale.

Greed is not an incentive. It's a feeling. And it seems to have different definitions for different people. Greed to me is not being satisified with enough. Greed to you seems to be someone not sharing with people who did nothing to earn it.

And what you call a desire for power I call a desire to be in control of one's destiny. Do I want power over my life and how it turns out? Of course. Who doesn't. I can't do that under a socialist system. I am not only dependent on others for my outcomes I am held back by their efforts or lack of.

 

[Bern80]

There is no us vs. them.

No, it is the definition of capitalism.

No, that's your inaccurate opinion.

If you are talking about who owns the means of production there is no system that is not an us vs. them. In a socialist system you're just trading who the 'them' is. If we're talking co-ops there's still a them as well as obviously not everyone in the society is going to be part of the co-op. It will be comprised of a small group of people.

The issue is simply which 'them' do you trust. Capitalsim just happens to be the them that has the greatest potential of satisifying the consumer base because it is a system that has the greatest incentive to do so. Of course their is a component of wealth accumulation in capitalism. The question is what is the best way to do that? It turns out in capitalism the best way to accomplish sustained wealth accumlation is to do what your consumers want. THAT is why it works better than any other system. Because it has the greatest liklihood that the 'us' will be content with the terms of 'them'.

 

[editec]

And global capitalism is incompatible with the very existence of nation states.

Bingo!

Give this poster the "Astutest Observation of the Day" award.

FREE TRADE and nationalism are fundamentally at odds with one another.

Some of you right wingers who are fearful of that ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, but who are also FREE TRADERS really need to rethink that position.

You can have nations or you can have INTERNATIONALIST CORPORATIONS LIBERATED FROM NATIONAL IDENTITIES BY FREE TRADE, but you really can't have both and still think that NATIONS are going to be the dominate powerbase in which mankind is governed.

Once CAPITAL became GLOBALIZED (and thanks most to free trade it absolutely needed to be) the entire concept of nationhood became antiquated as a buggy whip..

NATIONHOOD and a GLOBAL ECONOMY makes no more sense than capitalism and democracy makes sense in Monarchist societies.

 

[loosecannon]

Greed is not an incentive.

of course greed is an incentive:

Definitions of greed on the Web:

* excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves
* avarice: reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins)
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

As time went on in Europe, mercantilism gradually evolved into economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism. Capitalism is based on the same principle as mercantilism: the large-scale realization of a profit by acquiring goods for lower prices than one sells them. But capitalism as a practice is characterized by the following:



>The accumulation of the means of production (materials, land, tools) as property into a few hands; this accumulated property is called "capital" and the property-owners of these means of production are called "capitalists."

>Productive labor—the human work necessary to produce goods and distribute them—takes the form of wage labor. That is, humans work for wages rather than for product. One of the aspects of wage labor is that the laborer tends not to be invested in the product. Labor also becomes "efficient," that is, it becomes defined by its "productivity"; capitalism increases individual productivity through "the division of labor," which divides productive labor into its smallest components. The result of the division of labor is to lower the value (in terms of skill and wages) of the individual worker; this would create immense social problems in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

>The means of production and labor is manipulated by the capitalist using rational calculation in order to realize a profit. So that capitalism as an economic activity is fundamentally teleological.

Capitalism

 

[Intense]

It is not Capitalism and the Free Market that have failed, It's bad ideas and practices that have failed. There are Principles we should not have abandoned.

Bad ideas?

Tell me something, is slavery, indentured servitude, or wage slavery bad ideas? I ask because they are all part of capitalism.

Was Enron a "bad idea" or was it capitalism at its finest?

If you look at the economy before the FED it was one of enormous boom and bust cycles. In fact I think it is safe to say that capitalism will always eventually fail if it is not properly regulated. So is capitalism a "bad idea?"

And if you think about it, Bush Jr took a robust economy and turned it into dog crap in just eight years and he was a "free market kind of guy!"

No, it isn't "bad ideas." It's the human ontology.

Bad ideas?

Yes, bad idea's. Did I studder?

Tell me something, is slavery, indentured servitude, or wage slavery bad ideas? I ask because they are all part of capitalism.

They are part of Human History, something we have struggled with and against since the beginning. It does not matter the system, it is the dark side of Human Nature. Your premise here is false. We have traded in good's, in currency, and in bullets, by force of arms and force of will. Which do you prefer? I choose Government by the Consent of the Governed. How is that offensive to you? Why is that offensive to you? It's bad to buy, sell, or trade, for profit unless you are cashing a government or union pay check, is that your claim???? How many bodies have been buried and used to fertilize your concept of a Totalitarian Utopia??? Your premise is flawed, you need not look outside yourself for blame.

The Free Market Capitalist System allows you to choose, to stay, to move on, to purchase, to compete, which of these liberties do you find offensive? How is your need to limit or control my free will and free choice superior to me choosing for myself?
How is State Capitalism superior to Free Market Capitalism, Comrade? Do you get to bury your mistakes? Every time? Is that it?

Was Enron a "bad idea" or was it capitalism at its finest?

Clarify. Is it that Enron existed that bothered you? is it that Enron broke the law? is it that it took so long to catch Enron? Did Enron Represent True Free Market Capitalism, or a corrupted relationship with Government Authority and Regulation?
Was Government the Impartial Referee here, or part of a corrupted conspiracy?
When Government plays the Impartial Referee, maintaining a fair playing field, that includes transparency, it includes protecting the people and our interests from all enemies foreign and domestic, the last I checked that included protecting us from Corporate crime and government crime as well. For government to put selfish interest and increase over the will of the people is the breaking of a trust, a "Bad Idea". What happened with Enron is no example of Free Market Capitalism. It is an example of criminal practices, many of them government supported, gone awry.

If you look at the economy before the FED it was one of enormous boom and bust cycles. In fact I think it is safe to say that capitalism will always eventually fail if it is not properly regulated. So is capitalism a "bad idea?"

I believe that the ups and downs have more to do with Banking Schemes, and not being on the Gold Standard. Government spends what it does not have, devalues the dollar to pay back what it has borrowed more cheaply, on and on and on and on. At least that is part of it. Fuck Hamilton and the National Bank. Let's have the Fed borrow money, we will invest in the loan with private money, earning interest, we will tax the people to pay the loan and the interest we earn from it. Let's compare that interest to Saving account interest. Again, nothing to do with Free Market Capitalism. Your Premise is false.

And if you think about it, Bush Jr took a robust economy and turned it into dog crap in just eight years and he was a "free market kind of guy!"

Actually the Market wen't Kamikaze on 9-11-01. Bush did a fantastic job handling that recovery. Thank You George.
He rebuilt a decimated Military, resupplied and modernized, he handled two invasions. Can you tell me without doubt or hesitation that what he did, did not help secure us against further threat or attack? No. What would have happened if we did not act the way we did? No. Can you tell me with certainty that the threat would not have existed had we not acted? That is the thinking that primarily brought us to 9/11 in the first place.
You fought him and undermined him for eight years, he held out almost all the way to the end, but not quite. When did the Republicans have true control over Congress? It was a battleground for most of the Bush Presidency. Democrats took over when? When did the economy and unemployment go south? What was the price of gas at the time? What was responsible for that? Do you care to put gas prices now at what they were then and see what happens to your fabricated recovery? How many years did you waste your breath condemning Bush for 5.5% unemployment rate? Again, your premise is false. Further, it is hypocritical.

 

[Bern80]

My incentive is an insatiable desire for more money?

That is a nonsensical statement.

 

[Intense]

My incentive is an insatiable desire for more money?

That is a nonsensical statement.

It depends on the means now doesn't it?

 

[Bern80]

My incentive is an insatiable desire for more money?

That is a nonsensical statement.

It depends on the means now doesn't it?

Hell if I know. An incentive is a payoff for achieving a goal. I don't get how I get paid off by greed. How do you reward someone with greed?

 

[Bern80]

And global capitalism is incompatible with the very existence of nation states.

Bingo!

Give this poster the "Astutest Observation of the Day" award.

FREE TRADE and nationalism are fundamentally at odds with one another.

Some of you right wingers who are fearful of that ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, but who are also FREE TRADERS really need to rethink that position.

You can have nations or you can have INTERNATIONALIST CORPORATIONS LIBERATED FROM NATIONAL IDENTITIES BY FREE TRADE, but you really can't have both and still think that NATIONS are going to be the dominate powerbase in which mankind is governed.

Once CAPITAL became GLOBALIZED (and thanks most to free trade it absolutely needed to be) the entire concept of nationhood became antiquated as a buggy whip..

NATIONHOOD and a GLOBAL ECONOMY makes no more sense than capitalism and democracy makes sense in Monarchist societies.

Why? The movement toward a global economy is not a light switch where suddenly we weren't one the day before and now we are. The economy has become more global over years and years. So if the above is correct why is it we have not seen more uniformity among nations in terms of regulations and governence? Why haven't we seen the assimilation of nations into each other?

 

[Intense]

My incentive is an insatiable desire for more money?

That is a nonsensical statement.

It depends on the means now doesn't it?

Hell if I know. An incentive is a payoff for achieving a goal. I don't get how I get paid off by greed. How do you reward someone with greed?

It's only greed when you possess what a Statist wants.

My point that honestly earned revenue is just that, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[beowolfe]

IMO, this does not reflect a realistic view of America in that, like all other states (states being nations), the Federal Government ultimately owns and controls the means of production. Why do I say that? Because they can take it back, if the people who are currently managing the means of production, screw it up in some way, shape, form, or fashion. It's been like that since the beginning of the country.

For example, any business 'owner' who doesn't pay the government it's share (whether that be federal, state, or local government) will, in time, discover he no longer owns that business. I'm basing my argument on the premise that if you truly own something, you don't have to continually pay another party in order to continue owning it.

Are you a homeowner while you're paying a mortgage? If you think so, miss three consecutive mortgage payments and watch your lender take 'his/her' property back. Once you finish paying your lender (if you went that route), don't pay your taxes for 2-3 consecutive years and the ultimate owner of the property (the state) will also take it back.

 

[loosecannon]

There is no us vs. them.

No, it is the definition of capitalism.

No, that's your inaccurate opinion.

No that is the definition as defined by the originators of the term during the enlightement, iow the era of our nation's founding:

As time went on in Europe, mercantilism gradually evolved into economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism. Capitalism is based on the same principle as mercantilism: the large-scale realization of a profit by acquiring goods for lower prices than one sells them. But capitalism as a practice is characterized by the following:



>The accumulation of the means of production (materials, land, tools) as property into a few hands; this accumulated property is called "capital" and the property-owners of these means of production are called "capitalists."

>Productive labor—the human work necessary to produce goods and distribute them—takes the form of wage labor. That is, humans work for wages rather than for product. One of the aspects of wage labor is that the laborer tends not to be invested in the product. Labor also becomes "efficient," that is, it becomes defined by its "productivity"; capitalism increases individual productivity through "the division of labor," which divides productive labor into its smallest components. The result of the division of labor is to lower the value (in terms of skill and wages) of the individual worker; this would create immense social problems in Europe and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

>The means of production and labor is manipulated by the capitalist using rational calculation in order to realize a profit. So that capitalism as an economic activity is fundamentally teleological.

Capitalism

 

[loosecannon]

My incentive is an insatiable desire for more money?

That is a nonsensical statement.

OK, the incentive is the prospect of of never ending more, more, more material reward. Greed is the ambition. They are joined at the hip in reality and only separated by semantics in the realm of language.

 

[JBeukema]

Sounds like somebody's bitter about having to work for a living.

Hardly, I could work you into the ground.

I loathe the distortion of ideas to meet political agendas and I loathe the status quo.

Hey I am the very kind of innovator capitalism is made to reward, and I like that. And it has.

But capitalism and socialism are just the first things that a primitive society with technology far in advance of their organizational skills tried, in vain, to rely on as a life support regulating mechanism.

Key concepts being:

>Life support system of the species

>primitive society just beginning to organize itself and test it's options

>the obvious failure of both capitalism and socialism to date

>the mind numbing resistance to try new means when our former means are so obviously FUBAR

It is not Capitalism and the Free Market that have failed, It's bad ideas and practices that have failed. There are Principles we should not have abandoned.

That's like saying 'anarchism doesn't fail, not having laws and a system to combat rape and murder fails'

Capitalism, like anarchy, fails because Man is Man.

 

[JBeukema]

It is not Capitalism and the Free Market that have failed, It's bad ideas and practices that have failed. There are Principles we should not have abandoned.

Bad ideas?

Tell me something, is slavery, indentured servitude, or wage slavery bad ideas? I ask because they are all part of capitalism.

Was Enron a "bad idea" or was it capitalism at its finest?

If you look at the economy before the FED it was one of enormous boom and bust cycles. In fact I think it is safe to say that capitalism will always eventually fail if it is not properly regulated. So is capitalism a "bad idea?"

And if you think about it, Bush Jr took a robust economy and turned it into dog crap in just eight years and he was a "free market kind of guy!"

No, it isn't "bad ideas." It's the human ontology.

humanity fails

 

[JBeukema]

Incorrect, piracy is a crime.

Not if the Law doesn't define it as such.

Surely, you see the direct correlation with regulation of the market.

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.

Capitalism recognizes no rights. Just look at the sweatshops or the colonies. Look at conditions prior to the labour movement and socialist reform.

 

[JBeukema]

And global capitalism is incompatible with the very existence of nation states.

Bingo!

Give this poster the "Astutest Observation of the Day" award.

FREE TRADE and nationalism are fundamentally at odds with one another.

Some of you right wingers who are fearful of that ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, but who are also FREE TRADERS really need to rethink that position.

You can have nations or you can have INTERNATIONALIST CORPORATIONS LIBERATED FROM NATIONAL IDENTITIES BY FREE TRADE, but you really can't have both and still think that NATIONS are going to be the dominate powerbase in which mankind is governed.

Once CAPITAL became GLOBALIZED (and thanks most to free trade it absolutely needed to be) the entire concept of nationhood became antiquated as a buggy whip..

NATIONHOOD and a GLOBAL ECONOMY makes no more sense than capitalism and democracy makes sense in Monarchist societies.

Why? The movement toward a global economy is not a light switch where suddenly we weren't one the day before and now we are. The economy has become more global over years and years. So if the above is correct why is it we have not seen more uniformity among nations in terms of regulations and governence? Why haven't we seen the assimilation of nations into each other?

The nation-state has been rendered obsolete and powerless.

Dailymotion - The Corporation _ The Corporation - a Film & TV video

 

[Bern80]

IMO, this does not reflect a realistic view of America in that, like all other states (states being nations), the Federal Government ultimately owns and controls the means of production. Why do I say that? Because they can take it back, if the people who are currently managing the means of production, screw it up in some way, shape, form, or fashion. It's been like that since the beginning of the country.

For example, any business 'owner' who doesn't pay the government it's share (whether that be federal, state, or local government) will, in time, discover he no longer owns that business. I'm basing my argument on the premise that if you truly own something, you don't have to continually pay another party in order to continue owning it.

Are you a homeowner while you're paying a mortgage? If you think so, miss three consecutive mortgage payments and watch your lender take 'his/her' property back. Once you finish paying your lender (if you went that route), don't pay your taxes for 2-3 consecutive years and the ultimate owner of the property (the state) will also take it back.

You aren't comparing apples to apples beo. You pay the bank a mortgage because it is really the bank that owns your house. The government does not own a private business. Sure you have to pay taxes on it, but you aren't paying government to own the business. If you stop paying your taxes you will be prosecuted, but it is unlikely that government is going to come in and claim ownership of the business and the act of not paying taxes does inherently mean government owns the business.