$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', '
')So explain how living is a capitalist (economically free) society is slavery. This is simply a contraction of terms and shows you need a dictionary.
PeakOil is You
The Knife that Cuts All Anti-PO arguments
Re: The Knife that Cuts All Anti-PO arguments
by entropyfails » Thu 28 Sep 2006, 14:17:19
You show it in the exact same way as you show socialism requires slavery. Human beings require food, shelter, and clothing. If you come into a world where the state owns everything, you become enthralled to the state. You point this out well.
However you leave out the fact that if you come into a world where capital owns everything, then you become enthralled to capital.
The fitness metric of capitalism has a greater output than socialism because of its ability to allow enthralled units to switch positions into capital owning units, thus buying their freedom, indeed buying complete freedom, from any work what-so-ever if they choose. Someone else then must work twice as hard to support the capital owner. Socialism requires that you "shmooze" the party to remove yourself from enthrallment, and hence it lowers productivity as "shmoozing" generates less economic output than "working real hard and saving money to overcome your personal input requirements."
So both capitalistic and socialistic societies have the exact same unfairness built in. They handle the "transition process" differently which accounts for their differences in productivity. Both follow the same fundamental rules, namely only one system allowed, always grow more food to feed the growing population, and pacify and convert outer regions to better defend the inner regions.
Now being the same things they have the same problem, namely if you follow the above plan, you run out of natural resources and kill your host environment. Chomsky points this out well.
It seems likely that other forms of capitalism exist besides the current fiat capitalism that we have today. I believe we should try out a few different forms of capitalism (among other cherished "ism"”) because the current ones have a date with what Chomsky and others have called "Ultimate Doom."
EntropyFails
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
-
entropyfails - Expert
- Posts: 565
- Joined: Wed 30 Jun 2004, 03:00:00
Re: The Knife that Cuts All Anti-PO arguments
by smiley » Thu 28 Sep 2006, 16:54:52
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')onopolies that are destructive are the ones created by grant of privelege by government because they have exclusive territories and have no need to please their customers or their employees. Without government creating them, they likely would never be monopolies.
With due respect. But I think it is exactly visa versa. Politics are the last frontier between us and monopolies. And in recent years this frontier has been eroding, hence the emergence of more and more monopolies.
You cannot deny that the number of monopolized (or duopolised) markets has greatly increased over the past years.
We have been speaking of the obvious like Microsoft and IKEA (By the way did you now that there are more IKEA catalogi than printed bibles in the world?)
But you should look at what is going on at an an industrial level to get an idea of the scale of what is going on. It doesn't matter if you look at the steel market, high-end semicon or medical, in the past years the supplier base has shrunk, in many cases to a single supplier.
And for the consumer it looks like you still have a lot of choice. You probably believe that the mobile phone business is a highly competitive market with lots of different brands.
Indeed you can buy a mobile phone from Nokia, Siemens, Samsung etc. In reality you buy a design by nokia siemens etc. A plastic casing which holds exactly the same components, produced by the same factories, on the same machines, from the same raw materials.
So in the end it doesn't matter which label is on your mobile phone computer or whatever. It is these suppliers which set the basic price level. And these suppliers do not give a iota whether you are satisfied as a customer or not, because they have all the brands by the cogones.
-
smiley - Intermediate Crude
- Posts: 2274
- Joined: Fri 16 Apr 2004, 03:00:00
- Location: Europe
by gego » Thu 28 Sep 2006, 19:59:31
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyfails', '
')
You show it in the exact same way as you show socialism requires slavery. Human beings require food, shelter, and clothing. If you come into a world where the state owns everything, you become enthralled to the state. You point this out well.
')
You show it in the exact same way as you show socialism requires slavery. Human beings require food, shelter, and clothing. If you come into a world where the state owns everything, you become enthralled to the state. You point this out well.
I will rephrase this as socialism creates slavery by denial of freedom in economic activity.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyfails', '
')However you leave out the fact that if you come into a world where capital owns everything, then you become enthralled to capital.
So now we part company, because capital owns nothing. People own capital. Mom and pop corner grocers are capitalist freely employing their property, their labor, and other assets in the persuit of sustaining their lives. Their customers are free to shop there or not and to purchase what they choose within their means. You use the word enthralled which means to enslave. Again someone needs a dictionary because you are saying that freely employing capital creates slavery. How does being free enslave you?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entrophyfails', '
')The fitness metric of capitalism has a greater output than socialism because of its ability to allow enthralled units to switch positions into capital owning units, thus buying their freedom, indeed buying complete freedom, from any work what-so-ever if they choose.
This only makes partial sense, because you again take the position that people are enslaved by both capitalism and socialism which is blatenly false; only socialism creates slavery in the first place. Then you introduce some strange idea of a different kind of freedom when you use the idea of freedom from working which has nothing to do with being free or being enslaved by your fellow men. We may be required by nature to put forth effort to survive, but this is not slavery.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entrophyfails', ' ')
Someone else then must work twice as hard to support the capital owner. Socialism requires that you "shmooze" the party to remove yourself from enthrallment, and hence it lowers productivity as "shmoozing" generates less economic output than "working real hard and saving money to overcome your personal input requirements."
The idea that consumers must work twice as hard to support capital is another foolish thought. In any productive activity, capitalist or socialist, the producer must seek to recover costs, one of the cost is the capital employed. Both capitalist and socialists employ capital goods. If I use a computer in my business, I need to recover what I paid for it through my product pricing so that when it wears out I can replace it. You imply that people producing freely will need to charge twice for their goods and services as the state would need to charge under socialism. Actually since competition among producers forces effeciency and competitive prices, it is much more likely that in a free society what people pay for what they buy will be less than under socialism.
Then you say you must beg the party to be unenslaved, as an additional cost in socialism which is true, but it is unlikely that your begging will be heard. This is not the real reason why socialism produces less or not what is wanted. The real reason is that there is little incentive to produce effeciently, plus there is little incentive to produce what people want (only what the state wants), little incentive to produce high quality, little incentive to please workers, and little incentive to act responsibly in polution issues.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyyfails', '
')So both capitalistic and socialistic societies have the exact same unfairness built in. They handle the "transition process" differently which accounts for their differences in productivity. Both follow the same fundamental rules, namely only one system allowed, always grow more food to feed the growing population, and pacify and convert outer regions to better defend the inner regions.
Again it seems strange to me for someone to say that freedom and slavery both have the same unfairness. If you are talking about morality, then slavery is immoral because it is theft. If you are talking about fair in the sense that people receive different benefits, then I would say that under freedom the difference in benefits is a reflection of the "value" these people offer to the market and there is no unfairness involved, while under slavery there is unfairness, because the masters decide who gets what and there is no coorelation between what people offer in their capabilities and what they receive in return. I don't know what you are talking about with these inner and outer regions.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('entropyyfails', '
')Now being the same things they have the same problem, namely if you follow the above plan, you run out of natural resources and kill your host environment. Chomsky points this out well.
It seems likely that other forms of capitalism exist besides the current fiat capitalism that we have today. I believe we should try out a few different forms of capitalism (among other cherished "ism"”) because the current ones have a date with what Chomsky and others have called "Ultimate Doom."
