NationStates Jolt Archive

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

I'm a free-market capitalist, and believe that helping others is the individual's job, not the government. I want to direct where my money goes and ensure it is being used to help others, not just making them dependent on the government. Plus, I want to be sure the maximum percentage of my money goes to those in need, not to some bureaucrat's salary or a paper pusher or -God forbid- a Congressman.

The free market and low taxes create stronger economic growth and help people help themselves by improving economic opportunity.

Mainly because the US is a strange nation with only two major political parties... they have to be somewhere on these issues, and it just so happened that the libertarian side of things gets the shaft.

But a more ultimate reason why social conservativism is paired with free-market capitalism? Probably because both of those things are traditional in our nation. Chances are, the same people who want "everything to just be like it's always been" want it in all realms: socially as well as economically.

Remember that the median voter--the person who decides the outcome of elections--is a moron. The median voter doesn't think about anything but merely has kneejerk responses to certain "hot topic" words.

I'm a free-market capitalist, and believe that helping others is the individual's job, not the government. I want to direct where my money goes and ensure it is being used to help others, not just making them dependent on the government. Plus, I want to be sure the maximum percentage of my money goes to those in need, not to some bureaucrat's salary or a paper pusher or -God forbid- a Congressman.

The free market and low taxes create stronger economic growth and help people help themselves by improving economic opportunity.

Yep

when you allow people financial freedom, lots of good things happen:

a)More money is available for individuals to invest in companies, which helps both the companies and the investors

b)More money is available for individuals to spend buying companies' products/services, which helps the companies and individuals who were able to benefit from the products/services

Theme: individuals and companies benefit from tax breaks

If we have a responsible, but not totally socialistic, tax system, we can help those who need/deserve help without creating a welfare state of people who could work but simply don't want to... these people are counter-productive to the nation's capacity for economic gain: they don't add to the production capacity of American commerce and because they're getting other people's money, they provide opportunity cost from what the people would have bought/invested in had that money stayed in their pockets.

When you look at rich people, a 1% tax increase could mean $100,000 less in that person's pocket to spend on his business (paying employees, for instance), starting a business, investing in companies or helping others start their own companies.

Financial freedom logically creates a prosperous atmosphere for those who are willing to get out there and work. It does not allow people to become dependent on the government (read: other people's paychecks) if they don't feel like working.

Of course, we don't have perfect financial freedom -- there are hints of socialism (redistribution of wealth) in the tax/spending code to help fund our people who are on welfare. We would do well to limit the welfare state by giving able people incentives to get to work (like cutting their support after 3 months or something like that).

Ah, yes. We all know that financial freedom is better than social freedom.

:rolleyes:

Selfishness only makes others hate you more. Remember that.

I'm a free-market capitalist, and believe that helping others is the individual's job, not the government. I want to direct where my money goes and ensure it is being used to help others, not just making them dependent on the government. Plus, I want to be sure the maximum percentage of my money goes to those in need, not to some bureaucrat's salary or a paper pusher or -God forbid- a Congressman.

The free market and low taxes create stronger economic growth and help people help themselves by improving economic opportunity.
Sorry you misunderstand. I wasn't asking anyone to justify capitalism. I was asking why capitalists tend to be socially conservative?

Sorry you misunderstand. I wasn't asking anyone to justify capitalism. I was asking why capitalists tend to be socially conservative?

I, for one, think it's a religious thing.

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

Think about what generally motivates a "Social Conservative". In particular, what makes it "Socially Conservative" in the first place.

Open-Market Capitalism is a longstanding tradition in the U.S., as is religious and scoial conservatism. If we'd been into Gay marraige at the founding, it would be a Socially Conservative position to be in favour of Gay Marraige now. Likely the same folks would be on the other side of the issue. Likewise, if we'd started out as a Communist system, Social Conservatives would tend to be Communist now.

Note the word "tend" here.

Neither 100% of "Social Conservatives" support a free market, nor do 100% of free market conservatives hold with the Social Conservative groups.
One of the main motivators behind the alliance between the two positions here in the U.S. is that our locally-grown Socialist/Statist movements tend to be in favour of massive Social change-essentially attacking both Fiscal conservatism, and Social conservatism. "Values" people can't ally with the Left, because the Left in the U.S. doesn't value their views at all-often, it directly opposes them. Fiscals will at least tolerate if not support social conservatives...because neitehr group has as much backing or power as the Statist/Socialist inclined Left in this country, and both branches of "Conservatism" are under near-constant attack.

This isn't limited to party-line politics, but the Republicans as a party are much like they were in 1859, a coalition of what would be, in Europe, a diverse collection of minority parties that share some similar values-a Coalition. in Coalition politics, cross-pollination of ideas is a natural outcome-so you get prominent spokesmen who hold both Social, and Economically conservative ideas. Look at GW Bush's record as Texas Governor:

1. Signed repeal of the Mandatory Helmet law, enabling bikers to take their own risks. This is not the move of a Statist or "Social Conservative". Helmet-Laws are geared to a mindset of making you do it for your own good. Nanny-state tactics are something you find extensively both in the Left, and on the Social Conservative portion of the right.

2. Abortion wasn't even an issue in Texas. Bush didn't do anything for or against the status of the unborn in Texas while governor.
As Abortion is hot-button number one for the Social Conservative branch of the GOP...

Bush reinvented himself in 2000 to win the Republican Nomination by adopting a more "Christian" centred programme, but note at his first debate with Al Gore, when Al tried to harp on his new Abortion position, Bush stated; "The president doesn't have that power, Al."
Killing what had been planned to be an onslaught of scary-anti-abortion rhetoric, and (I watched the debate) turning mister gore an entertaining shade of purple in frustration.


"Faith Based Initiatives" come under a rather frankenstein attempt to wed the two positions. By cutting out Government middle-men, and putting the money into the hands of alleged 'volunteers', it (in theory) reduces the administrative soak-up and increases the impact of the aid money. In THEORY. This is a Fiscal Conservative (moderate) arrangement. By including Faith-based orgs, it is hoped by the Socially Conservative side, that the Faith will be strong enough to prevent "Soaking" by administrative apprati (i.e. instead of buying limos for the top brass as the United Way does, the money will be used to actually help people.)

Of course, what any cynic will tell you, is that where money and power come together, corruption soon follows.

I tend to view the "Social Conservative" branch as being one step from the Statist/Socialist branch of the other side. Both want a Nanny-State but focus on different issues to achieve it. The real dividing line is the Economic or Free Market position. VERY few on the left are willing to leave the wallet of the taxpayer somewhat alone, allow people to take their own risks and deal with the consequences of those risks on their own.

Sorry you misunderstand. I wasn't asking anyone to justify capitalism. I was asking why capitalists tend to be socially conservative?

Do you mean as in regard to moral issues or social programs?

Ah, yes. We all know that financial freedom is better than social freedom.

:rolleyes:

Selfishness only makes others hate you more. Remember that.

Social freedom doesn't really matter much when you're poor. I think you'd be more concerned about getting money than the right to gay marriage, IMHO.

In my opinion, it doesn't "go with" at all. It's a flagrant contradiction that (thankfully) keeps the most intelligent coulda-been Republicans from joining the now defunct party. Like Star Wars fandom to pussy.

:p

Social freedom doesn't really matter much when you're poor. I think you'd be more concerned about getting money than the right to gay marriage, IMHO.

Oh, is that so? Then, why is it that I'm more concerned about speaking my mind than how much money I could have?

See, I'm one of those people who could really care less about money. It's definitely a nice thing to have, but there are far more important things. Personal freedom is one of them.

In my opinion, it doesn't "go with" at all. It's a flagrant contradiction that (thankfully) keeps the most intelligent coulda-been Republicans from joining the now defunct party. Like Star Wars fandom to pussy.

:p

*tosses you another cookie*

Eat it. You earned it.

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

You do have a point here; in fact I was just grilling my brother about how his morality would or would not conflict with his capitalist ideals if somehow he was in a position of political power. Ideological conflicts can be rather hard to balance out.

That aside, what you are asking goes exactly equally for Socialists who want to garrote economic freedom but let social issues go to whatever extreme it wants. Apparently you are free to do whatever you want... as long as it doesn't involve money. Then your "freedom" evaporates because of... *ahem*... equality. :rolleyes:

EDIT: On that last bit, a very poor person has little need or would giving little thought to social issues. I mean really, would a totally homeless person give a flying fuck about who he could marry? Under a Socialist system, the strangle hold on money would quickly become a strangle hold on everything else based on the fact that your conditions and chance to exercise your social freedom is based solely on how much the government gives you.

Just an afterthought while sitting here...

That aside, what you are asking goes exactly equally for Socialists who want to garrot economic freedom but let social issues go to whatever extreme it wants. Apparently you are free to do whatever you want... as long as it doesn't involve money. Then your "freedom" evaporates because of... *ahem*... equality. :rolleyes:

That's not Socialism. That's Communism.

i don't neccessarilly think it does. after all, through the '90s, the biggest free trade advocates i can think of were the liberal canadian government and clinton (a socially liberal democrat)

i don't neccessarilly think it does. after all, through the '90s, the biggest free trade advocates i can think of were the liberal canadian government and clinton (a socially liberal democrat)

Actually, Clinton's pretty close to Center on the Social scale.

That's not Socialism. That's Communism.


I was talking about the ideology of individual people (Socialists specifically) not governments. A confusion of wording.

I was talking about the ideology of individual people (Socialists specifically) not governments. A confusion of wording.

Okay then.

I, for one, think it's a religious thing.
Then, why are capitalists more religious?

Oh, is that so? Then, why is it that I'm more concerned about speaking my mind than how much money I could have?

See, I'm one of those people who could really care less about money. It's definitely a nice thing to have, but there are far more important things. Personal freedom is one of them.
You are supported by your family who you live with, like everyone else I have heard saying words like these.

Do you mean as in regard to moral issues or social programs?
Social programmes are an economic issue. I'm referring to what is popularly known as "moral issues".

Then, why are capitalists more religious?


You are supported by your family who you live with, like everyone else I have heard saying words like these.

1: In this country, it's a tradition thing.

2: Really? Haha, more jumping to conclusions. I'm on welfare, so I'm supported by the government. And really, when I do have the chance to get a job, I'll still care more about my freedom than how much I'll make. Is it such a bad thing to care more about other things than money?

Then, why are capitalists more religious?

I don't think any honest-to-God capitalist could really be both at the same time. At least, not under any religious doctrine I'm aware of.

Money and spirit "go with" like oil n' water, don't they?

I do see it the other way around. I would ask why do social conservatives support a capitalist position? (I know this is the original question, but it has manged to be inverted in the thread)

Being conservatives they will want to keep the social conventions the way they are. Better the devil thay know than the devil they don't. But this is contradictory with the innovative drive that capitalism both requires and generates. Social conservatives would be much better of with a statist economic system where the state defines the production etc. (Call this whatever you will).

It makes no sense, unless you consider that the socially conservative tend to think in terms of class roles. (As do the socialists). If they could free themselves from this concept then the libertarian principles might have a chance.

I have no idea. Makes sense to me that the obvious opposites would be Libertarianism/Anarchy against Statism/Totalitarianism. Social + Economic freedoms versus restrictions.

It really doesn't.

However, many traditional conservatives on the social side generally appear to be on the free market side simply because they oppose taxes and social welfare. If you look deeper at these groups, they usually support trade protectionism, government aid to unions, farm and factory subsidies, and immigration controls, all of which are against free market ideas.

2: Really? Haha, more jumping to conclusions. I'm on welfare, so I'm supported by the government. And really, when I do have the chance to get a job, I'll still care more about my freedom than how much I'll make. Is it such a bad thing to care more about other things than money?
So who is this ficticious "dad" you keep referring to?

So who is this ficticious "dad" you keep referring to?

You're not "up" on my situation, are you? I think I'll just ignore you for a while.

It really doesn't.

However, many traditional conservatives on the social side generally appear to be on the free market side simply because they oppose taxes and social welfare. If you look deeper at these groups, they usually support trade protectionism, government aid to unions, farm and factory subsidies, and immigration controls, all of which are against free market ideas.
It would be wicked to see the so-called conservatives get honest with their hypothetical "values", and cut those farm and factory subsidies.

Let's just say their precious heartland fanfare would come to a screeching halt.
---------------------------------------
Swimming-- I know he's "on the other side", but he's not a bad guy. No need to get personal or anything, right? Of course, if you want to, go ahead. But I always thought you were more like the other "non-offensive" libertarian-leaning guys out there (unlike me) :D .
Not judging, just suprised.

It would be wicked to see the so-called conservatives get honest with their hypothetical "values", and cut those farm and factory subsidies.

Let's just say their precious heartland fanfare would come to a screeching halt.

Damn right it would.

But I doubt that they will ever let those God-fearing farmers make a living on their own merit. They will keep giving them money at the expense of upper middle class in suburban areas who generally have progressive views.

Damn right it would.

But I doubt that they will ever let those God-fearing farmers make a living on their own merit. They will keep giving them money at the expense of upper middle class in suburban areas who generally have progressive views.
And those corn-stuffed retards will keep eating the crapcake promises of "less taxes--smaller government" as well, while cashing those dubious agri-welfare checks.

I do see it the other way around. I would ask why do social conservatives support a capitalist position? (I know this is the original question, but it has manged to be inverted in the thread)

Being conservatives they will want to keep the social conventions the way they are. Better the devil thay know than the devil they don't. But this is contradictory with the innovative drive that capitalism both requires and generates. Social conservatives would be much better of with a statist economic system where the state defines the production etc. (Call this whatever you will).

It makes no sense, unless you consider that the socially conservative tend to think in terms of class roles. (As do the socialists). If they could free themselves from this concept then the libertarian principles might have a chance.
I agree with your point that traditional conservatives' theoretical position is contradictory. However, off the top of my head, it seems to me there's an alternative explanation to class that could be in play.

If these people are inately conservative, they will follow the dominant ideology (very loosely speaking). In moral terms, that means social conservatism as defined by 'traditional values' and the rest. In economic terms, that means a system that presents itself as capitalist (note that I am not trying to argue that we do actually live in a truly free market world, only that that is how it is presented). In my experience, most conservatives self-define as pragmatists, less interested in explicitly ideological positions, than in the 'proven' benefits of the established system they live in. They see at least sufficient benefits in it to not want to take the risk of moving to an alternative. More theoretically inclined UK Conservatives (note capitalisation) are indeed moving increasingly towards libertarian positions.

Class comes into play because those more comfortable with their self-defined class are more likely to percieve benefits in the established order. But I also think that argument can be reversed.

I think age is a factor as well. I suspect that younger free-marketeers, at least in Europe are increasingly tending towards an across-the-board libertarian approach. Older fogeys such as myself are less likely to want to question our axioms, which we like to see as well founded on experience. (To believe otherwise could undermine our self-belief.) So we settle down to our cocoa, and reflect that what we always believed to be was indeed Just So. A strong (traditional) family at home and a strong (market) economy abroad.

I agree with your point that traditional conservatives' theoretical position is contradictory. However, off the top of my head, it seems to me there's an alternative explanation to class that could be in play.

If these people are inately conservative, they will follow the dominant ideology (very loosely speaking). In moral terms, that means social conservatism as defined by 'traditional values' and the rest. In economic terms, that means a system that presents itself as capitalist (note that I am not trying to argue that we do actually live in a truly free market world, only that that is how it is presented). In my experience, most conservatives self-define as pragmatists, less interested in explicitly ideological positions, than in the 'proven' benefits of the established system they live in. They see at least sufficient benefits in it to not want to take the risk of moving to an alternative. More theoretically inclined UK Conservatives (note capitalisation) are indeed moving increasingly towards libertarian positions.

Class comes into play because those more comfortable with their self-defined class are more likely to percieve benefits in the established order. But I also think that argument can be reversed.

I think age is a factor as well. I suspect that younger free-marketeers, at least in Europe are increasingly tending towards an across-the-board libertarian approach. Older fogeys such as myself are less likely to want to question our axioms, which we like to see as well founded on experience. (To believe otherwise could undermine our self-belief.) So we settle down to our cocoa, and reflect that what we always believed to be was indeed Just So. A strong (traditional) family at home and a strong (market) economy abroad.
Wow. Great post. I'd agree with almost everything you said-- Conservatism in its most honest state seems to be about preserving the status quo. Pretty shitty predicament, if you ask me.

I'm hardly Euro (having never left the country), but I'm definitely an across-the-board libertarian on fiscal issues as well (probably more so). I'm far more excited to witness the birth of the noveau riche, rather than preserving the old-money protectionism we see at the heart of some conservative initiatives (still dishonest, deeply shrouded preservatory political Con moves here in the US, however thinly shrouded).

Economic growth and the future opportunity for the expansion of a wealthier middle/lower class are far more important to me than the preservation of the status of the trust-fund-guaranteed.

I, for one, think it's a religious thing.


It shouldn't be. Jesus is obviously a socialist, and helping others as well as not making profits is strictly spoken of in the New Testament.

It shouldn't be. Jesus is obviously a socialist, and helping others as well as not making profits is strictly spoken of in the New Testament.
I've been hearing this comment so much recently that I have to respond:

Jesus wasn't a pinko! Stop fooling yourself. To continue the cheese, I'd like to interject the following--

Like his Father, JC was a fucking libertarian.

He wanted you to give and accept because, as an individual, it would be better for everyone if you took it upon yourself, in the name of personal responsibility, to help your neighbor.

He never even hinted that the state should force you to do so. Or that you should pass the buck to any authority and absolve yourself from any moral responsibility to do so without obligation.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/btn/captain_obvious_to_the_rescue.gif

I've been hearing this comment so much recently that I have to respond:

Jesus wasn't a pinko! Stop fooling yourself. To continue the cheese, I'd like to interject the following--

Like his Father, JC was a fucking libertarian.

He wanted you to give and accept because, as an individual, it would be better for everyone if you took it upon yourself, in the name of personal responsibility, to help your neighbor.

He never even hinted that the state should force you to do so. Or that you should pass the buck to any authority and absolve yourself from any moral responsibility to do so for yourself without obligation.

Thank God someone else recognizes this! I thought I was one of the only people who believed this (after all, Christian Libertarian seems rather unusual. Usually Repub or Dem, but not me. I don't like either party).

I like the color for pinko, jolt's got a nice shade there.

Jesus wasn't libertarian he is whatever the hell i say and i say he was the Messiah Party

Thank God someone else recognizes this! I thought I was one of the only people who believed this (after all, Christian Libertarian seems rather unusual. Usually Repub or Dem, but not me. I don't like either party).

I like the color for pinko, jolt's got a nice shade there.
You'll love this (from an excellent source site too):

clickey (http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates87.html)

I agree with your point that traditional conservatives' theoretical position is contradictory. However, off the top of my head, it seems to me there's an alternative explanation to class that could be in play.

If these people are inately conservative, they will follow the dominant ideology (very loosely speaking). In moral terms, that means social conservatism as defined by 'traditional values' and the rest. In economic terms, that means a system that presents itself as capitalist (note that I am not trying to argue that we do actually live in a truly free market world, only that that is how it is presented). In my experience, most conservatives self-define as pragmatists, less interested in explicitly ideological positions, than in the 'proven' benefits of the established system they live in. They see at least sufficient benefits in it to not want to take the risk of moving to an alternative. More theoretically inclined UK Conservatives (note capitalisation) are indeed moving increasingly towards libertarian positions.

Class comes into play because those more comfortable with their self-defined class are more likely to percieve benefits in the established order. But I also think that argument can be reversed.

I think age is a factor as well. I suspect that younger free-marketeers, at least in Europe are increasingly tending towards an across-the-board libertarian approach. Older fogeys such as myself are less likely to want to question our axioms, which we like to see as well founded on experience. (To believe otherwise could undermine our self-belief.) So we settle down to our cocoa, and reflect that what we always believed to be was indeed Just So. A strong (traditional) family at home and a strong (market) economy abroad.


Hi there WH. Long time since we discussed anything. I hope the terrorist stuff has not affected you at all. I see your point about the conservative being the member of the herd, the sheep that follows the leader. However I see this playing into the desire to retain the class structure, and not just from the wealthy middle classes but also from the traditional working class. The traditional conservative is, in my view, the type of person who wants to know where he stands, and this is more important than having the opportunity to improve their position. There are plenty of traditional labourers who would respond to a question about what they would have liked to study at university with "Ay lad, tint for the likes of me tha knows." (Sorry about the caricature, but I couldn't resist it and I wonder if the Americans will understand?) For these the class structure is what makes their life manageable. They don't have to worry about which wine goes with what course, or whether they should invest in long term government bonds or high risk oil futures. Their biggest worry in life is whether their team will win on Saturday, and the health of her indoors' ma. This is the working class conservative. Now he does not want to not be working class. He wants the class structure, he has no interest in being equal to the middle management or even the upper middle classes. It is not his world. As capitalism reinforces the class structure, the gradation of society into different functions, then this working class group will be capitalist, and in my experience, the workers in traditional industry are intensely conservative and capitalist. It is the white collar worker that is generally statist. They, after all have the most to gainç. the bigger the governmennt, the more administration, the more secure their position. They consider themselves to be the equals of the entrepreneurial group, and in some cases they are.
The world is made up of risk takers and security hogs. Ideally the security hogs should seek the security of statism, but this would mean abandoning their clearly defined social role and position, as the class structure would go. So they choose to stay with what exists, with what they know, what they grew up with. They are truly conservative, and in this conserve the capitalist system.
The risk takers are much harder to understand. I suppose that there are those that simply feel that life as it is is unfair, so they look to a system that is explicitly based on equality and outcome equivalence. Thus they gravitate toward a socialist statism. It's a risk as it has never worked, but from their point of view, using their measures, capitalism has not worked either, so there is nothing to lose. Unfortunately they tend to think only in terms of results and not in terms of processes. The result of equality is necessarily a conservative process. It has to restrict change, as any change would do away with the equlaity.

Just thinking aloud.

More theoretically inclined UK Conservatives (note capitalisation) are indeed moving increasingly towards libertarian positions.

Unfortunately now, new labour and conservatives in the UK are very similar in their stances, with labour taking the tories old ground and pushing the tories further right to make themselves different.

my gripe done, i wouldn't say the tories are libertarian. they want much stricter immigration laws and less to do with europe. mind you, if libertarian is what i think it is, they do want lower taxes (claiming public servcices would be funded by cuts in beurocracy). they're hardly social libertarians though, only economic ones, if economic libertarian means less taxation but less aid to the poor.

edit: traditionally factory workers and the like have voted labour (liberal), as they are more associated with unions, strikes, poorer conditions and pay, and benefiting most from government investment in schools, hospitals, roads etc. civil servants and other better paid jobs traditionally voted tory (afaik) as they would be taxed more by a labour government.

Jesus wasn't libertarian he is whatever the hell i say and i say he was the Messiah Party
Long time no see! Well, you'd get my vote if you run for the party next election, providing you can get through the primaries bro. :D

traditionally factory workers and the like have voted labour (liberal), as they are more associated with unions, strikes, poorer conditions and pay, and benefiting most from government investment in schools, hospitals, roads etc. civil servants and other better paid jobs traditionally voted tory (afaik) as they would be taxed more by a labour government.

That is the image that the labour movement has fostered. But if you actually look at the demographics for the support for the left in the UK, it has come mostly from the support industries, education professionals, students and the unemployed. Working people have been much more prone to vote tory than Labour care to admit.

The risk takers are much harder to understand. I suppose that there are those that simply feel that life as it is is unfair, so they look to a system that is explicitly based on equality and outcome equivalence. Thus they gravitate toward a socialist statism. It's a risk as it has never worked, but from their point of view, using their measures, capitalism has not worked either, so there is nothing to lose. Unfortunately they tend to think only in terms of results and not in terms of processes. The result of equality is necessarily a conservative process. It has to restrict change, as any change would do away with the equlaity.
AB, I'd so do your mind if you, or anyone else, swung that way, or if it was a possibility! :p :fluffle:

I've been hearing this comment so much recently that I have to respond:

Jesus wasn't a pinko! Stop fooling yourself. To continue the cheese, I'd like to interject the following--

Like his Father, JC was a fucking libertarian.

He wanted you to give and accept because, as an individual, it would be better for everyone if you took it upon yourself, in the name of personal responsibility, to help your neighbor.

He never even hinted that the state should force you to do so. Or that you should pass the buck to any authority and absolve yourself from any moral responsibility to do so without obligation.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/btn/captain_obvious_to_the_rescue.gif

. . .All of which is undone by the fact that he said that you should obey the state and do what the state asks of you so long as it does not interfere with your faith (i.e. "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"). Which means that if the state decides that the best way to deal with poverty is to increase taxes, then the Christian thing to do is pay the increased taxes. Not revolt. Not secede. Not even whine to the local paper. You were asked to pay, so as a Christian you have a duty to pay.

He was also quite clear that it was an obligation of any Christian to help those who need help. Even a cursory examination of the history of libertarian economics shows that 1) the poor are hurt by libertarian policies, and 2) the number of poor increase when libertarian policies are enacted, and a cursory examination of libertarian theory shows it to be incompatible with Christianity ("You cannot serve both God and Mammon" vs. "It is not out of a spirit of generosity which we expect food from the butcher but from his sense of self-interest", to paraphrase Adam Smith). So it's not really that hard of a leap to say that Jesus would tend to fall on the more socialist end of the political spectrum today. He most definately would not have been a libertarian.

He was also quite clear that it was an obligation of any Christian to help those who need help. Even a cursory examination of the history of libertarian economics shows that 1) the poor are hurt by libertarian policies, and 2) the number of poor increase when libertarian policies are enacted, and a cursory examination of libertarian theory shows it to be incompatible with Christianity ("You cannot serve both God and Mammon" vs. "It is not out of a spirit of generosity which we expect food from the butcher but from his sense of self-interest", to paraphrase Adam Smith). So it's not really that hard of a leap to say that Jesus would tend to fall on the more socialist end of the political spectrum today. He most definately would not have been a libertarian.

No, the poor are hurt by either their own fault and the subsequent lack of help from their fellow man or by abuse at the expense of manipulative corporations that are no more part of libertarian economics than any other abuse of the free market. Secondly, there are no libertarian economies in existence today, so no comparison can be made. Socialism leads to increased unemployment, lower income, and less opportunity because it penalizes the individual for their hard work. The German and French economies are examples of the failiure of socialism Jesus never wanted the government to do the work that the individual should do, because helping others is the work of God and so is given to God, not the government. le of properly running the systems necessary to eliminate societal ills; only the work of individuals can do this. Furthermore, the government is woefully incompetent, corrupt, and incapabThe purpose of a libertarian economy is to ensure the greatest quality of life for the greatest number of people, and the free market resuts in the best possible lifestyle for those who put the effort in. If they fail, others help them get back on their feet, and don't create generations of welfare dependent underclasses. A person in the libertariain economy doesn't "serve Mammon" unless they let their wealth become their master rather than their servant. It is not wrong to be wealthy and recieve due compensation for your hard work, but when one lets their desire for wealth overwhelm their desire to do good, then they no longer serve God.

. . .All of which is undone by the fact that he said that you should obey the state and do what the state asks of you so long as it does not interfere with your faith (i.e. "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"). Which means that if the state decides that the best way to deal with poverty is to increase taxes, then the Christian thing to do is pay the increased taxes. Not revolt. Not secede. Not even whine to the local paper. You were asked to pay, so as a Christian you have a duty to pay.

He was also quite clear that it was an obligation of any Christian to help those who need help. Even a cursory examination of the history of libertarian economics shows that 1) the poor are hurt by libertarian policies, and 2) the number of poor increase when libertarian policies are enacted, and a cursory examination of libertarian theory shows it to be incompatible with Christianity ("You cannot serve both God and Mammon" vs. "It is not out of a spirit of generosity which we expect food from the butcher but from his sense of self-interest", to paraphrase Adam Smith). So it's not really that hard of a leap to say that Jesus would tend to fall on the more socialist end of the political spectrum today. He most definately would not have been a libertarian.
Sorry, but I feel that you're full of it. Let's not even get into the last paragraph you wrote, full of semicontextual, handpicked and heavily groomed references, yet completely absent of personality altogether. Left me feeling like I ate an Ultra-Lite ricecake.

The first paragraph highlights a single statement I take to mean "Don't rock the boat unnecessarily, Rome will fuck us up if we do, and it's not worth it".

You failed to acknowledge directly anything I said, and you fall way short of magician as far as misdierction is concerned.

Besides, I don't give a fuck about Jesus, but thanks for responding.

The first paragraph highlights a single statement I take to mean "Don't rock the boat unnecessarily, Rome will fuck us up if we do, and it's not worth it".

Besides, I don't give a fuck about Jesus, but thanks for responding.

That's what it was, really. The Pharisees wanted to trick Jesus in to committing treason, so they asked him about taxes to the Emperor.

Well, even though you don't thanks for the link. It's a helpful essay. ;)

That's what it was, really. The Pharisees wanted to trick Jesus in to committing treason, so they asked him about taxes to the Emperor.

Well, even though you don't thanks for the link. It's a helpful essay. ;)
Considering the cultural and political climate in which he lived, Jesus was anything but on the Roman's side. To manipulate the obvious in the name of commie or pinko politics is insulting to anyone's intelligence with a clue.

Jesus was the Messiah because he was supposed to save the Jews from the tyranny and exploitation of the evil, heathen Romans. Anything else is bullshit being spewed by those with an agenda to push, and it's so see-through it takes a lot of effort to create the kind of spin necessary to forward the argument "Jesus said listen and obey the Romans, cuz they're right and we, the chosen people of God, should obey like good lap dogs".

Isn't that basically the argument he made(in unlented, personality-devoid spin and bloviation)?

Jesus said obey the Roamans, not that he was the new law. Wow, I forget now why they had to crucify him in the first place!

Use this as an example of the lengths pinkos will attempt in order to get you to swallow their poetic bullshit. I couldn't be more satisfied with an example, personally.

:p

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

Assuming that when these people say "free-market capitalism" they mean "free-market capitalism" and not "protectionist, pro-business corporatism"...the apparent co-relation between social conservatism and free-market capitalism is explained simply by the fact that capitalism is the norm, and "conservatism" is the tendency to want to stick with the traditional and norm.

This whole "left" and "right" thing got started back in the 18th century in the French Legislative Assembly. Those who were aligned with the aristocracy and the religous institutions sat to the right side of the Assembly, defending the continuted existance of said institutions, thereby associating the political "right" with tradition and conservatism. Those who opposed the aristocracy and the religous institutions sat on the left side of the Assembly while calling for radical change, like the end to the aristocracy and the authority of the religous institutions, thereby associating the political "left" with change and liberalism. The rising forces of laissez-faire capitalism were aligned on the political left of the Assembly, as they opposed the mercantilism and feudalism upheld by the aristocracy. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_right_politics#Historical_origin_of_the_terms )

Thus, in the 18th century, free-market capitalism was a radical liberal ideology. With the fall of the aristocracy, however, capitalism became the new established economic system. The capitalists thus moved over to the "right" as representing the established system, and the socialists remain on the "left" as the opposition.

The apparent co-relation between social conservatism and free-market capitalism, therefore, isn't necessarily based on any particular ideological relationship between social conservatism and free-market capitalism (observe, for instance, American Libertarianism, an ideology that mixes social liberalism with a defense of free-market capitalism), but has mostly to do with capitalism being the current established economic system and the tendency of "conservatives" to defend the established order.

Hi there WH. Long time since we discussed anything. I hope the terrorist stuff has not affected you at all.
And greetings back to you. I was mildly concerned about my wife, because her company operates out of Aldgate, but she's in the arts, so the bombs were far too early in the day to catch her or her staff. Otherwise, nothing much. I hope your relatives and friends were also out of harm's way.
I see your point about the conservative being the member of the herd, the sheep that follows the leader.
That's harsher than I meant to be myself. A successful conservative can also be a leader, even if perhaps a less innovative one.
However I see this playing into the desire to retain the class structure, and not just from the wealthy middle classes but also from the traditional working class. The traditional conservative is, in my view, the type of person who wants to know where he stands, and this is more important than having the opportunity to improve their position. There are plenty of traditional labourers who would respond to a question about what they would have liked to study at university with "Ay lad, tint for the likes of me tha knows." (Sorry about the caricature, but I couldn't resist it and I wonder if the Americans will understand?) For these the class structure is what makes their life manageable. They don't have to worry about which wine goes with what course, or whether they should invest in long term government bonds or high risk oil futures. Their biggest worry in life is whether their team will win on Saturday, and the health of her indoors' ma. This is the working class conservative. Now he does not want to not be working class. He wants the class structure, he has no interest in being equal to the middle management or even the upper middle classes. It is not his world.
Yes, I recognise the type, and I didn't want to imply all conservatives are middle class, but...

This strikes me as a static model. The conservative position also holds out the prospect of betterment, whether it's from a wealthy or a poor start. A conservative can look back at history, or personal experience, and say, 'by hard work, or by exploiting the market, I can do better, if I stick to these pre-existing rules'. The archetype here can be found in Abegail's Party. A traditional labourer can be fiercely conservative but progress to charge-hand or owning their own company or whatever, and expect their children to build on that and do better, all without breaking the established order.
As capitalism reinforces the class structure, the gradation of society into different functions, then this working class group will be capitalist, and in my experience, the workers in traditional industry are intensely conservative and capitalist. It is the white collar worker that is generally statist. They, after all have the most to gainç. the bigger the governmennt, the more administration, the more secure their position. They consider themselves to be the equals of the entrepreneurial group, and in some cases they are.
Again, I would agree with you in part, and would even agree that the historic tendancy these days in the UK is towards your position. However, even these days, very large numbers of blue collar workers are 'statist', at least in their voting patterns - think of the great swathes of rock-solid Labour seats across Northern England and Wales. And I would also guess the majority of white-collar workers is still more likely to favour the free-market model (at least in their conscious ideology). Again, think of the huge numbers of white-collar workers these days in the service sectors of law, accountancy, finance et al.

(Hmm, on a side note, it seems we could get bogged down into distinction between beliefs and voting, not to mention the question of whether UK conservatives actually increase or decrease the size of the state. Perhaps best to leave this to one side.)

I guess it also depends on what you mean by 'traditional'. Perhaps the more craft based working class, and certainly those on more independant work like builders, are more likely to be conservative. But those in traditional heavy industry (what's left of it) are more likely to be 'statist'. (Such industries are more likely to have been nationalised in living memory, of course, which will also be a factor). But I think my point is still valid, that it's not just a class thing.
The world is made up of risk takers and security hogs. Ideally the security hogs should seek the security of statism, but this would mean abandoning their clearly defined social role and position, as the class structure would go. So they choose to stay with what exists, with what they know, what they grew up with. They are truly conservative, and in this conserve the capitalist system.
Here I think we are essentially agreed, though I wouldn't use the words 'class structure'. (And I am toying with the thought that risk bunnies may either need a secure base from which to take their risks, or seek a secure haven from uncertainty. And that, vice versa, security hogs may get frustrated and therefore be more willing to take risks.)

For me, it's as much about personal experience of change and the benefits or otherwise that brings that makes people more or less conservative. Whether or not that conservatism manifests itself as free market or statist in economics terms.
The risk takers are much harder to understand. I suppose that there are those that simply feel that life as it is is unfair, so they look to a system that is explicitly based on equality and outcome equivalence. Thus they gravitate toward a socialist statism. It's a risk as it has never worked, but from their point of view, using their measures, capitalism has not worked either, so there is nothing to lose. Unfortunately they tend to think only in terms of results and not in terms of processes.
If this is an intuitive leap, it strikes me as a sure-footed one. It's pretty much the intellectual background I come from, though not where I am now.
The result of equality is necessarily a conservative process. It has to restrict change, as any change would do away with the equlaity.
If looked at in terms of the purely quantitative distribution of wealth, yes of course. Though the inate conservativism only need come into play when equality has been achieved. But I think you're ignoring the concept of diverse sorts of wealth (which I've previously seen you favour). Different forms of wealth can be heterogeneously distributed, and that distribution changed, without disturbing general equality. There is also the possibility of externalities forcing change in order to maintain equality. The way I see it, if the ship's on a steady course, there's all the more opportunity for changing the deck chairs.
Just thinking aloud.
Coherently as ever. And likewise myself (thinking aloud, that is).

Unfortunately now, new labour and conservatives in the UK are very similar in their stances, with labour taking the tories old ground and pushing the tories further right to make themselves different.

my gripe done, i wouldn't say the tories are libertarian. they want much stricter immigration laws and less to do with europe. mind you, if libertarian is what i think it is, they do want lower taxes (claiming public servcices would be funded by cuts in beurocracy). they're hardly social libertarians though, only economic ones, if economic libertarian means less taxation but less aid to the poor.
Not to disagree as such, but there are signs in the more celebral Tories - basically, your Willets, Duncans and the Notting Hill set - of a more across-the-board libertarianism. Excluding immigration of course, which, along with Europe, is something of a special case for the Conservative party.
edit: traditionally factory workers and the like have voted labour (liberal), as they are more associated with unions, strikes, poorer conditions and pay, and benefiting most from government investment in schools, hospitals, roads etc. civil servants and other better paid jobs traditionally voted tory (afaik) as they would be taxed more by a labour government.
Your analysis of voting patterns is sound, though civil servants are becoming increasingly likely to vote Labour, perhaps partly because they are falling behind on pay.

It's quite simple. People like to meddle with other people. For lefties, it meddling with other people's money, for the right, it's meddling with people's social lives. Libertarians are the only ones smart enough to just fucking back off. End of discussion.

It doesn't. It's a scam.

Oh, is that so? Then, why is it that I'm more concerned about speaking my mind than how much money I could have?

See, I'm one of those people who could really care less about money. It's definitely a nice thing to have, but there are far more important things. Personal freedom is one of them.It's the most important thing. Ask a homeless person. Without money (or more accurately without wealth) you will die shortly.

Oh, is that so? Then, why is it that I'm more concerned about speaking my mind than how much money I could have?

See, I'm one of those people who could really care less about money. It's definitely a nice thing to have, but there are far more important things. Personal freedom is one of them.

They're not mutually exclusive. There are some systems under which you could both keep your own money, AND do what you please with your own genitals.

Considering the cultural and political climate in which he lived, Jesus was anything but on the Roman's side. To manipulate the obvious in the name of commie or pinko politics is insulting to anyone's intelligence with a clue.

Jesus was the Messiah because he was supposed to save the Jews from the tyranny and exploitation of the evil, heathen Romans. Anything else is bullshit being spewed by those with an agenda to push, and it's so see-through it takes a lot of effort to create the kind of spin necessary to forward the argument "Jesus said listen and obey the Romans, cuz they're right and we, the chosen people of God, should obey like good lap dogs".

Isn't that basically the argument he made(in unlented, personality-devoid spin and bloviation)?

Jesus said obey the Roamans, not that he was the new law. Wow, I forget now why they had to crucify him in the first place!

Use this as an example of the lengths pinkos will attempt in order to get you to swallow their poetic bullshit. I couldn't be more satisfied with an example, personally.

:p


Calm down, socialists and communists are generally not bad people, they're trying to help, too. In fact, I know some who do it not for the people of just today, but for all the people of the future (it is undeniable that modern forms of capitalism are unsustainable as there is virtually no reason for resource management).

That this isn't entirely applicable in real-world situations is, of course, a matter of nonsense to most communists and socialists.

Of course, free market supporters have their delusions, as well ;)

(it is undeniable that modern forms of capitalism are unsustainable as there is virtually no reason for resource management).

Untrue statement. The free market pushes resource management towards total efficiency. Resources are generally not wasted in a free market system and as supplies decrease, demand drives prices up so that consumption goes down.

Untrue statement. The free market pushes resource management towards total efficiency. Resources are generally not wasted in a free market system and as supplies decrease, demand drives prices up so that consumption goes down.

But consumption rarely drops quick enough that a resource's ability to be replenished is maintained. You underestimate the modern consumer. Oil prices are going up yet the industry is still growing, with increased usage and sales.

This rate of growth is unsustainable and, I fear, will not reverse itself in time.

But consumption rarely drops quick enough that a resource's ability to be replenished is maintained. You underestimate the modern consumer. Oil prices are going up yet the industry is still growing, with increased usage and sales.

This rate of growth is unsustainable and, I fear, will not reverse itself in time.

You underestimate technology. It is not that the consumer will want less and less utility, it is that providers will find ways of providing the consumer with utility through more and more efficient conversion of resources.

But consumption rarely drops quick enough that a resource's ability to be replenished is maintained. You underestimate the modern consumer. Oil prices are going up yet the industry is still growing, with increased usage and sales.

This rate of growth is unsustainable and, I fear, will not reverse itself in time.

We've seem some big leaps in hybrid technology since the oil fears in the late 1990's started coming around.

We've seem some big leaps in hybrid technology since the oil fears in the late 1990's started coming around.

And yet mile-per-gallon rates in most popular cars today are going down...

But that is irrelevent, what I truely fear for are plastics. Plastics will become prohibitivily expensive in the future as we are forced to synthesize oil for plastic production because mobile power requirements for oil becomes far too high for the materials industry to truely compete.

Unfortunately, a lot of our civilization is based on plastics.

But consumption rarely drops quick enough that a resource's ability to be replenished is maintained. You underestimate the modern consumer. Oil prices are going up yet the industry is still growing, with increased usage and sales.

This rate of growth is unsustainable and, I fear, will not reverse itself in time.
True, and the processes that occur in such a supply shock have been studied in depth.
In short, workers pay the price for higher input prices - assuming there is no government intervention. And unfortunately, even with government intervention, prices will rise and you end up in a dangerous spiral.
Of course that does not mean the end of capitalism, how could it?
if I wanted to argue that a free market system is unsustainable I would've looked at some old arguments that even old man Marx used - technology replacing workers which undermines the consumer base...

But it is indeed true (and has been proven mathematically) that a free market system is more effective and efficient than a planned economy when it comes to use of resources. The equality however is not guaranteed, a trade-off that in my opinion is best solved by a hybrid system (eg Social Democracy etc)

You underestimate technology. It is not that the consumer will want less and less utility, it is that providers will find ways of providing the consumer with utility through more and more efficient conversion of resources.
Indeed, and what do you think will happen?
a) More output will be produced with the same inputs (or possibly more depending on where Marginal Costs are) - the same amount of say Oil is used.
or
b) One factor of production will be replaced by another. In which case a lot of Labour (the least likely factor of production to be improved by technological advances, and also the least likely to decrease in price) will be replaced and you end up with people that can't buy stuff anymore.

Even if technology sometimes includes an invention that makes labour work more effectively, that doesn't happen all too often, and labour remains a more expensive input, which will be saved on first.

I think the point's pretty much been made. They don't go together at all. And not only that, a lot of what the (American) right touts as free-market policies are thinly veiled corporate handouts.

The way to go is to have freedom both economically and socially. People are individuals. The individual, not the family, the group, the community, what have you, is the basic unit of humanity, and only individuals have natural rights.

What frustrates me about many well-meaning left-leaners I know is that they are so willing to acknowledge freedom in every aspect but money...who can be free when their means of support is contingent on someone else's whims?

What frustrates me about many well-meaning left-leaners I know is that they are so willing to acknowledge freedom in every aspect but money...who can be free when their means of support is contingent on someone else's whims?
As a "well-meaning left-leaner" I would say that "we" only extend the same practice further into the area of money.
Laws are made so as to increase the happiness of the entire population. Of the population as a whole. I don't advocate murder being legal, nor guns being legal because that decreases the population's utility. So I wouldn't say I acknowledge freedom in every aspect: I'm definitely not a Libertarian.
Same goes for money - It is a part of society, and when few people hold all the wealth, that is less happiness for society as a whole.
So I wouldn't say things like social security mean that people live their lives contingent on someone else's whims - or at least no more so than when one is employed somewhere.

Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism? Because both are based on the same philosophical principle: "Some people are better than others, and those who are better deserve to rule and dominate those who are inferior." Social conservatism, in the form it exists in the West today, is founded upon the belief that a certain group of people (typically white male Christians) are superior to others. Free-market capitalism is founded on the exact same kind of belief: that a certain group of people (successful businessmen) are superior to others.

What do social conservatives and free-market capitalists have in common? What do Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler have in common? A belief in the übermensch. That is the thread that unites all right-wing thought. What do all right-wingers hate? Equality. All right-wingers agree that some people are superior and others are inferior. They only disagree on who is superior or inferior.

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".

The libertarian notion of "economic freedom", like the whole libertarian paradigm, is deeply flawed. Capitalism is NOT economic freedom. Libertarians argue that property rights should be held sacrosanct, and violating anyone's property rights means reducing his freedom. By that logic, you could defend feudalism just as well as capitalism. After all, in feudalism, the whole land area of a country was considered the king's private property.

Since the libertarian idea of economic "freedom" can be used to defend systems that are obviously unfree and tyrannical, it should not be called economic "freedom" at all. And leftists should challenge it at every step.

Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism? Because both are based on the same philosophical principle: "Some people are better than others, and those who are better deserve to rule and dominate those who are inferior." Social conservatism, in the form it exists in the West today, is founded upon the belief that a certain group of people (typically white male Christians) are superior to others. Free-market capitalism is founded on the exact same kind of belief: that a certain group of people (successful businessmen) are superior to others.

What do social conservatives and free-market capitalists have in common? What do Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler have in common? A belief in the übermensch. That is the thread that unites all right-wing thought. What do all right-wingers hate? Equality. All right-wingers agree that some people are superior and others are inferior. They only disagree on who is superior or inferior.

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".
Wow, thanks, that was one of the more successful answers of the thread.

And yet mile-per-gallon rates in most popular cars today are going down...

But that is irrelevent, what I truely fear for are plastics. Plastics will become prohibitivily expensive in the future as we are forced to synthesize oil for plastic production because mobile power requirements for oil becomes far too high for the materials industry to truely compete.

Unfortunately, a lot of our civilization is based on plastics.
You can actually make quite a few plastics from various vegetable oils. It's really gonna hurt the synthetic rubber industry though.

Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism? Because both are based on the same philosophical principle: "Some people are better than others, and those who are better deserve to rule and dominate those who are inferior." Social conservatism, in the form it exists in the West today, is founded upon the belief that a certain group of people (typically white male Christians) are superior to others. Free-market capitalism is founded on the exact same kind of belief: that a certain group of people (successful businessmen) are superior to others.

What do social conservatives and free-market capitalists have in common? What do Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler have in common? A belief in the übermensch. That is the thread that unites all right-wing thought. What do all right-wingers hate? Equality. All right-wingers agree that some people are superior and others are inferior. They only disagree on who is superior or inferior.

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".


brilliant!


also like to add that the privileged conservatives (i.e. ceo's, politicians, etc.) would be hurt by free-market capitalism; instead they have gone to a form of corporate welfare.

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".[/COLOR][/b]

You could not have broke it down into two more oversimplified sides.

First, free market economics and politics make no assumption concerning the quality of the person.

Secondly, equality is impossible no matter what method you use to characterize people.

Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism? Because both are based on the same philosophical principle: "Some people are better than others, and those who are better deserve to rule and dominate those who are inferior." Social conservatism, in the form it exists in the West today, is founded upon the belief that a certain group of people (typically white male Christians) are superior to others. Free-market capitalism is founded on the exact same kind of belief: that a certain group of people (successful businessmen) are superior to others.

What do social conservatives and free-market capitalists have in common? What do Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler have in common? A belief in the übermensch. That is the thread that unites all right-wing thought. What do all right-wingers hate? Equality. All right-wingers agree that some people are superior and others are inferior. They only disagree on who is superior or inferior.

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".

Nothing could be fruther from the truth. I don't know where to even begin pointing out the flawed logic in this. First, you say "the essence of the Left is 'all people are equal.'" This is incorrect. From birth, humans posess an individual identity and thus will alwayse be inferior to others in certain areas. For instance, I am a horrible speller. Some people have a natural talent for spelling and win spelling bees and such, but I do not. Nothing will ever change this. I am inferior to most of the world in this area. That does not mean that I am an inferior person, just inferior in a particular area. This is the case with everything. Some people are poor buisness people and would make comparatively little money on the free market in comparison to others. So what?? The Right does not recognise these persons as inferior, it simply realizes that there is no use in pretending that they are good buisness people. The notion of equality as articulated by the left is inherently flawed in that it does recognise the triviality of inequality. As long as all humans are given basic respect and treated with dignity, we don't need to force people to become uniform. By equality, the Left means uniformity and this is very dangerous.

The truly unifying theme that runs through the right is that it seeks to promote individual self-determination and preserve individual rights. It does this by promoting free enterpriese economically, and preserving the rights of unborn children by opposing abortion. It stands for dignity, respect, and toleration whereas the left seeks to create equality by creating mediocrity.

The truly unifying theme that runs through the right is that it seeks to promote individual self-determination and preserve individual rights. It does this by promoting free enterpriese economically, and preserving the rights of unborn children by opposing abortion. It stands for dignity, respect, and toleration
So how do explain the Right's ideas about the government going into the nation's bedrooms? Where is the tolerance or respect for individual rights in the "gay control" laws popular with conservatives?

You're not "up" on my situation, are you? I think I'll just ignore you for a while.
Putting someone on your ignore list is a feature that should be disabled. I've never done it because I'm not afraid of counter-arguments.

I think too much, as well. About a month ago, though, I got back into a regular sleep pattern (though my dad quickly crushed that).

Thank you, Vittos Ordination and Libre Arbitre, for proving my point for me!

My point was that all right-wingers are united by their common support for some form of inequality and hatred for the concept that "all humans are equal". And - lo and behold! - right-wingers came along and started voicing opposition to the concept of human equality.

Every time a libertarian, conservative, fascist or other right-winger attacks the idea of equality, he just proves that my characterization of the Right was correct.

Actually, historically speaking, they didn't really tend to go together at all. Generally speaking, prior to the early 20th century, most socially conservative areas supported essentially 'populist' movements (red conservatism, as it was often known). This is because socially conservative areas were often backwater, and were subject to strong economic tidal forces: farmers and such were actually opposed to free trade as we understand, advocating subsidies and protection from foreign competition. The link between social conservatism and fiscal liberalism is fundementally one of demographics: the developement of suburban areas and the rise of a strong middle class led to a group of people which were fairly xenophobic and socially conservative, but didn't stand to gain much from fiscally conservative measures (i.e. trade barriers).

That being said, there is a resurgance of 'red conservatism' in the form of Communautarianism, a political theory becoming increasingly popular academically, but also in the real world.

The notion of equality as articulated by the left is inherently flawed in that it does recognise the triviality of inequality. As long as all humans are given basic respect and treated with dignity, we don't need to force people to become uniform. By equality, the Left means uniformity and this is very dangerous.

I do not think this is true at all. I believe that the left tends to think more along the lines of liberal egalitarianism: our natural, uncontrollable status in life should not stop us from fufilling our ends; thus, socially created inequalities should be structured to maximize our interests in general, and that of the disadvantaged in particular.

You could not have broke it down into two more oversimplified sides.
You need to resort to simplifications every time you break the political spectrum into a small number of sides (2, 3 or 4).

In order to avoid such simplifications, you'd have to break up the political spectrum into a multitude of different sides - and that would mean losing sight of the BIG DIVIDE that exists between Right and Left.

First, free market economics and politics make no assumption concerning the quality of the person.
Yes they do. Don't you believe that there should be rich and poor, that inequality of wealth is GOOD and justified?

Secondly, equality is impossible no matter what method you use to characterize people.
On the contrary, equality comes precisely from the fact that there is no objective way to measure a person's quality or worth. Since it is impossible to objectively determine who is superior and who is inferior, who deserves more and who deserves less, the only logical conclusion is that all humans should be treated as equals and they all deserve the same.

Thank you, Vittos Ordination and Libre Arbitre, for proving my point for me!

My point was that all right-wingers are united by their common support for some form of inequality and hatred for the concept that "all humans are equal". And - lo and behold! - right-wingers came along and started voicing opposition to the concept of human equality.

Every time a libertarian, conservative, fascist or other right-winger attacks the idea of equality, he just proves that my characterization of the Right was correct.
You can always count on their arguments to end up helping yours. It happens a lot.

First, you say "the essence of the Left is 'all people are equal.'" This is incorrect.
Regardless of whether you agree or not with the statement that "all people are equal", the point is that leftists agree with it, and it is the defining characteristic of the Left.

I already gave my main argument for equality in my previous post.

It stands for dignity, respect, and toleration whereas the left seeks to create equality by creating mediocrity.
Yes, that's why you want to leave poor people to starve, because you give them "dignity, respect, and toleration". That's why you support sweatshops, that's why you support child labour, that's why you oppose unions, that's why you see nothing wrong with a tiny wealthy minority living a life of luxury while the majority toils away in inhumane conditions for slave wages! Because you care about "dignity, respect, and toleration"!

If there is one thing the Right doesn't have, it's respect for the people it deems to be inferior. And don't even get me started on toleration...

Thank you, Vittos Ordination and Libre Arbitre, for proving my point for me!

My point was that all right-wingers are united by their common support for some form of inequality and hatred for the concept that "all humans are equal". And - lo and behold! - right-wingers came along and started voicing opposition to the concept of human equality.

Every time a libertarian, conservative, fascist or other right-winger attacks the idea of equality, he just proves that my characterization of the Right was correct.

First off, you don't actually believe that all people are equal, as that is a ridiculous assumption. Mike Tyson could never run Microsoft, and Bill Gates could never be an entertaining boxer.

You believe that all people should be made equal, and that is what I oppose, as it can only be done at the point of a gun.

No, I believe all people ARE equal, in the sense that they have the same worth, and they deserve equal rights, equal freedoms, an equal say in public decisions and equal wealth.

People are not identical, but they are equal. Mike Tyson and Bill Gates are not identical, but they have an equal worth as human beings.

To make an analogy, there are many different shapes you could give to 1 kg of gold. Let's say you make a prism, a pyramid and a cilinder of gold, each with a mass of 1 kg. They are clearly not identical. But they have the same value - they are equal. Do I get my point across?

First off, you don't actually believe that all people are equal, as that is a ridiculous assumption. Mike Tyson could never run Microsoft, and Bill Gates could never be an entertaining boxer.

You believe that all people should be made equal, and that is what I oppose, as it can only be done at the point of a gun.
all people are not made equal. Of course there are people who have genes in them that give them special talent. It's not like we're advocating handicapping the population so we're equal to the most retarded person on Earth. Some people, however can teach themselves to be as good as someone who had that talent to begin with. There are plenty of people who can play guitar as well as Jimi Hendrix only through years and years of practise. But what the hell does that have to do with anything? Believing no one is equal to anyone else in the slightest sense and those that are below you, a characterization of many conservatives, is plain arrogance.

...
"render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
...What is Caesar's?

Yes they do. Don't you believe that there should be rich and poor, that inequality of wealth is GOOD and justified?

I believe that inequality of wealth doesn't need to be justified as long as the process is justified. Equal treatment by government will result in unequal wealth, equal wealth can only be brought about by unequal treatment by government.

On the contrary, equality comes precisely from the fact that there is no objective way to measure a person's quality or worth. Since it is impossible to objectively determine who is superior and who is inferior, who deserves more and who deserves less, the only logical conclusion is that all humans should be treated as equals and they all deserve the same.

The free market objectively values a person's labor. A person gets from society what he puts into society.

No, I believe all people ARE equal, in the sense that they have the same worth, and they deserve equal rights, equal freedoms, an equal say in public decisions and equal wealth.

People are not identical, but they are equal. Mike Tyson and Bill Gates are not identical, but they have an equal worth as human beings.

To make an analogy, there are many different shapes you could give to 1 kg of gold. Let's say you make a prism, a pyramid and a cilinder of gold, each with a mass of 1 kg. They are clearly not identical. But they have the same value - they are equal. Do I get my point across?

A great farmer can feed 1000 people, a poor farmer can't even feed himself. Do I get my point across?

I believe that inequality of wealth doesn't need to be justified as long as the process is justified. Equal treatment by government will result in unequal wealth, equal wealth can only be brought about by unequal treatment by government.

how so?

EDIT: cutting to the chase here, remember it was the laizze faire economics during the late 1800s that created a gigantic gap between the classes, and the government watched as us unqual treatment was being rendered on society. Then FDR stepped in and proposed more "unequal treatment" to try to fix what laizze faire had done. Ideally, and this is Communism we're talking about, equal treatment by the government will in turn create economically equal citizens.

I find myself recoiling from the psychological and moral 'ick' factor of Vittos Ordination's arguments.

And quite right, Achtung.

Free market capitalism creates corporate feudalism - where CEOs are reborn as kings. Only recently (past fifty to seventy-five years) have we gotten any sort of a Magna Carta with relation to business.

EDIT: grammar.

Putting someone on your ignore list is a feature that should be disabled. I've never done it because I'm not afraid of counter-arguments.The ignore list is a handy way to keep yourself from reading garbage. I recommend using it on people who spew much nonsense and aren't taken seriously by anyone, not on those you're "affraid of."

I believe that inequality of wealth doesn't need to be justified as long as the process is justified.
Then we disagree at the most fundamental philosophical level. You believe that "the means justify the ends", that it doesn't matter how bad the end result is as long as you reach that result by "good" or "correct" means. This is called deontological ethics, and it is deeply flawed.

Equal treatment by government will result in unequal wealth, equal wealth can only be brought about by unequal treatment by government.
Haha... no. Equal treatment by the government means everyone gets the same rights and freedoms. Whether this will lead to equal or unequal wealth depends on what those rights and freedoms actually are.

In other words, everything depends on what kind of equal treatment the government provides. Some "equal treatment" is equal only in theory...

"The law, in its majestic impartiality, prohibits rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets, and stealing bread."
- Anatole France

The free market objectively values a person's labor. A person gets from society what he puts into society.
Wrong. In fact, this statement is wrong even according to your OWN free market economic theories. They are based on the Subjective Theory of Value, which, as the name implies, holds that value is subjective.

Objective value is upheld by the Labour Theory of Value, created by Adam Smith and developed by David Ricardo and Karl Marx...

(but all this, of course, refers to the value of a person's labour, not to the overall value of the person itself)

A great farmer can feed 1000 people, a poor farmer can't even feed himself. Do I get my point across?
It's not that simple. The two farmers might not have the same tools, might not have the same quality of land, might not live in the same climate or get the same weather, and the poor farmer could be better at doing some other job.

Then we disagree at the most fundamental philosophical level. You believe that "the means justify the ends", that it doesn't matter how bad the end result is as long as you reach that result by "good" or "correct" means. This is called deontological ethics, and it is deeply flawed.

How about this idea, we could get rid of a lot of violence if we eliminated social differences. Is it justifiable to oppress societal minorities in order to create a more homogenous and peaceful society?

Haha... no. Equal treatment by the government means everyone gets the same rights and freedoms. Whether this will lead to equal or unequal wealth depends on what those rights and freedoms actually are.

So when that talented farmer feeds has enough food to feed one thousand people taken away from him and recieves only enough to feed himself in return, he is being treated the same as the individual who provides no food and recieves enough to feed himself?

I suppose you feel at liberty to inform him as to what rights and freedoms he actually has.

Wrong. In fact, this statement is wrong even according to your OWN free market economic theories. They are based on the Subjective Theory of Value, which, as the name implies, holds that value is subjective.

The individual sets value subjectively, the free market offers an objective value that is at an equilibrium of the subjective sets of producer and consumer values.

Objective value is upheld by the Labour Theory of Value, created by Adam Smith and developed by David Ricardo and Karl Marx...

The value of labor was at the center of Adam Smith's proposal for capitalism. David Ricardo was the first to have a true Labor Theory of Value, but he was a capitalist. Marx's contributions have been largely rejected by modern economics.

Yes they do. Don't you believe that there should be rich and poor, that inequality of wealth is GOOD and justified?There is nothing inherently wrong with an inequity of wealth. How that inequity was achieved is what's important. If you drop two men onto identical deserted islands with no tools whatsoever, the two men will almost definately have different levels of wealth 2 days later. It's very doubtful that they would have made equal progress procuring food and shelter. This doesn't mean that either has been wronged. It only means that they have different values and abilities. Now put the men on the same island and there's a possibility that one may wrong the other, but I'm trying to show that a difference in wealth is not evidence of injustice.

On the contrary, equality comes precisely from the fact that there is no objective way to measure a person's quality or worth. Since it is impossible to objectively determine who is superior and who is inferior, who deserves more and who deserves less, the only logical conclusion is that all humans should be treated as equals and they all deserve the same.You're doing a disservice to your fellow socialists. At least some collectivists recongize that people should be rewarded for their work, and that they should be punished for what they do wrong. Taking your statement to it's logical conclusion suggests that people do not deserve the consequences of their own actions - that criminals and heros deserve the same quality of life because we can't objectively determine who is more deserving. I hope people can see how grotesque this idea is.

There's also a certain presumption about how rewards should be determined. In a perfectly free market, rewards are determined by A) your ability B) God/nature, and voluntarily by C) other people's values. If you decide to earn a living as a corn farmer, your success will be determined by your ability to farm, the climate/nature, and by the demand for corn.
If you fail because you don't know what you're doing, that's yours and not anyone else's fault (except perhaps your parents' or God's). If your crops die from drought, it is nobody's fault but God's. No human owes you anything for your loss. If you cannot recoup your investment because demand for corn is too low, that's too bad. Nobody owes you demand. The false notion that you are wronged by the valuations of others is central to many American laws, especially in agriculture.

Essentially, your take seems to be that 'society' should construct a better god to ensure that people are not harmed by things beyond their control (or apparently even things within their control). No state, no system, no artificial god can ever do as good of a job as Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' in satisfying people's wants.

BTW, whether or not you believe in God, should not matter. Personifying nature is useful and should be no different to the non-believer than personifying a machine.

I find myself recoiling from the psychological and moral 'ick' factor of Vittos Ordination's arguments.

Yes, that "moral 'ick'" of not allowing slave labor, of allowing people to maintain the product of their own bodies.

Free market capitalism creates corporate feudalism - where CEOs are reborn as kings.

Statements with this level of rationality make me wonder why I bother with these arguments. You already so emotionally tied to your viewpoint that there is nothing I can say that would strike a note with you. I might as well argue with a creationist.

I believe that inequality of wealth doesn't need to be justified as long as the process is justified.
What? The means justify the end? I heartily disagree. Everything is about the end result. The means are usually not nearly as important.

How about this idea, we could get rid of a lot of violence if we eliminated social differences. Is it justifiable to oppress societal minorities in order to create a more homogenous and peaceful society?
That's been tried before. It doesn't work. Social problems are usually economic in basis, rather than racial. Crime in society would be largely eliminated if the wealth gap was reduced. (Note that I am in favour of reducing the gap, but unlike Constantinopolis, not in favour of eliminating it entirely.)

The essence of the Right is "some people are better than others".
The essence of the Left is "all people are equal".

I believe most people on the Left hold the above to be a true statement.
:rolleyes:

I pull average of sixty hour work-weeks, save my money, and don't cause trouble. why should I have to pay more of what I earn from those sixty hours to support someone who chooses to work fewer hours and refuses to manage their finances?
What is the Moral Basis in using the threat of violence-by-proxy (the State) to take from me, and give to someone else without my consent?

The Left wants Equality of Outcomes. In practice, under that structure, "some Animals are more equal than others"[Orwell, Animal Farm ]-in particular, those animals tasked with keeping the others equal.

thus, the truth is actually the inverse of your statement. Socialism simply reinforces a separation of Ruling Class from "Everyone Else", under it, Civil 'Servants' become Civil Masters, and everyone who isn't one, is either a client or a slave, or a combination of client and slave, whose labour is owned by the state and whose rights are determined by said state without recourse.

Examples of your utopia in practice:
The Soviet Union
Communist China
DPRK(North Korea)
Zimbabwe under Mugabe
Cambodia under Pol Pot.

What? The means justify the end? I heartily disagree. Everything is about the end result. The means are usually not nearly as important.

I do believe that the freedom of possessing your own labor justifies the struggle that it causes. I don't know whether the freedom is the means or the end though.

That's been tried before. It doesn't work. Social problems are usually economic in basis, rather than racial. Crime in society would be largely eliminated if the wealth gap was reduced. (Note that I am in favour of reducing the gap, but unlike Constantinopolis, not in favour of eliminating it entirely.)

You are correct, I started thinking aloud and I tried to prove a faulty point.

why should I have to...
this is a right-wing cliche in itself.

Pacifists say "why should I pay to support the evil Iraq war" and we tell them that it's for the greater good. Same with your taxes being used to pay for public transport, healthcare, and education.

this is a right-wing cliche in itself.

Pacifists say "why should I pay to support the evil Iraq war" and we tell them that it's for the greater good. Same with your taxes being used to pay for public transport, healthcare, and education.

Correct (I somewhat agree with the Iraq part... But, that's another discussion for another time).

And, think of it this way: The government prints and circulates the money. Consider yourself lucky to even get your hands on it, as it isn't really "yours".

this is a right-wing cliche in itself.

Pacifists say "why should I pay to support the evil Iraq war" and we tell them that it's for the greater good. Same with your taxes being used to pay for public transport, healthcare, and education.

If it is, it is a valid one. None of those are of the same nature as wealth redistribution. With the things you are listing there is a universal benefit. With wealth redistribution there is a beneficial side and a detrimental side. Maybe you would like to see the wealth of the upper class taken from them and given to the poor, but I don't see how you can justify taking from them without offering any benefit.

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.
They aren't.

British Labour Party (and any Libertarian) = Pro-Capitalist, Socially Liberal.
Many Muslim governments = Socialist, But Socially Conservative (following "sharia", Islamic law)

Muslim governments, especially, demonstrate this. Because their religion requires mandatory charity for the poor and forbids "usury", so in many of their countries, any form of insurance or credit is forbidden. So, they restrict capitalism, but they're highly conservative... DEFINITELY, no gay marriage. It's probably a crime.

I believe most people on the Left hold the above to be a true statement.
:rolleyes:

I pull average of sixty hour work-weeks, save my money, and don't cause trouble. why should I have to pay more of what I earn from those sixty hours to support someone who chooses to work fewer hours and refuses to manage their finances?
What is the Moral Basis in using the threat of violence-by-proxy (the State) to take from me, and give to someone else without my consent?

The Left wants Equality of Outcomes. In practice, under that structure, "some Animals are more equal than others"[Orwell, Animal Farm ]-in particular, those animals tasked with keeping the others equal.

thus, the truth is actually the inverse of your statement. Socialism simply reinforces a separation of Ruling Class from "Everyone Else", under it, Civil 'Servants' become Civil Masters, and everyone who isn't one, is either a client or a slave, or a combination of client and slave, whose labour is owned by the state and whose rights are determined by said state without recourse.

Examples of your utopia in practice:
The Soviet Union
Communist China
DPRK(North Korea)
Zimbabwe under Mugabe
Cambodia under Pol Pot.
You are twisting things now. You mix Communism with a bit of income redistribution.
It's not really about your 60 hours of work, it is about that you simply accept that others have to be poor for you to be rich. Your "someone who chooses to work fewer hours and refuses to manage their finances" blames this person for his troubles, never acknowledging that there are factor other than his/her laziness.
The moral basis is that an extra $100 is of less worth to you than to someone who doesn't know where to get his next meal from.

But while the statement "We believe everyone is equal" sounds good, I'd probably not agree with it as such. Everyone has equal rights, and is of equal worth (the monetary worth of his/her labour depending on skills and education) - but not everyone has equal chances. And that is where I believe some money should be taken from somewhere to increase those chances. And income rredistribution through taxes is the best way we know so far.

You are twisting things now. You mix Communism with a bit of income redistribution.
It's not really about your 60 hours of work, it is about that you simply accept that others have to be poor for you to be rich. Your "someone who chooses to work fewer hours and refuses to manage their finances" blames this person for his troubles, never acknowledging that there are factor other than his/her laziness.
The moral basis is that an extra $100 is of less worth to you than to someone who doesn't know where to get his next meal from.

But while the statement "We believe everyone is equal" sounds good, I'd probably not agree with it as such. Everyone has equal rights, and is of equal worth (the monetary worth of his/her labour depending on skills and education) - but not everyone has equal chances. And that is where I believe some money should be taken from somewhere to increase those chances. And income rredistribution through taxes is the best way we know so far.

you misunderstand- Nobody has to be poor for me to be prosperous!!! If they want to work as hard as I do, and handle their earnings as carefully, there is no reason to be poor. it's not a zero-sum game, for some to be rich, others need not be in the poorhouse... but it's on them to put in the hours and do the work.
Hard workers who use their brains shouldn't be penalized to support those who don't work as hard or use their brains as much. Why shouldn't I have the right to turn my efforts into something more-say, using a portion of my earnings as investments, thus making my money earn money? Why should I be penalized because someone else would rather spend theirs on weekend partying than saving and investing for the future?

Why should the ants pay for the grasshopper, to paraphrase the old fable?

I don't have a problem with limited redistribution, except that systems like that have this tendency to grow in scope and increase their drain over time. In the military, it's called "Mission creep", and examples of "Mission Creep" are rife throughout Government-which, under a Socialist model, is the controller of the means of production, and determines who gets the benefits of that production. Communism, particularly the examples I cited, is the final outcome of that mission-creep. Any centre of Power will attract the Corrupt like honey and shit attracts flies on a hot day.
Redistribution programmes don't limit themselves by nature, by nature, they expand and consume unless limited from without. Government has a nearly bottomless ability to tax-this is not the same as having bottomless resources. The Government Game requires a healthy and productive private sector to parasitize if Government is not somehow restrained. Since Government establishes the laws, you can not count on Law to restrain Government alone. Socialist welfare programmes function mainly as a means to buy the votes of the unproductive in Democratic-method Republics, or as a means to keep the most violence-prone of the peasantry quiescent under the Totalitarian, Monarchist, or Oligarchial forms of government. To a certain extent, the buying of domestic tranquility through Socialism is justifiable-but don't kid yourself that it's good for the working class or the working middle-class-they're inevitably the ones who will foot the bulk of the bill when you pass your "Soak the Rich" programmes. The only real way to break out of the cycle is to become the rich-an individual solution because Society is a blind, stupid, and all-consuming beast. Only the Poor can cure their poverty-remedies from above merely keep them down and controllable. Without destroying themselves, the only way the Poor can cure their poverty, is to keep more of what they earn, and work harder to earn more.

This isn't to say that some government programmes aren't needed-they are. A temporary condition of unemployment, for instance, can be supplemented so long as the aid is, in fact, temporary-it will run out. Likewise, AFDC limited to people at or near the Poverty line should be at least somewhat dependent on genuine efforts by the recipients to improve their own lot, rather than penalizing those that show too much initiative (the structure currently in place.) but Temporary is the word here. Perpetual aid is poisonous to the spirit and mind of the recipient, and only serves as a means to enhance the power of the 'generous' ruling party in government.

One of the best uses of Government Power in the Economy, is one that may violate theoretical free-markets, but is necessary to maintain a genuinely free economy with upward mobility for people willing to put in the effort:

Trust Busting. Monopolies of anything generate centres of Power that in turn create environments ripe for corruption. Government works best at applying punishments. It's only mediocre at other tasks. Subsidy is dangerous to the health of hte Economy as it promotes inefficiency. Overcentralized economic power is the highlight of hte Monopoly-it can charge the maximum the market can bear as opposed to merely what the Market will pay. Further, a Monopoly can close off upward mobility at will within its market-share, and weilds an uncomfortable amount of power over Government both through Corruption, and through the ability to unilaterally refuse services.

Corporatism is simply Socialism for Corporations, it turns trust-busting upside down, and is inherently anticompetitive. It tends to grow in Socialist conditions alonside the Poverty Pimps, since increased Regulations narrow the competitive field and serve to promote the interests of the largest businesses over the need to maintain a fluid market.

But...back on the subject.
In an Open market, it is not a zero-sum game. The U.S. has a very open economy, and our poorest live better than most of the world. This is not due to Socialism or Socialist policies, but to the strength of our economic system and the concept of the Work Ethic. More Americans who get out of poverty work themselves out, than rely on handouts to elevate them without work. High taxation, increased regulation, and other Socialist diseases reduce those numbers annually by increasing the difficulty of getting out of poverty at the middle and lower-middle end of the scale.

-snip-
You really like the idea of corruption, don't you? Because that seems to be your fundamental argument - those things might cause corruption. There is yet to be a case where corruption actually brought down a modern economy.

I am an Economics student, and thus I spent long hours studying these things. I won't go into details, but the reasons monopolies are bad that you listed are not entirely complete.
Additionally, just because you brought up regulation, without it, we'd be in even worse shit.

Well, by definition, for you to be rich, someone has to be poor. Otherwise no one would be any richer, and all you'd have is inflation. An economic system where everyone is rich is impossible. But that is not really that important.

Important is that you completely discount factors other than "hard work". Hard work has never made anyone rich - luck, and some talent with money has.

More importantly, there are reasons why people are poor that have nothing to do with how lazy they are. In the US that might be race. Or a past criminal record. Or any other factor that might keep someone from employing you, although you have the necessary qualifications.
Another one is "Hysteresis", a market failure theory that describes the factors that stop employers from hiring people who have been unemployed for a long time. An accident, or any other unlucky set of circumstances, can in such a case cause one's economic existence to disappear.

And by the way, I have yet to see a person who became wealthy of government hand-outs.

I think that one of the problems many people have with programs that go to helping the unemployed is that they're run by the government. Personally I don't mind supporting people who are down on their luck and need a little help, i'd give my life savings to do it after feeding, housing and clothing myself. But I don't want my government telling me I have to. To use an example from childhood, it's the difference between sharing your good lunch, complete with dessert, with the kid who has a healthy lunch that tastes bad and being told by the teachers that you have to.

-snip-
But as an individual you are incapable of putting that money to its' most beneficial use. You lack organisational powers and the correct overview over the economy as a whole.

That's where private charities come in. That brings to mind corruption in those charities to many people I guess, but is there not also corruption in government? And there's certainly irresponsiblity of the handling of funds in government. It's not as if charity didn't exist before governments took on the responsibility of handling it.

-snip-
Actually, I see much less corruption in Governments than in the Business World. It is possible that it is more reported in some places, but I have yet to see the Government do the kinds of things Enron has done for example.

It may be more corrupt but business is definitely more tight-fisted which is an admirable quality when it comes to spending my money :D

-snip-
It is?
MB = MC

Mb=mc ?

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

I'm socially and economically liberal, as in I want to have as many freedoms as I possibly can. What good is it to believe in economic freedom if you don't believe in social freedom?

Mb=mc ?
Marginal Benefit = Marginal Cost. The general Microeconomic Rule for how much to spend on stuff.
You keep adding one more unit (of people helped for example) until the benefit of that one unit is equal to the cost of the one unit.
That will always return the highest total profit.

Which brings up the issue of who decides the beneficiency of something. It depends entirely on the point of view.

Which brings up the issue of who decides the beneficiency of something. It depends entirely on the point of view.
Yeah, marginal utility is one way, but that can lead you to places many might not want to go...
But one can agree that certain governmental programs are beneficial to the whole of society, and that a flat tax probably couldn't bring up enough money.
It becomes a matter of philosophy and ethics.

Correct (I somewhat agree with the Iraq part... But, that's another discussion for another time).

And, think of it this way: The government prints and circulates the money. Consider yourself lucky to even get your hands on it, as it isn't really "yours".That's a horrible way to think of it. The paper money you speak of is a substitute for the real money that belonged to the people to begin with.

That's a horrible way to think of it. The paper money you speak of is a substitute for the real money that belonged to the people to begin with.
Riiiiiight. Because you'd be able to provide for all the infrastructure government takes care of out of your own pocket, you and all those others with "real money." The stability that government provides is what makes it possible for technological, economic and social advancement to occur. You want to see what happens without that stability--look at Africa right now--and then ask yourself if the average citizen would be willing to trade some of their "real money" for some stability and the chance to improve their situation.

If it is, it is a valid one. None of those are of the same nature as wealth redistribution. With the things you are listing there is a universal benefit. With wealth redistribution there is a beneficial side and a detrimental side. Maybe you would like to see the wealth of the upper class taken from them and given to the poor, but I don't see how you can justify taking from them without offering any benefit.
So you're saying that tax-funded health, education and transport is les objectionable than tax-funded welfare? I regard the return as living in a society with less crime. In the early 20th centry when there was less welfare, when the economy was basically a libertarian paradise, all crime, except murder, was astronomically high, at levels unimaginable today.

I'm not rabidly pro-welfare myself, but I tihnk that it does carry collective benefits.

So you're saying that tax-funded health, education and transport is les objectionable than tax-funded welfare? I regard the return as living in a society with less crime. In the early 20th centry when there was less welfare, when the economy was basically a libertarian paradise, all crime, except murder, was astronomically high, at levels unimaginable today.

I'm not rabidly pro-welfare myself, but I tihnk that it does carry collective benefits.

I am saying that tax-funded health, education, and transport is not objectionable at all, as long as it is offered universally. I support universal healthcare and vouchered education, as long as the possible recipients are not discriminated against in any way.

However, when the government begins to aid one segment of the population at the expense of the other, I find that to be objectionable

Riiiiiight. Because you'd be able to provide for all the infrastructure government takes care of out of your own pocket, you and all those others with "real money." The stability that government provides is what makes it possible for technological, economic and social advancement to occur. You want to see what happens without that stability--look at Africa right now--and then ask yourself if the average citizen would be willing to trade some of their "real money" for some stability and the chance to improve their situation.
Correct. See my signature.

I think that the government's job is to give people services that cannot be fairly administered by the private sector. Health, Education, Security, Infrastructure and Welfare. Thats probably a lot of people's views.

Its quite simplistic but I cant be bothered to right a memoir or something right now.

Actually, I see much less corruption in Governments than in the Business World. It is possible that it is more reported in some places, but I have yet to see the Government do the kinds of things Enron has done for example.

That's mainly because when government does it, it's not illegal. Let me give you a quick example:

Social Security. There is no "Trust Fund". It's full of IOU's going back to the 1960's. The only reason anyone gets any bennies from their Social Security, is that it's been, and being, run in the manner of a fraud known as "The Ponzi Scheme". In the Ponzi Scheme (a form of Pyramid scheme), "Investors" are collected, the con-man then promises that those investors will recieve a return on their money. He delivers a return to his first set, by recruiting the next set, which also recieve a promise of a return, and so-on. the reason it's in crisis now, is that beneficiaries will outnumber new victims fairly soon, thanks to improvements in lifespan longevity and the 'bubble' of the Baby-Boom.

Where did the money go? Well... it went into the General fund, where it was then spent on things totally unrelated to the function of Social Security. When a Business does this, it's a crime. When Congress does it, it is not.

Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.Because there is nothing social about, nor is anything being conserved by, Social Conservatives.

Funny how rank and file Republicans like Cadillac-Gage don't trust the US government to run welfare, education or healthcare but trust them to run Iraq. I disagree with them, but at least libertarians are consistent.

-snip-
A good point by Swimmingpool there.
That's not a con my good man, that is what used to be the best way of doing social security and retirement funds back in the days.
Germany does the same thing, and now have all kinds of trouble as well. The many care for the few, that was the idea. And now, it's becoming more like the few care for the many. So it needs overhauling (although not nearly as urgently as certain people would like you to believe).
That doesn't make it corrupt, or a con though.

No, the poor are hurt by either their own fault and the subsequent lack of help from their fellow man or by abuse at the expense of manipulative corporations that are no more part of libertarian economics than any other abuse of the free market.

1) I love the double standard being bandied about here:

Righteously-Indignant Libertarian (RIL): Marx talked a good talk, but in the real world, his policies turned into Stalinist Russia. So if you support Marxism, you really support communism.

Commie-Pinko Scum (CPS): Okay, so what about any of a hundred different problems with the way free-market capitalism works?

RIL: . . .That isn't the way Adam Smith said it would happen.

If you want to talk theory, then we can talk theory. If you want to talk pragmatically, we can talk pragmatically. Either way, however, modern capitalism has some serious drawbacks.

2) Addressing your point directly, Adam Smith didn't talk about what we call corporations in any case, so to some extent, you are correct that insofar as modern capitalisms faults can be traced to corporate behavior, they are not the "fault", so to speak, of pure, unadulterated capitalism (Note: depending on the edition, it might seem that he speaks in the pejorative about corporations, but when he talks about corporations, he is really talking about what we know of as guilds, the precursors to modern labor unions. Corporations didn't really exist except in the most embryonic form in Smith's day).

That being said, you can't simply wave away capitalism's problems by simply saying "It was the corporation's fault," because corporations are a logical outcome of capitalist mentality. The whole point of corporations are to 1) encourage the investment of speculators in the market, and 2) limit liability of damages only to that of the original investment. Neither of these main tasks of corporations is in any way incompatible with market economics, and in fact increases the size, power, and exposure of the market, which Adam Smith would consider a good thing, because the larger the market, the more people profit.

3) I take it you've never heard of the term "natural rate of unemployment." This refers to a traditional economic theory that goes back about 40 years or so now. The basic theory, one that empirical evidence seems to vindicate, is that a country's unemployment rate will tend toward a consistent mean over time, and that at this rate growth will be ideal. Too much employment and inflation sets in, and too little and there isn't enough money to purchase the goods that are produced.

What is the point of this, you might ask? Well, the point is this, my good man: even and especially in an ideally-working economy, there will likely still be people unemployed who still want to and can work at any given time, because that is how the market is set up. Some people will be laid off to improve quarterly earnings, some will be laid off because they work in seasonal industries (agriculture, for instance), etc. These people aren't unemployed because of their own laziness, or the lack of charity of others, or any other reason than because when the market works properly, people will still be unemployed. So the idea that you can reduce all the ailments of unemployment down to laziness, lack of charity, alien invasion, or whatever else, is simply ridiculous.

4) Ah, yes, the eternal canard of the libertarian: "Charity will deal with all the ailments that government tries and fails to deal with". The problem with this is that supposing you were a libertarian, there would be no reason for you to be charitable at all. How so, you might ask? Well, it is because in a libertarian economic system, people are what might be termed "rationally self-interested." That means that they think and consider all things in terms of what is advantageous to themselves. As Ayn Rand put it in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal: "She has no 'social duty,' her own life is her only responsibility--and the only thing that a capitalist system requires of her is the thing that nature requires: rationality, i.e., that she live and act to the best of her own judgment." (Ayn Rand, Ch.1 What is Capitalism).

Ah, but if you have no duty to anyone but yourself, on what grounds would you give money to other people who are starving when it is of no benefit to you? The answer is that you wouldn't. Rand was clear on this point when she said later in the same chapter: "While altruism seeks to rob intelligence of its rewards, by asserting that the moral duty of the competent is to serve the incompetent and sacrifice themselves to anyone's need--the tribal premise goes step further: it denies the existence of intelligence and of its role in the production of wealth." (Ayn Rand, Ch. 1 What is Capitalism)In the libertarian view, charity is not only something you wouldn't do, it is contravening to the very spirit of capitalism.

Secondly, there are no libertarian economies in existence today, so no comparison can be made.

Dickens' England during the Industrial Revolution, as well as America during the Gilded Age come pretty close. Neither of those eras were well-regarded if you were hoping for a compassionate, charitably Christian society.

As a side note, someone might claim that during those eras, corporate welfare was rampant, so it is not compatible with libertarianism. While true in theory, see point one from above to listen to my response to that claim.

Socialism leads to increased unemployment, lower income, and less opportunity because it penalizes the individual for their hard work. The German and French economies are examples of the failiure of socialism

As the German and French economies are currently the world's third and (IIRC) the fifth biggest in the world right now, and they manage to provide their workers with a perfectly acceptable mean level of income (around $25,000 or so, again IIRC) all for far less work on average than that of U.S. workers (currently American males average 51 hours per week of work, while American females average 41, whereas the French are forbidden by law from working more than 35, and they get about 5 times the vacation time we do as well), I hardly see how they represent a "failure" of socialism.

Besides, if you really wanted a socialist government, you'd pick Sweden. . .oh wait, Sweden actually has a higher standard of living than we do, along with much better education and healthcare systems than we have. I can see now why you didn't mention it.


Jesus never wanted the government to do the work that the individual should do, because helping others is the work of God and so is given to God, not the government. le of properly running the systems necessary to eliminate societal ills; only the work of individuals can do this.

. . .Maybe this was in some apocrypha I'm not familiar with, but I don't recall Jesus saying much about government at all. He said that you should obey the laws so long as it does not interfere with your faith, and he said that you should have faith and act neighborly to all people, and that was about it. I'm not reading anywhere in there a call for marginal tax cuts, nor am I reading in there that the government should not be called upon to help the less fortunate.

I am reading what I think is a complete misunderstanding of what government is, however. Government isn't some mysterious "them" that we heap all the things we don't want to deal with. It is us, because government is nothing more than our creation, given legitemacy by us. If we use government to help deal with poverty, that isn't any less noble of an action than if we deal with it ourselves. I'm not seeing anything incompatible with the commandment to act as if all people were your neighbor with paying higher taxes to feed your neighbors around the country; in point of fact, it seems quite compatible. That is probably why in Jewish Torah, it proscribes that you should pay a tithe (to the government) to help the poor, allow the poor to eat the unpicked food from your land, etc.


Furthermore, the government is woefully incompetent, corrupt, and incapab

On what grounds do you say this? Social Security has been immensely instrumental in decreasing poverty among the elderly, and yet it loses less than .1 percent per year to waste, fraud, and corruption. Medicare and Medicaid have been immensely useful in providing healthcare to the aged and poor, and they consistently have lower levels of bureaucratic overhead than the HMO's free-marketeers propose to replace them with. This is a simple myth, a relic of the time during the Reagan era when we spent hundreds of dollars on a hammer for. . .oh wait, it was for the conservative sacred cow of defense spending. In social services, however, corruption and incompetence doesn't really seem to be a problem.


The purpose of a libertarian economy is to ensure the greatest quality of life for the greatest number of people, and the free market resuts in the best possible lifestyle for those who put the effort in. If they fail, others help them get back on their feet, and don't create generations of welfare dependent underclasses. A person in the libertariain economy doesn't "serve Mammon" unless they let their wealth become their master rather than their servant. It is not wrong to be wealthy and recieve due compensation for your hard work, but when one lets their desire for wealth overwhelm their desire to do good, then they no longer serve God.

And yet, while this purpose sounds great, in practice it just don't turn out right. As noted above, the whole philosophical underpinnings of libertarian capitalism and Christianity go together like Al Bundy and rocket science. You cannot believe that "her own life is her only responsibility" while at the same time believing that "What you do to the least of men, you do to me", because those are incompatible concepts. You have to pick one or the other.

In practice, it doesn't work so swell, either. Let me ask you, if libertarian ideology really helps poor people, and we are more libertarian than we were in the 1990's because we've decreased government involvement in business, our poverty rate should be lower than what it was in the late nineties, correct? Then how do you explain the fact that our poverty rates are up, and not down? The only way to explain it is that libertarianism just doesn't have the effects you seem to want it to.


Sorry, but I feel that you're full of it. Let's not even get into the last paragraph you wrote, full of semicontextual, handpicked and heavily groomed references, yet completely absent of personality altogether. Left me feeling like I ate an Ultra-Lite ricecake.

That has more to do with the fact that I had about 3 minutes to write that before the lab closed for the night than anything else. Please feel free to look at my more expansive critiques above.


The first paragraph highlights a single statement I take to mean "Don't rock the boat unnecessarily, Rome will fuck us up if we do, and it's not worth it".

Not really. He's actually making a much deeper philosophical point.

The Pharisees at this point are trying to draw Jesus into a theological debate that will eventually spawn the revolt that culminated in Emperor Titus destroying the Temple of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (no, Eichen, I am not a dumbass when it comes to either history or theology), about 40 years ahead of Jesus' time. The basis of the debate at this time is a series of heavy taxes that the Emperor has levied on the Empire at this point. The Pharisees hoped that either way Jesus answered, either yea or nay on whether good Jews should pay taxes, he would lose. If he answered yea, then he lost support among the Jews who disliked paying the taxes. If he answered nay, he could be imprisoned for being a subversive.

His response at one level is a clever dodge. By saying that since it is the Emperor's face on the coin, they should "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's", he neatly avoids either problem. On a larger level, however, he is referring to the rule of law. The rule of law is a philosophical concept originally argued for by Socrates in Plato's Crito. In it, he argues with Crito, who is trying to save Socrates from unjust death, by saying that he should not violate the laws now, because the laws have been good to him in the past and consequently he owes them his obedience even if the result is harmful to him now. Here, Jesus makes much the same point: even if the law is harmful to you now, you should still obey it, because that is the law, and the law has been good to you, and you obey something in return. The Emperor might be hurting you by asking for more money, but it is his money, so it should be given.

I referred to this passage primarily for two reasons. On the one hand, it offers a direct critique of the libertarian idea that you don't owe anything to the government, and the government shouldn't force you to pay. On the other, it is a traditional passage that is often cited by Christians who obey laws even when they are opposed to the actions those laws are meant to carry out. As a good example, Alvin York cited this passage when he signed up for military service in WWI.


You failed to acknowledge directly anything I said, and you fall way short of magician as far as misdierction is concerned.


Seems to me that it's a pretty direct refutation of this quote right here:

"He never even hinted that the state should force you to do so. Or that you should pass the buck to any authority and absolve yourself from any moral responsibility to do so without obligation."


Considering the cultural and political climate in which he lived, Jesus was anything but on the Roman's side. To manipulate the obvious in the name of commie or pinko politics is insulting to anyone's intelligence with a clue.

Jesus was the Messiah because he was supposed to save the Jews from the tyranny and exploitation of the evil, heathen Romans. Anything else is bullshit being spewed by those with an agenda to push, and it's so see-through it takes a lot of effort to create the kind of spin necessary to forward the argument "Jesus said listen and obey the Romans, cuz they're right and we, the chosen people of God, should obey like good lap dogs".

Isn't that basically the argument he made(in unlented, personality-devoid spin and bloviation)?

Jesus said obey the Roamans, not that he was the new law. Wow, I forget now why they had to crucify him in the first place!

Use this as an example of the lengths pinkos will attempt in order to get you to swallow their poetic bullshit. I couldn't be more satisfied with an example, personally.


1) I am not a pinko. I'm just the devil's advocate in this instance.

2) Then you really don't understand all that much about the Bible. The whole reason why the Jews had trouble accepting Jesus as the Messiah was because he wasn't a mighty warrior who would cast off Roman oppression, and that was how they thought the Messiah must be. Their mistake, as Paul made clear in Romans, was assuming that the Messiah would save them in this world, not the next. In that sense, he is saving those who would listen from Rome, because in the next world, there will be no overarching empire to rule over you.

3) The Romans crucified Jesus because, as the Gospel of John made clear, Pilate might well have faced a revolt on the spot if he didn't, and the Jewish people were willing to let a murderer go free before they would let Jesus live. By John's account, Pilate went out of his way to spare Jesus. Granted, I'm the first to admit that John is far more Anti-Semitic than I would like, but that is what it says.

I can give my analysis on this issue, being brought up by a staunchly conservative mother.

In large part, being Conservative looks at the world on the micro level, and places less emphasis on the "big picture" if you will. Conservatives (in the US) are big believers in preserving their way of life, and in general the social orders of yesteryear, although there are some things, like segregation, that most conservatives reject. They consider encroachments by big government on economic issues contrary to their work ethic, but they also look on their historical emphasis on family, God, and Country, which leads them to be supportive of a strong military and to fight attempts to bring social minorities out of the margins and what they see as attempts to drive God out of every aspect of public life. That's not to say that there aren't well thought-out conservatives, but that is the driving force behind Conservatism. I consider conservatives as largely misunderstood by socialists and libertarians, but that's something we all fall victim to.

Actually, I see much less corruption in Governments than in the Business World. It is possible that it is more reported in some places, but I have yet to see the Government do the kinds of things Enron has done for example.

Simple answer to that; the government can demand payouts from it's "shareholders," in porportion to their ability to pay, and has a virtually limitless ability to create debt for itself, not to mention it's unique ability to create it's own money. The National (US) Government is by far and away the most corrupt corporation in America.

-snip-
That is a very good point, probably one of the best attempts to connect the dots so far.
You oughta put some paragraphs in to make it easier to read.

"Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism?"

It doesn't ... not always. When it does, it's usually because most "social conservatives" are traditionalists, and consider capitalism a "tradition" in the US, IMHO.

Why does social conservatism go with free-market capitalism?

It doesn't. Any sociopolitical philosophy that says I can't make/sell/buy X because "X is Bad" is anti-free market.

In short (and stereotype)
For Social Conservatives it's Drugs, Sex and other "immoral" things.
For Social NeoLiberals it's Guns, Religion, Tobacco and Fossil Fuels.

Both are anti-free market.

Some quick points...

Deontology a deeply flawed moral philosophy? As compared to what, consequentialism? A philosophy that measures human worth only in relation to some concept of "the good" for which any sacrifice is acceptable? I'll take (certain forms of) Deontology any day. (Not silly things like divine command theory)

The economy is not a zero-sum game. Rich people do not make others poor by their richness. They can make people poor by lobbying for grossly unfair laws which can make others poor (and they often do), but wealth is created, not simply distributed from one big central pie.

I notice almost no threads from the leftists and none of their justifications can leave out some reference to utilitarian philosophy. If someone doesn't agree with utilitarianism, how do you expect your arguments to be persuasive?

Finally, someone said that under a libertarian philosophy charity doesn't make sense, and that it's contrary to the spirit of capitalism. Why? What I own is mine to dispose of as I please...that's what ownership is. Do you mean to imply that no one naturally cares about anybody else, loves anybody else? If I was a rich girl (yeah right), are you telling me I wouldn't gladly give money to any of my friends or family who was in the slightest bit of need? Hell, I'd even give to strangers. I do now, even though I don't have much. Why do people give? Because it feels good to improve the lives of others. To be happy, humans need to connect to other humans. I'm a consummate loner and even I recognize this. And capitalism can't work without a society. So how is being friendly and helping people contrary to the spirit of capitalism? Forcing people to help others certainly is. But that's something else entirely.

If you don't own your wealth, which you worked for, what do you own? Your body? Your mind? Your time? What? How is one separable from the others? Or do we not even own ourselves? So many of these socialist arguments seem to center around the worthlessness and forfeitability of the individual.

Society and government ONLY exist to serve the individual. The trick is that they have to serve every individual, not some over others. There is absolutely no value or good in society apart from the people who make it up. None whatsoever.

BTW, hi to the classical liberals/libertarians in the thread. Nice to see I'm not alone. Sometimes I feel like everyone is either way socialist or scarily fascist.

The economy is not a zero-sum game. Rich people do not make others poor by their richness. They can make people poor by lobbying for grossly unfair laws which can make others poor (and they often do), but wealth is created, not simply distributed from one big central pie.

I notice almost no threads from the leftists and none of their justifications can leave out some reference to utilitarian philosophy. If someone doesn't agree with utilitarianism, how do you expect your arguments to be persuasive?
For rich people to exist, someone must be poor, right? Otherwise everyone would be rich/poor and all we'd have is inflation.

I guess if you don't agree with utilitarianism, there is not much that can convince you. And equally, you can't really hope to convince me with your arguments because I know that such inequality is not "profit maximising" if you will.
Our philosophies are the very reason we believe one way or the other in the first place.

So the only point one can make then is that a completely libertarian system would have to collapse because there would be nothing to counter the various market failures that exist. It's a little bit like Communism - it can never be realised because of the way the world works. But until a completely libertarian state exists, and breaks, there is no point arguing because you would not accept it (presumably).

That's mainly because when government does it, it's not illegal. Let me give you a quick example:

Social Security. There is no "Trust Fund". It's full of IOU's going back to the 1960's. The only reason anyone gets any bennies from their Social Security, is that it's been, and being, run in the manner of a fraud known as "The Ponzi Scheme". In the Ponzi Scheme (a form of Pyramid scheme), "Investors" are collected, the con-man then promises that those investors will recieve a return on their money. He delivers a return to his first set, by recruiting the next set, which also recieve a promise of a return, and so-on. the reason it's in crisis now, is that beneficiaries will outnumber new victims fairly soon, thanks to improvements in lifespan longevity and the 'bubble' of the Baby-Boom.

Where did the money go? Well... it went into the General fund, where it was then spent on things totally unrelated to the function of Social Security. When a Business does this, it's a crime. When Congress does it, it is not.
Here's the basic reason why your analogy is a load of crap--businesses who do as you say don't back up their future promises with the full faith and credit of the US government. Social Security does. Those bonds that have been let, that the Congress has issued in order to use the extra that Social Security is taking in right now, must be honored. No ifs, ands or buts about it. They must be--they take precedence.

Now don't get me wrong--I really wish that Congress actually had the cash building up in an account rather than using it for other things the way they are. I'd rather they were paying down the national debt with it than using it the way they are right now. But just because the Congress is being stupid about our current economic situation doesn't make Social Security a Ponzi scheme, not as long as the fed is on the hook for the money.

You want to see a Ponzi scheme? Let Bushco privatize Social Security. Then you'll see one in all its glory.

1) I love the double standard being bandied about here:

Righteously-Indignant Libertarian (RIL): Marx talked a good talk, but in the real world, his policies turned into Stalinist Russia. So if you support Marxism, you really support communism.

Commie-Pinko Scum (CPS): Okay, so what about any of a hundred different problems with the way free-market capitalism works?

RIL: . . .That isn't the way Adam Smith said it would happen.

If you want to talk theory, then we can talk theory. If you want to talk pragmatically, we can talk pragmatically. Either way, however, modern capitalism has some serious drawbacks.Pragmatics is not something separate from theory. I think you mean to say history. But if that's what you mean, there's not much to discuss about history if you're not involving theory. It's all related.

I think I know the argument you speak of above, but you're misrepresenting it. It's not that RIL says, "that's not what the theory says should happen"; he's saying, "that's not what's happening." For instance, someone might point out that Hoover's laissez faire economic policy didn't work and I will argue that Hoover's economic policy wasn't at all laissez faire. It's an argument over historical fact, actually.


2) Addressing your point directly, Adam Smith didn't talk about what we call corporations in any case, so to some extent, you are correct that insofar as modern capitalisms faults can be traced to corporate behavior, they are not the "fault", so to speak, of pure, unadulterated capitalism (Note: depending on the edition, it might seem that he speaks in the pejorative about corporations, but when he talks about corporations, he is really talking about what we know of as guilds, the precursors to modern labor unions. Corporations didn't really exist except in the most embryonic form in Smith's day).

That being said, you can't simply wave away capitalism's problems by simply saying "It was the corporation's fault," because corporations are a logical outcome of capitalist mentality. The whole point of corporations are to 1) encourage the investment of speculators in the market, and 2) limit liability of damages only to that of the original investment. Neither of these main tasks of corporations is in any way incompatible with market economics, and in fact increases the size, power, and exposure of the market, which Adam Smith would consider a good thing, because the larger the market, the more people profit.I think you're mischaracterizing the argument. It is not that the problems are to blame on corporations per se, but on corporatism - government market interventions that are mainly done in the interest of corporations. When a market participant convinces the powers that be to act on it's behalf, it doesn't matter whether it's a lowly consumer, a labor organization, a sole proprietor, or a massive corporation. It's all unethical favoritism as far as I'm concerned. It's just that corporations tend to be big enough to exert substantial influence on big governments. Favored small buisnesses OTOH, often recieve favors from smaller governments.


3) I take it you've never heard of the term "natural rate of unemployment." This refers to a traditional economic theory that goes back about 40 years or so now. The basic theory, one that empirical evidence seems to vindicate, is that a country's unemployment rate will tend toward a consistent mean over time, and that at this rate growth will be ideal. Too much employment and inflation sets in, and too little and there isn't enough money to purchase the goods that are produced.Let me just say that I'm familiar enough with this idea to call BS. I'm really curious as to what empirical evidence suggests the correlation, as I know that inflation and unemployment have simultaneously been significantly higher than they both have been at other times. If you wish to try and prove this assertion, go right ahead. Although, I'm trying to start this argument right now. I'm just letting you know that, at least with me, it's not a matter of being unfamiliar with the theory, but of a fundamental disagreement.


What is the point of this, you might ask? Well, the point is this, my good man: even and especially in an ideally-working economy, there will likely still be people unemployed who still want to and can work at any given time, because that is how the market is set up. Some people will be laid off to improve quarterly earnings, some will be laid off because they work in seasonal industries (agriculture, for instance), etc. These people aren't unemployed because of their own laziness, or the lack of charity of others, or any other reason than because when the market works properly, people will still be unemployed. So the idea that you can reduce all the ailments of unemployment down to laziness, lack of charity, alien invasion, or whatever else, is simply ridiculous.Personally, I would not suggest that the unemployed are necessarily lazy. Hmm, it's difficult for me to get into it regarding unemployment because I don't really see things from the popular perspective. I would say that people are unemployed for 2 'natural' reasons:
1. They intend to be.
2. It takes time to become employed again.
There are other reasons that all consist of some sort of government intervention. I suppose there's also the case of there being no one in need of your services as an employee, but that's very unlikely baring government intervention. Even if someone's unemployed because they intend to be because they can't find a good enough job, I do not cast judgement on them unless they become a leech.


4) Ah, yes, the eternal canard of the libertarian: "Charity will deal with all the ailments that government tries and fails to deal with". The problem with this is that supposing you were a libertarian, there would be no reason for you to be charitable at all. How so, you might ask? Well, it is because in a libertarian economic system, people are what might be termed "rationally self-interested." That means that they think and consider all things in terms of what is advantageous to themselves. As Ayn Rand put it in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal: "She has no 'social duty,' her own life is her only responsibility--and the only thing that a capitalist system requires of her is the thing that nature requires: rationality, i.e., that she live and act to the best of her own judgment." (Ayn Rand, Ch.1 What is Capitalism).

Ah, but if you have no duty to anyone but yourself, on what grounds would you give money to other people who are starving when it is of no benefit to you? The answer is that you wouldn't. Rand was clear on this point when she said later in the same chapter: "While altruism seeks to rob intelligence of its rewards, by asserting that the moral duty of the competent is to serve the incompetent and sacrifice themselves to anyone's need--the tribal premise goes step further: it denies the existence of intelligence and of its role in the production of wealth." (Ayn Rand, Ch. 1 What is Capitalism)In the libertarian view, charity is not only something you wouldn't do, it is contravening to the very spirit of capitalism.Not all (or even most) libertarians are objectivists - adherents to Ayn Rand's philosohpy. And even amoung them, they don't all agree with everything she wrote. And sometimes they even argue over what she meant like christians arguing over the meaning scripture or men in black arguing over the intent of a law.

I am not one to say that if you leave everyone alone they'll be sufficiently charitable to take care of whatever problems government pretends to solve. I say that that isn't the point. The point, is that people ought to be free to do as they wish with their own property. And if they are free, there's no real way to predict their choices.



Dickens' England during the Industrial Revolution, as well as America during the Gilded Age come pretty close [to a libertarian economy]. Neither of those eras were well-regarded if you were hoping for a compassionate, charitably Christian society.

As a side note, someone might claim that during those eras, corporate welfare was rampant, so it is not compatible with libertarianism. While true in theory, see point one from above to listen to my response to that claim.I don't really care for use of the term 'libertarian economy', as there isn't exactly a consensus as to what that is. Also, it's difficult and potentially meaningless to compare different economies through time as the higher level of technology and infrastructure have dramatically imporved things.

As the German and French economies are currently the world's third and (IIRC) the fifth biggest in the world right now, and they manage to provide their workers with a perfectly acceptable mean level of income (around $25,000 or so, again IIRC) all for far less work on average than that of U.S. workers (currently American males average 51 hours per week of work, while American females average 41, whereas the French are forbidden by law from working more than 35, and they get about 5 times the vacation time we do as well), I hardly see how they represent a "failure" of socialism.

Besides, if you really wanted a socialist government, you'd pick Sweden. . .oh wait, Sweden actually has a higher standard of living than we do, along with much better education and healthcare systems than we have. I can see now why you didn't mention it.I won't touch that $25k number as I doubt that you do recall correctly. Whatever the number is, it cannot be "perfectly acceptable" as that would mean there cannot be anyone who would not be satisfied with that amount. Even if you imagine that all Germans or Frenchmen are satisfied with their income, you must allow for the possibility that one could change his mind. As far as western European socialism being a faliure, it takes time. And really, the US system is not that different from much of Europe, as far as the size of the tax bite. And here, a great deal of that wealth is squandered on bombs and such, which is a relatively more destructive way to spend tax money than social-welfare. We're all suffering from economic stagnation resulting from the parasitic loss of government. I don't know if the standard of living (which really can't objectively be measured) is actually getting worse, but I know that I don't want to live in your beloved Sweden (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji1.html).



. . .Maybe this was in some apocrypha I'm not familiar with, but I don't recall Jesus saying much about government at all. He said that you should obey the laws so long as it does not interfere with your faith, and he said that you should have faith and act neighborly to all people, and that was about it. I'm not reading anywhere in there a call for marginal tax cuts, nor am I reading in there that the government should not be called upon to help the less fortunate.

I am reading what I think is a complete misunderstanding of what government is, however. Government isn't some mysterious "them" that we heap all the things we don't want to deal with. It is us, because government is nothing more than our creation, given legitemacy by us. If we use government to help deal with poverty, that isn't any less noble of an action than if we deal with it ourselves. I'm not seeing anything incompatible with the commandment to act as if all people were your neighbor with paying higher taxes to feed your neighbors around the country; in point of fact, it seems quite compatible. That is probably why in Jewish Torah, it proscribes that you should pay a tithe (to the government) to help the poor, allow the poor to eat the unpicked food from your land, etc.Governmet is not us. Perhaps, it's you, but it certainly isn't me. I do not approve at all. I do not give it legitimacy, yet it takes my money anyway. In fact, it tends to reward it's supporters at the expense of detractors. The thing you must recognize about government is what it is that defines it - it is the entity or group of people that has the predominance of force in a society. Indeed, it is a very very different thing to open your wallet to help the less fortunate than to vote that your neighboor's wallet be forced open to do the same. That is not charity, it's theft.

I'm not really much of a bible reader though, and can't comment on the tithe you speak of.



On what grounds do you say this? Social Security has been immensely instrumental in decreasing poverty among the elderly, and yet it loses less than .1 percent per year to waste, fraud, and corruption. Medicare and Medicaid have been immensely useful in providing healthcare to the aged and poor, and they consistently have lower levels of bureaucratic overhead than the HMO's free-marketeers propose to replace them with. This is a simple myth, a relic of the time during the Reagan era when we spent hundreds of dollars on a hammer for. . .oh wait, it was for the conservative sacred cow of defense spending. In social services, however, corruption and incompetence doesn't really seem to be a problem.And what has Social Security done for poverty among the young? My point is that while the program may have proven monetarily benificial to old people, it has not done so without cost. Some may feel the benefit is worth the cost, but others do not. Either way you're forced to participate. Medicare and Medicade have been amazingly successful at raising the income of health care providers, particularly of the makers of drugs, and they've done much to complicate medical care. The HMO, like most of the US health care system, is an invention of congress. I'm not responsible for and do not support such things even if some "free market" people do or have. Nor do I support Reagan-esque big military spending.



And yet, while this purpose sounds great, in practice it just don't turn out right. As noted above, the whole philosophical underpinnings of libertarian capitalism and Christianity go together like Al Bundy and rocket science. You cannot believe that "her own life is her only responsibility" while at the same time believing that "What you do to the least of men, you do to me", because those are incompatible concepts. You have to pick one or the other.
You are, indeed, talking about two incompatible things - Christianity and objectivism. Objectivists are basically all atheists, but there are many Christian libertarians and they don't tend to agree with objectivism.

In practice, it doesn't work so swell, either. Let me ask you, if libertarian ideology really helps poor people, and we are more libertarian than we were in the 1990's because we've decreased government involvement in business, our poverty rate should be lower than what it was in the late nineties, correct? Then how do you explain the fact that our poverty rates are up, and not down? The only way to explain it is that libertarianism just doesn't have the effects you seem to want it to.Who says we're more libertarian now than in the 1990's?










...
1) I am not a pinko.Are too. :p

For rich people to exist, someone must be poor, right? Otherwise everyone would be rich/poor and all we'd have is inflation.
Nonsense. Rich and poor are essentially relative terms. Wealth is not relative, and you're confusing wealth with money, apparently. Basically, wealth is a measure of utility, of how many of one's ends can be achieved. We can generally compare wealth between people because it tends to consist of money and things that can be traded for money. Over time, though, the utility of money itself changes and meaningful comparisons can't really be made. Obviously then, if everybody suddenly had 1000 times as much money as they do now, the utility of money would be 1000 times less and nobody would be any wealthier. However, it is certainly possible that total and/or average wealth itself can increase or decrease in time. In fact, any way you measure it, it should be clear that the average person today is far more wealthy than the average person of 3,000 years ago. This is all the proof that anyone should need that wealth is not zero sum.

...

So the only point one can make then is that a completely libertarian system would have to collapse because there would be nothing to counter the various market failures that exist. It's a little bit like Communism - it can never be realised because of the way the world works. But until a completely libertarian state exists, and breaks, there is no point arguing because you would not accept it (presumably).Show me a market failure and I'll show you the result of government intervention. You'd may want to pick something obscure, since that will take me longer.

Here's the basic reason why your analogy is a load of crap--businesses who do as you say don't back up their future promises with the full faith and credit of the US government. Social Security does. Those bonds that have been let, that the Congress has issued in order to use the extra that Social Security is taking in right now, must be honored. No ifs, ands or buts about it. They must be--they take precedence.No ifs? Congress cannot pass a law of nature. If the IRS can't collect sufficient tax revenue the bonds will not be repaid.

Now don't get me wrong--I really wish that Congress actually had the cash building up in an account rather than using it for other things the way they are. I'd rather they were paying down the national debt with it than using it the way they are right now. But just because the Congress is being stupid about our current economic situation doesn't make Social Security a Ponzi scheme, not as long as the fed is on the hook for the money.
It's not the fiscal irresponsibility of congress that make Social Security a Ponzi scheme, it's the very nature of the system. The new blood pays for the earlier participants.

You want to see a Ponzi scheme? Let Bushco privatize Social Security. Then you'll see one in all its glory.Actually, that would not be a Ponzi scheme. It would be a differen't kind of scam.

Show me a market failure and I'll show you the result of government intervention. You'd may want to pick something obscure, since that will take me longer.
Well, how about global climate change? In a free market society, there would be no way of dealing with it at all, as far as I can tell. Virtually any situation involving externalities is going to be a 'market failure', with or without government intervention.

The point, is that people ought to be free to do as they wish with their own property. And if they are free, there's no real way to predict their choices.

This isn't correct, even within libertarian ideology. I can't shoot my gun into a crowd of people, for example, even though this does constitute a use of my property. I couldn't (presumably) set off a massive nuclear weapon on my property, even if I owned the property and the weapon.

That aside, I don't think libertarians understand the notion of freedom very well at all, actually. The general definition runs something like this:

Agent X is free when he or she is free from obstruction of others to do/not do be/not be a given objective

This is an extremely problematic defintion, but at the end of the day it is the only one libertarians can consistently cling to (the Maginot Line of Liberalism, as Taylor puts it). Some of the problems include that under this definition it is possible to be free in an immensely illiberal society and the lack of any sense of community freedom. It also allows for forced labour, essentially. It is utterly inconsistent with a kingdom of ends, which libertarianism in general say they support. However, it is the inescapable conclusion of libertarian philisophical theory.

There is nothing inherently wrong with an inequity of wealth. How that inequity was achieved is what's important. If you drop two men onto identical deserted islands with no tools whatsoever, the two men will almost definately have different levels of wealth 2 days later. It's very doubtful that they would have made equal progress procuring food and shelter. This doesn't mean that either has been wronged. It only means that they have different values and abilities. Now put the men on the same island and there's a possibility that one may wrong the other, but I'm trying to show that a difference in wealth is not evidence of injustice.
You forgot a vital point: There is no such thing as a fair island. True, if you drop two men (let's call them John and Smith) on identical deserted islands, one of them will most likely fare better than the other. But the question of WHO will fare better depends on what kind of islands you drop them on.

For example, let's say John knows a lot about edible fruit and can break open coconuts, while Smith is a much better hunter. If you drop them both on islands with lots of fruit and coconut trees but almost no mammals or birds, John will do much better. On the other hand, if you drop them on islands with no fruit-bearing trees but lots of animals that can be hunted, Smith will do much better.

Then, of course, there is also the important element of pure dumb luck.

But my point is that the usefulness of your abilities depends entirely on what kind of island you happen to be dropped on. That is why all inequalities between human beings are purely subjective. They depend on context. They depend on the kind of environment (natural, social and technological) that those human beings happen to live in.

You're doing a disservice to your fellow socialists. At least some collectivists recongize that people should be rewarded for their work, and that they should be punished for what they do wrong. Taking your statement to it's logical conclusion suggests that people do not deserve the consequences of their own actions - that criminals and heros deserve the same quality of life because we can't objectively determine who is more deserving. I hope people can see how grotesque this idea is.
Straw man. I'm not sure if you're trying to misrepresent my ideas or you genuinely did not understand what I was saying, but, in any case, you completely missed my point.

My argument, if you remember, was the following:

- All inequalities of ability, talent, etc. are subjective; there is no way to objectively determine who is overall "better" than another human being, because different people are better at different things, and the value of each ability of talent depends on the kind of environment you live in (it depends on "what kind of island you happen to be dropped on").

- Therefore, inequalities of wealth cannot be justified on the grounds that "some people are better than others, so they deserve more".

- Therefore, all people deserve equal wealth.

Notice three things:

1. I said nothing about people deserving or not deserving the consequences of their actions.

2. Equality of wealth does not mean that criminals can't be punished. You don't need to infringe upon a criminal's equal wealth in order to throw him in jail.

3. While it is true that the ideal society would have absolute equality of wealth, this is impractical in the near future. Unlike many libertarians (and contrary to what you might think), we communists are firmly grounded in reality. Achieving complete equality and a communist society is a very long-term goal. Our short-term goal is achieving socialism, which is more egalitarian than capitalism but does not involve absolute equality, and in which people are rewarded according to their work.

you misunderstand- Nobody has to be poor for me to be prosperous!!! If they want to work as hard as I do, and handle their earnings as carefully, there is no reason to be poor.
Actually, yes there is: It is impossible for everyone to be a boss or a businessman. You can't have more employers than employees; capitalism won't allow it, for obvious reasons.

It is impossible to have everyone doing the same job you are doing. Therefore the claim that "anyone could be as rich as me if they decided to do what I did" is obviously flawed.

Why shouldn't I have the right to turn my efforts into something more-say, using a portion of my earnings as investments, thus making my money earn money?
Because this means you can get money for free, without actually working for it. And money doesn't grow on trees; for every cent that you receive without working, somebody else worked for a cent he never received.

In an Open market, it is not a zero-sum game. The U.S. has a very open economy, and our poorest live better than most of the world. This is not due to Socialism or Socialist policies, but to the strength of our economic system and the concept of the Work Ethic.
Really? Then how do you explain the fact that the poorest citizens of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or even France, Britain - or, for that matter, almost any country in the Western world - are in fact better off than the poorest citizens of the USA? The USA is absolutely the worst place to be poor in the West. For example, it's the only place where you don't get health care if you're poor.

Yes, that "moral 'ick'" of not allowing slave labor, of allowing people to maintain the product of their own bodies.
By all means, I certainly agree you should maintain all the products of your body: Your urine, your feces, any food you might regurgitate, your sperm or ova and any other bodily secretions, etc. (though the smell could get really bad if you keep some of those around too long)

Property is not the product of your body. Even assuming you worked for your property (which is not always the case in a capitalist system), the fact remains that anything you produce through your work does not come into existence through work alone. It requires natural resources as well. And, while you can certainly say you "own" your work, no one has any inherent right to own any of the things that existed naturally on Earth long before he was born. One man has no more claim of ownership over natural resources than the next man. As such, the only fair thing to do is to put all natural resources under the collective ownership of mankind. And from that we logically get public ownership over the means of production - socialism. Now do you understand?

^^^^
Great posts, particularly from Contantonopolis and Xenophobialand. The standard of this thread is very high.

I can give my analysis on this issue, being brought up by a staunchly conservative mother.

In large part, being Conservative looks at the world on the micro level, and places less emphasis on the "big picture" if you will.
This is my least favourite thing about conservative ideology. The lack of emphasis on making the world a better place to live in.

1) Nonsense. Rich and poor are essentially relative terms. Wealth is not relative, and you're confusing wealth with money, apparently....
2) Show me a market failure and I'll show you the result of government intervention.
1) You're talking about the long term. In that case, obviously society progresses to greater levels of utility for everyone. No one disputes that.
But in the short term, if you are a boss, or a stock market trader, or anyone else (acknowledging that Managers and Business Owners do contribute something to the process, but not something that justifies the kind of money they make)- the majority of the money you make comes from someone else's work. You don't create a lot of actual physical value for society, instead you take the physical value of society and more or less charge a mark-up. Since you don't make stuff, you live of the value of stuff others made - by taking it away.
2) I've got many. Monopolies would be one, Hysteresis another, positive and negative externalities (and property rights are not a feasible alternative - you can't privatise the atmosphere), the provision of public goods...the list goes on, but this will be enough for now.

I'm a free-market capitalist, and believe that helping others is the individual's job, not the government.

I always believed the whole reason government got involved with 'helping others' was because the individual was doing a shitty job of it other wise.

EDIT

Once again I post without checking how long the thread it. Guess I gotta read it all now...

Actually, yes there is: It is impossible for everyone to be a boss or a businessman. You can't have more employers than employees; capitalism won't allow it, for obvious reasons.

It is impossible to have everyone doing the same job you are doing. Therefore the claim that "anyone could be as rich as me if they decided to do what I did" is obviously flawed.

That argument also goes against the idea that everyone can fairly recieve an equal amount from society. Since it is not possible for everyone to contribute the same amount of labor/utility to society, it is also impossible for everyone to receive equal reward from society while still be treated fairly.

Because this means you can get money for free, without actually working for it. And money doesn't grow on trees; for every cent that you receive without working, somebody else worked for a cent he never received.

You are not accounting for risk. When investing you are giving your unconsumed labor to another person in order to produce goods that they would not be able to produce alone. By doing so you are both pushing back the collection of the fruits of your labor, but also trusting someone else to return your labor to you. For the inconvenience of putting of the consumption of your labor, and the risk you are assuming for the benefit of the other person, you receive a added amount of labor from the person you loaned your labor to.

By all means, I certainly agree you should maintain all the products of your body: Your urine, your feces, any food you might regurgitate, your sperm or ova and any other bodily secretions, etc. (though the smell could get really bad if you keep some of those around too long)

Property is not the product of your body. Even assuming you worked for your property (which is not always the case in a capitalist system), the fact remains that anything you produce through your work does not come into existence through work alone. It requires natural resources as well. And, while you can certainly say you "own" your work, no one has any inherent right to own any of the things that existed naturally on Earth long before he was born. One man has no more claim of ownership over natural resources than the next man. As such, the only fair thing to do is to put all natural resources under the collective ownership of mankind. And from that we logically get public ownership over the means of production - socialism. Now do you understand?

So intellectual capital and physical labor should be publically owned? Those are means to production as well, and certainly are possessed by the individual originally.

And what reasoning do you have for saying that you cannot own something that predated your existence?

Finally, someone said that under a libertarian philosophy charity doesn't make sense, and that it's contrary to the spirit of capitalism. Why? What I own is mine to dispose of as I please...that's what ownership is. Do you mean to imply that no one naturally cares about anybody else, loves anybody else? If I was a rich girl (yeah right), are you telling me I wouldn't gladly give money to any of my friends or family who was in the slightest bit of need? Hell, I'd even give to strangers. I do now, even though I don't have much. Why do people give? Because it feels good to improve the lives of others. To be happy, humans need to connect to other humans. I'm a consummate loner and even I recognize this. And capitalism can't work without a society. So how is being friendly and helping people contrary to the spirit of capitalism? Forcing people to help others certainly is. But that's something else entirely.


The short answer is that while what you own is yours to dispose of as you please, if you are true capitalist, then you are only going to dispose of income in ways that generate more income rather than charity.

The longer answer is based on the evaluation of what a man at his best would be like. Capitalists see this person as being a rational egoist; philosopher-speak for a person who is perfectly rational, and uses that rationality purely for the fulfillment of personal desires and the satisfaction of personal needs. It should be noted that this is one of the major reasons why social conservatism and economic conservatism don't mix well: the Christian conception of what man at his best would be like is not at all compatible with the rational self-interest model proposed by economic conservatives. As they have two fundamentally different views of the end of human nature, they cannot be considered compatible philosophical doctrines.

Now, the question you need to ask yourself at this point is: supposing a person were completely rational and completely self-interested, would they or would they not perform acts of charity? Adam Smith, because he comes out of the Hutcheson school of Scottish philosophy (Hutcheson is a largely forgotten proto-utilitarian, but he taught and influenced many of the most influential philosophers in history. Adam Smith, David Hume, and James Mill, father of John Stuart Mill, are all disciples of Hutcheson. All also share some common views of human nature, such as the belief that we have both a rational faculty and a passionate faculty, and the passionate faculty has some influence on our rationality. It is likely because of this influence that Adam Smith differs from many of his disciples over the issue of charity, because he differs with them over the degree of influence passion does and should have over reason)*, thought that they might well, as when he writes in his Theory of Moral Sentiments: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it."

As noted, however, most later economist and capitalist philosophers disagree with this assessment, however. A perfectly rational, perfectly self-interested person, they believe, would calculate all things with an eye for the advantage an act nets them. Advantage in this case is usually determined purely in terms of monetary profit. As such, I would only perform charity insofar as it serves to improve my bottom line. Most of the time, this benefit is nil. Therefore, I wouldn't do it. There might be some instances in which I would, but this would usually be only for publicity purposes and never in sufficient quantities to actually damage my bottom line (it should be noted that this also differs significantly from Christian doctrine, as Jesus makes clear at the Sermon on the Mount: "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward." Matthew 6:1-2).

Moreover, being charitable interferes with the smooth working of the invisible hand, so many capitalists would argue that charity is not only not compatible with the spirit of the capitalist man, it is also undermining capitalism itself. If welfare is only an economic incentive to remain unemployed, for instance, then how is giving a bum $10 to eat any different? Most capitalist philosophers would agree that there is no fundamental difference; in each case, there is an incentive present to continue practicing activities that don't maximize efficient labor and productivity. In that sense, both charity and welfare are interfering with the invisible hand that rewards efficiency and productivity. As such, a good capitalist wouldn't be charitable. I'd have to check, as my knowledge of Friedman and Hayek are fairly shaky, but I am ironclad certain that Rand would agree with this analysis wholeheartedly.


Pragmatics is not something separate from theory. I think you mean to say history. But if that's what you mean, there's not much to discuss about history if you're not involving theory. It's all related.

I'm using "pragmatically" in the vulgar sense, as in the distinction between theory and practice, to use Marx' terminology. I'm sorry if I confused you on that; I was speaking about neither Peirce's Pragmatic Theory of Meaning nor James' normative Pragmatism.


I think I know the argument you speak of above, but you're misrepresenting it. It's not that RIL says, "that's not what the theory says should happen"; he's saying, "that's not what's happening." For instance, someone might point out that Hoover's laissez faire economic policy didn't work and I will argue that Hoover's economic policy wasn't at all laissez faire. It's an argument over historical fact, actually.

I think you misunderstand the thrust of my point, as it isn't so much one of history as it is one of rhetoric, namely that of a double standard. When libertarians debate economic leftists on the boards, things like Soviet Russia are always, always brought up. Now, the simple fact is that Soviet Russia, at least post-Lenin, was not at all in accord with any kind of actual socialist doctrine. It was really just a dictatorship with two main goals: 1) create a cult of personality around Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin (the latter being held to be the spiritual successor to the former, when in actuality it was the exiled Trotsky who was far closer to that role), and 2) rapidly industrialize the nation with an eye for military parity with neighboring Germany and later the U.S. But whenever this is brought up, the standard reply is "This just goes to show you how screwed up socialist theory is, because whenever it's put into practice, you get Soviet pogroms."

But whenever the shoe is on the other foot, libertarians insist that they can get away with the same thing they try to stick socialists with. If its true, which it is, that whenever people set out to create a libertarian economy, they get either a corporatist system or an industrial jungle ala Industrial Age England, then doesn't that by extension reflect badly on libertarian theory? It doesn't seem to, because there are still quite a few libertarians on the boards, and they all insist that you can't blame them for things like Enron or Oliver Twist because, dammit, that just isn't what they were trying to accomplish and it wasn't what their theories predicted. Hence my rejoinder of "That isn't what Adam Smith said would happen."


I think you're mischaracterizing the argument. It is not that the problems are to blame on corporations per se, but on corporatism - government market interventions that are mainly done in the interest of corporations. When a market participant convinces the powers that be to act on it's behalf, it doesn't matter whether it's a lowly consumer, a labor organization, a sole proprietor, or a massive corporation. It's all unethical favoritism as far as I'm concerned. It's just that corporations tend to be big enough to exert substantial influence on big governments. Favored small buisnesses OTOH, often recieve favors from smaller governments.

1) Not really. Absent any and all government intervention, corporations will still cause problems, a problem that is only exacerbated by corporatist government policies, not created by them. Absent any government intervention, for instance, how well do you think a corporation will deal with environmental hazards it creates? The obvious answer is that it will be responsible only in proportion to the degree of profit or loss it can expect from cleaning up. If it is more profitable, or better put, less expensive to simply pull up stakes and move elsewhere after it has ruined a piece of land, then that is precisely what it will do. Moreover, absent government intervention, there is precious little in the way of market pressure to give corporations the incentive to clean up. Hence the reason why there was so much industrial pollutants and so much callous disregard for the local environment prior to the creation of government entities like the EPA.

If you look at history, you'll find this pattern continue in quite a few important social areas: child labor, education, workplace safety, working hours, etc.

2) Again, you are simply trying to pass off corporatism as a perversion of economics, when in actuality, it is the logical outcome of the very things capitalists try to set up. How can you propose that actors within the marketplace should a) act to their own advantage, and b) seek to maximize profit, while finding it incongruous when they do something that follows both of those principles by using government to rig the playing field in their favor? It seems to me that this is a fairly predictable, if harmful and unintended consequence of trying to make rationally egoistic actors in the marketplace. If so, then this falls back into the point I made above: you are simply trying to dodge the unintended consequences by saying "Don't look at us; that isn't what Adam Smith said would happen."


Let me just say that I'm familiar enough with this idea to call BS. I'm really curious as to what empirical evidence suggests the correlation, as I know that inflation and unemployment have simultaneously been significantly higher than they both have been at other times. If you wish to try and prove this assertion, go right ahead. Although, I'm trying to start this argument right now. I'm just letting you know that, at least with me, it's not a matter of being unfamiliar with the theory, but of a fundamental disagreement.

1) Keynesian economic theory (Keynes being the originator of the "business cycle" theory) was able to fairly accurately predict fluctuations in the economy for roughly about 20 years between the early 1950's and the early 1970's, and you'll find that government at that time often tailored economic policy specifically to control the employment rate. Keynesian economics fell out of favor during the Oil Crisis during the late 1970's, when the unexpected stagflation (stagnantly-high unemployment rates, coupled with rapid inflation) caused it to fall out of favor and progressively be replaced by Freidman, Hayek, and Laffer's libertarian economic theory that you favor, which is undoubtedly why you called BS. The traditional line of thinking is that because Keynesian economics couldn't account for how and why stagflation was occuring, then it was a faulty system.

I would tend to say that it is possible to account within a Keynesian system why stagflation was occuring, because the government was effectively using the printing press to pay for expensive domestic programs, the Vietnam War (the war was fought without significantly higher taxes to pay for it, on LBJ's mistaken assumption that he could pay for both guns and butter simultaneously), and more expensive foreign oil. As a result, you had more money chasing the same amount of goods (inflation), and at the same time you had that money chasing foreign purchases that did little or nothing to aid the American economy (stagnant growth). Ironically enough, there are some indicators of stagflation currently. Given that there are similar circumstances, with Bush paying for an expensive war through budget deficits, increasing prices of crude, and stagnant or declining real wages, stagflation seems to be a symptom of either economic system given set circumstances.

2) Moreover, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. My whole point was not to claim that John Maynard Keynes was the Chosen Economist whom we should all follow. My point was to say that even were there an ideal economic system, and even were all people perfect capitalists within that system, there would still be unemployment. As such, blaming unemployment wholly on things like laziness or stupidity is just asinine, because the system seems to be designed with some level of unemployment in any circumstance.


Personally, I would not suggest that the unemployed are necessarily lazy. Hmm, it's difficult for me to get into it regarding unemployment because I don't really see things from the popular perspective. I would say that people are unemployed for 2 'natural' reasons:
1. They intend to be.
2. It takes time to become employed again.
There are other reasons that all consist of some sort of government intervention. I suppose there's also the case of there being no one in need of your services as an employee, but that's very unlikely baring government intervention. Even if someone's unemployed because they intend to be because they can't find a good enough job, I do not cast judgement on them unless they become a leech.


We are more or less in agreement on that point then. Nevertheless, you seem to readily admit that your position isn't the standard line of defense against the claims of economic injustice. It was that standard line I was attacking there. You have also effectively ceded the fact that there is going to be some injustice in the ideal economic system, because there will be some people who, based purely on economic considerations beyond their control, are not going to be paid as well as they should, or may not be paid at all despite the fact that they could.


Not all (or even most) libertarians are objectivists - adherents to Ayn Rand's philosohpy. And even amoung them, they don't all agree with everything she wrote. And sometimes they even argue over what she meant like christians arguing over the meaning scripture or men in black arguing over the intent of a law.

I am not one to say that if you leave everyone alone they'll be sufficiently charitable to take care of whatever problems government pretends to solve. I say that that isn't the point. The point, is that people ought to be free to do as they wish with their own property. And if they are free, there's no real way to predict their choices.


1) I wasn't necessarily trying to claim that Rand's position spoke for all libertarians. You'll have to bear with me on this one, because while I can quote respectably from Rand and Smith, I can't do it from people like Friedman and Hayek, so naturally they are going to get more airtime in my posts than would other libertarian theorists.

2) Given the vehemence with which Rand speaks repeatedly about altruism and the destructive influence it has on society, I don't think I'm taking her out of context when I use her to say that you would have a hard time reconciling the Christian ethic of charity with the brutally egoistic mentality of the capitalist. It's one thing to question what Jesus, for instance, meant from a parable. It would be quite different to call him a warmonger, because that is counter to the very essence of his teachings. The same thing holds true for Rand and altruism: she despises it, and as charity is based on altruistic impulses, it's not out of character, and not really a matter of "interpretation" to say that she hates charity as well.

3) If I take you at face value, then you'd be willing to admit that free people might not provide for those that cannot work. If so, then you have to admit that there is the strong possibility of injustice in the libertarian economic system.


I don't really care for use of the term 'libertarian economy', as there isn't exactly a consensus as to what that is. Also, it's difficult and potentially meaningless to compare different economies through time as the higher level of technology and infrastructure have dramatically imporved things.

1) Fair enough then. What would you prefer I call your system?

2) Your dodging the point here. Irrespective of what level of technology was present, the fact remains that Industrial Age England and the Chicago portrayed in The Jungle were largely free of government intervention, and extremely harsh to the workers within that system. If the government is not going to step in to stop the actions of market from returning us to that condition, then I see no reason why superior technology and more infrastructure will either.


I won't touch that $25k number as I doubt that you do recall correctly. Whatever the number is, it cannot be "perfectly acceptable" as that would mean there cannot be anyone who would not be satisfied with that amount. Even if you imagine that all Germans or Frenchmen are satisfied with their income, you must allow for the possibility that one could change his mind. As far as western European socialism being a faliure, it takes time. And really, the US system is not that different from much of Europe, as far as the size of the tax bite. And here, a great deal of that wealth is squandered on bombs and such, which is a relatively more destructive way to spend tax money than social-welfare. We're all suffering from economic stagnation resulting from the parasitic loss of government. I don't know if the standard of living (which really can't objectively be measured) is actually getting worse, but I know that I don't want to live in your beloved Sweden.

1) I apparently overestimated their income slightly, or I might have just read more recent numbers in which their income has increased since. In any case, per the World Bank, their average annual income as of 2001 is as follows:

France: $22,730
Germany: $23,560
Sweden: $25,400

compared to the U.S. during the same period:

U.S.: $34,280

(statistics from this site: http://www.marfortec.co.uk/ecnonomic_overview_of_europe.htm)

Before you crow about the superiority of the U.S. system, however, remember that this increased pay comes at what might well be considered unacceptable tradeoffs:

A) None of the citizens in any of those nations have to pay for medical care, nor are any of their citizens ineligable for medical services. By contrast 50 million people in America are uninsured and effectively unable to get more than the most basic of medical services as they have to pay out of pocket, and unless you are in Congress, people in America have to pay significant amounts in out-of-pocket expenditures in medical services yearly. That effectively cuts a significant chunk of the difference out right there.

B) Most of those nations have significantly improved quality-of-life standards, with longer lifespans, lower rates of diseases, and lower infant mortality.

C) American workers work significantly longer hours to make those earnings than do European workers. The average American male works 16 hours more than the French citizen is allowed by law to work. Many might consider that an unacceptable trade in time.

2) Actually, they manage to make that level of income despite a substantially larger tax bite than you seem to suggest.

According to a breakdown found on this PDF:

http://www.lw.com/resource/Publications/_pdf/pub1204_1.pdf

The effective corporate tax rates in France are 34.33% (pg. 11), and the individual tax rate is a progessive one with a cap at 48.09% (pg. 29) plus other considerations which add roughly another 7.5% to that sum (pg. 37). In Germany, the corporate tax rate is effectively 26.375% (pg. 48), while the individual tax rate also progressive, with a lowball of 16% (15% in 2005) and a high of 45% (reduced to 42% in 2005) (pg. 60).

This compares to a U.S. maximum tax rate of 35%, which very few pay, and a comparitively negligable tax rate on corporations (the actual rate I had difficulty digging up, but it doesn't really matter since loopholes allow many companies to avoid paying altogether, and many more to pay far less than the official rate).

3) Your reference doesn't really do much more than offer a string of appeals to authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority), strawmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man), red herrings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_%28fallacy%29) with a few unsubstantiated statistics thrown in for good measure.

Here is the original (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji1.html) so everyone can see what I'm talking about.


Governmet is not us. Perhaps, it's you, but it certainly isn't me. I do not approve at all. I do not give it legitimacy, yet it takes my money anyway. In fact, it tends to reward it's supporters at the expense of detractors. The thing you must recognize about government is what it is that defines it - it is the entity or group of people that has the predominance of force in a society. Indeed, it is a very very different thing to open your wallet to help the less fortunate than to vote that your neighboor's wallet be forced open to do the same. That is not charity, it's theft.


1) Government is the result of a social compact between citizens, given power by the voluntary suspension of rights that people have in the state of nature in exchange for beneficial use of government power to obtain goods and services that people could not get on their own. As such, yes, it is you, because you have agreed to live in this system and abide by its rules by taking actions that confer legitemacy upon the decision making process.

More simply, if you have taken actions like voting, then you have agreed that the system of voting is a good system to determine who gets what in the governmental system, and as such you have to abide by the results of that vote even if the end result doesn't benefit you. Why? Because you have agreed that the system is beneficial to you, or you would never have voted in the first place. By voting, you have agreed to be held accountable for all obligations, as well as accept all the benefits, that results from the voting process. You may not like all those results, but you are still contractually obligated to obey the law until such time as the law violates its end of the agreement.

This is pretty much straight Locke.

2) Ah yes, yet another old libertarian canard about taxation=theft.

The problem with this is, simply put, it isn't true, because theives are defined by their intent, and tax collectors simply don't share that intent. I've gone over this a couple of times, but once more won't kill me.

The thing that defines a thief isn't so much the actual acquisition of goods that don't belong to him without the owner's consent, so much as it is the intent to do so for his own benefit. Why do I say this? I say it because I would call a person who failed to actually take someone else's property a thief, even though they never actually took something. By contrast, if someone accidentally took something of mine, or took it with the intent to do something other than use it for their own benefit, I wouldn't call them a thief. For example, if someone found a sweatshirt of mine and put it in the lost-and-found, or gave it to charity, they would be taking my stuff, but they wouldn't be theives for doing so. So it is the intent that is critical in defining who is and isn't a thief.

Well, the question we then have to ask is: is the government a thief? The answer is obviously not. The reason for this is that when they take our money, they do so with the intent of using that money for our own good. They pay for goods and services we use. A thief takes goods only for his own good. Ergo, government is not a thief, and will not be until thieves start doing things like taking your Rolex to pay for inoculations against influenza for your children or paving a road to your house.


And what has Social Security done for poverty among the young? My point is that while the program may have proven monetarily benificial to old people, it has not done so without cost. Some may feel the benefit is worth the cost, but others do not. Either way you're forced to participate. Medicare and Medicade have been amazingly successful at raising the income of health care providers, particularly of the makers of drugs, and they've done much to complicate medical care. The HMO, like most of the US health care system, is an invention of congress. I'm not responsible for and do not support such things even if some "free market" people do or have.

It hasn't done anything, because that wasn't its purpose. Young people today are more likely to be poor than they were when Social Security was unveiled, but they also have the best means of ending their poverty, because unlike old people, young people can work in a variety of fields, they can perform manual labor, they can move faster than can old people, etc. As such, in that young people are far less affected by their temporary poverty, are usually able to climb out of poverty, and old people no longer have to live on dog food, it is considered a "good" program. The tradeoffs involved were net beneficial.

Same thing with Medicare and Medicaid. You make it sound as if any kind of complication is a bad thing, where in fact any medical procedure is more complicated than the old standby of simply putting the afflicted out in the open and leaving them to die. The tradeoffs have thus far proven worth it, with the poor and elderly managing some kind of medical care with a fairly low amount of bureaucratic overhead, particularly when compared to private enterprise. The higher drug prices you cite are the result of corporatist intervention: if you didn't notice, Congress in their Medicare Presription Drug Bill in 2004 forbade Medicare from taking actions to reduce the price, like collective bargaining or getting their drugs from Canada, as a result of business lobbying.


Who says we're more libertarian now than in the 1990's?


Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that libertarians were big on eliminating government oversight of the free market. Since 2000, that is in large part what Bush II has been doing. If so, then insofar as we enact libertarian-oriented government policy, and libertarian-oriented economic policy is good for everyone, everyone should have benefitted from Bushes policies, correct? So then why haven't so many people seen that happen to them? I'm of the opinion that libertarianism doesn't work, but I'm funny like that.


Are too.;)


Kidding aside, if I were a Marxist, I'd be critiquing Christianity as an opiate of the masses, not quoting Matthew.

*(From way back up at the top) The Cat Tribe would probably be the best person to talk with on this, as he is a specialist on Hume. I covered him in my philosophical studies, but I don't have the specialization to talk about him, and by extension Hutcheson, as The Cat Tribe would.

Why do you assume someone who is rationally self-interested only cares about the bottom line? Why do you assume we value money for itself? Money (or any exchange value generally) does represent something real, but it is only of instrumental value. No rational egoist would seriously believe their happiness is proportional to their bank balance. Money only helps me to the degree it can get me things like food, shelter, and some nice stuff that I enjoy/need for my work. You have an incredibly narrow interpretation of a rational egoist's pursuit of happiness. Do you honestly want to argue that giving charity doesn't do a person any good? That it is so detrimental to someone that the only way to guarantee charity is through force? If my best buddy loses her job and she and her kids are about to be thrown out on the street, and I have the money to help her, hell even if I don't, why shouldn't I give her what she needs? It helps her AND me. How can it be good for me to see someone I love and care about suffer when I can help her?

I think you have a very weird idea about what rational egoism/the self-interested pursuit of happiness is. Perhaps somewhere deep down inside you honestly think that only money brings happiness, so it's right to distribute money "optimally" to "maximize utility". Maybe you do think there is nothing good in charity. But I don't agree.

Listen, I've taken the idea of rational self-interest to heart. It's how I live. It's who I am. It doesn't make me angry to read your ideas about it, but it does confuse me a lot. Why on earth should I measure happiness in money? Why should I act to maximize efficiency in the market? Sure, efficiency is nice, but money and the market are simply instrumental to human well-being and happiness, as are government and society generally. Happiness lies in fulfillment of individual pursuits and passions. If I am passionate about science (I am), I will be fulfilled in a life of science. If I am passionate about my boyfriend, I will find happiness sharing my life with him. Honestly, have you ever even met a (self-described) egoist? Have you ever asked them what they love? It says a lot about a person what they love.

I don't care a whole lot about how much money I have (provided I'm not starving and I can fulfill my obligations). What I do care about are the principles which defend my right to keep what I create/produce, my right to my own life. What principles protect your life?

Why on earth should I measure happiness in money? Why should I act to maximize efficiency in the market? Sure, efficiency is nice, but money and the market are simply instrumental to human well-being and happiness, as are government and society generally.
One doesn't have anything to do with the other. The market doesn't need money, money is just a nice medium that makes transactions easier and serves as a storage device for wealth.
A market is an instrument to maximise efficiency, and it requires a bit of egoism to work.
An "efficient" market only means that people do as well as possible with the resources available, and that therefore people have a better chance of being as happy as they can be. And that includes you.
Everything further, about equality of distribution and so on, is dependent on one's philosophy, as I outlined previously.

The short answer is that while what you own is yours to dispose of as you please, if you are true capitalist, then you are only going to dispose of income in ways that generate more income rather than charity.

The longer answer is based on the evaluation of what a man at his best would be like. Capitalists see this person as being a rational egoist; philosopher-speak for a person who is perfectly rational, and uses that rationality purely for the fulfillment of personal desires and the satisfaction of personal needs. It should be noted that this is one of the major reasons why social conservatism and economic conservatism don't mix well: the Christian conception of what man at his best would be like is not at all compatible with the rational self-interest model proposed by economic conservatives. As they have two fundamentally different views of the end of human nature, they cannot be considered compatible philosophical doctrines.By definition, a capitalist is one who invests or owns capital. Many such people don't know what a 'rational egoist' is. Michael Moore is a capitalist and nothing you've said about capitalists is true about him. Of course, there's the secondary definition of a capitalist as one who favors capitalism. I am a capitalist, in this sense, while Michael Moore is not. Still, your generalizations of capitalists don't hold true in my case and they therefore don't hold true at all.

...

Moreover, being charitable interferes with the smooth working of the invisible hand, so many capitalists would argue that charity is not only not compatible with the spirit of the capitalist man, it is also undermining capitalism itself. If welfare is only an economic incentive to remain unemployed, for instance, then how is giving a bum $10 to eat any different? Most capitalist philosophers would agree that there is no fundamental difference; in each case, there is an incentive present to continue practicing activities that don't maximize efficient labor and productivity. In that sense, both charity and welfare are interfering with the invisible hand that rewards efficiency and productivity. As such, a good capitalist wouldn't be charitable. I'd have to check, as my knowledge of Friedman and Hayek are fairly shaky, but I am ironclad certain that Rand would agree with this analysis wholeheartedly.Well, now you bring up something interesting, but I'm not so sure I should take the bait here. I'll say this: that voluntary charity can certainly do more harm than good, but it doesn't necessarily do so. For me, the bottom line is freedom. People ought to have the freedom to donate or not to donate their own wealth and time, whether such actions are harmful or helpful. And such valuations are highly subjective, anyway.



I'm using "pragmatically" in the vulgar sense, as in the distinction between theory and practice, to use Marx' terminology. I'm sorry if I confused you on that; I was speaking about neither Peirce's Pragmatic Theory of Meaning nor James' normative Pragmatism.



I think you misunderstand the thrust of my point, as it isn't so much one of history as it is one of rhetoric, namely that of a double standard. When libertarians debate economic leftists on the boards, things like Soviet Russia are always, always brought up. Now, the simple fact is that Soviet Russia, at least post-Lenin, was not at all in accord with any kind of actual socialist doctrine. It was really just a dictatorship with two main goals: 1) create a cult of personality around Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin (the latter being held to be the spiritual successor to the former, when in actuality it was the exiled Trotsky who was far closer to that role), and 2) rapidly industrialize the nation with an eye for military parity with neighboring Germany and later the U.S. But whenever this is brought up, the standard reply is "This just goes to show you how screwed up socialist theory is, because whenever it's put into practice, you get Soviet pogroms."

But whenever the shoe is on the other foot, libertarians insist that they can get away with the same thing they try to stick socialists with. If its true, which it is, that whenever people set out to create a libertarian economy, they get either a corporatist system or an industrial jungle ala Industrial Age England, then doesn't that by extension reflect badly on libertarian theory? It doesn't seem to, because there are still quite a few libertarians on the boards, and they all insist that you can't blame them for things like Enron or Oliver Twist because, dammit, that just isn't what they were trying to accomplish and it wasn't what their theories predicted. Hence my rejoinder of "That isn't what Adam Smith said would happen."
This is huge.

I know what you're saying and I know what I think, but it's hard to put this into words. ...I guess I can't. I've been trying to write a reply for this for a while, but for everything I say I can predict what you'll reply with and this will never be resolved. I think what I said tends to hold true, at least for me. I'll just say that references to the Soviet Union or to any alleged manifestation of capitalism may or may not be warrarted. Of course, there will always be debate regarding their validity, but they shouldn't automatically be avoided.


1) Not really. Absent any and all government intervention, corporations will still cause problems, a problem that is only exacerbated by corporatist government policies, not created by them. Absent any government intervention, for instance, how well do you think a corporation will deal with environmental hazards it creates? The obvious answer is that it will be responsible only in proportion to the degree of profit or loss it can expect from cleaning up. If it is more profitable, or better put, less expensive to simply pull up stakes and move elsewhere after it has ruined a piece of land, then that is precisely what it will do. Moreover, absent government intervention, there is precious little in the way of market pressure to give corporations the incentive to clean up. Hence the reason why there was so much industrial pollutants and so much callous disregard for the local environment prior to the creation of government entities like the EPA.

If you look at history, you'll find this pattern continue in quite a few important social areas: child labor, education, workplace safety, working hours, etc.
You've given one of the best examples of a problem with no obvious free-market solution. I won't go there. I'll reserve that discussion for those who are at least willing to entertain radical free-market ideas. I'll just remind you were previously responding to a claim that the poor are hurt by non-libertarian corporatism, so you've basically changed the crime corporations are accused of committing.


2) Again, you are simply trying to pass off corporatism as a perversion of economics, when in actuality, it is the logical outcome of the very things capitalists try to set up. How can you propose that actors within the marketplace should a) act to their own advantage, and b) seek to maximize profit, while finding it incongruous when they do something that follows both of those principles by using government to rig the playing field in their favor? It seems to me that this is a fairly predictable, if harmful and unintended consequence of trying to make rationally egoistic actors in the marketplace. If so, then this falls back into the point I made above: you are simply trying to dodge the unintended consequences by saying "Don't look at us; that isn't what Adam Smith said would happen."Corporatism is not a perversion of economics, but of the market. Economics is a field of study. I think what you're asking is, "how can you expect corporations to be good if you expect them to be profitable?" Indeed, there are plenty of people who see no or little difference between producing and inovating to maximize profits and sucking Uncle Sam's wienner for favors. I think that's cheating. Not only are competitors cheated, but so are consumers and employees. Besides the few who profit directly, the whole market is cheated. A similar question might be "how can you expect people to act in their own self-interest and not to steal." The objectivist says that it's really not in your own self-interest to steal. That's a philosophical and semantic hell-hole. I don't say that exactly, I'd just say that if you ever hear me use the term 'self-interest', criminal activity or cheating is excluded. Otherwise, I'd say 'selfish interest'. I don't think I'm alone in making this distinction.



1) Keynesian economic theory (Keynes being the originator of the "business cycle" theory) was able to fairly accurately predict fluctuations in the economy for roughly about 20 years between the early 1950's and the early 1970's, and you'll find that government at that time often tailored economic policy specifically to control the employment rate. Keynesian economics fell out of favor during the Oil Crisis during the late 1970's, when the unexpected stagflation (stagnantly-high unemployment rates, coupled with rapid inflation) caused it to fall out of favor and progressively be replaced by Freidman, Hayek, and Laffer's libertarian economic theory that you favor, which is undoubtedly why you called BS. The traditional line of thinking is that because Keynesian economics couldn't account for how and why stagflation was occuring, then it was a faulty system.

I would tend to say that it is possible to account within a Keynesian system why stagflation was occuring, because the government was effectively using the printing press to pay for expensive domestic programs, the Vietnam War (the war was fought without significantly higher taxes to pay for it, on LBJ's mistaken assumption that he could pay for both guns and butter simultaneously), and more expensive foreign oil. As a result, you had more money chasing the same amount of goods (inflation), and at the same time you had that money chasing foreign purchases that did little or nothing to aid the American economy (stagnant growth). Ironically enough, there are some indicators of stagflation currently. Given that there are similar circumstances, with Bush paying for an expensive war through budget deficits, increasing prices of crude, and stagnant or declining real wages, stagflation seems to be a symptom of either economic system given set circumstances.Yeah, I follow the thinking that Keynes finally died in the early 70's. I think the only reason he was ever taken seriously is because he told government leaders exactly what they wanted to hear. What other economist ever suggested that there's nothing wrong with deficit spending? The fact that he's actually still taken seriously by some who ought to know better scares me. It's enough to make you think that we could elect a moron as president or something.

For the record, I'm not Friemanite. I'm an Austrian (http://www.mises.org/etexts/austrian.asp). My intellectual hero is Murray Rothbard (http://www.mises.org/content/mnr.asp). It took me a damn long time to find a group I was comforatable identifying with. Rothbard had few kind words for Keynes and accurate described what the 'business cycle' really is.

You could be right that we've got stagflation going on here, but I think the situation is bit different. It seems to me like we're heading toward some seriously bad times, though.

2) Moreover, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees here. My whole point was not to claim that John Maynard Keynes was the Chosen Economist whom we should all follow. My point was to say that even were there an ideal economic system, and even were all people perfect capitalists within that system, there would still be unemployment. As such, blaming unemployment wholly on things like laziness or stupidity is just asinine, because the system seems to be designed with some level of unemployment in any circumstance.Okay then. I know what you're saying, but since I'm not in the same boat as far as theory goes...


We are more or less in agreement on that point then. Nevertheless, you seem to readily admit that your position isn't the standard line of defense against the claims of economic injustice. It was that standard line I was attacking there. You have also effectively ceded the fact that there is going to be some injustice in the ideal economic system, because there will be some people who, based purely on economic considerations beyond their control, are not going to be paid as well as they should, or may not be paid at all despite the fact that they could.What injustice? I thought we were talking about unemployment. I don't think we're on the same page.



1) I wasn't necessarily trying to claim that Rand's position spoke for all libertarians. You'll have to bear with me on this one, because while I can quote respectably from Rand and Smith, I can't do it from people like Friedman and Hayek, so naturally they are going to get more airtime in my posts than would other libertarian theorists.

2) Given the vehemence with which Rand speaks repeatedly about altruism and the destructive influence it has on society, I don't think I'm taking her out of context when I use her to say that you would have a hard time reconciling the Christian ethic of charity with the brutally egoistic mentality of the capitalist. It's one thing to question what Jesus, for instance, meant from a parable. It would be quite different to call him a warmonger, because that is counter to the very essence of his teachings. The same thing holds true for Rand and altruism: she despises it, and as charity is based on altruistic impulses, it's not out of character, and not really a matter of "interpretation" to say that she hates charity as well.

3) If I take you at face value, then you'd be willing to admit that free people might not provide for those that cannot work. If so, then you have to admit that there is the strong possibility of injustice in the libertarian economic system.I think there's some truth to what Rand said about altruism. I tend to think altruism is mainly a myth. You can't do anything for anyone without doing it for yourself. If you didn't get anything out of it, you wouldn't do it. Although, having read some of what she wrote about it, I can't quite say I wholly agree. I judge charity mainly as a practical matter, while she (as with everything) had moral objections. Yet, it was her contention that government should be paid for voluntarily and that such charity was worthwhile. She also permitted her fictional heros to be charitable, albeit not very much.

And of course I admit that the will of free people can't be accurately predicted by other people. Although, I can pretty much promise you that people will not starve in sufficiently prosperous society, so long as they have friends and family.



1) Fair enough then. What would you prefer I call your system?

2) Your dodging the point here. Irrespective of what level of technology was present, the fact remains that Industrial Age England and the Chicago portrayed in The Jungle were largely free of government intervention, and extremely harsh to the workers within that system. If the government is not going to step in to stop the actions of market from returning us to that condition, then I see no reason why superior technology and more infrastructure will either.1. The free-market, free-market capitalism, laissez faire, or something creative. The problem with the word 'libertarian', is that it doesn't mean much in that context. There are many 'soft' libertarians who would be shocked by some of my relatively radical suggestions. There are also socialists who call themselves 'libertarian'. Their ideal economy is not mine and vice-versa.
2. Ug. People worked under conditions then that they won't today, because they don't have to, not because they're illegal. Superior thechnology and more infrastrucure is what enables us to have a higher standard of living, overall thereby enabling people to demand ever less crappy jobs, despite ever increasing parasitic loss.



1) I apparently overestimated their income slightly, or I might have just read more recent numbers in which their income has increased since. In any case, per the World Bank, their average annual income as of 2001 is as follows:

France: $22,730
Germany: $23,560
Sweden: $25,400

compared to the U.S. during the same period:

U.S.: $34,280

(statistics from this site: http://www.marfortec.co.uk/ecnonomic_overview_of_europe.htm)
Wow, I thought it would be more. That must be a per person figure, and not per household. In any case, that is not a "perfectly acceptable mean level of income", as I wouldn't be satisfied with that. As I understand, the prices of consumer goods are higher mostly higher there. Although, that has something to do with the dollar falling versus the Euro, which should also be reflected in more recent statistics.


Before you crow about the superiority of the U.S. system, however, remember that this increased pay comes at what might well be considered unacceptable tradeoffs:

A) None of the citizens in any of those nations have to pay for medical care, nor are any of their citizens ineligable for medical services. By contrast 50 million people in America are uninsured and effectively unable to get more than the most basic of medical services as they have to pay out of pocket, and unless you are in Congress, people in America have to pay significant amounts in out-of-pocket expenditures in medical services yearly. That effectively cuts a significant chunk of the difference out right there.
Actually, all of them have to pay for medical care, whether they get any or not. Our system is sort of a perveted mix, a kind of worst-of-both worlds thing, but it is getting more socialistic all the time.

B) Most of those nations have significantly improved quality-of-life standards, with longer lifespans, lower rates of diseases, and lower infant mortality.Well, good for them.

C) American workers work significantly longer hours to make those earnings than do European workers. The average American male works 16 hours more than the French citizen is allowed by law to work. Many might consider that an unacceptable trade in time.I work 48 hours per week and would find it unacceptable for the government to tell me that I can't do that. Tell me what good that would do me.

2) Actually, they manage to make that level of income despite a substantially larger tax bite than you seem to suggest.

According to a breakdown found on this PDF:

http://www.lw.com/resource/Publications/_pdf/pub1204_1.pdf

The effective corporate tax rates in France are 34.33% (pg. 11), and the individual tax rate is a progessive one with a cap at 48.09% (pg. 29) plus other considerations which add roughly another 7.5% to that sum (pg. 37). In Germany, the corporate tax rate is effectively 26.375% (pg. 48), while the individual tax rate also progressive, with a lowball of 16% (15% in 2005) and a high of 45% (reduced to 42% in 2005) (pg. 60).

This compares to a U.S. maximum tax rate of 35%, which very few pay, and a comparitively negligable tax rate on corporations (the actual rate I had difficulty digging up, but it doesn't really matter since loopholes allow many companies to avoid paying altogether, and many more to pay far less than the official rate).Well, I've seen figures that the overall tax bite in the US is more than that of some European nations. Those numbers don't really tell me much. The way to compare them is to find the per capita tax revenue as a percentage of income/per capita GDP. I can't find those data.

3) Your reference doesn't really do much more than offer a string of appeals to authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority), strawmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man), red herrings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring_%28fallacy%29) with a few unsubstantiated statistics thrown in for good measure.

Here is the original (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/sanandaji1.html) so everyone can see what I'm talking about.Please don't bother with the definitions, if they're for my sake. That's one man's account of what's going on, and it's all I have. He didn't write that to argue with you.



1) Government is the result of a social compact between citizens, given power by the voluntary suspension of rights that people have in the state of nature in exchange for beneficial use of government power to obtain goods and services that people could not get on their own. As such, yes, it is you, because you have agreed to live in this system and abide by its rules by taking actions that confer legitemacy upon the decision making process.

More simply, if you have taken actions like voting, then you have agreed that the system of voting is a good system to determine who gets what in the governmental system, and as such you have to abide by the results of that vote even if the end result doesn't benefit you. Why? Because you have agreed that the system is beneficial to you, or you would never have voted in the first place. By voting, you have agreed to be held accountable for all obligations, as well as accept all the benefits, that results from the voting process. You may not like all those results, but you are still contractually obligated to obey the law until such time as the law violates its end of the agreement.

This is pretty much straight Locke.Ooops, I guess I didn't read the fine print! :eek: So I'm screwed for life now because I voted once? :mad: What if I never vote again?

2) Ah yes, yet another old libertarian canard about taxation=theft.

The problem with this is, simply put, it isn't true, because theives are defined by their intent, and tax collectors simply don't share that intent. I've gone over this a couple of times, but once more won't kill me.

The thing that defines a thief isn't so much the actual acquisition of goods that don't belong to him without the owner's consent... :rolleyes: That's not what Webster says (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=theft&x=0&y=0).

[Social Security, Medicare]
...
I have neither the patience nor the ability to change your views on these programs.


Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression that libertarians were big on eliminating government oversight of the free market. Since 2000, that is in large part what Bush II has been doing. If so, then insofar as we enact libertarian-oriented government policy, and libertarian-oriented economic policy is good for everyone, everyone should have benefitted from Bushes policies, correct? So then why haven't so many people seen that happen to them? I'm of the opinion that libertarianism doesn't work, but I'm funny like that.What? Bush ≠ libertarian. He has only expanded government. Sure he cut the budget of a few programs, but that hardly makes up for the increased spending and power of the federal government. I wish I was president so I could show you what a libertarian would do.

Hint: There'd be a lot of unemployment in my first 100 days.



Kidding aside, if I were a Marxist, I'd be critiquing Christianity as an opiate of the masses, not quoting Matthew.

*(From way back up at the top) The Cat Tribe would probably be the best person to talk with on this, as he is a specialist on Hume. I covered him in my philosophical studies, but I don't have the specialization to talk about him, and by extension Hutcheson, as The Cat Tribe would.
Who's Hume? Isn't he on Fox?

That's not Socialism. That's Communism.

Thats not Communism either. It sounds like a form of Nanny State Capitalism to me.

I've been scanning this thread, but I'm on 14.4 this evening, so if I missed somthing, bear with me.

ATTENTION ALL SOCIALISTS (with a source of income/access to money)!

If you are one of those on this thread who have been advocating "equality of wealth" or some other such economic paradigm, please TG me with your Gross Annual Income figures. I'll TG back with my email addy so you can PayPal me the Mean Variation until we hit equilibrium.

Since it is so grossly unfair that some people have more than others, you should not have any problem with my proposal. I'm willing to become an economic communist/socialist/keynesian if you're willing to put your money where your mouth is to make my wealth equal to yours. :eek:

Any takers? I need the cash. :p

Who's Hume? Isn't he on Fox?

God, I hope that was a joke. If I debated with you more, I would either be laughing or shaking my head, but my reaction is up in the air.

God, I hope that was a joke. If I debated with you more, I would either be laughing or shaking my head, but my reaction is up in the air. :) It was joke, in that I knew that he wasn't referring to Brit Hume. However, I really know nothing of the man he was speaking of. The name is vaugly familiar, so really it was a HHOS sort of comment.





/HHOS = ha ha, only serious.

:) It was joke, in that I knew that he wasn't referring to Brit Hume. However, I really know nothing of the man he was speaking of. The name is vaugly familiar, so really it was a HHOS sort of comment.





/HHOS = ha ha, only serious.

David Hume is a famous British empiricist who turned out to be one of the most influential philosophers in history, primarily for his debunking of most of the Arguments for the Existence of God and for his argument against Causality.

Well, how about global climate change? In a free market society, there would be no way of dealing with it at all, as far as I can tell. Virtually any situation involving externalities is going to be a 'market failure', with or without government intervention.How has the market failed regarding global climate change?

Because capitalism works. After all, I don't see the USSR around anymore. Another proof of this is that nations that were formally socialist/communist but are now moving towards capitalism are becoming economically stronger. An apparent example of this is China (unfortunately I might add).

David Hume is a famous British empiricist who turned out to be one of the most influential philosophers in history, primarily for his debunking of most of the Arguments for the Existence of God and for his argument against Causality.That, and he "could out consue Shopehhauer & Hegel... and Wittenstein was a beery swine who was twice a sloshed as Schlegel."

:D

Oh, and nobody's TG'd me yet with Pay Pal funds... I wonder why? :rolleyes:

I dunno, it's like why do cookies go with milk. What fleetingly small nutritional content is present in the cookie is completely undermined by all the fat in the milk. But the cookie sure tastes better for it.

It doesn't. Quite the opposite. "Social Conservatism" and free market capitalism are quite strange bedfellows indeed. If anything the utter opposite is true, free market capitalism tends to support social liberalism, at least in respect of lifestyle choice.

ATTENTION ALL SOCIALISTS (with a source of income/access to money)!
Hypocrite!
What about me? Are you going to give ME your money if I have less income than you do? Cuz it can only remotely be considered if the committment is mutual.

How has the market failed regarding global climate change?
Have you checked any of my Market Failures yet?

EDIT: Oh, and the market failed by not incorporating the costs of CO2 pollution into the firm's cost structure, thus more is produced than socially optimal.

Have you checked any of my Market Failures yet?

EDIT: Oh, and the market failed by not incorporating the costs of CO2 pollution into the firm's cost structure, thus more is produced than socially optimal.

You do know what the efficient capital market hypothesis is, don't you?

Hypocrite!
What about me? Are you going to give ME your money if I have less income than you do? Cuz it can only remotely be considered if the committment is mutual. Ah, a protest. How do you know you make less than me? If you are a Student, then you aren't a member of the Working Class yet. You get your share from the State through your school. If you are a member of the Working Class, then show me the money. My wife and I make barely 1.62x US Poverty level.

No, I am not a hypocrite, because I do not believe in perfect economic equality and I don't believe anyone will have the cajones and courage of their principles to do it. And I would venture to guess that as a member of the Proletariat I am fairly low on the income scale. (I have, in fact, a negative income... or would if I didn't have my student loans in "economic hardship"deferment (costing me $250/mo in capitalized interest)...).

If you have an income (you don't work, you don't eat) The minute some trust funder/six-figure-rich "socialist" decides to make me his/her "equal", I'll syphon off enough in your direction to make sure we are all equally miserable.

Happy? :rolleyes:

You do know what the efficient capital market hypothesis is, don't you?
Distantly...there is a lot of stuff out there.
Are you saying that such inefficiencies (like polluting too much) would be countered by a fall in stock prices?
That theory is based on the very same assumptions all the other "classical" theories are based on - and which I haven't so far been proven.

But I may be wrong - never forget I'm just a lowly student, I don't know everything...

<snip>- never forget I'm just a lowly student, I don't know everything...
Well, untill you start Producing the "From each" part of Marx's equation, I suggest you not tell people how they should handle the "To Each" part.

Well, untill you start Producing the "From each" part of Marx's equation, I suggest you not tell people how they should handle the "To Each" part.
a) I do not get any money from any state. I work my butt off to get the money to study. Not to live, but just to study.
b) I'm not in a position to tell anyone how do things. I'm not a Politician. All I can do is make suggestions based on what I know.
c) You shouldn't take the word "hypocrite" so seriously. Find me one person on this planet without cognitice dissonance. I figured your post wasn't meant to be serious, and my answer is the same.
d) If you are oh so poor, then I wonder why you advocate a system in which you may very well lose your job tomorrow and starve to death. Because that is what Libertarian society is all about. All the talk about "private charity" - you don't think it would actually happen, do you?

Distantly...there is a lot of stuff out there.
Are you saying that such inefficiencies (like polluting too much) would be countered by a fall in stock prices?
That theory is based on the very same assumptions all the other "classical" theories are based on - and which I haven't so far been proven.

But I may be wrong - never forget I'm just a lowly student, I don't know everything...

Actually, yeah, you pretty much have it. It would be countered by a fall in stock market prices of course, because all knowledge is completely incorporated into capital prices through the market.

Also, you have to remember that the benefits of polluting mechanisms e.g. cars, do not fall squarely on the producers. It is economically beneficial in - the short term at least - for the consumers as well as the manufacturers: (Ignoring local dislocations). In other words it is impossible to correctly allocate the the diseconomies of a non-optimal device. A horribly polluting car which used little fuel and cost a mere fraction of the next competitor would undoubtedly benefit the consumer as well as the producer, yet notwithstanding actual evidence on how those benefits/cost fall, it is impossible to allocate who should pay what.

Of course it still effects those who have nothing to do with the production/consumption cycle, but as they have the least to lose, their effect is probably negligble. But then this is why people should try and keep macro and micro economics seperate.

Also, and this is probably an artefact of different schooling, but I don;t consider this classical economics.

-snip-
Isn't most CO2 pollution from production and manufacture rather than from cars?
========================================================

Anyways, generally the damage that is done to the environment (ie damage that is not paid for) is a cost to society as a whole, but no one is paying for it in money. So because the firm doesn't have to pay anyone for the acid rain, it will produce more than it really should.
Some theories (like the one mentioned above) say that really they do pay for it somehow...but those stand on shaky grounds sometimes. Not all of us always know everything there is to know in the market place, there may be power differences between us, and large traders of shares (like Banks) have much more power over stock prices than you and me.

Which is why I like Carbon Credit Trading so much. What an excellent idea!

-Snip -

Yes, I believe that most CO2 pollution is from manufacturing. However, I was simply using cars as an example of how it is difficult to fairly apportion the costs between the manufacturer and the consumer of any environmental damage that is caused.

As to your larger point: If, indeed, there is environmental damage on the scale of global warming, surely it will, in fact, cost the manufacturer. Further, stock prices of hugely poluting companies tend to tank. (Seriously). I won't argue if you want to say that perhaps the economic burden of environmental damage is not always fairly distributed: but certainly major polluters do not get off scot free, and this is incorporated into the value of their stock.

-snip-
Agreed then. Someone does pay (although not the full amount of the damage - which is hard to quantify anyways) for pollution.

More importantly though: Does that mean that companies actually adjust their production quantites accordingly to a socially optimal level? I don't think so, and while the loss to society may not be 100%, there is some inefficiency nonetheless.

Well, I don't know if this is true in countries other than the United States... and if it is, I don't know how it happened.

But in the United States, the first important point to note is that this was NOT always the case.

For most of American history, social conservatives and market liberals HATED each other.

Why? Well, think about it. If I'm an innovative capitalist entrepreneur, trying to push new products and services on a population that didn't know they needed them, the LAST person I want to hear from is the bible-banging conservative who wants to preserve "traditional values" and morality. The market, almost by definition, erodes community values.

On the other hand, if I am a conservative (especially a rural conservative), and I am concerned that all this "progress" is tearing away at the foundation of community, family, and morality... well, my chief target is the liberal entrepreneur who wants to promote instant gratification (easy credit) and sell people "anything they are willing to buy" -- moral concerns aside.


So when did this start to change?

Well, I'll admit to being no expert on the subject... but I'd say the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement definitely had something to do with it. Prior to the '60s, Southern whites (the majority in most of today's "red states") had been dedicated Democrats. Why? Well, not only had the Democratic Party (since the 30s) represented the rights of the poor AGAINST the capitalist class, but... well, they were still pretty pissed at the Republicans for providing Abraham Lincoln and emancipation for the slaves.

But then in the late fifties into the sixties, many (certainly not all) Democrats started to support the Civil Rights movement, and otherwise to identify with cultural liberalism. At this point, southern whites had to deal with a conflict -- support their economic interest (vote Democrat), or oppose the party that seemed to be increasingly eroding their cultural heritage (vote anti-Democrat). Note that I don't say "vote Republican" -- they still had no very good reason to like the GOP.

Overall, they remained fairly undecided through the 1970s. But by the election of 1980, they were ready for electoral campaign of Ronald Reagan, which made one of the most brilliant political moves (though it pains me to say it) in all of American history. Reagan's campaign managed to take the Communist enemy -- the "Other" to the "American community" -- and paint it as the opponent to BOTH capitalism AND "American values" (specifically, Christian values). Suddenly, instead of capitalism destroying traditional values, it was Communism.... and since "exporting capitalism" could be equated with "exporting Christianity" (or "freedom," or whatever American value you like), capitalists became the allies of traditional conservatives.

To recap: Southern whites -- the base for social conservatism -- are in a bind between voting their economic interest (Democrat), or for a party that claims to support their conservative values (Republican). Given that they have a fairly recent grudge against the Democrats, they are relatively vulnerable to the rhetoric of the Republican Party. (Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Democrats still dominate in many local and State governments in the South.)

As for the capitalists? I think most of them spout conservative social values, while not really caring -- they are capitalists after all. Just look at the Fox network. Look at Fox News -- conservative values -- but then take a look at their other programming!!! Do you really think that the network that came up with "Married With Children," the first in a LONG line of anti-values programming, REALLY shares conservative values? Hardly.

Capitalists know it is a useful alliance. They use social conservatives to fill out their electoral base. (Just look at the behavior of so-called conservatives at the national level, as opposed to their rhetoric, to see what I mean.)

It's really too bad social conservatives are foolish enough to go along with it.

Agreed then. Someone does pay (although not the full amount of the damage - which is hard to quantify anyways) for pollution.

More importantly though: Does that mean that companies actually adjust their production quantites accordingly to a socially optimal level? I don't think so, and while the loss to society may not be 100%, there is some inefficiency nonetheless.

I think companies do adjust somewhat; after all many people are now prepared to pay a premium for more environmentally sensitive products. The other issue is that it is easy to complain about something yet it is often difficult to find a workable solution. The question is then: who is most able to address these problems? Given the examples of command economies, I would suggest that those are not good examples. On the other hand, as we have discussed, "pure" capitalism is probably cannot provide the best solution either.

Ah, fuck it, frankly if the scandanavians had better gun laws, I would say they probably had the whole thing right. (And they have come up with some very smart environmental laws: For example factories always have to position their fresh water intakes *below* their drains, so if they pollute, the first people they damage are themselves. That is genius).

...For example factories always have to position their fresh water intakes *below* their drains, so if they pollute, the first people they damage are themselves. That is genius
:D

Best solution? Have a huge study done into the different effects of industrial activities on the environment, then use Credit Trading schemes to balance things out. Once you know how much damage pollution does (which is the tricky bit) you can let the market mechanisms take care of it if you hand out pollution permits to collect and trade...

:D

Best solution? Have a huge study done into the different effects of industrial activities on the environment, then use Credit Trading schemes to balance things out. Once you know how much damage pollution does (which is the tricky bit) you can let the market mechanisms take care of it if you hand out pollution permits to collect and trade...

Absolutely. I wouldn't oppose that at all. Let the free market solve the problems, but at the same time sensibly regulate it so it has to account for diseconomies.

But I do want the sewer pipe thing from scandianvia.

I've been scanning this thread, but I'm on 14.4 this evening, so if I missed somthing, bear with me.

ATTENTION ALL SOCIALISTS (with a source of income/access to money)!

If you are one of those on this thread who have been advocating "equality of wealth" or some other such economic paradigm, please TG me with your Gross Annual Income figures. I'll TG back with my email addy so you can PayPal me the Mean Variation until we hit equilibrium.

Since it is so grossly unfair that some people have more than others, you should not have any problem with my proposal. I'm willing to become an economic communist/socialist/keynesian if you're willing to put your money where your mouth is to make my wealth equal to yours. :eek:

Any takers? I need the cash. :p
Sorry, can't. I already give portions of my meager earned income to Concern (http://www.concern.ie/), GOAL (http://www.goal.ie/), Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), and The Red Cross (http://www.redcross.ie/). I would also find the arrangement unsatisfactory since my wealth was only going out to one person, not all, and that the effect would be meaningless since I am only one person.

Have you checked any of my Market Failures yet?

EDIT: Oh, and the market failed by not incorporating the costs of CO2 pollution into the firm's cost structure, thus more is produced than socially optimal.How much is socially optimal?

:D

Best solution? Have a huge study done into the different effects of industrial activities on the environment, then use Credit Trading schemes to balance things out. Once you know how much damage pollution does (which is the tricky bit) you can let the market mechanisms take care of it if you hand out pollution permits to collect and trade...This is an idea I'm not automatically opposed to, but I'm skeptical as to whether or not the likely implimentation would be worthwhile. The problem is determining how much and pollution and of what type shall be allowed. Who does this, and how do they do it?

Also, such a thing isn't really a "free-market" solution as it's an artifical construct, whereas a real free market is something that just happens.

How much is socially optimal?
The socially optimal level of production is where the Marginal Social Benefit of producing one additional unit is equal to the Marginal Social Cost of producing that unit.

Sorry, can't. I already give portions of my meager earned income to Concern (http://www.concern.ie/), GOAL (http://www.goal.ie/), Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), and The Red Cross (http://www.redcross.ie/). I would also find the arrangement unsatisfactory since my wealth was only going out to one person, not all, and that the effect would be meaningless since I am only one person.Ah, but none of those agencies, nor you IIRC, have advocated unilateral equality of wealth nor declared the inequality of wealth (for whatever reason) to be morally repugnant and worthy of censure.

So I wasn't talking to you. :p

-snip-
Maybe "Inequality of Opportunity" would be better to describe what I think on the matter. All too often though Wealth is Opportunity, and Poverty is not having the chance to live a good live.

Maybe "Inequality of Opportunity" would be better to describe what I think on the matter. All too often though Wealth is Opportunity, and Poverty is not having the chance to live a good live.
And that is precisely what the Free Market is all about. The equal ability to find your niche and profit from it.

Social control of the means of production and distribution of resources quells opportunity by restricting what any person can or cannot do with their productive capacity.

Do wealthy people have more opportunities, yes, but only to the extent that it is their Money that is doing the "work".

Wealthy people who lose everything from misfortune and/or failure are often wealthy again quite rapidly. Their wealth has less to do with their wealth than their productive capacity and ability to manage their resources.

-snip-
a) I'm not a communist, nor a socialist in a Marxist kind of sense. I do not condemn markets to uselessness. How could I, it would put me out of a job.
b) Taxes to be used for transfer payments have never made a rich person poor, nor stopped anyone from being rich or wanting to be rich.
c) The children of wealthy parents are much more likely to be rich themselves, receive a better education and not actually have to work very hard to earn their riches. Do you think a plumber who works 40 years, 40 hours a week and never makes more than a normal living is working less hard than Paris bloody Hilton?

a) I'm not a communist, nor a socialist in a Marxist kind of sense. I do not condemn markets to uselessness. How could I, it would put me out of a job.
b) Taxes to be used for transfer payments have never made a rich person poor, nor stopped anyone from being rich or wanting to be rich.
c) The children of wealthy parents are much more likely to be rich themselves, receive a better education and not actually have to work very hard to earn their riches. Do you think a plumber who works 40 years, 40 hours a week and never makes more than a normal living is working less hard than Paris bloody Hilton?
Here where I live, a certain Mr. Dye was an impoverished youth who was befriended by the local Salvation Army. With their support he finished high school and became a plumber. When he died recently (after being a plumber for 50 odd years), he left a thriving plumbing company and willed the Salvation Army $8,000,000.00 USD. Maybe he's not Paris Hilton, but I would be happy with 1% of that wad of cash.

-snip-
Does that happen to all people?

Ah, but none of those agencies, nor you IIRC, have advocated unilateral equality of wealth nor declared the inequality of wealth (for whatever reason) to be morally repugnant and worthy of censure.

So I wasn't talking to you.
Whatever about the organisations I subsidise, I think that inequality of wealth is immoral, but unfortunately it is a practical necessity to have something of a wealth gap, at least in today's world.

Quoting SwimmingPool
Why are almost all social conservatives very right-wing and pro-capitalist?

It seems a contradiction to limit freedom in the guise of helping society, while preaching about "economic freedoms", disregarding societal good.

Read '1984' by George Orwell.