The fall of Western civilisation

[DBT]

What is the 'value' of a worker? What does it 'value' a human being who is doing productive work but not getting a return that's hardly sufficient to meet basic needs, yet alone a reasonable lifestyle?

What is the 'value' of CEO's when they get multi millions in Salary packages and bonuses even while they drive their companies into the ground?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The Superiority of Western Civilization and Free Trade

This might be considered as 2 separate topics, but they can go together. The actual practice of free trade has been around since ancient times, in many forms, while Western Civilization has made a kind of doctrine or religion out of it, in modern times.

We should define "free trade" broadly enough so as to include all practices where trade was increased, as a deliberate policy, and restrictions on trade were reduced to enable trade to be extended. So, the Phoenicians practiced "free trade" rather conspicuously, and advanced civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans also engaged in this when they extended trade, even though there were still "tariffs" of one kind or another.


Did the Chinese believe the earth was flat, until the Jesuits taught them the Truth?

I'll offer this example of the superiority of Western Civilization. Maybe it's a cheap shot, for sensationalist effect, but it's an interesting example. The Chinese are chosen here because that culture probably is 2nd on the list ranking civilizations from superior to inferior.

Here's a recognized historian-scholar who makes the claim in a lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0KYI8DQQb0 . The particular statement is at 19:00-19:30 in the video:

The Chinese continued to believe the earth was flat until convinced otherwise by the Jesuits.

He is Richard J. Evans, DPhil (Oxford) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Evans and has all the credentials.


But here's a nay-sayer of the claim:

Gavin Menzies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies

He says:

http://www.gavinmenzies.net/Evidenc...-centered-on-the-sun-by-gunnar-thompson-ph-d/
There is a lot of confusion among modern historians regarding when ancient peoples realized that earth is a sphere that orbits the sun. Among many 19th century romantic historians, it was not uncommon to hear them praising Columbus for “proving that the earth was round!” This is added to a host of dubious achievements in an effort to justify calling Columbus the most important person since Jesus Christ. Even as recently as April of 2006, there were some historians who offered the incredibly naïve conjecture that the Chinese didn’t realize that the earth was round until informed so by the Jesuits in the 16th century. This is offered as part of the ridiculous reasoning why it would have been impossible for the Ming Chinese to make a map of the spherical earth in 1418.

However, Menzies has no credentials as an historian and makes controversial claims which are disputed by many critics. He's a British crusader against Western Civilization superiority, or "Eurocentrism," and gives many theories to suggest that the Asian or Chinese culture is superior, or at least equal, to the European culture.

I'm assuming for the moment that the Evans claim is true, that the Chinese believed the earth was flat until the Jesuits taught them otherwise. It's probably more complicated than that, but this is probably close to the truth. And so this is just one example of how Western Civilization is (or has been) overall superior. Not just to Asian culture, but to all the other "civilizations" as well.

(We don't need to quibble over what exactly a "civilization" is. Presumably there would also be the Native American and the African and the Arabian civilizations. And some others. Any listing or categorizing should be OK here.)

Also, "Western Civilization" here has to mean only the modern West, from about 1600 to the present. Prior to 1600 or so, the Chinese civilization was superior. Even the Muslim culture, especially in Spain around 900-1300 or so, might be superior to the European civilization.


China was superior in trade for centuries.

http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat2/4sub8/entry-5460.html describes China's trade going way back 2000-3000 years. It became very impressive, far in advance of anything else before modern times. Maybe they even reached the Americas?

But something changed. China's trade, by the 1400s, became something much different than what we mean by "trade" today. Daniel Boorstin (The Discoverers) describes how different the Chinese practice was than that of the Europeans.

The purpose of his vast, costly, and far-ranging expeditions was not to collect treasure or trade or convert or conquer or gather scientific information. Few naval expeditions in recent history have had any other purpose. . . .

The voyages became an institution in themselves, designed to display the splendor and power of the new Ming dynasty. And the voyages proved that ritualized and nonviolent techniques of persuasion could extract tribute from remote states. The Chinese would not establish their own permanent bases within the tributary states, but instead hoped to make "the whole world" into voluntary admirers of the one and only center of civilization.

With this in mind, the Chinese navy dared not loot the states that it visited. Chêng Ho would not seek slaves or gold or silver or spices. Nothing would suggest that the Chinese needed what other nations had. While peoples of Asia would be struck by the Portuguese power to seize, the Chinese would impress by their power to give. They would unwittingly dramatize the Christian axiom that it was nobler to give than to receive. . . . European expeditions to Asia revealed how desperately Europeans wanted the peculiar products of the East, but the prodigal gestures of Chinese expeditions would show how content the Chinese were with what they already had. . . .

During the days of Chêng Ho the Chinese practiced what they preached, with costly consequences. The lopsided logic of the tributary system required China to pay out more than China received. Every new tributary state worsened the imbalance of Chinese trade. . . . in the time of Chêng Ho the Chinese Emperor managed, at least for a while, to give substance to his assertion that the Central Kingdom needed nothing from anybody and had nothing to learn from anybody.

There's a good part to this Chinese "trade" practice in the Ming Dynasty, in contrast to the aggressive behavior of the Europeans. But in the long run it did not succeed, and soon the whole trading or shipping institution of the Chinese came to an end and China turned inward, even banning trade and destroying its great ships. This one-way form of trade was not sustainable and had to collapse.

But meanwhile the West, with its more selfish philosophy of trade, evolved a more sustainable trading system, which obviously brought some evil with it, the imperialism, and murder and mayhem, and yet a system which improved gradually and has produced the most prosperous world trading economy ever, with stability and long-term benefit to all.

Maybe we can divide "trade" into 3 categories: mercantilism, free trade, and isolationism.

China's trade in the 1400s became a kind of extreme distorted mercantilism, totally one-sided, and even accompanied by doctrines of Chinese superiority and sufficiency and rejection of anything foreign. And when this collapsed, China turned inward and became isolationist.

Whereas the West is slowly evolving toward a long-term sustainable trading system which will maximize the potential, based on competition and market forces. And the rest of the world is slowly being drawn into this one-world global market system, with lots of kicking and screaming along the way, as the uncompetitive, special interests, high-profile "victims" who get attention (poor laid-off factory workers), nationalists, etc., resist and squawk and elect demagogues like Donald Trump (or next time Bernie Sanders?) and try to find excuses why progress is bad for us.

 

[DrZoidberg]

China stopped trading with the outside world because it was the most technologically advanced country on the planet. The rest of the world had nothing to offer China. So it became insular. This arrogance led to the mess we have now. There's a lesson to be learned about arrogance. Let's not repeat the mistakes of China, which you are doing Lumpy.

People tend to wait with updating their beliefs until they have to. China had no reason to ponder upon the roundness or squareness of the Earth. Pythagoras was the first who believed the Earth was round, but the Pythagoreans worshiped maths. They thought maths was God. And roundness was the most sacred shape. So obviously the Earth was round. And they after the fact managed to work it out. That's just a fluke in history. No evidence of any superiority IMHO. There was nothing wrong with Chinese and Indian mathematicians. They could always hold their own.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Supply & demand determines what the value is. No one should be paid higher than this value.

What is the 'value' of a worker?

The value of anything is determined by supply & demand. Because of the oversupply of labor, their value is low, even lower than what they're being paid, because of the pressure on the company to pay the workers out of pity rather than out of what's good for the company and consumers.

What does it 'value' a human being who is doing productive work but not getting a return that's hardly sufficient to meet basic needs, yet alone a reasonable lifestyle?

It values them insofar as they accept that job at those terms. If their return is not enough, they will not accept the job.

Paying the workers higher than is necessary in order to get the work done really ends up making everyone poorer and making it more difficult for everyone, including all the poor, to meet their "basic needs." Driving up the prices they pay reduces everyone's real income. It's the consumers who really end up paying the higher labor cost.

What is the 'value' of CEO's when they get multi millions in Salary packages and bonuses even while they drive their companies into the ground?

If there are a few cases of an overpaid CEO, this is not corrected by then also overpaying thousands of workers.

Maybe their supply of CEO candidates was limited. Did you ask someone on the Board of Directors about their decision to hire the guy, and the generous terms?

If something's wrong in the hiring procedures, the solution to it is not to overpay others also. The damage done is to the consumers who have to pay higher prices. So, increasing the salaries/wages of others in the company can only increase this damage. Your solution has to be one which forces the company to pay everyone only according to supply & demand, and no higher than this amount.

 

[DBT]

The value of anything is determined by supply & demand. Because of the oversupply of labor, their value is low, even lower than what they're being paid, because of the pressure on the company to pay the workers out of pity rather than out of what's good for the company and consumers.

What does it 'value' a human being who is doing productive work but not getting a return that's hardly sufficient to meet basic needs, yet alone a reasonable lifestyle?

It values them insofar as they accept that job at those terms. If their return is not enough, they will not accept the job.

Paying the workers higher than is necessary in order to get the work done really ends up making everyone poorer and making it more difficult for everyone, including all the poor, to meet their "basic needs." Driving up the prices they pay reduces everyone's real income. It's the consumers who really end up paying the higher labor cost.

What is the 'value' of CEO's when they get multi millions in Salary packages and bonuses even while they drive their companies into the ground?

If there are a few cases of an overpaid CEO, this is not corrected by then also overpaying thousands of workers.

Maybe their supply of CEO candidates was limited. Did you ask someone on the Board of Directors about their decision to hire the guy, and the generous terms?

If something's wrong in the hiring procedures, the solution to it is not to overpay others also. The damage done is to the consumers who have to pay higher prices. So, increasing the salaries/wages of others in the company can only increase this damage. Your solution has to be one which forces the company to pay everyone only according to supply & demand, and no higher than this amount.

It's not that simple:

''Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, America had a thriving economy in which the middle class was at the center and everyone -- poor and rich alike -- did better. But then, starting in the late 1970s, a group of self-serving rich people began to sell a promise that if we took better care of them, their wealth would trickle down, and that would help everyone else prosper. The country bought that line. And for three decades both parties yielded to it. The results were great for the very rich -- and disastrous for everyone else. Wages stagnated. Inequality became extreme. Mobility slowed. By 2008, things were so upside down and we had so lost our way that the economy collapsed. Out of that ruin, many began to remember the old ways: the truth that lasting growth and shared prosperity come from the middle out and not the top down. Now we are joined in a battle of ideas to see whether middle-out economics can dethrone trickle-down.

This is the contest we are engaged in today. When President Obama frames the issue in this way, as he did down the homestretch of the 2012 campaign, progressives advance and his popularity soars. When he drifts from this narrative, as he has in the sequestration and debt debates of 2013, he gives ground unnecessarily. But make no mistake: The central debate in this country will continue to be about this choice and the true origins of prosperity.''


''Demand from the middle class -- not tax cuts for the wealthy -- is what drives a virtuous cycle of job growth and prosperity.

Rich business people are not the primary job creators; middle-class customers are. The more the middle class can buy, the more jobs we'll create.

America has the right and the responsibility to decide where the jobs created by our middle class will be located -- here or in China.

Trickle-down has given us deficits and a decimated middle class.

Middle-out economics means investing in the health, education, infrastructure, and purchasing power of the middle class.

Middle-out economics marks the difference between what is good for capitalism broadly versus what protects the vested interests of a select group of capitalists narrowly -- and it invests in the former.''

Nor does this article express the larger and deeper problems of supply and demand capitalism....which is probably not sustainable in the long term if the problem of gross inequality is addressed.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

''Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, America had a thriving economy in which the middle class was at the center and everyone -- poor and rich alike -- did better.

Today we're all better off.

But then, starting in the late 1970s, a group of self-serving rich people began to sell a promise that if we took better care of them, their wealth would trickle down, and that would help everyone else prosper. The country bought that line. And for three decades both parties yielded to it. The results were great for the very rich -- and disastrous for everyone else. Wages stagnated.

Not ALL wages. But many did because those workers were declining in value. The value of labor was decreasing, because of supply & demand.

Inequality became extreme.

Because the inequality in value increased. Wider value gap between the more valuable and the less valuable.

Mobility slowed. By 2008, things were so upside down and we had so lost our way that the economy collapsed. Out of that ruin, many began to remember the old ways: the truth that lasting growth and shared prosperity come from the middle out and not the top down. Now we are joined in a battle of ideas to see whether middle-out economics can dethrone trickle-down.

This is the contest we are engaged in today. When President Obama frames the issue in this way, as he did down the homestretch of the 2012 campaign, progressives advance and his popularity soars. When he drifts from this narrative, as he has in the sequestration and debt debates of 2013, he gives ground unnecessarily. But make no mistake: The central debate in this country will continue to be about this choice and the true origins of prosperity.''


''Demand from the middle class -- not tax cuts for the wealthy -- is what drives a virtuous cycle of job growth and prosperity.

Rich business people are not the primary job creators; middle-class customers are. The more the middle class can buy, the more jobs we'll create.

Why the "middle class"? Why not the bottom third? The more the bottom third can buy, the more jobs we'll create.

America has the right and the responsibility to decide where the jobs created by our middle class will be located -- here or in China.

Nothing is gained by dictating where the jobs are located. This is best determined by companies based on the costs, availability of resources, etc. Dictating conditions unnecessarily to producers results in less production, higher costs, and higher prices to consumers, and thus lower living standard.

Trickle-down has given us deficits and a decimated middle class.

The main cause of the deficits has been the fear of recession, i.e., the need to protect jobs and keep down the unemployment numbers. Without this obsession on jobs, there'd be little or no deficit.

Middle-out economics means investing in the health, education, infrastructure, and purchasing power of the middle class.

You can't prop up the purchasing power of any favored group without suppressing that of other groups who pay the cost for it.

 

[DBT]

Today we're all better off.

Oh, for sure......that's probably why US voters opted for Trump as President.


Some reasons why gross inequality in wealth distribution is bad for society and economic activity:

''One political consequence of inequality that turns into an economic liability is that it creates a feeling that everyone is only out for themselves. This impression undermines the social cohesion that lubricates economies and societies. As people become more fearful, selfish and insecure, corruption flourishes, crime jumps, anti-social behaviours increase, labour unrest stirs and legal disputes tied to commerce rights rise. When people feel they no longer live in a fair society or one where they have much opportunity they will eventually react.

''A second economic liability created by the political fallout from inequality is that the resentment against economic injustice – epitomised by globalisation – nurtures an environment ripe for populist policies''

''A third political threat from inequality that carries economic costs is that the concentration of economic power can undermine democracy because it gives the mega rich too much political power. As the wealthy use this muscle to expand their economic interests (via, for instance, subsidies or anti-competitive moats around their assets), the core political institutions of society are eroded.''

''Lastly, inequality imposes direct long-term economic costs because unequal societies prove to be faulty and inefficient economies. When too much income and wealth gushes to the top, the middle and lower classes are incapable of marshalling the purchasing power needed to fan sustainable economic growth.''


Key Facts
The richest 1% of Americans own 35% of the nation’s wealth. The bottom 80% own just 11% of the nation’s wealth.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was booming, the wealthiest Americans paid a top income tax rate of 91%. Today, the top rate is 43.4%.
The richest 1% pay an effective federal income tax rate of 24.7% in 2014; someone making an average of $75,000 is paying a 19.7% rate.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Let's hear it for Western Civilization!

Ho-ho! Hey-hey! Western Civ has got to stay, Ho-ho! Hey- . . .

China stopped trading with the outside world because it was the most technologically advanced country on the planet.

But that's proven to have been a mistake. The richest nation, or most advanced, should trade with the poorest nations, and this will make it richer still.

The Asian nations which took up trade made themselves richer, while China, along with Burma and some others, became poorer as a result of not trading. So the trade practices of the West are proving to be a mark of superiority, which has slowly become recognized by the Far East, which is borrowing a page from the West's playbook.

The rest of the world had nothing to offer China.

That's the worst exaggeration ever told. Other nations did have something to offer China.

So it became insular. This arrogance led to the mess we have now. There's a lesson to be learned about arrogance. Let's not repeat the mistakes of China, which you are doing Lumpy.

What mistake are we repeating? The U.S. has been mistaken to boycott Cuba, and is slowly correcting that mistake. Overall the U.S. has promoted more trade and is showing a superior trait in doing this, and should point this out and promote this philosophy more, which has proven to be successful and to have made literally billions of humans better off. It's OK for a nation to "brag" that it has been doing the right thing, when this is the truth.

People tend to wait with updating their beliefs until they have to. China had no reason to ponder upon the roundness or squareness of the Earth.

Of course it had reason to ponder this. Both as a practical matter, having been the world's greatest trading nation for a long period, but also for general knowledge, as all humans need to know that the planet is spherical in shape rather than flat. Even the most remote secluded tribe in the Pacific Islands, or in the Amazon basin, should know about the planets and the solar system and the earth's orbiting around the sun.

The spreading of such general facts about the world are a kind of "moral obligation" for any superior culture.

Pythagoras was the first who believed the Earth was round, but the Pythagoreans worshiped maths. They thought maths was God.

It's a mark of superiority to emphasize the importance of math.

And roundness was the most sacred shape. So obviously the Earth was round. And they after the fact managed to work it out.

Those who "work it out" are superior. However you try to explain it away.

And it's fine to give credit to others, like Arabs or Babylonians or whoever also did math. This is one mark of superiority of a culture. No doubt there are marks of inferiority as well -- all cultures have both. But Western Civilization overall has more marks of superiority.

That's just a fluke in history.

Everything is a "fluke in history." That doesn't mean it isn't so. Man is superior to other animals, and undoubtedly this is due to some "flukes" of history millions of years ago.

No evidence of any superiority IMHO.

So the word "superior" should not exist? Nothing is superior to anything else, so therefore it's wrong that the word "superior" even exists? All we know about "superior" is that there is no such thing?

What is an example of something you would admit is "superior" to something else?

There was nothing wrong with Chinese and Indian mathematicians. They could always hold their own.

It's their astronomers who seemed to be behind and needed some catch-up work, which the West helped them with. From the following, it appears even India was superior to China on this point, by 1000+ years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period [about 400 BC], the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD), and China until the 17th century. That paradigm was also typically held in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas, and the notion of a flat Earth domed by the firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl was common in pre-scientific societies.

What's wrong with pointing out where certain cultures "got it right" and others "had their head up their butt" on this or that matter of importance?

I'm sure you can point out some faults in Western culture. There's always good and bad points in anything. But overall, Western Civilization has the best track record for general accomplishments and advancement of the sciences. And those who are competing with the West, to possibly overtake it and surpass it, are doing so by beating the West at its own game, as it were, taking up what the West has started and then doing it one better.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But that's proven to have been a mistake. The richest nation, or most advanced, should trade with the poorest nations, and this will make it richer still.

I don't think you realize the massive gap. It would be like you would start trading with the ants in your back garden.

And besides, what you are talking about didn't start to apply until well after industrialisation was in full swing. I don't think you realize how extremely rapidly industrialization transformed Western Europe from an uninteresting backwater to ruling the planet.

China had all the factors to make it industrialize before Europe. They didn't. Because it wasn't until after a nation would industrialize that the full potential would reveal itself. China didn't want to industrialise because they'd kept themselves as the world's most powerful nation without industrialising. They feared change.

The Asian nations which took up trade made themselves richer, while China, along with Burma and some others, became poorer as a result of not trading. So the trade practices of the West are proving to be a mark of superiority, which has slowly become recognized by the Far East, which is borrowing a page from the West's playbook.

You're talking about the last 60 years. That's like yesterday in historical terms.

The rest of the world had nothing to offer China.

That's the worst exaggeration ever told. Other nations did have something to offer China.

Name one thing. Remember that when China isolated itself it was the 15'th century. Not particularly impressive anywhere else at that time.

Pythagoras was the first who believed the Earth was round, but the Pythagoreans worshiped maths. They thought maths was God.

It's a mark of superiority to emphasize the importance of math.

Nice of you to admit that the Abrahamic religions are the most inferior on the planet. They're the only religions who don't emphasize maths. They only emphasize faith. Especially faith contrary to logic. That's a unique feature of those religions.

And roundness was the most sacred shape. So obviously the Earth was round. And they after the fact managed to work it out.

Those who "work it out" are superior. However you try to explain it away.

And it's fine to give credit to others, like Arabs or Babylonians or whoever also did math. This is one mark of superiority of a culture. No doubt there are marks of inferiority as well -- all cultures have both. But Western Civilization overall has more marks of superiority.

You're spectacularly clueless. Cheers.

Man is superior to other animals, and undoubtedly this is due to some "flukes" of history millions of years ago.

What are you talking about? Superior in what way? I can think of many ways other life forms are superior to humans.

What is an example of something you would admit is "superior" to something else?

Epoxy glue is better at holding stuff together than crazy glue.

I don't care about who is superior to who. Why does it matter?

It's their astronomers who seemed to be behind and needed some catch-up work, which the West helped them with. From the following, it appears even India was superior to China on this point, by 1000+ years:

Almost all the names for stars have Arabic names. The west didn't catch up until just the last couple of hundred years.

What's wrong with pointing out where certain cultures "got it right" and others "had their head up their butt" on this or that matter of importance?

But you're attributing it to the wrong things. It was industrialisation that made Europe. That was just one single thing. It's just this one thing that we're superior in. That an musical tonal scales.

I'm sure you can point out some faults in Western culture. There's always good and bad points in anything. But overall, Western Civilization has the best track record for general accomplishments and advancement of the sciences. And those who are competing with the West, to possibly overtake it and surpass it, are doing so by beating the West at its own game, as it were, taking up what the West has started and then doing it one better.

I think you're deluded.

 

[rousseau]

It's not much of a "fuck up" when rich nations get rich more slowly, as a result of allowing poor nations to get rich faster. All those Chinese workers who stole 'our' jobs will soon be bitching about their jobs being 'stolen' by cheap African labour. Which will suck, if you are a middle class Chinaman who wanted to get rich; just as Chinese competition for jobs sucked for middle class Americans. But the global net effect will be sharply positive - Africans deserve jobs too.

And once factories are being built in Africa, so there will be both the demand for, and the money to build, infrastructure and machinery. Look at Africa today, and even in the relatively wealthy parts (eg Kenya and Nigeria) machinery is rare and expensive. If you need foundations dug for a building in Lagos, it is cheaper and faster to get lots of men with shovels to dig it than it is to use a back-hoe. That was true in China too, until recently. And in the west, until not that long ago too.

To get rich, we need automation to 'steal' a LOT of jobs. But we also need to ensure that the 1% don't just take the profits from this automation - a large portion of it needs to be passed down as wages so that there is sufficient demand to keep the economy booming while workers transition to jobs that cannot be automated; and once there are so few such jobs as to make working unnecessary, the wealth needs to be shared equitably so that unemployment can be translated into leisure.

Ok, so what happens is that China becomes developed and Africans start stealing Chinese people's jobs. Then Africa also becomes developed. Who's going to steal African jobs? With your scenario it's no one and there's no problem.

But I don't think that will happen. The robot revolution will come. How that will effect our societies is anyone's guess.

I think, in the long run, what'll happen is pretty clear, but I suppose it's still a guess.

Politically we need to look at the Nash equilibrium to understand what's going to happen in the next century. The first stop on our journey to a post-work economy is that nations considered a part of 'western civilization' who don't deal with the social change that's coming from automation, are going to experience severe, social imbalances (as is starting to happen now). But if history tells us anything, it's that when there is an imbalance, there will be ensuing political pressure to fix the imbalance. In other words, whatever the problem is, a solution will be sought for it. In the long run modern economies will tend toward stability for this reason, and eventually will get over the automation hump.

The other major factor in our future, in my view, is going to be our ability to harness renewable energy, or at least new forms of energy. The history of our species has, at it's core, been about energy extraction and use, with all of the major turning points corresponding with major changes in our ability to use the earth's resources. So once we've built a world with no need to fight over earth's resources, and have the technology to automate work, this constant energy input will lead to an increasingly organized, inter-connected, and equal world.

The wild-card is that while population growth might be levelling off, populations of living things by their very nature are built to multiply. So as we provide higher and higher quality of life for ourselves, the long-term trend should be more humans. Somehow I can't see how this could possibly be sustainable in the very long-term.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think, in the long run, what'll happen is pretty clear, but I suppose it's still a guess.

Politically we need to look at the Nash equilibrium to understand what's going to happen in the next century. The first stop on our journey to a post-work economy is that nations considered a part of 'western civilization' who don't deal with the social change that's coming from automation, are going to experience severe, social imbalances (as is starting to happen now). But if history tells us anything, it's that when there is an imbalance, there will be ensuing political pressure to fix the imbalance. In other words, whatever the problem is, a solution will be sought for it. In the long run modern economies will tend toward stability for this reason, and eventually will get over the automation hump.

The other major factor in our future, in my view, is going to be our ability to harness renewable energy, or at least new forms of energy. The history of our species has, at it's core, been about energy extraction and use, with all of the major turning points corresponding with major changes in our ability to use the earth's resources. So once we've built a world with no need to fight over earth's resources, and have the technology to automate work, this constant energy input will lead to an increasingly organized, inter-connected, and equal world.

The wild-card is that while population growth might be levelling off, populations of living things by their very nature are built to multiply. So as we provide higher and higher quality of life for ourselves, the long-term trend should be more humans. Somehow I can't see how this could possibly be sustainable in the very long-term.

You don't need much to cause severe social imbalances. I think that'll happen. Or is happening. I don't think there's any way to avoid it. It's just a shitty time we'll need to power through. I'm sure we'll come out the other end. With or without WW3. Just like you predict. We strive toward equilibrium. So it'll happen.

On the issue of renewable energy. I think this is a non-issue. We're not going to run out of Thorium in a million years and we've barely begun tapping that resource. Electrical cars now are fine. They don't have the range of petrol driven engines. But do they really have to? Non-issue.

As far as sustainability goes what will happen is that we'll get a series of ecological man made disasters which will make us wake up. And then we'll stop with our idiotic harvesting of food. Right now we're putting our wells of food under unnecessary strain. For no real reason. Small shrimp taste the same as Tiger shrimp. They're just smaller. Boo the fuck hoo if you can't have the big one's anymore. After the disasters we'll (have to) grow up and stop being stupid. After that everything will go back to normal and be fine again. We'll just have to make do with less exotic foods. It'll be fine. We don't need them.

 

[iolo]

What is the 'value' of a worker? What does it 'value' a human being who is doing productive work but not getting a return that's hardly sufficient to meet basic needs, yet alone a reasonable lifestyle?

What is the 'value' of CEO's when they get multi millions in Salary packages and bonuses even while they drive their companies into the ground?

It depends on the economic system you are living under, I suppose. Basically, any member of the boss class is (to the boss class) 'obviously' worth what he can get. The question, as always, is 'What are human beings for? and until we can answer that, none of these silly systems makes sense. It is a observable fact, however, that the more equal a society is, the happier the people, as we see in Scandinavia as opposed to the USA. In the UK my own people are manifestly the worst off, but fairly obviously happier than the rest, because we are pretty solidly egalitarian, and make mock of those with social pretensions.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Are people happier if they're more equal? Aren't Cubans more equal? North Koreans?

What is the 'value' of a worker? What does it 'value' a human being who is doing productive work but not getting a return that's hardly sufficient to meet basic needs, yet alone a reasonable lifestyle?

What is the 'value' of CEO's when they get multi millions in Salary packages and bonuses even while they drive their companies into the ground?

It depends on the economic system you are living under, I suppose. Basically, any member of the boss class is (to the boss class) 'obviously' worth what he can get. The question, as always, is 'What are human beings for? and until we can answer that, none of these silly systems makes sense. It is a observable fact, however, that the more equal a society is, the happier the people, as we see in Scandinavia as opposed to the USA.

The trouble with that theory is that the happiest and most well-off Scandinavians in the world are the ones in the USA.

In the UK my own people are manifestly the worst off, but fairly obviously happier than the rest, because we are pretty solidly egalitarian, and make mock of those with social pretensions.

By that measure, the North Koreans should be the happiest people in the world.

Did any developed countries which are more equal and also more prosperous not go through a period of high inequality as they became more developed?

Is there any country which is highly developed and more equal which is not also highly monolithic and homogeneous? not only ethnically, but also geographically?

 

[DBT]

It depends on the economic system you are living under, I suppose. Basically, any member of the boss class is (to the boss class) 'obviously' worth what he can get. The question, as always, is 'What are human beings for? and until we can answer that, none of these silly systems makes sense. It is a observable fact, however, that the more equal a society is, the happier the people, as we see in Scandinavia as opposed to the USA.

The trouble with that theory is that the happiest and most well-off Scandinavians in the world are the ones in the USA.

Are they? Has there been a study done or polls taken? Just curious as to where the information comes from.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The trouble with that theory is that the happiest and most well-off Scandinavians in the world are the ones in the USA.

I highly doubt that. Here's the list of Swedes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedes_by_net_worth

Sweden is a great country to live in, regardless of your income level. We have plenty of American expats to prove it. Our wealthiest citizens tend to stay. There's plenty of successful IT entrepreneurs who take a stint in San Francisco. But they usually return. The reason is simply because Silicon Valley is the shit if you're into IT. There's no place where IT networking is as valuable. But they tend to return to Stockholm sooner or later when they're done networking. The IT entrepreneurs I've talked to say that Sweden is just less bureaucratic hassle. Setting up and running companies in USA is more of a headache. Sure, taxes. But sometimes you just want to get on with it. The extra money you have to pay is sometimes worth it.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

There's evidence that Scandinavian "superiority" is not due to more equality in Scandinavian countries.

The trouble with that theory is that the happiest and most well-off Scandinavians in the world are the ones in the USA.

Are they? Has there been a study done or polls taken? Just curious as to where the information comes from.

First I should correct my wording: U.S. Scandinavians are overall better off / happier than Scandinavian Scandinavians. That's more precise.

The claim pops up here and there:

As shown in the picture below, the living standard of the descendants of Scandinavians living in America is considerably higher than their cousins in Scandinavia. We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these figures, since household composition may differ, but there is prima facie evidence that Scandinavians who move to the US are significantly better off than those who stay at home.
https://capx.co/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-2-culture-matters/

There's plenty of this. They tend to have some good habits, work ethic, etc., and they brought this with them.

Here's another source saying the same kind of thing:

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...ndinavian-americans-and-their-ancestral-lands
According to a study from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Swedish-Americans are considerably richer than the average American—as are other Scandinavian-Americans. The poverty rate of Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the national average. Swedish-Americans are better off even than their cousins at home: their average income is 50% higher than theirs, a number used by opponents of the Swedish model as an argument against the shackles of big government.

Most of these immigrants (immigrant descendants) are from several generations back, before the current socialist policies of those countries. So it's not due to any good traits they picked up from the modern socialist / egalitarian political systems. It's more a cultural element from much earlier.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

How Scandinavians SPREAD THE WEALTH by migrating to the U.S.!

The trouble with that theory is that the happiest and most well-off Scandinavians in the world are the ones in the USA.

I highly doubt that. Here's the list of Swedes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedes_by_net_worth

Sweden is a great country to live in, regardless of your income level. We have plenty of American expats to prove it. Our wealthiest citizens tend to stay. There's plenty of successful IT entrepreneurs who take a stint in San Francisco. But they usually return. The reason is simply because Silicon Valley is the shit if you're into IT. There's no place where IT networking is as valuable. But they tend to return to Stockholm sooner or later when they're done networking. The IT entrepreneurs I've talked to say that Sweden is just less bureaucratic hassle. Setting up and running companies in USA is more of a headache. Sure, taxes. But sometimes you just want to get on with it. The extra money you have to pay is sometimes worth it.

Probably all true. But the numbers show that the U.S. Scandinavians are overall more prosperous than the ones in Scandinavia.

And you're right that the richest Scandinavians stay, but the ones who came to the U.S. ended up being overall more prosperous than those who remained in the home country.

So, chalk up another win-win for the Superiority of Western Civilization competitive free-market economics.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I highly doubt that. Here's the list of Swedes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swedes_by_net_worth

Sweden is a great country to live in, regardless of your income level. We have plenty of American expats to prove it. Our wealthiest citizens tend to stay. There's plenty of successful IT entrepreneurs who take a stint in San Francisco. But they usually return. The reason is simply because Silicon Valley is the shit if you're into IT. There's no place where IT networking is as valuable. But they tend to return to Stockholm sooner or later when they're done networking. The IT entrepreneurs I've talked to say that Sweden is just less bureaucratic hassle. Setting up and running companies in USA is more of a headache. Sure, taxes. But sometimes you just want to get on with it. The extra money you have to pay is sometimes worth it.

Probably all true. But the numbers show that the U.S. Scandinavians are overall more prosperous than the ones in Scandinavia.

And you're right that the richest Scandinavians stay, but the ones who came to the U.S. ended up being overall more prosperous than those who remained in the home country.

So, chalk up another win-win for the Superiority of Western Civilization competitive free-market economics.

What are you basing this on? People born in USA are American, and not Scandinavians. This seems to be a concept Americans, in general, find confusing. At the beginning of the 20'th century USA was the Saudi Arabia of the world. This boosted it's economy monumentally. Something they're still cashing in on. Scandinavian decedents already established in USA during this period will of course have gotten a taste of that money.

That oil money entered into the American economy at a period of industrial expansion. So it's very hard to calculate exactly how much it helped. Most likely it was a synergistic effect.

So just attributing it to free trade is a bit silly. Saudi Arabia is also a rich country. Yet, it sucks to live there and their economy is in shambles. So chalk it up to a win for autocratic monarchies? No? Just being wealthy isn't alone evidence that you're doing it right.

Swedes often make fun of Norway as the last soviet state. Since their bureaucracy is hopelessly inefficient and it sucks balls to start a company there. Yet Norway is rich, and Swedes go there to work if they want to make a quick buck. So chalk it up to a win for socialism. No? Perhaps another win for just getting free money out of the ground?

It's like you're arguing that winning the lottery is proof of some sort of inbound excellence or great character trait, or that you're doing it right. Any moron can win the lottery. It's not evidence of anything.

Here's a country that's cool, Japan. They have fuck all natural resources but are still doing alright. That is well done.

 

[DBT]

Are they? Has there been a study done or polls taken? Just curious as to where the information comes from.

First I should correct my wording: U.S. Scandinavians are overall better off / happier than Scandinavian Scandinavians. That's more precise.

The claim pops up here and there:

As shown in the picture below, the living standard of the descendants of Scandinavians living in America is considerably higher than their cousins in Scandinavia. We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these figures, since household composition may differ, but there is prima facie evidence that Scandinavians who move to the US are significantly better off than those who stay at home.
https://capx.co/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-2-culture-matters/

There's plenty of this. They tend to have some good habits, work ethic, etc., and they brought this with them.

Here's another source saying the same kind of thing:

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...ndinavian-americans-and-their-ancestral-lands
According to a study from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Swedish-Americans are considerably richer than the average American—as are other Scandinavian-Americans. The poverty rate of Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the national average. Swedish-Americans are better off even than their cousins at home: their average income is 50% higher than theirs, a number used by opponents of the Swedish model as an argument against the shackles of big government.

Most of these immigrants (immigrant descendants) are from several generations back, before the current socialist policies of those countries. So it's not due to any good traits they picked up from the modern socialist / egalitarian political systems. It's more a cultural element from much earlier.

It doesn't seem like a fair comparison to me, the Scandinavians that Emigrated to the US may have been exceptionally driven to succeed in a more highly Capitalistic environment, having the makeup and skills to do well in Business, a kind of aptitude and skills filter that not everyone can manage to negotiate regardless of the opportunity.

 

[DrZoidberg]

First I should correct my wording: U.S. Scandinavians are overall better off / happier than Scandinavian Scandinavians. That's more precise.

The claim pops up here and there:

As shown in the picture below, the living standard of the descendants of Scandinavians living in America is considerably higher than their cousins in Scandinavia. We cannot draw definitive conclusions from these figures, since household composition may differ, but there is prima facie evidence that Scandinavians who move to the US are significantly better off than those who stay at home.
https://capx.co/scandinavian-unexceptionalism-2-culture-matters/

There's plenty of this. They tend to have some good habits, work ethic, etc., and they brought this with them.

Here's another source saying the same kind of thing:

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...ndinavian-americans-and-their-ancestral-lands
According to a study from the Institute of Economic Affairs, Swedish-Americans are considerably richer than the average American—as are other Scandinavian-Americans. The poverty rate of Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7%, half the national average. Swedish-Americans are better off even than their cousins at home: their average income is 50% higher than theirs, a number used by opponents of the Swedish model as an argument against the shackles of big government.

Most of these immigrants (immigrant descendants) are from several generations back, before the current socialist policies of those countries. So it's not due to any good traits they picked up from the modern socialist / egalitarian political systems. It's more a cultural element from much earlier.

It doesn't seem like a fair comparison to me, the Scandinavians that Emigrated to the US may have been exceptionally driven to succeed in a more highly Capitalistic environment, having the makeup and skills to do well in Business, a kind of aptitude and skills filter that not everyone can manage to negotiate regardless of the opportunity.

Sweden/Scandinavia at the end of the 19'th century was one of the poorest most backward countries on the planet. When they arrived in America they sucked. As any new immigrant group does. Scandinavians in USA weren't exceptional in any way. I checked.

Scandinavian innovation has to do with a trend in scientific research coupled with socialism. Yes, socialism. The socialist unions invested heavily in educating it's workforce. That led to an explosion of innovation, that brought us stuff like Alfred Nobel, Tetra Pak and Alpha Laval. But the Scandinavians who emigrated to USA would have done that before any of this happened. Or they would have come from the country and not taken part in this. So they might as well have come from another planet.

So win for socialism? No, it's not that easy.

The truth is simply that there are just too many factors to pin down exactly what's going on. It's mostly about timing and doing the right thing at the right time. And what is the right thing at the right time changes over time. Saying that a libertarian free market is always better is idiotic. As is any one-size fits all solution to any social problem.