by Macsporan » Sat 10 Sep 2005, 09:24:51
It will come as no surprise to you that I am no fan of Globalisation, which I regard as a Capitalist plot to grind the faces of the poor, and turn the masses of the world into the economic equivalent of whores and strippers, but without any of the fun and light heartedness.
I was disappointed though when people I thought should have known better started ranting about how
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Life is an individual effort. People can perceive to be some part of a collective but ultimately there are no forests but for the trees.
Baroness “There is no such thing as society” Thatcher would be proud of you, but neither of you know anything about either forests or trees. Trees actually work together to help each other in various respects and actually work collectively to ensure their survival. Monte will fill you in on this if he’s not too busy punishing the Cornicopians for their insolence.
If trees do this how much more should we, being denied the gift of photosynthesis.
Another quote from Margaret’s acolyte: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')The trouble is, collectivism leads to the empowerment of a minority of individuals who then determine what is best, in their opinion, of the greater good for the greater number.
And how does this distinguish Collectivism from say, Capitalism, where there are no shortage of such individuals telling us what’s best, “there is no alternative”, and that we’ll all get to scrounge the crumbs from the master’s table when things trickle down to us, and that for this we should be fawningly grateful?
And I know no more utopian belief-system than Free Market Ideology.
“If we just get that mournful, bloated government off our backs we’ll all be prancing around like fauns in Acardy.”
In fact inequality has worsened; social services have been gutted, homeless people sleep on the streets, insecure part-time work is now almost the norm, and real wages have not increased for the working class since 1973.
That’s where so-called Individualism falls down. It doesn’t work. Powerful individuals, captains of industry and slick financial scammers, exult themselves above all other individuals and treat them like dirt. Then they hide behind corporations to remove their moral and financial liability for their wickedness.
So the ideology that exults individuality ends in most of them being abused wage-slaves, tyrannised over by a clique of shallow, heartless moneylenders who think they embody the laws of physics.
To put it another way the evils you claim are unique to Collectivism are in fact those associated with all hierarchical socio-economic systems including, most emphatically, Capitalism.
That is why we need Collectivist-minded people, unions and governments to support the common interest: nutrition, hygiene, descent working and living conditions, safety, communications, social justice, security, cheap housing, emergency services that work and all the other things the so-called Free Market can’t or won’t provide.
Like it or not Collectivist regimes such as existed in the West between the end of the Second World War and the 1980’s gave people the best lives they’d ever had; and no amount of mean-spirited Thatcherite lying can change this simple fact.
Even Capitalism worked best when controlled and constrained in the public interest. Growth rates during this Golden Age were on the average twice what they are now.
The Free Market Ideology is an experiment that has utterly failed, at a terrible price to the poor and downtrodden everywhere. It actually failed in the 19th Century too. It’s been tried any number of times in any number of countries and it never works, never produces the wonderful things it says it’s going to.
It should be put to death along with Globalisation, its vicious bastard child.
Son of the Enlightenment
by Markos101 » Sat 10 Sep 2005, 10:47:34
Hi Macsporan,
Thanks for your views on individualism vs. collectivism. Hopefully I can respond to you with a little more tact, let's see what you think.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')aroness “There is no such thing as society” Thatcher would be proud of you, but neither of you know anything about either forests or trees. Trees actually work together to help each other in various respects and actually work collectively to ensure their survival. Monte will fill you in on this if he’s not too busy punishing the Cornicopians for their insolence.
This sounds very positive and idealistic. Sadly, I have seen isolated trees standing in fields - most of the time, the reason why they grow so tall is because they are
competing for light.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd how does this distinguish Collectivism from say, Capitalism, where there are no shortage of such individuals telling us what’s best, “there is no alternative”, and that we’ll all get to scrounge the crumbs from the master’s table when things trickle down to us, and that for this we should be fawningly grateful?
Good, that's a very important point. You see no company can
force you to buy anything. They can try and
persuade you to buy something based upon their product or services perceived
benefits, however they cannot force you to vote for them with your cash. Neither can they force you to take up employment with them after reviewing their terms & conditions. If you don't like them, move onto something else, or alternatively, hire others. Solve your problems.
Second point of three, let's distinguish
capitalism from
individualism. Capitalism formed when business became bigger. A couple of hundred years ago, when business was a very small family affair, no outside capital was sought in order to start up a venture. After business ideas and economic growth became so large, entrepreneurs starting coming up with ideas and, without enough money by themselves to fund their business startup, sought outside capital which required the creation of the corporate entity - so that a defined share of the profits could be produced. Now let's get onto the corporate entity in a bit more detail. The corporate entity was created in the middle ages by wealthy ship owners who didn't want the legal or financial liability for loss of crew or cargo. I'll agree, not exactly great reasons to bring this fake entity into practice. If you read my other posts, you'll see I'm opposed to the taxation system which greatly favours storage of wealth within this fictional entity, which is ultimately a couple of pieces of paper in Companies House. Capitalism and corporations are, therefore, tied in some way. However, the paradigm of individualism is not synonimous with it - you could have an individualist society without corporate entities or outside capital. I'll get onto the taxation system in a minute however - because it is
collectivist not individualist.
But I find the 'profits are immoral' claim a rather questionable adage. Without the outside capital, the company would not have been able to be formed. The claim that capitalism exploits labour is also questionable, another Marxian theory, because this would only be provable if a company cost nothing to create but still took a margin. Who is to say where profit comes from? If capital has already been put in, what is the meaning of this margin? Some people say it is a measure of the value provided by a company. Others say it comes from underpaying workers. However, the workers have not put their own capital up for risk in the company in most cases. People do not have capital to put up for risk, unless a lot of other individuals had decided that the service or product they had offered was for their own benefit.
Third, let's turn to the subject of
coercion. What's the difference between the ruling elites of an individualist society, and that of a collectivist society? A collectivist ruling elite - one created by government - can
coerce you into their way of thinking. They make a law. If you don't do what they think is right for you, they can put the barrel of a gun in your face. In the individualist society, the ruling elite can only remain ruling elite if they continue to offer perceived value to society. They cannot coerce you into letting them maintain their position in society. Of course, capitalists such as J. P. Morgan had his men in politics using government to create special interest laws to give his companies a monopoly in the market; this is an example of such coercion. If J. P. Morgan hadn't got such special interest loopholes (such as for his railroad businesses), he would have had to do it the fair way - by letting individuals vote for his company's service using their money, and would have had to compete in order to get those votes. No artificial interference using the coercive power of state required.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd I know no more utopian belief-system than Free Market Ideology.
I know of no more utopian view than that of collectivism, for some very specific reasons. Government can make you feel that you don't have to go through the tediousness of trying to make a living. Government can make you feel that you're special and so don't have to compete. Government can make you feel that you don't have to offer something of value to get value back, value that you want. Individualism, in it's pure form which I don't agree with - I agree with smaller government - is tedious, but it is fair. Life is hard, there is no utopia. Nature condemns us to labour from the very moment we are born, for if we had no society at all, we would still have to labour the land to produce food for ourselves so that we could continue living. Individualism makes us solve problems, and humans are by instinct problem solvers. There is always a price to pay.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n fact inequality has worsened; social services have been gutted, homeless people sleep on the streets, insecure part-time work is now almost the norm, and real wages have not increased for the working class since 1973.
by Zeiter » Sat 10 Sep 2005, 16:03:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Macsporan', 'T')he Free Market Ideology is an experiment that has utterly failed, at a terrible price to the poor and downtrodden everywhere. It actually failed in the 19th Century too. It’s been tried any number of times in any number of countries and it never works, never produces the wonderful things it says it’s going to.
It should be put to death along with Globalisation, its vicious bastard child.
To be replaced by what? The market economy is the only economic system to have been shown to make the poor better off, if not deliriously rich. The poor fared worse under socialism and were slaves in all but name under Feudalism. Do you really want to advocate these systems?
It's easy to rip on liberalism because of its failings, but you don't realize that these are actually failings of human nature present in any other economic system.
The alternative is a system in which individuals can retain their individuality and their rights while being able to work together without masters or exploiters - Anarchist Communism, or some other variant of "left-wing" anarchism.
What most people call "socialism" is simply State-Capitalism - the only difference from regular Capitalism being that the State is the sole Capitalist - the sole monopolizer of the means of production. We need Libertarian Socialism - true workplace democracy which preserves individual rights and the possibility of living and working individually separate from others if one would so desire - voluntary collectivism.
There is no inherent dichotomy or conflict between the individual and society, working for the good of one's self and the good of the whole - there can be a society where one can do both simultaneously. I'm certainly not going to "sacrifice myself for the good of the whole." I'm only going to work with others if it suits me. But under no condition will I exploit others. The main principle to understand is IF PEOPLE WORK TOGETHER, IT IS BEST IF THEY DO SO AS EQUALS, AS COMRADES, AND NOT AS SUPERIOR/INFERIOR OR MASTER/WAGE-SLAVE. Of course, people are going to inherently have different capabilities. But such issues need to be addressed starting from a basis of equality, respect, and comradeship.
There's also no reason why the free market has to go. Sure, it has its flaws, just as a gift economy or a (democratically) planned economy does, but as long as there is workplace democracy, goods and services can be distributed through a free-market mechanism and still provide for everyone's needs because everyone is earning their fair share at work in the first place. Myself, I favor more of a gift economy, but I'm not necessarily hostile to a (non-capitalist, democratically run) free market society.
Whether you call it tribalism, workplace democracy, voluntary collectivism, or anarchist communism, it's shown itself to be a beautiful way of harmonizing individual and collective needs and desires.
by Macsporan » Sat 10 Sep 2005, 20:02:25
Markos101,
Your posts reek of the silliest Utopianism and disconnection from reality I've ever seen. It would dignify this misleading verbosity beyond its merit to systematically refute all of it so here are a few highlights.
This one takes the cake:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')owever, the workers have not put their own capital up for risk in the company in most cases.
Workers haven't got any capital--they're poor. Poverty is an economic disease caused by shortage of money, itself caused by an unjust economic system. Sheesh!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')overnment can make you feel that you don't have to go through the tediousness of trying to make a living. Government can make you feel that you're special and so don't have to compete.
The idea of the welfare state is not that we all by a rocking-chair and retire the moment we're born. This is a disgraceful and deliberate lie. The idea is that the poor should have some protection from the inefficencies and wastefulness of the capitalist system, which doesn't of itself provide enough jobs for people and without careful regulation in the public interest operates in fluctuating cycles of insufficently spread prosperity and all to widespread deprivation.
And by the way: how does Fred Nurke, the worker 'compete' with a huge multinational corporation?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you are in this position, think, solve this problem. Do retraining. Make some contacts. Take advice. Many people in poverty don't actually want to get out of it, because they don't want to go through the tediousness of making a living.
It is impossible to civilly argue with this heartlless, patronising nonsense. How do unemployed, homeless people do retraining (payed for by whom?)
How do they make contacts? Who will offer them free advice?
Poor people work a damn sight harder than the white-collar parasites who live off their sweat and blood, as witnessed by the fact that they die a lot younger. They work very hard all their lives and are lucky if they own their own house at the end of it.
What you say is little but a slightly more refined version of Norman Tebbit's imfamous, "Get on your bikes" jibe. Once again, blame the victim of a ruthless and unjust social order. Well why don't Capitalist "get on their bikes" and cope with living in a mixed economy? I've never heard of one of them starving, or living in a cardboard box.
Why should ordinary people be compelled to live in a socio-economy where the odds are systematically stacked against them in terms of jobs, housing, employment security and real wages? Why is it their duty to support the wealth and power of a grotesquely privileged elite of sociopathic billionaires at their own expense?
There is no answer except that the billionaires prefer it that way. Well they would wouldn't they? But as 99.9999% of the population aren't billionaires the whole thing is simply ridiculous.
Yes, people in the early and middle twentieth century did get up and show initiative, did stand up for themselves, did work and fight for a better deal for themselves, by forming Trade Unions and social-democratic parties.
Funny how this form of self-help doesn't register on the Thatcherite-Reaganite scale of virtues.
Finally all your mealy-mouthed pieties about how wonderful Capitalism and the Free Market are entirely beside the point. Whatever the situation in Adam Smith's day, (and it wasn't all that good by the way) the so-called Free Market today is dominated by huge banking interests and giant transnational corporations who are busily gobbling up all the small and medium enterpreneurs and reducing the workers to peonage.
Pure capitalism, a fallicous dream in any case, ceases to operate in an oligopolistic environment where two hundred or so large corporations control more wealth and power than many national governments and have the ability to co-opt and control all of them.
The US spends 200 billion a year on Corporate Welfare, because the billionaries like it that way.
This concentration of ownership and control, which is not just an unfortunate blemish but inherent in the nature of the beast, was predicted by Marx back in the 19th Century. He was wrong about many other things but in this case he was spot on.
Huge corporations, who don't give a stuff whether ordinary people live or die, have taken over the world by taking over people's minds through one of the most ruthless and sophisticated propoganda campaigns in history.
In your case they've been entirely successful.
Me, I still own mine.
"Workers of the world unite. You have noting to lose but your chains."
by MrBean » Sat 10 Sep 2005, 21:56:25
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', '
')But I find the 'profits are immoral' claim a rather questionable adage. Without the outside capital, the company would not have been able to be formed. The claim that capitalism exploits labour is also questionable, another Marxian theory, because this would only be provable if a company cost nothing to create but still took a margin. Who is to say where profit comes from? If capital has already been put in, what is the meaning of this margin? Some people say it is a measure of the value provided by a company. Others say it comes from underpaying workers. However, the workers have not put their own capital up for risk in the company in most cases. People do not have capital to put up for risk, unless a lot of other individuals had decided that the service or product they had offered was for their own benefit.
What is capital? In Marxist theory value is a social relation, and all value is created by labour. There's two aspect of capital, variable capital v, the surplus-value of labour turned into arbitrary value (money), and constant capital c, machinery, land, natural resources, which have no inherent value without labour. And the essence of capital is that it is social power, capitalistic ownership empowers bosses to rule wage-slaves.
To me it seems obvious that value is social and dialectical, not something inherent and technical as myopic mainstream economism claims.
Exploitation of labour is of course first and foremost subjective feeling, go ask workers of capitalistic firms and I'm pretty sure majority of them feel exploited. Workers in co-operatives would most likely give a different answer.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', '
')I know of no more utopian view than that of collectivism, for some very specific reasons. Government can make you feel that you don't have to go through the tediousness of trying to make a living. Government can make you feel that you're special and so don't have to compete. Government can make you feel that you don't have to offer something of value to get value back, value that you want. Individualism, in it's pure form which I don't agree with - I agree with smaller government - is tedious, but it is fair. Life is hard, there is no utopia. Nature condemns us to labour from the very moment we are born, for if we had no society at all, we would still have to labour the land to produce food for ourselves so that we could continue living. Individualism makes us solve problems, and humans are by instinct problem solvers. There is always a price to pay.
What you here suggest oh so "individualistically" is that all people should should be willing slaves to your protestantic work ethic. Without capitalistic wage-slavery and compulsory consumerism of faux individualism and with help of energy slaves we could work much less (no meaningless and self-degrading jobs for the sake of compulsory competition of faux individualism), and lead happier lives with more leisure to love and nurture each other and to philosophize. What could be more authentically individualistic than "each according his abilities, to each by their needs"?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', '
')If you are in this position, think, solve this problem. Do retraining. Make some contacts. Take advice. Many people in poverty don't actually want to get out of it, because they don't want to go through the tediousness of making a living. I speak from experience when I talk about those who have babies at a young age so they can get priority in getting onto the social security housing ladder. They get their food and rent paid for them - all they have to do is sit at home, and do nothing, whilst those who are going through the tedious throws of making a living, do their work for them by the government taking their wages and giving it to them, free. The worker has no choice, he has been coerced by tax law.
More of this protestantic work ethic crap. Nice stereotyping btw, as if raising kids would be less valuable than whoring for a corporation at a marketing job, lying to people to make them buy crap and destroy enviroment. I don't deny there's a lot of passivity, but that is largely product of e.g. poor education and failure to live up to the expectations of a highly competitive society.
In fact, what you propose is not individualism, but a sort of totalitarian insularism trying to fragment society and isolate individuals, denying that humans are by nature social beings, whose well being is dependent of well being of others. And even if we would accept your premisses, your position is still hypocritical since you seem to support idea that society ("small governement") should protect arbitrary property rights of the strong and able and fight the attemps of weak and poor to find power in their numbers so that they could get a better share. If individualism means might makes right, then why only competitive super-individuals deserve that right and less competitive masses using their might through willing cooperation should be denied that right?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Markos101', '
')People however pay much harsher capital gains tax. They are taxed on their income immediately before they get their mits on it. When they spend, they are almost always taxed some more, which trivialises the need to have a separate income and expenses tax. They can only invest money after tax, and when they do get gains, are taxed some more. When they have finally been worked to death and die, they pay the highest tax rate on what has already been compoundedly taxed throughout their life.
The wealthy pay accountants to reduce their taxes, often using corporate entities. The result? The middle class pay for social services, roads, fire service, police, and all of these other 'idealistic' services.
Some of the poor have their lives paid for them, free of work using this mechanism. Who created the graduated income tax? The
collectivists, acting on the recommendations of Karl Marx. The collectivists have created a system whereby those who work the hardest for the rich get the most penalised by government. The wealthy obtain the benefits of 'public' services, but do not pay for them. The poor are stiffled by the tempting offer of free money. Those who really want to work and prosper but are poor, I'm sorry - but those sorts of people tend to get themselves where they want to be by their own problem solving abilities.
