22-04-2004 00:03									#91
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quote: The problem is that it isn't really an intellectually coherent doctrine

Communism? Yes, I agree .

quote: The law, at any rate, does not recognize full ownership rights over one's body

The law does not recognize a full (ie, inalienable) right to life either, because you can always choose not to be put on life support (right to not be forced to accept medical treatment).

	22-04-2004 00:24									#92
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God I love these debates!

Yep....the revolution is coming folks!

Just as soon as all our production is done by space bots on the dark side of the moon, and we siphon the limitless energy of the stars and can zip around in teleporter pads scattered throughout the galaxy.

Stay tuned....I'm sure it's right around the corner...

-=Vel=-

(that's the cute, cuddly thing about the Reds....when you attack previous attempts at the Revolution, they whine that those weren't "real" communism--communism Lite, maybe?--, and then whip out the paper theories of how it's supposed to be, when we get to the point where everything's free, blah blah blah....no proof mind you....none needed, right? Yeah).

	22-04-2004 00:25									#93
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And since the revolution is so close to fruition, perhaps we could suggest that all the Commies hold their breaths and wait for it?

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 01:08									#94
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Thus I am refuted.

	22-04-2004 02:48									#95
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quote: Originally posted by Velociryx And since the revolution is so close to fruition, perhaps we could suggest that all the Commies hold their breaths and wait for it? -=Vel=-

Who said it is close?Anyone? Please quote freely.

quote: Uh, DUH! That's the situation we're talking about.

You failed to answer the question about you owning a CD factory. Why should the owners of fancy factories churning out these goods not want to make a return on their business? They wouldn't give the goods out for free-how then do they recoup their investments?

They would not sell their good for free-but for a proleteriat no longer able to sell their labor, how do they survive? And if they start giving out the goods for free-what benefit do they gain from ownership of the factory?

	22-04-2004 02:50									#96
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Ohhh, I dunnno....J. Stalin maybe? You know...big Daddy Red himself?

We've been breathlessly awaiting the looming revolution for...oh....about a century now.



-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 02:50									#97
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quote: Who said it is close?

Well monkspider continues to assert, very seriously, that a Communist revolution will come about by 2020.

	22-04-2004 02:52									#98
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Well, then Vel should take it up with Monk.

	22-04-2004 02:57									#99
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Vel don't need to, truthfully.

The Red Pony is dead.

The revolution was tried.

It failed.

It was tried some more.

Still failed.

Was tried some more

Yep. Still failed.

And there's always excuses.

Everything from "well, it can't work on a micro level, but only globally" (which is strange because, you know, every other system in the world that works is scalable from little to big), to "oh! But THAT attempt wasn't *really* communism" (interesting tho, that the leaders of the various (failed) revolutions were quick to call it such), to "oh well see, we first need to put space bots on the moon and then...."

Uh huh.

Insanity is doing the same $hit over and over again and expecting different results.

Wake up and smell the coffee...

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:04									#100
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Sorry Vel, but the "revolution" was not tried.

What was done is groups calling themselves the revolutionary vanguard took control of the political system and installed a statis socialist system to speed up the development of the means of production until true communism could be achieved.

What failed was the idea that though political control the economy could reach the necessary stage to allow for the revolution. BUt the notion that the capitalist system is planting the seeds of its eventual destruction have NOT been answered in any significant was yet.

Care to try?

	22-04-2004 03:07									#101
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Those vanguard revolutionaries are the ones that wrote most of the books you folks preach from.

That's like going into a church and saying that religion has yet to be tried.

Let's see, it was attempted in:

The Soviet Union (spectacular success, as I'm sure you'll agree)

China (started doing better when they began embracing....:: gasp!:: capitalistic ideals

Cuba (an afterthought. hanging on by their fingernails)

and about a gazillion other little tin pot dictatorial $hitholes around the world.

Resounding successes?

None.

Failures?

Plenty.

Care to try?

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:11									#102
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Oh and yes. There is little doubt that the existing system sows the seeds for its own (eventual) demise.

That's hardly revolutionary thinking. History demonstrates as much (how many feudal societies are left today and why'd they fail?)

The rest of his largely incoherent ramblings tho, have about as much merit as me trying to hold a conversation on Quantum Mechanics or something else I know beans about.

So yeah....Capitalism will eventually undo itself.

Forgive me if I've a hard time believing that the one and only POSSIBLE result of that will be the glorious revolution.

Of all the possibile futures, that one ain't EVEN on the RADAR.

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:12									#103
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arrgh.

Marx does not call for a revolutionary vanguard. Lenin did. Perhaps you forget the Menshevik, Bolshevik split?

Notice how you point out where it was tried: in poor, undeveloped states. Which certainly were NOT the places in which the means of production have reached their zenith and capitalism has reached the height of its productivity.

Again, so you get it:

Capitalism is laying the seeds of its own destrcution-communism, at least as Marx frist envsioned it, can only occur after Capitalism has reached its peak-hence, trying to build communism in some backwards non-industrialized state is bound to fail.

So again, care to try to answer why Capitalism is NOT laying the seeds of it's won destruction just as Feudalism and Mercantalism did?

	22-04-2004 03:12									#104
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quote: BUt the notion that the capitalist system is planting the seeds of its eventual destruction have NOT been answered in any significant was yet.

Marx's lack of foresight about the growth of the middle class (making there more than just 2 classes) seems to throw a massive wrench in anything else he states.

	22-04-2004 03:14									#105
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We do not know if the development of a "middle class" is a temporary event or not.

And even with a middle class, it does not preclude massive changes to the economic system. The system can;t survive solely on services-everyone giving everyone else a haircut won't work.

	22-04-2004 03:15									#106
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Capitalism is an open ended system

here's something that might shock you.

it will never....I repeat, NEVER reach a "zenith."

That being the case, the revolution as described BY YOU just now, cannot occur.

Get it?

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:21									#107
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In the 1890's, everyone was saying that "Science" had reached a zeinith too.

Nothing left to discover, and boy howdy did we just have the whole universe figured out.

And of course, since then, that's been proved to be entirely correct, yes?

I mean, nothing of any real import has been discovered since then, right?

But hey! If you wanna hold your breath till the revolution arrives.....be my guest.



-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:21									#108
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Sorry, but capitalism is no more open ended that Mercantalism, or Feudalism. Feudalism lasted 600+ years. Capitalism hasn;t even got 300 on it yet-at the same time, things seem speeded up.

It boils down to the question I asked Sky: what happens when you really don't need cheap labor anymore? No need for the farmhands, or the factory workers, or the people cleaning hotel rooms, or the fry cook at the fast food place? Or perhaps even the truck drivers and so forth? What, there will be "service sector" jobs for eveyone? Everyone will be a lawyer, or a doctor? The market does not work that way.

You see, you forget-the market and capitalism are not the same thing.

	22-04-2004 03:23									#109
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quote: We do not know if the development of a "middle class" is a temporary event or not.

There will always be a need for middle managers. Besides, Marxism relies on the very simplistic assumption that the owners of business are dumb. Having just two classes (super rich and super poor) is just not good for business. In fact it couldn't arise, because someone has to buy the products.

quote: The system can;t survive solely on services-everyone giving everyone else a haircut won't work.

Who says it will have to? After all, in 1980 could you imagine the 90s computer / internet boom and the jobs that created?

	22-04-2004 03:24									#110
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Oh my God

Now THAT's funny.

Okay, you just keep riiiiiight on telling yourself that Capitalism is no more open-ended that its predecessors. I like that!

Marx got one thing right. ONE.

Eventually, capitalism will be its own undoing, just like every system that's come before it.

And when that happens, it'll be replaced by some other system.

We ain't there yet, and when we get there, if the new system bears even a *passing* resemblence to the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' I'll be more surprised than anybody.

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 03:33									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui There will always be a need for middle managers. Besides, Marxism relies on the very simplistic assumption that the owners of business are dumb. Having just two classes (super rich and super poor) is just not good for business. In fact it couldn't arise, because someone has to buy the products.

The issue is not one of having consumers-after all, at some point the state could always just give an allowance for people to buy crap-but why would business owners take on unnecessary expenses by paying people they don't need? Feudal landlords were not stupid-but in maximixing their self-interests they set up their own doom.

quote: Who says it will have to? After all, in 1980 could you imagine the 90s computer / internet boom and the jobs that created?

And many of those jobs are gone cause it was a bubble. When railroads begun a huge number of jobs were created-as the system matured less and less people worked on it-I would say that the assembly plant system made far far more jobs available than the computer boom and now industry is loosing jobs becuase they are simply not needed anymore.

	22-04-2004 03:38									#112
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quote: why would business owners take on unnecessary expenses by paying people they don't need?

Business owners have, in the past, paid their employees more, so they would be able to buy the products they produce. The most famous example is Henry Ford.

quote: And many of those jobs are gone cause it was a bubble.

Many? More than half? I think you very greatly overstate the result of the end of the bubble, especially since we are in a general recession anyway.

	22-04-2004 03:42									#113
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The drive for profits spurs innovation.

Innovation spurs new product development.

New product development spurs new facilities development (ie - it creates jobs), and creates or fills new markets (ie people buy stuff)

All products have this thing called a life cycle.

That means they don't last forever.

It was sad when the last US horse and buggy manufacturer went out of business (note - actually they haven't), but it happens. That was the end of the line for that particular product's life cycle.

Meanwhile, new stuff is being created, and there's an incentive to do that in Capitalism that does not require putting a gun to someone's head and ordering him to innovate or his family gets sent to the nearest Gulag without passing Go, and without collecting two hundred dollars.

The Red system(s) that have been trotted out ad infinitum can't compete with that.

The only trick they got up their sleeve is brute force strongarm tactics, and I'm tellin you, creativity don't work that way.

-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 04:40									#114
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quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe That nice little infinite productivity tho' will not happen as the natural resources are limited. Hence I always love the arguement that states capitalism is raping the environment, when it is the very same conditions (only much worse) that they argue in order to enable their utopian communistic society.

Doing my Mr Fun here.

Anyone want to attempt to find a way out of this conundrum so that we can finally achieve that ohh so wonderful utopia.

	22-04-2004 05:13									#115
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Hi Og!

Nice.



-=Vel=-

	22-04-2004 05:38									#116
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Surely you can do better than this drivel, Vel. It sounds like something you read off of a corn flakes packet.

quote: The drive for profits spurs innovation.

Yes and no. Many fundamental innovations in ideas come from the university system, a system which (for the most part) does not operate on market principles. The reason is that markets for information commonly fail, so a different funding model than the market is necessary.

In some cases the drive for profits can also stifle innovation, in cases where an entrenched cartel uses its power to prevent threats from reaching the market.

Perhaps the most innovative project known to humanity, the Apollo progam, was oddly enough not a private development. Private institutions do not have the incentive to do such things, only states do.

quote: Innovation spurs new product development.

Yes, but this is not the preserve of private markets.

quote: New product development spurs new facilities development (ie - it creates jobs), and creates or fills new markets (ie people buy stuff)

Wow! So do centrally planned projects like state run healthcare or the space program or the army.

quote: Meanwhile, new stuff is being created, and there's an incentive to do that in Capitalism that does not require putting a gun to someone's head and ordering him to innovate or his family gets sent to the nearest Gulag without passing Go, and without collecting two hundred dollars.

There's an incentive in capitalism that runs "do what we say, or starve". There is no morally significant difference between killing someone and letting them die from starvation. People think there is, but that is because they confuse contingent features of the two with the things themselves.

quote: The Red system(s) that have been trotted out ad infinitum can't compete with that.

And a pure market system cannot compete with a mixed economy. A pure market system cannot deliver health care, education, defence and a plethora of other things efficiently or effectively. Markets have limits and are useless in many cases.

Don't confuse this claim with the Marxist claim that capitalism will destroy itself. When it does how do you expect people to support themselves, if the labour market no longer exists? How will you justify differential incomes if people can't sell their labour and there is no reason to pay one person more than another? That is what the end of capitalism means: either there is no market at all or there is a market, but no labour market. Either is logically sufficient for the Marxist conclusion.

quote: The only trick they got up their sleeve is brute force strongarm tactics, and I'm tellin you, creativity don't work that way.

I take it you have never lived in a country with socialist polices. I don't remember the goverment having to resort to brute force to get people to fund healthcare or pensions by taxation.

	22-04-2004 05:44									#117
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quote: Besides, Marxism relies on the very simplistic assumption that the owners of business are dumb. Having just two classes (super rich and super poor) is just not good for business. In fact it couldn't arise, because someone has to buy the products.

Actually this is false. While it is in the interests of owners to pay workers more so that they may buy one's products, there is no rational incentive to do so. It is more profitable for you as a business owner to pay your workers less and hope that everyone else pays theirs more. In that case they will buy your products because yours will be cheaper.

Of course everyone else does this too because it is a classic collective action problem. There is a collective incentive for owners to pay their workers more, but it is trumped by the individual incentive to free ride on the generosity of other employers. That's how markets work.

I agree, it's not good for business, but all that gets you is a perverse outcome (and capitalism is really good at producing those).

	22-04-2004 05:46									#118
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Then you are a fool.

Wonderful refutation, chegitz

	22-04-2004 05:51									#119
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quote: Hence I always love the arguement that states capitalism is raping the environment, when it is the very same conditions (only much worse) that they argue in order to enable their utopian communistic society

That is not the real argument. Capitalism destroys the environment because no one has an individual incentive not to do so. If you allow people to pollute or take from the commons (things like the air, rivers and water tables) without some state imposed sanction (or market correction) they will do so even if it is not in their long term interest. Again, it is a collective action problem that engenders perverse outcomes.

Right wing thinkers like Garrett Hardin use this to browbeat the left without realizing that it applies with even more force to capitalism.

Your particular fallacy is to argue that because some "socialist" societies have bad enviromental records, that all must. In fact the obverse is true - all pure capitalist societies, if operating according to market principles, will always destroy the environment because there is no incentive for anyone not to. Only a state can enact sanctions to prevent people from doing so because only a state has a monopoly on force. That doesn't mean that every state will, but that no non-state will.

	22-04-2004 05:55									#120
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo

In a thread a while back, elijah was disputing that intellectual property was property.

quote: Well, that's a crappy theory. If you can appeal to an "implicit contract" for this, why not every other social relation (thus rendering freedom of contract meaningless)?

The idea is that this is part of law because of the utility of not forcing people to sign a written contract every time you buy a CD.

quote: Who said anything about the law? Legal doesn't make it consistent with freedom of contract.

What does contract have to do with this? The only two parties are the uploader (who is already in violation of contract) and the downloader. How is it freedom of contract involved?

quote: And what's your point? Just about every contract involves an activity. Again, are prohibitions on usury as in the middle ages consistent with freedom of contract? What about inheritance, another activity?

A prohibition on murdering people is not a violation of freedom of contract. It is completely unrelated. This has nothing to do with it!

quote: So you're saying that some contracts are fine in capitalism and others are not (as in, say, communism; communists would consider their violations of freedom of contract utilitarian)? I thought you just said that capitalism was about freedom of contract?

Yes. And like everything, it admits utilitarian limitations on this freedom. That doesn't admit unlimited limitations, just limitations when the utility is great enough.