Young Americans Reject Capitalism

[SimpleDon]

No, relieving people of a portion of their previous obligation to support the government, providing them with free what they previously had to pay for and suppressing the wages of others to provide more income from the profits generated by the wage suppression are redistributions of income.

There is ample evidence of capitalism's tendency to concentrate the income and the wealth generated by the economy in progressively fewer hands to establish that demand must be supported and income and wealth must be redistributed from the rich to everyone else. Or else income and wealth inequality keeps growing, as has happened over the last thirty five years in the US.

??? How do you know a person suppressed another's wages? Seems like you're inventing a self-righteous excuse to take from someone who has been more successful than you. I guess with enough mental exercises you can justify anything. But please don't dress up your envy as moral or fair.

I didn't say that one person suppressed another's wages. I said a lot of things, please re-read my post and try to address something that I did say.

It isn't very impressive for you to argue this, especially when you spin off hyperbolically into my supposed self-righteousness proven by something that I didn't say.

Perhaps an example would help. I did say that capitalism tends to to concentrate income and wealth into progressively fewer and fewer hands. Do you disagree with this?

Perhaps you believe that capitalism, left on its own, without intentional redistribution of income and intentional demand support tends to do the opposite, that it tends to increase wages and to decrease profits.

This is a really difficult position to take but I see no alternative to it to argue that we should set our tax rates and wage policies to intentionally boost the incomes of the rich.

I will provide you with more that I really say for you to actually dispute. So you don't have to keep inventing things that I didn't say.

It has been the policy of the US government to suppress the wages of the non-rich in order to increase the incomes of the rich for thirty five years.

The father of supply side economics, Robert Mundell, didn't see wage suppression or deregulation as part of his theory. His supply side economics theory had two main principles, lower marginal tax rates, lowering taxes, largely the taxes on the rich, and monetary stability, either a return to the gold standard or a gold standard like anchored dollar, operating the economy as if the dollar's value was tied to the value of gold, meaning tight money, high interest rates all of the time, and fixed exchange rates.

The fact that he is a gold bug should give you some idea of the veracity of the rest of his theories. Economists from across the spectrum agree that the gold standard would be destructive for the economy.

Movement conservatism took half of the theory, lowering taxes on the rich but keeping loose money and adding the fantasy of the Laffer curve of lowering taxes producing more revenue than was lost because the rich would work harder, and combining it with long standing conservative goals, breaking the unions, eliminating the minimum wage, deregulation, the free movement of capital across borders, free trade, accepting higher unemployment to better control inflation, and slowly rolling back and wounding the New Deal and the Great Society redistributive programs, Social Security, Medicare, welfare, etc., and bundled them together into the political economics of what we call supply side economics or Reaganomics.

The net result of all of this was to suppress wages of the non-rich by undercutting their wage negotiating strength, globalization to force them to compete with low wages in the developing world, and the removal of the Keynesian demand supports, that is, redistribution.

The direct results of these policies are the ever increasing income inequality, high budget deficits, lower demand, lower business investment, the doubling of corporate profits, stagnant wages, repeated asset bubbles, financial sector malfeasance, financial market instability and the Great Financial Crisis and Recession of 2007/10.

I await your response.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The biggest problem capitalism is that it's too successful.

true

Delivering goods to consumers is what capitalism is about.

So capitalists just want to distribute resources to the masses. So why don't they just do that? Why doesn't Toyota just run a fleet a car carriers down the street and drop Priuses off at every driveway and parking lot?

It's also interesting, that we see commercials that show starving people around the around and they say, just give a cup of coffee a day. But yet, what really gets people out of poverty is jobs,

Not necessarily. Prisoners have jobs. They get paid. Yet not one of them has ever walked out of prison rich or even out of poverty (unless that was how they were when they walked in)

we can't let them have jobs because they aren't American.

So now jobs are gifts we give to poor people?

 

[dismal]

??? How do you know a person suppressed another's wages? Seems like you're inventing a self-righteous excuse to take from someone who has been more successful than you. I guess with enough mental exercises you can justify anything. But please don't dress up your envy as moral or fair.

I didn't say that one person suppressed another's wages.

I, myself, am an admitted serial wage-suppressor. I suppress people's wages on a daily basis.

Yesterday at lunch I suppressed someone's wages by not emptying the contents of my wallet and maxing out my credit card on someone's tip.

Earlier today I drove past multiple Starbucks without stopping to empty the contents of my wallet and maxing out my credit cards into the tip jar.

I may have even driven by a haircut place and not gone in, thereby to some extent suppressing the wages of all in the establishment.

So, yes, I am an incorrigible wage suppressor, but in fairness most to the billions of people on earth also go about their day failing to empty their wallets and bank accounts into mine.

 

[angelo]

Capitalism depends on people spending money. You're not playing by the rules!

 

[Horatio Parker]

What's not to love?

Lawmakers in dozens of states have sought to preempt local employment laws of all kinds, from minimum wages to paid sick leave laws to anti-discrimination protections in the workplace.

Preemption has started to draw more attention in the past year. But this is no newfangled innovation. Statehouse preemptors have been putting thumbs in local eyes for more than a decade. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) “Living Wage Mandate Preemption Act” model legislation has been kicking around back rooms since the early 2000s.

For almost as long, states have been barring local communities from forcing corporate interests to shift money from shareholders to workers. Florida barred its towns and counties from hiking wages all the way back in 2003, a full decade before New York City fast food workers walked off the job and launched the Fight for $15.

From 2011 to 2013, lawmakers in 31 states introduced 105 bills drafted by the corporate interests behind ALEC designed to chip away at wage standards at state and local levels. Few became law.

But since low-wage workers’ protests erupted into a national campaign with a long and growing string of victories under its belt, the idea of circumventing local democracy with preemption measures has started to take off. The similar, parallel momentum behind state and local paid sick leave laws prompted a similar backlash.

Arizona adopted a preemption bill in 2013, but had it struck down in state court last year. That hasn’t stopped tantrum-minded conservatives from trying to manipulate local decisionmakers: Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has promised to retaliate against cities that raise their wage floors by denying them state funding.

Nor has it discouraged other lawmakers. Michigan adopted the idea last year. Missouri too, over Gov. Jay Nixon’s (D) veto. Virginia Gov. Terry McCauliffe (D) successfully vetoed a wage preemption law this spring. New Mexico, Washington, and Idaho all saw lawmakers flirt with the idea too.

And this spring, lawmakers pulled a fast one in Alabama. Birmingham, its most populous city, decided to slowly raise its minimum wage to $10.10 over an almost two-year glide. But even that amount – equivalent to what the federal minimum wage used to buy in the late 1970s, before Reaganism and supply-side thinking let inflation swallow its buying power and doom millions of working families to deep poverty – so pissed off state leaders that they passed a preemption law in a legislative sprint this Winter.

Now, the state’s working class is fighting back in court. A lawsuit filed Thursday against Gov. Robert Bentley (R) argues that keeping minimum wage levels down in the poverty zone in such a deeply black, deeply poor state violates the Constitution.

http://readersupportednews.org/opin...erica-from-a-15-minimum-wage-what-happens-now

 

[dismal]

Capitalism depends on people spending money. You're not playing by the rules!

Oh, I spend money.

 

[fromderinside]

Oh, I spend money.

Wow. So you're one of those. Make no money so instead of giving a decent tip you lecture on the pitfalls of getting hand up, then claim to a 'friend' it was the attempt at tip that cleaned out your wallet when its actually you're just a burger flipper.

Its so vivid.

 

[dismal]

Oh, I spend money.

Wow. So you're one of those. Make no money so instead of giving a decent tip you lecture on the pitfalls of getting hand up, then claim to a 'friend' it was the attempt at tip that cleaned out your wallet when its actually you're just a burger flipper.

Its so vivid.

I am a very generous tipper. So, wrong.

Also, go fuck yourself. How's that for vivid.

 

[angelo]

In many parts of the world some people in the service industry live off the tips . no tips no income.

 

[dismal]

In many parts of the world some people in the service industry live off the tips . no tips no income.

Since some clarification seems to be necessary:

I did not say I didn't tip the server at lunch, I said I did not empty the entire contents of my wallet and max out my credit cards and tip her that, thereby suppressing her wages.

Admittedly, however, I did not tip the people in the Starbucks and haircut places I drove by at all. It did not seem appropriate as I did not go into their store and they did not serve me.

 

[fromderinside]

Many states in the US permit wages as low as $2.60/hr for tip professions. Here in Argon tip professions must pay full minimum wage and businesses are not allowed to take a fraction of tip money.

 

[bilby]

We have plenty of minimum wage threads; and MW is tangential to the point.

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It cannot work well in the absence of an equally robust system to distribute money from those who have it to those who need it, usually and ideally in exchange for work (which is one of the few resources poor people have available).

If either of these processes is allowed to dominate the other, then we run into problems.

And for several decades, the major western economies have been suppressing the latter in favour of the former - and as things get less and less pleasant, they have doubled-down on their insistence that only the former is necessary, and that any problems we see are due to not enough effort to cut tax, boost profits, and reduce wages.

 

[untermensche]

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It is a system of forced servitude in directions set out by the "masters" (owners of resources) in other words.

All things are commodified, including freedom. You only have as much as you can afford.

 

[arkirk]

We have plenty of minimum wage threads; and MW is tangential to the point.

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It cannot work well in the absence of an equally robust system to distribute money from those who have it to those who need it, usually and ideally in exchange for work (which is one of the few resources poor people have available).

If either of these processes is allowed to dominate the other, then we run into problems.

And for several decades, the major western economies have been suppressing the latter in favour of the former - and as things get less and less pleasant, they have doubled-down on their insistence that only the former is necessary, and that any problems we see are due to not enough effort to cut tax, boost profits, and reduce wages.

The system is inefficient and wasteful and you know it. It is environmentally not sustainable in that it requires growth at all times to remain viable. It also in anti democratic and places ownership of either money or resources about human needs. It can be a winner because it has no morality except profit. But that leaves society a loser.

 

[coloradoatheist]

We have plenty of minimum wage threads; and MW is tangential to the point.

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It cannot work well in the absence of an equally robust system to distribute money from those who have it to those who need it, usually and ideally in exchange for work (which is one of the few resources poor people have available).

If either of these processes is allowed to dominate the other, then we run into problems.

And for several decades, the major western economies have been suppressing the latter in favour of the former - and as things get less and less pleasant, they have doubled-down on their insistence that only the former is necessary, and that any problems we see are due to not enough effort to cut tax, boost profits, and reduce wages.

Yes and no. Capitalism adjusts to what is out there, it's always fluid, and sometimes takes a bit to recover. We have come to believe that if one person loses a job then the federal government must do something about it and their swings become worse.

And we've gotten to a point where our financial system is so important because we are trying to get to a point where almost half or more of your life is not spent working.

 

[bilby]

We have plenty of minimum wage threads; and MW is tangential to the point.

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It cannot work well in the absence of an equally robust system to distribute money from those who have it to those who need it, usually and ideally in exchange for work (which is one of the few resources poor people have available).

If either of these processes is allowed to dominate the other, then we run into problems.

And for several decades, the major western economies have been suppressing the latter in favour of the former - and as things get less and less pleasant, they have doubled-down on their insistence that only the former is necessary, and that any problems we see are due to not enough effort to cut tax, boost profits, and reduce wages.

The system is inefficient and wasteful and you know it.

Sure it is. But it is dramatically less inefficient than all of the alternatives, so it's what we have to work with.

It is environmentally not sustainable in that it requires growth at all times to remain viable.

It doesn't; and even if it did, that's OK - because economic growth is not what you think it is. But I am 100% unsurprised that you decided to trot out this tired propaganda line of the tree-hugger, anti-human movement.

It also in anti democratic and places ownership of either money or resources about human needs.

It is silent on the question of democracy; and it is only about human needs. So you are wrong again.

It can be a winner because it has no morality except profit. But that leaves society a loser.

The economy is a tool. Tools don't dictate what they are used to achieve; capitalism isn't immoral, it is amoral.

You might as well rail against screwdrivers and spanners, because they can be used to build bombs. But then, I wouldn't be too surprised if you did.

 

[bilby]

We have plenty of minimum wage threads; and MW is tangential to the point.

Capitalism is a system whereby those with resources can distribute them efficiently to those who need them, in exchange for money.

It cannot work well in the absence of an equally robust system to distribute money from those who have it to those who need it, usually and ideally in exchange for work (which is one of the few resources poor people have available).

If either of these processes is allowed to dominate the other, then we run into problems.

And for several decades, the major western economies have been suppressing the latter in favour of the former - and as things get less and less pleasant, they have doubled-down on their insistence that only the former is necessary, and that any problems we see are due to not enough effort to cut tax, boost profits, and reduce wages.

Yes and no. Capitalism adjusts to what is out there, it's always fluid, and sometimes takes a bit to recover. We have come to believe that if one person loses a job then the federal government must do something about it and their swings become worse.

And we've gotten to a point where our financial system is so important because we are trying to get to a point where almost half or more of your life is not spent working.

When far more than half of the work is done by machines, why do we need to spend anything close to half of our lives working?

The mean productivity of a pre-agricultural human was enough to keep the tribe alive, and to carry a few children and retirees who couldn't hunt or gather.

Today's global productivity per capita is vastly higher, and is easily enough to carry everyone through half a lifetime of non-productive work.

We don't need to do anything more to be able to afford this, other than tweak the system to distribute the wealth more evenly. But instead the system is being driven in the opposite direction.

 

[rousseau]

The system is inefficient and wasteful and you know it.

Sure it is. But it is dramatically less inefficient than all of the alternatives, so it's what we have to work with.

It is environmentally not sustainable in that it requires growth at all times to remain viable.

It doesn't; and even if it did, that's OK - because economic growth is not what you think it is. But I am 100% unsurprised that you decided to trot out this tired propaganda line of the tree-hugger, anti-human movement.

It also in anti democratic and places ownership of either money or resources about human needs.

It is silent on the question of democracy; and it is only about human needs. So you are wrong again.

It can be a winner because it has no morality except profit. But that leaves society a loser.

The economy is a tool. Tools don't dictate what they are used to achieve; capitalism isn't immoral, it is amoral.

You might as well rail against screwdrivers and spanners, because they can be used to build bombs. But then, I wouldn't be too surprised if you did.

I don't think either of you are saying fundamentally different things.

On the one hand, capitalism works but needs to be enrobed in an effective redistribution strategy. On the other hand, the spirit of capitalism alone is greed.

One thing that I think is pertinent is that the US has become a hell-hole relative to more social nations because of their economic implementation, and so the typical American is just generally angry at the framework in which they live. A lot of it isn't pure reason about what capitalism actually is, it's frustration over the threat of going bankrupt because you bumped your head.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yes and no. Capitalism adjusts to what is out there, it's always fluid, and sometimes takes a bit to recover. We have come to believe that if one person loses a job then the federal government must do something about it and their swings become worse.

And we've gotten to a point where our financial system is so important because we are trying to get to a point where almost half or more of your life is not spent working.

When far more than half of the work is done by machines, why do we need to spend anything close to half of our lives working?

The mean productivity of a pre-agricultural human was enough to keep the tribe alive, and to carry a few children and retirees who couldn't hunt or gather.

Today's global productivity per capita is vastly higher, and is easily enough to carry everyone through half a lifetime of non-productive work.

We don't need to do anything more to be able to afford this, other than tweak the system to distribute the wealth more evenly. But instead the system is being driven in the opposite direction.

We are spreading the wealth. Axulus can get numbers but close to a billion have been lifted out of poverty around the world.

As we get more items, we want more items. If we wanted what we could purchase in the 60s we would. But who wants 60s cars, 60s health care, 60s entertainment, we don't.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yes and no. Capitalism adjusts to what is out there, it's always fluid, and sometimes takes a bit to recover. We have come to believe that if one person loses a job then the federal government must do something about it and their swings become worse.

And we've gotten to a point where our financial system is so important because we are trying to get to a point where almost half or more of your life is not spent working.

When far more than half of the work is done by machines, why do we need to spend anything close to half of our lives working?

The mean productivity of a pre-agricultural human was enough to keep the tribe alive, and to carry a few children and retirees who couldn't hunt or gather.

Today's global productivity per capita is vastly higher, and is easily enough to carry everyone through half a lifetime of non-productive work.

We don't need to do anything more to be able to afford this, other than tweak the system to distribute the wealth more evenly. But instead the system is being driven in the opposite direction.

We have the problem that we actually want to do something with our time off and that requires the resources to do it.