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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Adam smith (the 18thc century thinker, not the poly poster) insisted it was govt duty to maintain order, and protect life and property. As did Locke, IIUC. Youre confusing market capitalism and a state of nature. |
You are falling into the libertarian trap of identifying Adam Smithes writings with the definition of capitalism, rather than a description of existing capitalism and his ideas on how to make it work better. MosesPresley is actually correct, what is going on here is the same thing those who became the first capitalists engaged in, theft and piracy. Of course, these people won't accumulate anywhere near enough to start new businesses.
Moses, by 10, Pekka was referring to the title of the thread, "10 scariest words in English."
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 01-09-2005 at 21:33
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MosesPresley
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Moses, by 10, Pekka was referring to the title of the thread, "10 scariest words in English." |
quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
Adam smith (the 18thc century thinker, not the poly poster) insisted it was govt duty to maintain order, and protect life and property. As did Locke, IIUC. Youre confusing market capitalism and a state of nature.
Which is NOT to defend absolute market capitalism in all its manifestations. But lets criticize it for what it is, not for what it isnt. |
"The govenment's duty is to maintain order, and protect life and property."
I can definitely agree with that. Now we have to ask a question. What serves public order better and by extension protects life and private property? Government subsidized social services can be provided without regard to a monetary return on investment.
Privately run social services are largely unprofitable, so there is little incentive for the private sector to provide them. Public transportation is a good example of this. Almost all mass transit must be subsidized by the government.
If you don't provide needed services to the poor, they become embittered and desperate. This leads to disorder such as violent crime, vandalism and riots. Crime and riots kill people and damage property. By providing necessary services, we can maintain order and protect life and property.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
quote:
Adam smith (the 18thc century thinker, not the poly poster) insisted it was govt duty to maintain order, and protect life and property. As did Locke, IIUC. Youre confusing market capitalism and a state of nature. |
You are falling into the libertarian trap of identifying Adam Smithes writings with the definition of capitalism, rather than a description of existing capitalism and his ideas on how to make it work better. MosesPresley is actually correct, what is going on here is the same thing those who became the first capitalists engaged in, theft and piracy. Of course, these people won't accumulate anywhere near enough to start new businesses
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What those who became the first capitalists engaged in as their first accumulation, was not necessarily capitalism. Youre identifying capitalism with all exploitation, whereas even Marx would consider capitalism only one form of exploitation.
Market capitalism relies on some security to property, which is why, as Marx documented, capitalism developed along side the centralized state, and not in the conditions of early feudalism. Riot and looting are not conditions associated with security of property.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by MosesPresley
"The govenment's duty is to maintain order, and protect life and property."
I can definitely agree with that. Now we have to ask a question. What serves public order better and by extension protects life and private property? Government subsidized social services can be provided without regard to a monetary return on investment.
Privately run social services are largely unprofitable, so there is little incentive for the private sector to provide them. Public transportation is a good example of this. Almost all mass transit must be subsidized by the government.
If you don't provide needed services to the poor, they become embittered and desperate. This leads to disorder such as violent crime, vandalism and riots. Crime and riots kill people and damage property. By providing necessary services, we can maintain order and protect life and property. |
I dont necessarily disagree with you that a welfare state, properly managed, is an efficient way to maintain social order, and is in the self interest of property, when that self interest is correctly considered.
What i was taking issue with was this
"This is market politics at it's most basic level. The law interfering in the local situation is a good example of government interference with the freedom of the local markets. "
Govt interference to defend property rights is NOTan example of interference with freedom of local markets. It is the sine qua non for the EXISTENCE of local markets.
A market, by definition, is an institution where items are EXCHANGED. Some exchanges are freer than others, some are fairer than others. But looting is NOT an exchange. And yes, seizing of land from natives is not an exchange either, nor is seizure of goods by some medieval free lance knight who goes on to become a capitalist (though I think CG is confused on the social origins of the first capitalists in West europe)
NOT everything that happens in a capitalist society is a market exchange. Capitalist societies include markets, but they include much else as well.
CG - have you ever read Ferdinand Braudel - hes very good (and a Marxist, of sorts) on some of these distinctions. See Wheels of Commerce from his Material Civilization and Capitalism.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Nope, haven't read Braudel yet.
BTW, the media is starting to take up some of my criticisms, albeit without the direct attack on conservatism. But they are now saying this was a predicted catastrpphe and asking why the goverment did nothing about it beforehand.  They are also noting that the government is refusing to answer.
It's a shame it takes a disaster of this magnitude for the media to actually remember its job.
What floored me though, is the media is actually talking about race & class!  Conservative Slate magazine was even the first to raise this issue in the mainstream media. |
Slate magazine isnt conservative. It presents a wide range of views - it includes neoliberal Kaus, liberal kinsley, a range of liberals, centrists, and impossible to categorize Hitchens. If youre talking about a US political mag, its best to use US lexicon, or youll confuse people.
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:37
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The thing that is suprising me is how little it seems that people are banding together to assist each other. If 20,000 people are in a place, I'm assuming that between them they could wrap 5 or 6 bodies and put them somewhere.
With the reported rapes and violence in places with a LOT of people , is it that they are just so cowed by aggressive people with guns??
I understand breaking into stores for food and water so I don't even consider that to be lawlessness but it seems the reports are indicating widespread violence-- I would have thought there would be enogh "average folks" to forcibly dissuade that behavior
Also, the pictures I see of NO in particular show large chunks of the city that now appear to be above water and without major damages. Is there no one there with some stores of food.... because I haven't heard much in the way of positive stories from among the victims themselves. very little about victim helping victim or people taking positive steps to improve their lot.
At a very basic level, I wonder if you boil the water would it be acceptable ( I appreciate it might increase the risk of cancer or something). Don't anyone have gas barbecues that work??
and before anyone jumps on me, I am not blaming the victims at all-- they have undergone a major shock and injuries-- I'm just suprised that there have not been more indications of people banding together to help each other out. For all I know it might just be that the media is not stressing those elements
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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The media is too scared to get in there. I hate to say it, but even before reports of violence and what not, they were too scared to hang around lower class blacks. That's just my guess though.
quote:
At a very basic level, I wonder if you boil the water would it be acceptable ( I appreciate it might increase the risk of cancer or something) |
I would say no. That water has oil and sewage in it.
I'd drink my own piss first.
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 02-09-2005 at 05:22
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MOBIUS
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Prifysgol Caerdydd
Dec 1999
time: 15:37
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People are going to try their best to avoid reading this unless I post it in full...
quote:
"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
By Sidney Blumenthal
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
An aerial view of the New Orleans airport underwater.
Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."
"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.
On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London. |
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Guynemer
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Christ no.
I wouldn't necessarily describe Slate as liberal (Salon, definitely), but it is most assuredly NOT conservative.
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Rufus T. Firefly
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is one way of saying it, though I prefer "mensch"
Sep 2000
time: 07:37
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The only articles I ever saw quoted from Slate were always conservative. I made an assumption that they were the anti-Salon. |
No, they're actually pretty liberal in the sense that I just described. They're relentlessly anti-Bush, for one thing; they're also highly critical of corporate malfeasance and fairly environmentalist (though much more in the Sierra Club/Nature Conservancy mode than the Earth First/PETA mode). The founding editor, Michael Kinlsey, left The New Republic for Slate when TNR moved right and became the house organ for the DLC. It's politics are well to the right of yours, but it's a pretty interesting and thoughtful magazine. I read it and Salon daily, and find them very similar, though Salon is obviously farther left.
EDIT: Per Guynemer's comment, above, I would describe Slate as liberal and Salon as progressive.
Last edited by Rufus T. Firefly on 02-09-2005 at 05:45
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01-09-2005 19:29
I wanna see the look on Rush's face when she wins.
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