Why my mind is closing towards Capitalism

reply to post by petrus4


You mean the the point isn't who hates Jews more or which system has failed more miserably in the past?

Who'd a thunk it?

The downfall of any economic system is the morality and agenda of a few men who do not respect the Natural Rights of all other men. The existence of those men warrants the need for some small government mechanism through which the Citizens can keep said men from hijacking the system and running it into the ground.

America put such a system in place nearly 200 years ago. The system has evolved into the cluster f**** you see today because of a failure of the Citizens to demand their government protect their Natural Rights. I didn't get a chance to look it up, but Petrus4 seems to think something similar happened in Russia immediately preceding the formation of the USSR.

Socialism and Capitalism mean nothing if the Natural Rights of the Citizens are not protected in some way. Without these guarantees, the few can use either system to enslave the Many. There are many reasons I have posted previously why I would advocate a system based on Capitalism over socialism, but the truth is that the majority of people would be content with either if their Rights as Men were respected.

reply to post by petrus4


"I'm interested primarily in solutions, "

And so am I. The thread seemed to be hijacked by jew-talk when the real topic is the death of capitalism and the designing of the new economic systems.

Originally posted by ProgressiveSlayer
reply to post by petrus4

 

You mean the the point isn't who hates Jews more or which system has failed more miserably in the past?

Who'd a thunk it?

That wasn't my doing. I made the mistake of saying that I thought the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was insightful, in terms of its' exposure of realpolitik, irrespective of who it was written by; and Skyfloating decided to hijack the thread from there. It was a good conversation before she showed up, but I've pretty much given up at this point; she can do what she likes.

reply to post by SayonaraJupiter


Perhaps a better example of what you perceive as Capitalism would be a coin with the monsanto logo as heads and the c i a logo as tails? Then socialism would be a coin with stalin on one side and moa on the other. I find it funny that the majority of socialist advocates quickly distance themselves from communism but Capitalists are not allowed to distance themselves from corporatism or fascism. If I described socialism as "feeding on the hopes, dreams and potential of the youths for the greater good of the 'community'," you wouldn't like that very much because in your mind socialism wouldn't work that way, even though several historical applications of that system have turned out that way.

You can type until the bleeding nubs you once called fingers will no longer press another key, but the fact is that the same speck you see in the eye of the Capitalist system is also in the eye of socialism: Sociopaths have and can use both systems for personal gain, eventually corrupting each into despotism.

You can talk in hypothetical terms and ideals all you want, but allow Capitalists to do the same lest you become a hypocrite.

reply to post by petrus4


I didn't mean to imply you intended it. The intent was to call attention to what the thread is really about while also letting Skyfloating know that even a Capitalist found that sidebar a bit over the top. We can show the merits and/or weaknesses of each system without charges of racism.

Evil Capitalist money making idea for the day: sarcasm font.

I will state my position since I haven't: Both Capitalism and Socialism are anachronistic ideals based on illogical assumptions. Socialism at least has the chance of adapting to reality in some ways that Capitalism never will. Why is that? Because both ideals were formulated during a time in which man believed he had access to unlimited resources. These economic ideals were based on this (Capitalism more so than Socialism). Capitalism will probably disappear before Socialism due to the inherent fact that resources are becoming more and more scarce. Both will disappear in time when we finally kill each other for the last of the resources or Man pulls it's head out of it's rear end and moves toward a resource based economy.

As toward the Jew talk, I just couldn't abide the nonsense that was being spouted. It doesn't matter anyway since the person in question wasn't likely to be listening anyway.

Originally posted by ProgressiveSlayer
reply to post by SayonaraJupiter

 

Perhaps a better example of what you perceive as Capitalism would be a coin with the monsanto logo as heads and the c i a logo as tails? Then socialism would be a coin with stalin on one side and moa on the other. I find it funny that the majority of socialist advocates quickly distance themselves from communism but Capitalists are not allowed to distance themselves from corporatism or fascism. If I described socialism as "feeding on the hopes, dreams and potential of the youths for the greater good of the 'community'," you wouldn't like that very much because in your mind socialism wouldn't work that way, even though several historical applications of that system have turned out that way.

Except as most of the posters here will tell you there has never been a true Socialist country. There have been people who take ideas from Socialism but the end result was not Socialism. It helps to know the definition of Socialism, but whose? There are many different schools of Socialism.

The closest thing on has seen to Socialism on a national scale was in Spain circa 1930's. Most true Socialist outings are small scale, such as communes. But, you can also argue we have not see a true Capitalist society either. So, what we are really talking about are varying degrees of Authoritarian government spouting different philosophical ideals.

reply to post by antonia

Except as most of the posters here will tell you there has never been a true Socialist country.

Likewise, most of the posters here will tell you the US is not a true Capitalist country. So where are we left now? Did we waste 65+ pages of a thread?

reply to post by NOTurTypical


I do believe I said that in my post. You could actually read it instead of just thinking of things to say before you even finished it. And the thread isn't wasted as it was person saying his mind is closing toward capitalism. I would say the U.S. has more features of a capitalist country than a socialist one.

Look at the heroes of capitalism.

John D ROCKEFELLER, Jr, historymatters.gmu.edu...

The killing of three women and eleven children at a mining encampment in Ludlow, Colorado, on Easter night, 1914, sent shock waves across the country. After the “Ludlow massacre,” as it came to be known, the commission held public hearings in Colorado where they heard horror stories about the brutality and rapacity of the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, the region’s largest operator of coal mines.

“Did you know that the men sworn in as Deputy Sheriffs by Jeff Farr, at Trinidad, were Baldwin-Phelps detectives and that the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company supplied them with guns?” asked Chairman Walsh.

“I must refer you to Mr. Wellborn,” said Mr. Rockefeller.

“Have you made any effort of your own, as a director of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, to bring to justice those men in your own employ, who are in Troop A, who may have poured oil on the tents of those people and lit them with matches?”

“No.”

Get it?

There really is only one kind of economics and it is called 'economics'. Every flavor of economics has factions that run a wide spectrum from conservative to liberal to extremist.

Every college of economics in the world knows this but they are, quite plainly, a faction unto themselves.

All these colleges are full of bright, smart people. Why they can't devise a system of 'real economics'? Are the economics schools unable to think outside of the box? Is this because the economic schools are profiting largely from the confusion in the minds of everyone else?

If you take a look at this thread there does seem to be an argument to be made that economics systems are temporary solutions to very serious problems of 'real economics'.

When I say 'real economics' I mean to say "There are 10,000,000 people out of work and they are going to start burning things down unless they are somehow gainfully employed!"

That's not extremism. It is a fact of 'real economics'. The solutions to 'real economic' problems are created and carried out by the other factions, the government factions, this results in a fabric of society (e.g. a Matrix) that we can all agree is fair and balanced... just like Fox News.

Between all these factions are some that are able to propose solutions, bankers, that uniformly result in death and bloodshed for the 10,000,000 unemployed useless eaters.

Henry Ford can make a lot of money by helping NAZI Germany build a new war machine. Why? Because Ford represented a faction of uncontrolled capitalism. He owned his own mines, railroads, rubber factories, shipping.

Later, Ford was paid out by the US government when his truck factory in Germany was blown up by Allied bombs. This is the typical outcome of faction economics. It doesn't have anything in common with 'real economics' or the study of how a man works and eats and lives.

Economics is the science of the allocation of scarce resources. Why is it that never in the history of humanity have we even attempted to devise a system that actually addresses scarcity from an objective point of view? In other words, why is there no ideology that tries to base its monetary system on an averaging of the difference between supply and demand of all the products in a given economy?

Originally posted by SayonaraJupiter
That's not extremism. It is a fact of 'real economics'. The solutions to 'real economic' problems are created and carried out by the other factions, the government factions, this results in a fabric of society (e.g. a Matrix) that we can all agree is fair and balanced... just like Fox News.

Can you please take the attitude somewhere else?

Before you accuse me of bias, understand that ANOK has been explaining socialist theory, and I've been entirely happen to listen to him/her. He/she, however, does not exhibit your levels of sarcasm, narrow mindedness, and belligerence.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


I don't think we wasted 65 pages of a thread, what I'm saying is that we've pretty much covered ideals, pros and cons of socialism and capitalism, and all that's happening now are random posters taking each others' comments out of context to make a point that has already been made (and probably refuted in some way, shape or form).

We can talk about the ideals and theories of socialism, but the key argument is always, "we haven't seen a true socialistic society in modern times". From my other posts, you can get a pretty good feel for the way I think Capitalism should be implemented as a hypothetical:

My thought is that it can work well if you are able to protect individual Citizens from the tyranny of the majority and the sociopath. I propose this to be done through a representative government bound to a document very, very similar to the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. I like the concept of structure laid out by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is great from the aspect of protecting the people from the government. I think the new document, however, would have to go farther in protecting each Individual's Natural Rights from other Individuals (sociopaths) and also lay out the Natural Responsibilities that go along with having Natural Rights. The federal government would then have ONLY the responsibility of upholding these Rights for the Citizens against the perils that may come from other Citizens, State governments, the federal government itself or from another country.

The main goal of this system is to prevent psychopaths from using the system to gain ultimate power of Individuals. We can all agree that whether done through corporatism, fascism (via Capitalism) or communism (via socialism) this would be a very bad thing. To me socialism provides a much easier path to the endgame of despotism for the sociopath, as gaining control in a socialistic society would mean gaining control of the allocation of resources. This would to lead to direct serfdom for the people. I think that capitalism, where resources are acquired and traded privately with little or no oversight, is much more difficult to hijack if a representative government limited in power but intricate in design that protects the Citizens' Rights exists.

I elaborated a bit more than I wanted to there, but this is my basic reason and idea for Capitalism, how it should be implemented, and why this implementation makes it better than socialism. My question to those who advocate socialism, then, is how you would propose to implement it from the start, in a real world country where power-hungry sociopaths exist. How would you stop them from corrupting your system? What is your mechanism for allocation of resources? For getting people to produce resources for the community? What if they decided they don't want to do anything of value for the community? How are the Natural Rights of Man, namely Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness (these are really important ideals to me) treated, respected, handled, and protected? How are people who choose not to uphold the Natural Responsibilities that stem from these Rights handled? Do you see any limits to the feasibility of your system regarding size and/or scope to your community/country? If so, how does it handle trade with other communities/countries to gain resources it can't produce or obtain on its own?

I'm curious to see any responses to this, as it is a little difficult for me to come up with those answers for socialism since I am admittedly biased toward Capitalism. However, these are a lot of the questions I answered for Capitalism when thinking about how to implement if fairly.

Originally posted by petrus4

Originally posted by syrinx2112
reply to post by petrus4

 

Hello Petrus,

Please share with me “your” experience with starting a business and competing with another owner/CEO and you ended up at the bottom.

I haven't had an experience exactly like that, as such; however, I will tell you what I have had happen.

I once applied for a telemarketing job, not long after having left high school. It was the only job I have ever applied for, and this was nearly 20 years ago, now. Not long before that, I had finished reading Bill Gates' ghostwritten autobiography, The Road Ahead. Although I can't remember the exact specifics of what I wrote, I got that job on the basis of quoting The Road Ahead on that job application form, almost verbatim. I don't think I quoted any of Gates' actual life experiences, but I did quote his philosophy.

I did not do that in order to be purposely amoral as such; it was actually a conscious experiment, where I wanted to find out whether or not practically engaging in sociopathic behaviour would result in my advancement or not, as I had read. I left the job the next day, feeling nauseated with myself, and also ashamed of the fact that two other applicants had been prevented from getting the job, due to my use of dishonesty.

Since that time, I have also read Machiavelli's The Prince, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power, and his second book, The Art of Seduction. I will admit to having used several of the principles within that last book in order to obtain the relationship I had with my last ex-girlfriend.

In other words, I have a sufficient knowledge, both theoretically and applied, of how the game is played, that I could become an extremely successful secondary psychopath, if I so chose. I choose not to, partly because, beginning in 2007, I have had active and very real contact with Kali Ma, an aspect of the Goddess within the context of what most would refer to as Hinduism. She demands a particular ethical stance.

The main reason, however, is that I am also capable of empathy, to the point where I have at times been plagued by such. I have learned from real experience that there is a direct relationship between the amount of money that a person can accumulate, and their degree of willingness to engage in psychopathic, socially and environmentally lethal behaviour; and as a result, beyond the bare minimum that I need for physical survival, I have resolved to very consciously and deliberately keep myself in as advanced a state of poverty as possible, while remaining alive.

Funny you say this: It happened to me some months back:
There is this other sports bar who "was" adamant on taking my customers...
This went on for about 2 months. I headed over to his bar one eve, purchased a beer and talked with the owner. He didn't know who I was. I introduced myself, he looked at me and said "What are you doing here?" I stated, I wanted to meet you and talk with you. He then says, "you here to take some ideas?" I said no, I then said, I was thinking of starting up a pool (billiards) league tournament.. Your house against my house. We swap weeks and share the customers... He looked at me, smiled and didn't think more about it, he said, YES. He then apologized. Now we are actually a team, his house against my house in Volleyball, Pool, Darts, Singing, Poker…. Our workers seem to be happy, wages are great and their tips are awesome, profits are great for the owners… It’s a win-win…. We share ideas and even at times when he is short on staff, we share.... My point is, I could either have become this other guy who is being mean in stealing my customers and do the same back to him (fueled by fear of losing business). But I totally saw it as an opportunity for ALL to enjoy.. You may say “nice and all” but what about others who are not fortunate to find a good situation. I created my situation, go create yours!

This is a genuinely inspiring story. I may have to reconsider my own position, at least to a degree.

I always have one mindset, and that is remembering that money doesn't come with virtue nor greed... In your situation, you went against some grain deep in your soul that said *There is no value in the paychecks you will receive from this job.*

I just go into everything with an understanding of what I want, and as long as I don't hurt, lie, steal, cheat..do anything that could hurt ANYbody, I then move on it. I call it walking the transaction down, simply by asking, did I "earn" it by not devaluing the revenue/income/profits? If I ever hit a YES to my questions, I simply walk away with an expected loss, because I don't want any part of it. The transaction has been tainted somewhere along the link.

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Socalists want workers to own the means of production. We on the other hand want the creators of the tools to own the means of production. Creatorship should equal ownership.

Workers create the tools also you know. Also there are many jobs that require you to have your own tools.

There is nothing a private owner can do that workers can't.

The only thing the private owner does is appropriate resources, and keeps them artificially scarce, in order to exploit people for their own benefit.

A 'private owner' is not needed to create anything. Ridiculous argument. Give a man a fish....Hmm?

I think the point is this, well maybe not the point, but this is how I am receiving you, first this song came to my mind after I read your post:
And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who***start***
"Rush" closer to the heart.


If I have an idea to create a new wrench, I will only hope to do the following (mind you, everybody had/has the same opportunity to come up with this wrench idea as well) so since it is “my” idea, then I will be the one to START:
1. Mass produce my brilliant idea which is the best wrench in the world (most will say, where in the heck was I on this one?), market the heck out of it and maximize my profits (cost $120, very high price, I want profit).
2. Hire the best workers and pay 30% above Union wages and offer management style benefits to all workers.
3. "MY IDEA" allowed me to start my business, yep, "MY idea", not yours, not Mikes, not John's, not Obama's idea, it was **my idea**.
4. "My IDEA", which was created by MY brains, and last I checked, my brains are my property and all that it will produce and have me say, I am held accountable... So with that logic, I take full ownership/accountability (property rights) of my idea and do what I choose.
5. So now the wrenches are flying off the shelves, this wrench happens to be the best selling item in America ever sold.....
6. Employees are happy, thus always giving 100% of their self chosen craft in making my idea a success in the mass production of **my** product. They are pleased with their paychecks because I am grateful for THEIR value, so I show that by measuring their value/work ethic/labor/passion with a well deserved paycheck. I HIRE 200 more employees.
7. 3 of my employees decide to break off and start their own business (one engineer and two craftsmen). They came up with an idea of this new stronger inexpensive metal. I decide to use this new stronger metal for my wrenches. Now I have to revamp my production line, replace tools/machinery that were intended for this older metal. But I have calculated that I will save 15 million in 5 years if I invest 4 million now in one shot. So I go out and look for businesses that equip foundries and replace big metal melting tools, I want to hire the best craftsmen. I won't pay for foolishness or lazy a-s workers. So I pay max dollar.
8. These 3 employees hire 15 people to assist with their metal foundry, same business model, non union, 30% above standard union wages with full management style benefits.
9. I'm their first customer (and investor), the US Army is their second customer. Now they hire 50 more craftsmen.
And this scenario can go on and on... All I am saying is, as long as we keep the transaction pure, with the goal of always maintaining value (I believe the root of money is value), then there will ALWAYS be happy citizens/neighbors that exchange **earned** value with one another.

But yes there are those multibillion $$ business owners who devalue their product/services by cheating workers, cheating their partners, their family.. heck everybody and their practices affect millions in the country, YEP, I totally agree... Cheating to them is like taking sh-t for us, it's second nature to them. I get that argument.... If you could taste the state of the US right now, I would say it tastes a bit bitter with a mouthful of distrust.. Too many devalued $$$ transactions going on and bigbiz is the spider in this web... BUT, to get that milk and honey taste back for all, then let’s each do something for ourselves, go beyond what we think we can do or become… I don’t need a group to think for me, what I can do is offer better, and that is offer the “group”, my enjoyment of my chosen idea/craft, and in return you value me with CASH by purchasing my idea/craft..

reply to post by syrinx2112


the biggest flaw in this thinking is that 99.999999% of the time the people going into business with that wrench as their product are not actually the people who created that wrench. usually the actual inventors aren't business savvy enough to efficiently sell their product and don't know enough about the business world to distinguish their business and product for all of the world to believe in it. because of this, the majority of the time they sell their products at a price faaaaar below what they would have received if they knew more about business. another thing that happens is, for example, in companies like 3M, they have specific rules in place to prevent people from obtaining the majority of profits off of their own inventions when those inventions occur on 3M premises. this allows 3M to file for patents on these products so they can mass produce them, often to huge profits, while the actual inventor merely gets a small bonus. this happened, for example, with Post-It Notes.

Originally posted by syrinx2112

I just go into everything with an understanding of what I want, and as long as I don't hurt, lie, steal, cheat..do anything that could hurt ANYbody, I then move on it. I call it walking the transaction down, simply by asking, did I "earn" it by not devaluing the revenue/income/profits? If I ever hit a YES to my questions, I simply walk away with an expected loss, because I don't want any part of it.

I think there are instances where this can be done. One type of work which I also got to a small degree, was freelance web design. This was consistent with what you were saying, in that I was providing a service without hurting anyone. Maybe I need to focus on that.

Aside from web design, I am primarily a computer user, in terms of where my skillset is and what I do. One thing that has given me direct experience of, is what ANOK has said, about individual workers owning the means of production. If you own your own computer, you can produce web sites or other material.

This is something which I not only want myself, but I want everyone else to be able to have it as well; not only for their own sake, but also because my own position of having it is safer if everyone else does. If people are able to make money via producing with their own equipment, in a manner that is not socially or environmentally detrimental or destructive, then I have no objection to that.

The problem is when you get people like Gordon Gekko, who openly bragged about producing nothing, but owning things. It's ironic, but I actually can't see Ludwig von Mises approving of that behaviour; because one of the things that von Mises emphasises from memory, is the idea of Capitalism rewarding people for the creation of value. Someone holding a monopoly of ownership on property which they don't use, is not creating value.

It has been said that people like Morgan, despite the other things they did, were able to create value, because they organised large scale means of distribution. Assuming that that is true, we need to create a scenario where people can perform those sorts of services if and when they are needed, without engaging in the other psychopathic behaviours they did as well.

Thank you for participating in this thread, syrinx.

reply to post by petrus4


It can be anything, product or service.

Real quick about me, I will keep it quick and vague:
1. Joined Army very young, served 5+yrs active, I went all out.
2. While serving I earned my 4yr degree in 22 months, clep first two years of traditional college in 8 months while in the first gulf, got my 4 yr degree with sand in the crack of my a-s...
3. My entrance ARMY score was decent enough to get a job as a computer dude. I knew jack sh-t about computers at the time.
4. UNIX and Oracle came very easy to me, that was my job.
5. I then exit the military.
6. I realized I had a skill that I enjoyed doing, so I did some research on computer jobs, UNIX/Oracle.
7. I picked up a helpWanted ad and I said to myself, who are the companies who are hiring people with my skills. At the time, I had no idea what a Unix admin/ora dba commanded. Anyway, I started to notice consulting firms were hiring a ton. So I started to investigate that type of business model, what a consulting firm was/did, how did they make money.
8. So in two weeks of me exiting the military, I had my own S corp. (10 days for official paper work/pre internet services, all done via my local library), these consulting firms that I researched were hiring me out on a 1099 basis, on my terms, but they were fare. I had no idea what a 1099 was, what gross/net, qtr tax estimates, what a write off was, how to invoice a big company, marketing, brochures, I had no idea…. I learned to business swim quickly!!
9. Then some company bought my company, not for very much, but they really wanted my clients... offer was okay enough for me to do it...
10. Then I decided to work for a major software db company.. So I did.
11. Did that, earned my living with gratitude. Then I told myself, no matter what I will buy me a bar...
So as I was on the road consulting for this software company. I put a business plan together on how I wanted to serve my customers a cold beer and some good food with substance, eat, drink and be merry....
That is where I am now... I feel as if I am still bobbing for apples as I run my sports bar, but darn am I having fun and learning so much... Each month gets better and better.. Even when I hit a hurdle, I mark it so I know what not to do the following month...

I am no business genius, but I will for sure enjoy the ride with no complaints. I will never not try something because somebody said, well they have it all, the big corps will just buy/force out of his hands and blah,blah...