douglas.nerad wrote
Amen, Brother
But you are right, it would be a great thing but that would take a great event and/or person but I just don't see it happening.

DB wrote

Well, right. And it wouldn't take a great person - it wouldn't work with a great person. That, you see, was Lenin's failure. No person can end a system like that, it has to end without human intervention.

Mookee wrote

What about the parasite types that just live off the hard work of others? Or the jobs that require significantly more training. Doctors and garbage men are both required but it would be rough to convince me that they deserve the same thing.

Mookee wrote

While *rough* still fits, I meant *tough*

DB wrote

So garbagemen just live off the hard work of others? A doctor charges his patients hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep people alive; a garbageman takes away things that other people don't want anymore. The doctors had to make a significant investment to do what they do, granted. Does that make the garbagemen parasites? If you're talking about people that live on welfare, it's a problem, yes. But I'd rather have that problem, with a few parasites, than millions of people without enough food because that doctor needs another Lexus.

Mookee wrote

Once again, you've juxtaposed two separate parts of what I said...there is an "or" in there. Two completely different, somewhat rhetorical, questions. The first asking why hard workers have to support the deadbeats, the second asking whether or not it's reasonable to give the same wages to people who do two different things requiring two different paths and significantly different types of work.

DB wrote

Ok, let me deal with these as two separate objections.
1. The deadbeats. Why are the deadbeats deadbeats? Is it because they know they can be, that they know that they can live without working? Or is it that they feel that they might as well avoid the repressive, exploitatative nature of capitalism? Probably more the first one than the second, I'll grant that. But that's a problem with a type of person, and they're never going away. But if a person could have a life that meant more than selling their labor for wages, and didn't have to live in a world where no matter what they did, they'd always be stuck at the bottom of a system wherein less than one hundredth of a percent (roughly 500, worldwide) own more than the combined income of 50 percent of the world, then maybe they'd take a different attitude towards working. If not, then we'd be in the exact same position as now, except without all that horrific exploitation and inexcusable inequality.
2. Different paths, and different types of work. All types of work are necessary. A garbageman provides as much a necessary function of a modern society as a doctor. Why is it, then, that because the training is different, one service is worth more (therefore, more necessary)? If working was something you did as part of a society, and not how you kept food inside of you, we might have fewer doctors, but I think it's a lot more likely that we'd have more competent, motivated doctors, and we'd certainly have more teachers and school counselors and other necessary but, by our society's terms, worthless positions.

Mookee wrote

While the endless pursuit of money and things is a problem, I'll not deny that, a system where everyone shares everything they have on an equal basis and does things for the betterment of others is not realistic. I'll not deny that some people make more money than they need...and even some of them can still be considered somewhat humanitarian. Bill Gates, while one loves to hate the guy and he makes well more than any individual needs to make, does share. Granted, it's a portion, but he still shares.

Doctors aren't overpaid. The insurance company managers for health care providers are grossly overpaid. When men like Ken Ley of Enron amass billions at the expense of everyone in the company, then there is a problem. If the government doesn't recognize that (and don't try telling me the Democrats would have handled it any differently) then there's a problem.

A hundred years ago, a "friend of big business" came in and broke up the monopolies that exist. People are selfish. Mother Teresa is an anamoly, not the norm. "Uncivilized" areas of the world fight for the most "stuff" because they don't want to be poor. The deadbeats on welfare (and no, I never claimed all of them were) don't sit around at home and philosophize on the futility of their position, they're just lazy and know they can make money by doing nothing. I'll not deny there are plenty out there who actually need help.

The system needs a Roosevelt type tweak, and not the FDR variety.

DB wrote

I can see that this is largely a difference of opinion. That said, why is it not realistic? Simply becuase we're so conditioned to the aggressive, self-interested varieties of capitalism that we aren't used to it? Interesting.

DB wrote

Secondly, no, I don't think Democrats would have responded differently. Why not? Because they're effectively the same as Republicans.

DB wrote

Secondly, no, I don't think Democrats would have responded differently. Why not? Because they're effectively the same as Republicans.

Mookee wrote

Let me see if I have this correct. You're saying that people are conditioned to be aggressive and self-interested? When exactly did this conditioning happen? It wasn't in 1776 with the publication of Wealth of Nations, which is what a large portion of the Western world's economies are based off. The conditioning must have been prior to this, perhaps in the Middle Ages, when everything was shared...ooops. Let's go back to the Romans...damn. Greeks? nope. Egypt? Sumeria? Babylon? I don't see a general outpouring of human sharing in any of these civilizations. It appears (at least from my perspective, but I've been known to be wrong) that all of history (and I'll wager most anything most of history prior to recorded history) is where this conditioning comes from, which lends one to question whether or not it's really a conditioned trait, or just a trait that exists.

I've said this before, I'm not sure if it was on this site or Doug's, the whole idea of sharing is very possible on a very small scale. Insert too many people, there are too many variables. The component parts can cooperate for the betterment of everyone, but that doesn't mean there will be complete sharing across the board. It would be "conditioning" to get an entire society to go against all of history.

And yes, the Democrats and Republicans are more or less the same, but at least they're not Communists...

DB wrote

why is that an "at least"

Mookee wrote

I take it back. They are both Communists, they just claim to be capitalists. In effect, all governments are Socialist governments, people want to be taken care of ... the only problem is they selectively take care of people. Why can't we selectively take care of ... say ... hot chicks that get naked? Why can't that be a criteria? What's all this wealth crap?

CP wrote
What?!
Because that is selecting people on grounds of physical attributes - a chosen race, aryan you might say, which is Fascism. Nice move. As for all governments being socialist what planet are you speaking of as there is not a socialist country on this one? So market forces should be the only way to dictate how a person lives their life? Great, have a look at 19th Century Britain, 21st Century Indonsesia for how obscene an idea that is. You may have never lived a life at/near the bottom, I have through no lack of effort, it's not pleasant.

CP wrote
What?!
Because that is selecting people on grounds of physical attributes - a chosen race, aryan you might say, which is Fascism. Nice move. As for all governments being socialist what planet are you speaking of as there is not a socialist country on this one? So market forces should be the only way to dictate how a person lives their life? Great, have a look at 19th Century Britain, 21st Century Indonsesia for how obscene an idea that is. You may have never lived a life at/near the bottom, I have through no lack of effort, it's not pleasant.

DB wrote

Wow.

sue60side wrote

communism/captialism are the yin/yang of value allocation structure of our organism-society as Mookie said "the whole idea of sharing is very possible on a very small scale" and on a large scale the invisible hand does its job. What you get is the balanced society, olds news.

Click the button to