Who said that gays have to be Democrats?

[bankside]

If you find a product with that symbol -- say, a box for installing an electrical outlet -- one thing is certain: there won't be any products of the same kind for sale without that symbol, and it didn't take government to get the quality it stands for. The high levels of quality it represents were not decided on by bureaucrats, but by businessmen. Nothing without that symbol will sell, because it doesn't have that guarantee of quality.

Just a couple of tidbits easily extracted from Wikipedia, about UL, which tests things:

• UL is one of several companies approved for such testing by the U.S. federal agency OSHA.
• UL develops its Standards to correlate with the requirements of model installation codes, such as the National Electrical Code.

It tests things to confirm that they conform with government safety regulations. It is permitted by government to claim that a given product conforms. It isn't a substitute for government, it serves the government. You might as well claim that the federal budget is a private sector document because it was printed and bound by Acme Printing! UL, and Acme, operate at government behest, or within the bounds set by government, to serve the purpose of government.

By the way I did not argue that the private sector would be unable to do any of those things. Actually I think road pricing might be one of the easier things to accomplish given modern auto-reporting toll technology.

My point was regarding the consensus that government is often the most effective way to accomplish those things. I suppose you don't share in that consensus, but most people find the services offered by government to be of universal applicability with generally good buy-in that we aren't inclined to quibble about our differences. I suppose we're oppressing you by making you play along.

I can anticipate (and you might have said in the context of another discussion) that if those were private arrangements of which you were a member, or a customer, then you would feel as though you had control and freedom. Ultimately you could either vote for a different decision of the board which was responsible to you as a member, or you could leave the organisation - a choice not open to you in a national government, short of leaving the country. But this is an illusory freedom. Again its exercise depends on either persuading vast numbers of people to support your point of view on a given question, or going through the hassle of severing your ties with that organisation and trying somewhere else, or striking out on your own.

If you're asking me, or others, to join you in throwing off the "shackles of the law" you'd have to convince me that there would be some benefit in privately pre-negotiating every possible human interaction through contract law. It doesn't sound appealing, and it has shackles of its own that I'm not eager to submit to.

 

[bankside]

I figured this deserves a separate post.

I have a simple question: what "obligations to the rest of society"? The phrase implies either that I'm in some sort of contractual relationship with them, or that they can exercise ownership over me. The second is slavery, the first involuntary servitude, because I didn't have any choice about being born in this society.

Society cannot "rightly expect" me to bear any burdens at all, because society does not own me. I have no obligation to be productive, or educated, or healthy -- except to myself.

Society cannot expect or demand of any individual anything which one individual cannot expect or demand of another, because society is merely a collection of individuals, and its authority is only the delegated authority from those individuals. For example, police have no special status which bestows on them the right to carry weapons; they may carry weapons because all citizens may do so (or they are not citizens, but subjects/property), but delegate a tiny bit of that authority to the police, to whom they assign the task of carrying out every citizen's right of tracking down and dealing with those who do harm to them.

If, when you turned 18, you opted to decline your citizenship and go live in Antarctica or Terra Nullius somewhere, I'd wish you well.

Or, if you were willing to go live out in the woods somewhere, I suppose opting out would also be an option. (Contingent on paying your country out for the present value of services delivered to that land over its history (protecting it from prior invasion, dropping the occasional water bomber on a forest fire, regulating hunting and fishing so that your acreage was not denuded of its natural bounty, etc.))

But apart from those circumstances, you are a prisoner of your context, and that is being born into a society whose bounty and enterprise you not only trade for and earn, but off of which you and all of us inevitably sponge.

It is not just a one-way street in your favour. We all owe each other a better society. And I'm wondering why you claim to be seeking a free country, when what you appear to be seeking is no country at all.

 

[Centexfarmer]

Alright gentleman.

Let's continue to remain civil here.

We can make our collective points without resorting to a regarding each other's educational level, and intellect.

 

[Kulindahr]

My view of the world is "discredited" and yet capitalism nearly collapsed recently, yeah, my view is discredited and your cultish brand of American Libertarianism is totally credited. That's why it exists in places other than North America, right? Oh wait. No. It's a specifically American ideal born out of a frustrated response to people who misunderstand capitalism and global politics. I do NOT and never said that the state exists in it's own right or that it's citizens are property. On the contrary, I think that's pretty much how you feel about capital but you're just too blind to realize that that's what lead to corporatism and that's why government is now at the whim of corporations. You say each person owns himself yet we are all under the control of wage slavery. I think that the state should be utilized for working people, and in order to do that private property has to be transformed so that it doesn't just serve the interests of fucking billionaires.

Yeah, we're really seeing a lot of progresss and wealth and liberty from a capitalism that gets more and more authoritarian as wealth gets more concentrated and materials more scarce.

By the way, our differences over private property are nothing new:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property

Marxism was bankrupt before all the countries that professed it collapsed.

Capitalism didn't come close to collapsing. That's just wishful thinking. Capitalism is the economic system that people naturally engage in; it's when free people freely choose what to do with what is theirs. That's never going to collapse.

Libertarianism is not an American phenomenon; it's worldwide.

We call it "wage slavery", but it's really tax slavery. Something like a third of the hours a person works go to pay the government its tribute. Historically, when the government takes a third of a person's output, that's called serfdom.

I agree that private property has to be transformed, but not in any Marxist fashion; that's just manipulation of the same problematic system. Here's a far better solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Capitalism does produce a lot of wealth. It also concentrates it, but more so when the government gets into the game. OTOH, all systems end up concentrating wealth.

That's one reason I would replace the "death tax" with an "inheritance distribution law", stating (since we have a minimum wage) that no one entity can be willed more than $1 million times half the minimum wage at time of death (with an exception for houses/estates), using the lower of state or federal minimum wage as the basis.

So if the minimum wage happens to be $8.50 when some worth $14 billion dies, those billions have to be split into nearly 4,000 pieces.

This has the beauty of deconcentrating wealth while allowing the person who amassed it to decide where it goes. It also has the beauty of spreading wealth around to numerous people, some of whom should be talented enough to use it to make advancement that will benefit us all (while, or course, enriching them).

 

[Kulindahr]

It would be fair to say that Thomas Jefferson was the primary influence of both documents. For one, he actually wrote the corpus of the Declaration of Independence and he influenced the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man as he was in fact in France and involved with the French National Assembly at the time to relate the American experience.

That pretty much smashes the notion that there couldn't have been any American influence on the French Revolution.

In a very important way, America caused the French Revolution: France's spending on the fleet to keep the British at bay so the Americans could get their victory rather devastated their treasury, which led to a bit of oppression, which had the results we know.

I suppose in a way Thomas Jefferson could be credited with the popularity of that rather humane execution device, the guillotine.

 

[Kulindahr]

Just a couple of tidbits easily extracted from Wikipedia, about UL, which tests things:

• UL is one of several companies approved for such testing by the U.S. federal agency OSHA.
• UL develops its Standards to correlate with the requirements of model installation codes, such as the National Electrical Code.

It tests things to confirm that they conform with government safety regulations. It is permitted by government to claim that a given product conforms. It isn't a substitute for government, it serves the government. You might as well claim that the federal budget is a private sector document because it was printed and bound by Acme Printing! UL, and Acme, operate at government behest, or within the bounds set by government, to serve the purpose of government.

UL was testing things long before there was any government regulation. It predates OSHA by a long ways. It was setting standards for things before government started doing so. The government merely co-opted a private organization that was already doing a job for an array of industries. And it would continue to do its job if government were to stop making regulations.

That model could be used in any realm of economic activity. Government is not needed to have quality and safety standards.

 

[saymyname]

In regards to the Enlightenment talk: I was getting more at how the ideals themselves started in Western Europe, the French Revolution was the first major nation to adopt the values, and is generally credited with the beginning of the modern era, despite the US having had a revolution first, and furthermore, that I don't see private property as a central issue/concept in that regard.

Ku - bankrupt in what sense? Economically? Yes, of course. The revolution should have never happened in countries that were not already well into capitalism. It was doomed from the start and suffocated and isolated by the already stronger capitalist nations... this is a main point in Trotskyist thinking, if you're familiar with it. If socialism is ever going to work, it has to happen in the most advanced nations first, and it has to be international always. The Russian Revolution and the Eastern Bloc were neither.

Capitalism most certainly did almost collapse: the global economic crisis was seen as it being on the brink of collapse. This is pretty much an undisputed fact...

Your differentiation between wage and tax slavery reveals your unfamiliarity with the subject. First of all, tax is subjective, you mention a ratio, fair enough, but in general with Republicans, the rich get tax breaks and the poor get taxed more. If people ARE getting taxed, you criticize it for going to the government without realizing that that's going to public programs. If anything, the corporations should be taxed. Again, I ask you - why are the social democratic countries doing the best? As for wage slavery, you should really read the labor theory of value by Marx... calling it tax slavery it's severely misunderstanding what the term 'wage slavery' even implies, it's much deeper than that (alienation, use value/exchange value). The concept of a wage is inherently unjust when a tiny minority of people own the means of actually producing wealth. Check out the video I posted earlier for more info on that.

Your part about the inheritance distribution law idea is very interesting.

And I'm sorry to break it to you, but Libertarianism is pretty much an American niche. Unlike Marxism... which was/is worldwide. Fiscal conservatism (or economic libertarianism) is hardly popular worldwide, let alone taken to the extent that Americans call for... civil libertarianism, while not a single political movement, is worldwide in that elements of it are found in anarchism, political laissez-faire social attitudes/social liberalism, new left socialism, social democracy, etc. You're confusing worldwide libertarianism for worldwide global capitalism, which is actually getting more and more authoritarian everyday (a la Naomi Klein, the Shock Doctrine).

 

[JB3]

In regards to the Enlightenment talk: I was getting more at how the ideals themselves started in Western Europe, the French Revolution was the first major nation to adopt the values, and is generally credited with the beginning of the modern era, despite the US having had a revolution first, and furthermore, that I don't see private property as a central issue/concept in that regard.

And you'd still be wrong. The entire US founding was based on the values of the enlightenment, and it was the first nation with those values entrenched in its whole being. The only people that credit the French revolution as the beginning of the modern era are people that are historically ignorant. And private property wasn't a central issue in the US revolution? Are you out of your mind? Do you have any understanding whatsoever of the events that led up to the revolution?

You've shown yourself to be incredibly ignorant in regards to the history of the United States as well as that of the enlightenment.

Capitalism most certainly did almost collapse: the global economic crisis was seen as it being on the brink of collapse. This is pretty much an undisputed fact...

Capitalism didn't collapse. That's a lie perpetrated by those that wish to increase the government's hold on private business and private wealth. Its only an undisputed fact in your mind, which, as we've seen, is about as sharp as a dull pair of fiskar kids scissors.

 

[Kulindahr]

In regards to the Enlightenment talk: I was getting more at how the ideals themselves started in Western Europe, the French Revolution was the first major nation to adopt the values, and is generally credited with the beginning of the modern era, despite the US having had a revolution first, and furthermore, that I don't see private property as a central issue/concept in that regard.

Looks to me like you're picking your starting point to fit your premises, i.e. the private property issue. But that issue is settled far earlier, because it was private property which allowed the emergence of a middle class, which laid the soil for enlightenment ideals to take root.

As for the "start of the modern era", that all depends on which books you read. Those who are honest look to the American Revolution, because it established the pattern that would be followed to one extent or another right up into modern times, in terms of nations moving to enlightenment ideals. Those who reject that often do so for religious reasons, i.e. the major involvement of Christianity and Deism in the Revolution, with clergy actually taking up arms.

Ku - bankrupt in what sense? Economically? Yes, of course. The revolution should have never happened in countries that were not already well into capitalism. It was doomed from the start and suffocated and isolated by the already stronger capitalist nations... this is a main point in Trotskyist thinking, if you're familiar with it. If socialism is ever going to work, it has to happen in the most advanced nations first, and it has to be international always. The Russian Revolution and the Eastern Bloc were neither.

I never dabbled much in Trotsky; all I remember is thinking once that he got a raw deal somehow.

IMHO if economics is ever going to evolve the way Marx described, it's going to do it via a Georgist Libertarian route. Since capitalism is the basic economic system, there will always be a capitalist element.

Capitalism most certainly did almost collapse: the global economic crisis was seen as it being on the brink of collapse. This is pretty much an undisputed fact...

No, it didn't; a system of irresponsible investment aided and abetted by government nearly collapsed. Capitalism wasn't allowed to work; socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery.

Your differentiation between wage and tax slavery reveals your unfamiliarity with the subject. First of all, tax is subjective, you mention a ratio, fair enough, but in general with Republicans, the rich get tax breaks and the poor get taxed more. If people ARE getting taxed, you criticize it for going to the government without realizing that that's going to public programs. If anything, the corporations should be taxed. Again, I ask you - why are the social democratic countries doing the best? As for wage slavery, you should really read the labor theory of value by Marx... calling it tax slavery it's severely misunderstanding what the term 'wage slavery' even implies, it's much deeper than that (alienation, use value/exchange value). The concept of a wage is inherently unjust when a tiny minority of people own the means of actually producing wealth. Check out the video I posted earlier for more info on that.

1. Tax is not "subjective"; ask any accountant who prepares tax returns (like my next door neighbor).

2. It's impossible to tax corporations; you can only tax their customers.

3. I didn't call wage slavery tax slavery; I said that tax slavery is our real problem. We are serfs, except the wealthy who manage to weasel out of it -- another government corruption of the system (which could be solved by implementation of an interesting approach I heard at a reception engagement for Gary Johnson: not a flat tax, but a flat minimum tax, so that regardless of deductions, etc., a certain percentage would be paid no matter what).

4. Georgism is a good solution to the ownership of the means of production.

Your part about the inheritance distribution law idea is very interesting.

Thanks. I've never run into it elsewhere, but I think it's a perfect compromise between the death tax proponents, which really is a case of taxing things twice, and those who say that the holders of wealth have a right to say where it goes. And for those who say that isn't libertarian, I merely point out that the concentration of wealth is inherently dangerous to liberty, regardless of the economic system used to gain it.

And I'm sorry to break it to you, but Libertarianism is pretty much an American niche. Unlike Marxism... which was/is worldwide. Fiscal conservatism (or economic libertarianism) is hardly popular worldwide, let alone taken to the extent that Americans call for... civil libertarianism, while not a single political movement, is worldwide in that elements of it are found in anarchism, political laissez-faire social attitudes/social liberalism, new left socialism, social democracy, etc. You're confusing worldwide libertarianism for worldwide global capitalism, which is actually getting more and more authoritarian everyday (a la Naomi Klein, the Shock Doctrine).

No, I'm looking at libertarian political parties, which are substantial in many countries.

Most of what passes for "global capitalism" is really global protectionism -- but protection of large corporations, not of countries. Any time there's government subsidies or special benefits or protections for corporations, you no longer have capitalism.

 

[JB3]

Whoah there. We are talking specifically about documents here, not the social movements.

Although the US didn't exactly say 'Go, do it!' to the French, they certainly provided the 'prod' the French needed to get their revolution along.

 

[Alabaster]

Per SayMyName:
"Capitalism most certainly did almost collapse: the global economic crisis was seen as it being on the brink of collapse. This is pretty much an undisputed fact..."

Droid's response:
"Capitalism didn't collapse. That's a lie perpetrated by those that wish to increase the government's hold on private business and private wealth. Its only an undisputed fact in your mind, which, as we've seen, is about as sharp as a dull pair of fiskar kids scissors."

So let's see, from your rebuttal...looks like there's an "almost" in there, followed quite shortly by an "on the brink of" in the first quotation. To follow that with a "didn't" only goes back to that agreement-into-insult business. Good to see you getting a little flustered, I gotta admit, but either way...1 =/= 2.

Droid, you're still a little overeager to argue. Might wanna double-check your own scissors there, Snippy.

Along the same train of thought, Kul:
"No, it didn't; a system of irresponsible investment aided and abetted by government nearly collapsed. Capitalism wasn't allowed to work; socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery."

I actually like how you've worded this...it's good food for thought and exponentially more astute as a rebuttal. It is, however, pretty vague. I agree with you in that Capitalism is not exclusively limited to banking and securities investments, etc. I agree that the government has a bad habit of hand-jobbing corporations under the table. In order to prevent any of the cat-scratching that took place the last time I tried to compliment somebody, let me just be clear that I am, in fact, agreeing with you. Just felt the need to make that clear...

However, to say that Socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery, how much exactly did you lose during the collapse? If I tallied up the losses just within my extended family alone, it'd be well over a million usd. Socialist principles might've stepped in to further your own irk with the system, but I would need three sets of hands to count the amount of people in my everyday life whose ass those Socialist principles stepped in to save.

No, I don't like the fact that your taxpayer dollars were/will be forced into paying for the bailout, but if your livelihood itself depended upon a bank or investment firm's survival, I would happily kick in a few percent of my gross income to help you out, whether we agree on the specifics and methodology or not - and I certainly wouldn't attach the stigma to it that you have.

Also, just something else that grabbed my attention:
"...We are serfs, except the wealthy who manage to weasel out of it -- another government corruption of the system (which could be solved by implementation of an interesting approach I heard at a reception engagement for Gary Johnson: not a flat tax, but a flat minimum tax, so that regardless of deductions, etc., a certain percentage would be paid no matter what)."

That is an interesting approach and I wish it could work in this country's economy. However, being half of a small business myself, I can say with certainty that paying an additional tax "regardless of deductions" would destroy our income, and I could say the same for any number of small business for whom I've worked in the past, as deductions for travel, publicity, clerical and operating costs are literally all that keep us and a vast number of similar small businesses afloat. To add an additional tax to that, in the sole endeavor to wring tax dollars out of transnational corporations...well, I have faith that you understand what I'm trying to get across. But again, it's a great idea and one that I wish could be implemented without destroying an entire sector of actual taxpaying and employment-generating enterprise. Maybe insert a net income-based stipulation, say, above 250k or so, once operating costs are accounted for?

Just my two cents. You may commence with the blood-letting now, should it please you.

It certainly was an inspiration.

That it was, but keep in mind the influence of other outside instigators.

The Romantics, for one - the primary reason Percy Shelley left Great Britain was his falling-out with Godwin over Romantic principles, regarding the French Independence...and all independence, for that matter. The American Revolution demonstrated that it could be done, but Europe had its own part to play as well. To say that the US provided the "prod" to kick-start the French Revolution is like saying, "No, really, it's the gasoline that runs my car from A to B." That's just intellectually negligent. There are thousands of integral parts in any engine, mechanical or socio-political.

 

[Kulindahr]

It certainly was an inspiration.

It inspired me to see that what we have today isn't at all what they had in mind. Neither of the Big Two political parties stands for liberty as the Founding Fathers defined it, or even as the country experienced it as recently as the 50s/60s.

 

[Kulindahr]

Droid, you're still a little overeager to argue. Might wanna double-check your own scissors there, Snippy.

Heh -- interesting way to put it. I think of Droid as much like a Kzin: when you see something to attack, it's "scream and leap".

Along the same train of thought, Kul:
"No, it didn't; a system of irresponsible investment aided and abetted by government nearly collapsed. Capitalism wasn't allowed to work; socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery."

I actually like how you've worded this...it's good food for thought and exponentially more astute as a rebuttal. It is, however, pretty vague. I agree with you in that Capitalism is not exclusively limited to banking and securities investments, etc. I agree that the government has a bad habit of hand-jobbing corporations under the table. In order to prevent any of the cat-scratching that took place the last time I tried to compliment somebody, let me just be clear that I am, in fact, agreeing with you. Just felt the need to make that clear...

My point is that we have never in our lifetimes seen pure capitalism, and what collapsed certainly wasn't. That's totally aside from whether or not pure capitalism is a good thing.

There's one point where it's been plain in one of the threads on this topic where I believe that pure capitalism isn't a good thing: when a business gets "too big to fail" (more accurately, that would be 'too big for failure' or 'too big to allow to fail'), the reaction of government should be to -- as the phrase originally meant -- bust it into pieces that won't be a serious problem if they fail.

Nice turn of phrase about government and corporations. It works both ways, of course, but when looking at the economics in terms of this being a problem of capitalism, the element that matters is that the government is interfering with the system; the reason things got that way is irrelevant. In my mind the Constitution fell short when it prohibited the government from granting monopolies; it ought to have prohibited special benefits or treatments for corporations unless maybe an entire category were affected.

However, to say that Socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery, how much exactly did you lose during the collapse? If I tallied up the losses just within my extended family alone, it'd be well over a million usd. Socialist principles might've stepped in to further your own irk with the system, but I would need three sets of hands to count the amount of people in my everyday life whose ass those Socialist principles stepped in to save.

No, I don't like the fact that your taxpayer dollars were/will be forced into paying for the bailout, but if your livelihood itself depended upon a bank or investment firm's survival, I would happily kick in a few percent of my gross income to help you out, whether we agree on the specifics and methodology or not - and I certainly wouldn't attach the stigma to it that you have.

Whoa -- I'd say you have a rich extended family!

I thought about being more specific at the time, and think now that maybe throwing the word "bastardized" in front of "socialist" might have done. I would not have been nearly so irked if the money had gotten to the banks not directly, but as a guarantee of payment for problem loans -- like start by paying everything to bring everyone with a home mortgage up to date, then look to see who was in serious trouble. I wouldn't even have had much a problem with paying banks something to handle that program; the FedGov certainly doesn't have the capacity to do such a thing, nor would I want it to.

My livelihood didn't depend on any bank or anything, but the mess they put the economy into meant that suddenly I had no handyman clients, because people couldn't afford anything.

Also, just something else that grabbed my attention:
"...We are serfs, except the wealthy who manage to weasel out of it -- another government corruption of the system (which could be solved by implementation of an interesting approach I heard at a reception engagement for Gary Johnson: not a flat tax, but a flat minimum tax, so that regardless of deductions, etc., a certain percentage would be paid no matter what)."

That is an interesting approach and I wish it could work in this country's economy. However, being half of a small business myself, I can say with certainty that paying an additional tax "regardless of deductions" would destroy our income, and I could say the same for any number of small business for whom I've worked in the past, as deductions for travel, publicity, clerical and operating costs are literally all that keep us and a vast number of similar small businesses afloat. To add an additional tax to that, in the sole endeavor to wring tax dollars out of transnational corporations...well, I have faith that you understand what I'm trying to get across. But again, it's a great idea and one that I wish could be implemented without destroying an entire sector of actual taxpaying and employment-generating enterprise. Maybe insert a net income-based stipulation, say, above 250k or so, once operating costs are accounted for?

No additional tax, just a bottom line.

But I wasn't thinking corporations, anyway; I'd treat them entirely differently -- for starters, any company doing business only in the U.S. wouldn't pay any tax in the first place. Any company doing business solely within the NAFTA zone would pay a very low rate; solely with allies or in the Western Hemisphere, a slightly higher one, and those trampling all over the globe something more serious.

I was thinking more along the lines of the wealthy individuals who use all the deductions to end up paying a lower tax rate than my neighbor who's on food stamps. But I'd have her paying nothing: if I had my way, the individual exemption would be $25,000 (US).

 

[Alabaster]

Heh -- interesting way to put it. I think of Droid as much like a Kzin: when you see something to attack, it's "scream and leap".

My point is that we have never in our lifetimes seen pure capitalism, and what collapsed certainly wasn't. That's totally aside from whether or not pure capitalism is a good thing.

There's one point where it's been plain in one of the threads on this topic where I believe that pure capitalism isn't a good thing: when a business gets "too big to fail" (more accurately, that would be 'too big for failure' or 'too big to allow to fail'), the reaction of government should be to -- as the phrase originally meant -- bust it into pieces that won't be a serious problem if they fail.

Nice turn of phrase about government and corporations. It works both ways, of course, but when looking at the economics in terms of this being a problem of capitalism, the element that matters is that the government is interfering with the system; the reason things got that way is irrelevant. In my mind the Constitution fell short when it prohibited the government from granting monopolies; it ought to have prohibited special benefits or treatments for corporations unless maybe an entire category were affected.

I think all the anti-trust legislation came about more to protect the people working for the textile, mineral. agriculture, railroad, telecom, and sales magnates. It's a bit like the Church and State separation, I think - if history has proven it dangerous more than x-amount of times, it's the easiest way out (and the easiest way back into Congress) just to put the walls up between the two. Sort of like my engine analogy...it's not just administration v. means of production, it's the outside influences that push hardest in one form or another. But I have to give it to the crazies, 'cause without 'em there'd be no middle ground to work toward. Politically Zen, I know, but... People are people, wealth is wealth, power is power. Such transcends all but the most basic principal of Capitalism....capital, and maybe a little more capital if it's doable. But I love the idea of busting up failed corporations, in the event they're unwilling to give ground and save themselves (or just hold the taxpayer hostage until a bailout passes). Well said, though, well said.

Whoa -- I'd say you have a rich extended family!

I thought about being more specific at the time, and think now that maybe throwing the word "bastardized" in front of "socialist" might have done. I would not have been nearly so irked if the money had gotten to the banks not directly, but as a guarantee of payment for problem loans -- like start by paying everything to bring everyone with a home mortgage up to date, then look to see who was in serious trouble. I wouldn't even have had much a problem with paying banks something to handle that program; the FedGov certainly doesn't have the capacity to do such a thing, nor would I want it to.

My livelihood didn't depend on any bank or anything, but the mess they put the economy into meant that suddenly I had no handyman clients, because people couldn't afford anything.

I had 14 great aunts and uncles as a child, and they all had a downright Southern slew of children themselves - and of course, we're all beautiful and brilliant (and bat-shit crazy...), so yeah, there's a millionaire or two out there in the fam that lost not just the nest egg but the platinum goose as well. My aunt's husband and his family work (damn hard) for N/S Rail, 40-50 years on average, and when the bubble burst, all those invested retirement accounts got grassed in less than a week. My mom and I are musicians and entertainers - sometimes we're upper-middle, sometimes we're just as hostage to economic fusterclucks as a handyman.

We keep an ancient acappella style of British Isles singing alive, and without any grants or well-funded gigs, we're up the creek - kind of like now, dealing with my stepfather's estate, grief, and an astounding lack of employment. But hey, I need some plumbing done for my dream studio (you know, the one that's half built, leaking, and determined to be the death of me...). If you're ever out this way, we'll talk.

No additional tax, just a bottom line.

But I wasn't thinking corporations, anyway; I'd treat them entirely differently -- for starters, any company doing business only in the U.S. wouldn't pay any tax in the first place. Any company doing business solely within the NAFTA zone would pay a very low rate; solely with allies or in the Western Hemisphere, a slightly higher one, and those trampling all over the globe something more serious.

I was thinking more along the lines of the wealthy individuals who use all the deductions to end up paying a lower tax rate than my neighbor who's on food stamps. But I'd have her paying nothing: if I had my way, the individual exemption would be $25,000 (US).

Bravo for anti-outsourcing principles...I'm still a little irked, myself, with NAFTA. But that goes back to my bleeding heart Liberalism. If we could spread the wealth generated by the cheap labor in other more impoverished countries, I could get behind the idea of a global economy. Until then, Free Trade and Cheap Labor still sound the same to me when I'm looking at a pair of jeans at A&F.

All in all, thanks Kul. It was nice to have a tete-a-tete from a personal, anecdotal perspective. Yes we're pretty set in our educated ways, but this is what I was hoping for with my original post - not always agreement, but at the very least, acceptance and understanding within a real world application. Now where's the emoticon for a bro-hug...

 

[Kulindahr]

We keep an ancient acappella style of British Isles singing alive, and without any grants or well-funded gigs, we're up the creek - kind of like now, dealing with my stepfather's estate, grief, and an astounding lack of employment. But hey, I need some plumbing done for my dream studio (you know, the one that's half built, leaking, and determined to be the death of me...). If you're ever out this way, we'll talk.

Leaking -- you mean the roof? I do those, too.
Not that I'm likely to ever get out that or any other way; even in the midst of relocating I have to restrict my driving to a couple of hundred miles per month.

Bravo for anti-outsourcing principles...I'm still a little irked, myself, with NAFTA. But that goes back to my bleeding heart Liberalism. If we could spread the wealth generated by the cheap labor in other more impoverished countries, I could get behind the idea of a global economy. Until then, Free Trade and Cheap Labor still sound the same to me when I'm looking at a pair of jeans at A&F.

Ultimately I agree with my purist-libertarian friends, that all trade should be free trade, and no corporations should be taxed. But one has to start somewhere, and the place that makes sense is taking care of the folks at home.

I like NAFTA; it seriously made the area economy bloom. Exports from Oregon to Canada skyrocketed. The economy here is more diversified now, which is always a good thing.

I've only ever bought one item at A&F, and consider myself an idiot every time I wear it: for the same price, I could have gotten four that looked and functioned just as well.

All in all, thanks Kul. It was nice to have a tete-a-tete from a personal, anecdotal perspective. Yes we're pretty set in our educated ways, but this is what I was hoping for with my original post - not always agreement, but at the very least, acceptance and understanding within a real world application. Now where's the emoticon for a bro-hug...

Like that?

 

[Alabaster]

Hehe, I should stress the "looking at" a pair of jeans from A&F. I grew out of my throwing money away phase a few years ago...but the Abercrombie clothes I do have are five years old and still wearable, and just as distressed and tattered as the day they were when I spent a week's pay on 'em.

And yeah, it's the roof that's leaking...first rule of building, never hire family. As soon the western NC frozen monsoon season lets up I'll be out with the nail gun, redoing a summer's worth of useless roofing...and drilling holes in concrete footers that went in with zero regard to plumbing...and tearing out an entire interior wall that was never meant to be there to begin with. Going to be a butch spring and summer from the looks of things. (flex/rawr)

As for now, it's another hour or so swimming around in receipts for taxes and then, hopefully, a few hours sleep. Then Georgia 'til Sunday. Pray for wifi.

Take care, bros back, hehe.

 

[saymyname]

Yes, I believe in hate crimes legislation; but no, I do not believe that minorities should have special laws. Equality should not come piecemeal, and those who think it should believe in privilege, not rights or equality.

I agree. But many people against hate crime legislation are against it because they think it's a special law. Recognizing that minorities are not fully equal currently is part of what makes it a 'special' law to 'protect' them from the existing inequality.

Hate crimes legislation should be simple: any time someone attacks any other person on account of something particular about that person as a class or group identification, that's a hate crime. If you want to list categories which apply, then list every last possible mode of identification in the country -- and among all potential immigrants. You'd have to include race, gender, religion, height, body type, linguistic accent, membership in clubs, fraternities, or associations, etc. etc. etc. If someone is attacked for being a union member, that's a hate crime; if someone is attacked for being a bartender, that's a hate crime; if someone is attacked for being a prostitute, that's a hate crime' if someone is attacked for being a Boy Scout, that's a hate crime; if someone is attacked for being a lawyer, that's a hate crime (though very nearly justifiable); if someone is attacked for being a member of anything at all, or belonging to any category at all, it's a hate crime: Catholic, environmentalist, communist, police officer, judge, ex-con, homeless, business owner, logger, Elks member, hunter, even politician, attack someone for being one of those, and it's a hate crime.

I don't necessarily disagree with you here, although I think the number of incidents of people that get attacked for being a minority (racial, religious, sexual, etc.) far out number the obscure cases you're talking about in terms of someone possibly getting attacked for being, say, a bartender. I agree that political affiliation should be included as well. I understand where you are going with listing things like "logger, hunter" but seriously, when do people get attacked for being that? And if they do, does it inspire fear in a group of people? In other words, does it amount to the same sort of cultural and social terrorism that attacking someone for being black or gay does? That's why hate crimes deserve a harsher punishment, because you aren't just attacking that person, you're attacking an entire group of people, you're attacking their very person, their right to exists freely.

And why should it be a crime in addition to mere assault, or whatever applies? Simply because we are all guaranteed equality before the law regardless of who we are, and such an attack is not merely an attack on an individual, but an attack upon the principle of liberty itself -- and that is legitimately a federal matter, since those are things the Constitution specifically says it is supposed to protect.

The federal government shouldn't have any laws about drugs, or murder, or any other "mundane" crime, but the moment someone is attacked for membership in any kind of group, or because of any characteristic, it jumps to the federal realm because that's what the Constitution is about.

Well then, you're a more intelligent libertarian than most that I've come across. I'm glad that you can see it from that perspective as opposed to the libertarian trend of labeling it as something that introduces "thought crime" into state/federal legislature.

 

[saymyname]

And you'd still be wrong. The entire US founding was based on the values of the enlightenment, and it was the first nation with those values entrenched in its whole being. The only people that credit the French revolution as the beginning of the modern era are people that are historically ignorant. And private property wasn't a central issue in the US revolution? Are you out of your mind? Do you have any understanding whatsoever of the events that led up to the revolution?

You've shown yourself to be incredibly ignorant in regards to the history of the United States as well as that of the enlightenment.

And you've shown yourself to be an incredible tool. Did you even go to University? Did you ever learn about what lead to the French Revolution, did you ever read about the Romantic movement? You're the one who is completely ignorant. First of all, the American Revolution came first, yes, that's not my fucking point. The US wasn't a major player at that point and it also still had slaves. It was simply colonies throwing off colonial rule. The French Revolution is credited as being the start of modernism because it was the first major country to do so and it was overthrowing an entirely established aristocracy in the name of Republic. Also, when I'm talking about private property I'm talking about it in the Marxist sense of the term: at the dawn of the industrial age. I've never heard that "private property" is a central issue in the American Revolution, but that's because you have a completely skewed conception of what private property is and what it does: TAXATION was a huge issue in the American Revolution, not private property itself. This was before the kind of industrialism that was needed in order to make private property such a huge issue in the development of capitalism.


The French Revolution as the marking of, literally, the dawn of the modern era: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_French_Revolution#Legacy

with citation. [Text: Removed by Moderator]

Capitalism didn't collapse. That's a lie perpetrated by those that wish to increase the government's hold on private business and private wealth. Its only an undisputed fact in your mind, which, as we've seen, is about as sharp as a dull pair of fiskar kids scissors.

I never said it collapsed, I said it was on the brink of collapse because for the last 20 years Reagan and Thatcher and Bush and all the rest practiced nothing but vicious free enterprise and it finally fucking caught up and almost fell in on itself, and if it weren't for the bailouts the world market would have collapsed. Yeah, capitalism is fucking dandy.

 

[JB3]

^ Again, blatantly and factually incorrect.

 

[saymyname]

Looks to me like you're picking your starting point to fit your premises, i.e. the private property issue. But that issue is settled far earlier, because it was private property which allowed the emergence of a middle class, which laid the soil for enlightenment ideals to take root.

As for the "start of the modern era", that all depends on which books you read. Those who are honest look to the American Revolution, because it established the pattern that would be followed to one extent or another right up into modern times, in terms of nations moving to enlightenment ideals. Those who reject that often do so for religious reasons, i.e. the major involvement of Christianity and Deism in the Revolution, with clergy actually taking up arms.

Fair enough. I've made my point about the modern era. In regards to the private property issue, as I mentioned before, the concept of the middle class in the 1800's is vastly, incredibly different than what we consider middle class today. If anything, today "capitalism" has squeezed the middle class for what it's worth and backed them into a corner. They have more in common with the working poor today than they do with the super rich.

I never dabbled much in Trotsky; all I remember is thinking once that he got a raw deal somehow.

Yes, he did. Trotsky was basically the ideological leader of the Anti-Stalinist Communist left. He provides an explanation for both the economic collapse of the USSR and satellite states and also the turn towards authoritarianism. Along with democratic socialism and anarchism, it's one of the major anti-stalinist and anti-capitalist viewpoints on the radical left.

IMHO if economics is ever going to evolve the way Marx described, it's going to do it via a Georgist Libertarian route. Since capitalism is the basic economic system, there will always be a capitalist element.

Well, Marx did openly admire capitalism for what it does in terms of advancement. He wanted communism to happen in the most advanced, industrial and capitalist societies because the issue is with the distribution of wealth and the way that private property inherently makes some people very poor and some people very rich. So in a way you're right - if socialism is ever to work, it has to happen through capitalism. That's what the USSR did so wrong, along with China - they tried going from a feudal (or in China's case, agricultural) economy right into socialism.

No, it didn't; a system of irresponsible investment aided and abetted by government nearly collapsed. Capitalism wasn't allowed to work; socialist principles stepped in to perpetuate the misery.

That system, which was capitalism, was aided and abetted by government in order to keep it from collapsing. It's interesting - I wouldn't call what happened in the USSR socialism, and you won't call what is happening in the USA capitalism. Socialism principles definitely aren't to blame for stepping in - how can you say that when Republicans have been running the show for the past 8 years? Were there any policies set in that collectivized factories and socialized or nationalized major industries and gave wealth back to working people in an even manner? Did working people start to run the government? Was a social democrat ever elected to office? No. THOSE would be socialist things. What you're talking about is corporate socialism or socialism for the rich... which is pretty much the exact opposite of socialism, or, according to what socialists would probably think, the natural response to unfettered capitalism.

1. Tax is not "subjective"; ask any accountant who prepares tax returns (like my next door neighbor).

I think I meant subjective IE, different people get taxed differently.

2. It's impossible to tax corporations; you can only tax their customers.

Actually I remember reading that under FDR, corporations were taxed. Somewhere along the lines they were recognized as people and basically given human rights.

3. I didn't call wage slavery tax slavery; I said that tax slavery is our real problem. We are serfs, except the wealthy who manage to weasel out of it -- another government corruption of the system (which could be solved by implementation of an interesting approach I heard at a reception engagement for Gary Johnson: not a flat tax, but a flat minimum tax, so that regardless of deductions, etc., a certain percentage would be paid no matter what).

Taxes aren't the problem. A republican government that taxes the middle class and the working class more than the upper class is the problem. In terms of Marxism, private property is the real problem because of how it makes the distribution of wealth inherently flawed and inherently likely to create plutocracy. Like how you avoided my question about why social democratic countries have pretty much the best societies, you're also forgetting that those tend to be the most heavily taxed countries, and they have the best human rights, the most equality, highest standard of living, etc. Because they tax according to a socialist principle.

4. Georgism is a good solution to the ownership of the means of production.

So is nationalization or collectivization. But anyways.

Most of what passes for "global capitalism" is really global protectionism -- but protection of large corporations, not of countries. Any time there's government subsidies or special benefits or protections for corporations, you no longer have capitalism.

Then I guess this boils down to a matter of perspective. Capitalism doesn't have allegiance to any kind of country, which is why it has more investment in corporations and not countries. All it cares about is profit, the bottom line. We wouldn't have the corporation if it weren't for capitalism. You want to get at a purer kind of capitalism, I want to transform the whole thing into a purer kind of socialism.