Portrait of a 47% moocher

[arkirk]

Axulus: You don't seem able to find any way to avoid some guy with a wad of money to risk and then profit unduly. You seem to think that every risk is too big for common unmonied people to assume. Why do common consumers have to pay GE's taxes? Basically the investor class acts as a gatekeeper on all economic activity according to you and you seem to think this is just fine. As for riches making a person knowledgable...that is an absurd proposition. Riches and too much disposable income makes a rich person too narcissistic to do anything but gamble with his money. It never occurs to you that this rich person is also gambling with the labor or the workers does it?

We look at the reality where the common man doesn't take the risk.

And to a large degree riches are an indication of knowledge about making wise investments--that's how they get rich in the first place. (Note that I am not talking only about the Buffet types, people like Bill Gates made wise decisions on investing within their companies.)

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Yes, they are important. That's why the get paid to do their work.

They are essential.

As essential as anything else.

There is no way to say what is most important, unless one has been carefully brainwashed.

Foot, meet bullet.

Loren: You may not realize it, but you are simply boosting people who have come into favor with you in your very myopic world. You really are only in love with success stories that are as phony as Santa Claus. Gates and Buffet in their lifetimes have done a lot of throat cutting. You are overly impressed with these mens' accumulation of wealth and aspire to the same for yourself without actually understanding that they are nothing but shrewd self serving dealers and indeed our technological world would have looked slightly different from how it looks today without them... It just might have been a better world had there been better distribution of wealth. You cannot ever assure me that these men ought to guide our social policies. These men have been driven by the idols of the marketplace as you have been. I don't see brilliance coming out of the mouths of these men. That does not discount that there are brilliant people who work for them. You seem to believe as does Axullus that we ought always have big time rich deciders making all our social and economic decisions and really have only your esteem for these men to back up your claims. You treat life like it is a game and only shrewd people should have any say. When will you ever learn that the consequences of our actions are always with us and today, we need less of this lock step capitalism and more cooperation to deal with our decaying society and crumbling environment?

 

[untermensche]

There are essential people and there are essential things.

Capitalism is about keeping the essential things from the essential people so that you can extract the fruits of labor from the essential people.

In my scenario who keep what essential thing from which essential people?

In your scenario obviously capital is needed.

There is not a supply of capital to help new businesses.

That is what is needed, not a person who wants something but contributes no work.

 

[Jayjay]

In my scenario who keep what essential thing from which essential people?

In your scenario obviously capital is needed.

There is not a supply of capital to help new businesses.

That is what is needed, not a person who wants something but contributes no work.

You have a limited notion of what "work" is. Organizing people, assessing risks and recognizing opportunities is just as essential.

 

[untermensche]

In your scenario obviously capital is needed.

There is not a supply of capital to help new businesses.

That is what is needed, not a person who wants something but contributes no work.

You have a limited notion of what "work" is. Organizing people, assessing risks and recognizing opportunities is just as essential.

Where did I say that is not work?

Giving people money because we have a system that is very bad at getting money to workers that would like to open businesses, and is not promoting worker run businesses, is not work.

 

[Jayjay]

You have a limited notion of what "work" is. Organizing people, assessing risks and recognizing opportunities is just as essential.

Where did I say that is not work?

Giving people money because we have a system that is very bad at getting money to workers that would like to open businesses, and is not promoting worker run businesses, is not work.

"Assessing risks and recognizing opportunities".

 

[untermensche]

Where did I say that is not work?

Giving people money because we have a system that is very bad at getting money to workers that would like to open businesses, and is not promoting worker run businesses, is not work.

"Assessing risks and recognizing opportunities".

This can be done by workers.

What they lack is capital, not brains.

 

[Jayjay]

"Assessing risks and recognizing opportunities".

This can be done by workers.

What they lack is capital, not brains.

Ok. So there are two companies, both needing funds. There is some capital to support one company but not the other. No matter how brainy the workers are, do you think they would be able to make an objective assessment of which company needs the money more, regardless of whether they happen to work? And if they are making the decision objectively, what distinguishes them from capitalists?

 

[untermensche]

This can be done by workers.

What they lack is capital, not brains.

Ok. So there are two companies, both needing funds. There is some capital to support one company but not the other. No matter how brainy the workers are, do you think they would be able to make an objective assessment of which company needs the money more, regardless of whether they happen to work? And if they are making the decision objectively, what distinguishes them from capitalists?

You simply assume the capitalist model of survival of the fittest is the proper mode of action.

If 2 companies need funds and the funds available are finite then obviously they both get half.

 

[NobleSavage]

Why don't worker co-ops take off and rip through the economy? Since there is no "wage theft" they could pay their workers more, cut prices, and kill off the competition. I guess there is a secret capitalist cabal suppressing this?

 

[Jayjay]

Ok. So there are two companies, both needing funds. There is some capital to support one company but not the other. No matter how brainy the workers are, do you think they would be able to make an objective assessment of which company needs the money more, regardless of whether they happen to work? And if they are making the decision objectively, what distinguishes them from capitalists?

You simply assume the capitalist model of survival of the fittest is the proper mode of action.

If 2 companies need funds and the funds available are finite then obviously they both get half.

Are you willing to take that logic of dividing capital further, and make it so that every individual worker should get an equal share, and can decide by himself what to do with it?

But let's say each company gets half the capital. Let's say that after a year one company has done better financially and distributed the profits among its workers. The other company invested the capital in a worse way and their workers are getting paid less. So in the next round, when more capital is again available (from whichever magic fountain the original capital came from), should both of them still get exactly 50% despite the fact that one company has better track record in investing capital and improving the wages of workers than the other?

 

[untermensche]

You simply assume the capitalist model of survival of the fittest is the proper mode of action.

If 2 companies need funds and the funds available are finite then obviously they both get half.

Are you willing to take that logic of dividing capital further, and make it so that every individual worker should get an equal share, and can decide by himself what to do with it?

The individual worker is like the entrepreneur.

Without many other things they have very little.

But let's say each company gets half the capital. Let's say that after a year one company has done better financially and distributed the profits among its workers. The other company invested the capital in a worse way and their workers are getting paid less. So in the next round, when more capital is again available (from whichever magic fountain the original capital came from), should both of them still get exactly 50% despite the fact that one company has better track record in investing capital and improving the wages of workers than the other?

You are simply stuck in a capitalist dog eat dog mentality.

In a worker run system the better companies share knowledge with the weaker companies in attempts to make them stronger.

It is not about total domination.

It is about trying to have as many good companies and therefore as many good jobs as possible.

 

[NobleSavage]

Are you willing to take that logic of dividing capital further, and make it so that every individual worker should get an equal share, and can decide by himself what to do with it?

The individual worker is like the entrepreneur.

Without many other things they have very little.

But let's say each company gets half the capital. Let's say that after a year one company has done better financially and distributed the profits among its workers. The other company invested the capital in a worse way and their workers are getting paid less. So in the next round, when more capital is again available (from whichever magic fountain the original capital came from), should both of them still get exactly 50% despite the fact that one company has better track record in investing capital and improving the wages of workers than the other?

You are simply stuck in a capitalist dog eat dog mentality.

In a worker run system the better companies share knowledge with the weaker companies in attempts to make them stronger.

It is not about total domination.

It is about trying to have as many good companies and therefore as many good jobs as possible.

You seem to think that if you can get a group of individuals together and remove capitalism that it will be all equal and everyone will help out others. Humans are going to create a pecking (domination) order and I don't think you can change that without altering our DNA. If you equalize money, you will still get cliques, unequal selection in mating partners, and a thousand new innovative ways to discriminate.

Never mind nation states. The idea of creating socialist utopia community has been tried to death with many different variations. Most of the time they fail. The ones that work seem to have some kind of authoritarian structures (like religion) that forces them work.

 

[ksen]

Why don't worker co-ops take off and rip through the economy? Since there is no "wage theft" they could pay their workers more, cut prices, and kill off the competition. I guess there is a secret capitalist cabal suppressing this?

Because our economy is currently set up to give companies willing to cut corners and to be generally bad actors the edge.

 

[NobleSavage]

Why don't worker co-ops take off and rip through the economy? Since there is no "wage theft" they could pay their workers more, cut prices, and kill off the competition. I guess there is a secret capitalist cabal suppressing this?

Because our economy is currently set up to give companies willing to cut corners and to be generally bad actors the edge.

So when workers get stock options they automatically become angels and never cut corners or act in bad faith?

 

[ksen]

by ruthlessly cutting their own wages and safety standards? I don't see them doing that.

 

[NobleSavage]

by ruthlessly cutting their own wages and safety standards? I don't see them doing that.

It's just a matter of scale. They will be impacted by safety vs cost decisions and there will have to be a management layer. Whatever gains you get in safety and wages will come at the expense of someone else. If you create a nice little workers paradise bubble then you would have to be very exclusive. You're going to have the problem of private companies picking off your higher skilled workers by offering better pay. So then your solution will be to have all companies become worker owned to stop the evil private companies and that will only work by authoritarian force so we end up right back where we started.

 

[arkirk]

The individual worker is like the entrepreneur.

Without many other things they have very little.

But let's say each company gets half the capital. Let's say that after a year one company has done better financially and distributed the profits among its workers. The other company invested the capital in a worse way and their workers are getting paid less. So in the next round, when more capital is again available (from whichever magic fountain the original capital came from), should both of them still get exactly 50% despite the fact that one company has better track record in investing capital and improving the wages of workers than the other?

You are simply stuck in a capitalist dog eat dog mentality.

In a worker run system the better companies share knowledge with the weaker companies in attempts to make them stronger.

It is not about total domination.

It is about trying to have as many good companies and therefore as many good jobs as possible.

You seem to think that if you can get a group of individuals together and remove capitalism that it will be all equal and everyone will help out others. Humans are going to create a pecking (domination) order and I don't think you can change that without altering our DNA. If you equalize money, you will still get cliques, unequal selection in mating partners, and a thousand new innovative ways to discriminate.

Never mind nation states. The idea of creating socialist utopia community has been tried to death with many different variations. Most of the time they fail. The ones that work seem to have some kind of authoritarian structures (like religion) that forces them work.

They fail because industrialization and new technologies constantly open up new opportunities for crooked people and bad actors. You really can't tell someone that because we have had a history of failure in terms of environmental protection and social justice that we must stop trying and just accept pollution and injustice. That is not an acceptable answer. Our business culture is on a suicidal path and our business leaders who have immunized themselves from immediate suicide by accumulating wealth simply are not up to the task of altering our course in a significant way. They are personal cowards but they are brave in placing the rest of society in harm's way.

Part of the problem (and I emphasize the word part) is the adherence to rules of competition that favor only themselves. The other part of the problem is that our industrial society has created physical (environmental) reality that requires concerted cooperative responses that are not coming from our current system. Society as a whole cannot afford to ignore its environmental consequences, but the economic system has elevated people to positions of sufficient power to forestall the needed cooperation. Our business world has the same kind of relationship to society as our Republican majority has with our congress...locked in do nothing stalemate. This stalemate has a withering effect on the poor and the environment.

I am tired of hearing conservatives blather on endlessly about how the left is chasing some kind of utopian dream while they blindly follow their own messianic business leaders.

 

[NobleSavage]

They fail because industrialization and new technologies constantly open up new opportunities for crooked people and bad actors. You really can't tell someone that because we have had a history of failure in terms of environmental protection and social justice that we must stop trying and just accept pollution and injustice. That is not an acceptable answer. Our business culture is on a suicidal path and our business leaders who have immunized themselves from immediate suicide by accumulating wealth simply are not up to the task of altering our course in a significant way. They are personal cowards but they are brave in placing the rest of society in harm's way.

Part of the problem (and I emphasize the word part) is the adherence to rules of competition that favor only themselves. The other part of the problem is that our industrial society has created physical (environmental) reality that requires concerted cooperative responses that are not coming from our current system. Society as a whole cannot afford to ignore its environmental consequences, but the economic system has elevated people to positions of sufficient power to forestall the needed cooperation. Our business world has the same kind of relationship to society as our Republican majority has with our congress...locked in do nothing stalemate. This stalemate has a withering effect on the poor and the environment.

I am tired of hearing conservatives blather on endlessly about how the left is chasing some kind of utopian dream while they blindly follow their own messianic business leaders.

So what's your solution in less than 500 words?

 

[untermensche]

You seem to think that if you can get a group of individuals together and remove capitalism that it will be all equal and everyone will help out others.

If you remove the capitalist indoctrination and the power of capitalists of course you could create a different system.

Humans love to help other humans. At least most healthy adults do. Many children have trouble with the concept, especially overgrown children.

Humans are going to create a pecking (domination) order and I don't think you can change that without altering our DNA.

There is nothing natural about a capitalist "pecking order". The best do not magically rise to the top. Many of the best are crushed very early on, especially if they are born with the wrong skin color.

The best is the person who looks after others. The best is not the person who only looks after themselves and looks to exploit others for personal gain.

If you equalize money, you will still get cliques, unequal selection in mating partners, and a thousand new innovative ways to discriminate.

Nowhere have I mentioned equalizing money.

What I support are worker owned and managed economic institutions that work on democratic principles with a very strong social safety net.

What I oppose is dictatorship, in whatever form it takes. Even capitalist dictators.

Never mind nation states. The idea of creating socialist utopia community has been tried to death with many different variations. Most of the time they fail. The ones that work seem to have some kind of authoritarian structures (like religion) that forces them work.

Being better that capitalism with all it's inequities and oppressions is not utopia.

Just like democracy is not utopia compared to dictatorship. It is just better.

 

[NobleSavage]

Look untermensche have you ever seen me defending Ann Rand style libertarianism? No, and you won't. If anything I'm a militant moderate. Perhaps left of center.

What I support are worker owned and managed economic institutions that work on democratic principles with a very strong social safety net.

We have worker owned and managed companies in the US, just not enough for you. We have a safety net, just not strong enough for you, fine. That is a legitimate argument.

Do you want to make it illegal for me to start a private business? That I would have a problem with.

If you remove the capitalist indoctrination and the power of capitalists of course you could create a different system.

Humans love to help other humans. At least most healthy adults do. Many children have trouble with the concept, especially overgrown children.

Have you looked into all the attempts to do exactly that? The first one that comes to mind is New Harmony, Indiana. Robert Owen circa 1830. I'm sure you will have your own take on why it didn't work. Everyone seems to have a different idea. That is just one of many attempts in the US. Israel had the kibbutz system. Last I checked it mostly failed. A few good ideas from these failed communities were adopted by the larger system.

When you completely disparage capitalism you are acting just as nutty as the Ann Rand fans.