[Cog]

How do you guarantee universal employment? Going to seize all the private companies or just pass a law that an employer can't turn anyone down? Or perhaps are you going to create government jobs where people watch paint dry or something.

I really want to understand how you are going to pay for this utopian solution.

Yet again another big federal government mandated solution in play. Just pass a law and everything will be fine. Do you guys ever really think about your suggestions to solve Climate change?

Basic food rations? No thanks. Had enough MRE's in the military. Your solution sounds a lot like the book 1984. Are you going to increase or decrease the chocolate ration this week?

The bad news delivered by the telescreen was that the chocolate ration would be reduced from 30 grams to 20 grams at the start of the following week. Later on in the Ministry of Truth as Winston was correcting information for The Times, it was revealed that the Ministry of Plenty had some time back issued a categorical pledge that there would be no further reduction of chocolate rations during that year. Ironically, one day later, demonstrations were held in praise of Big Brother for increasing the chocolate ration to twenty grams. Winston was stunned at how mindless everyone else seemed to be for forgetting in just a span of twenty four hours that the ration had actually been decreased and not increased.--1984

If population is the problem, then a simpler solution is to not provide any health care, rations, or jobs. The problem of excess resource use will solve itself.

[americandream]

Cog

Accumulation for one thing could be socialised and rendered more efficient. If you think that the markets are run by competents at the moment, wrong. The markets crashes are largely as a consequence of half assed scalping and assetising measures to basically bet on moves.

Db is on the mark for sure. Just siting here twiddling your fingers or intimidating other equally poor people is pretty damned crazy.

[Cog]

Accumulation for one thing could be socialised and rendered more efficient.


LOL Why don't you just say, we are going to tax the hell out of people for their own good and seize every bit of private property? No reason to cloak what you are up to with popular buzzwords.

[americandream]

Accumulation for one thing could be socialised and rendered more efficient.


LOL Why don't you just say, we are going to tax the hell out of people for their own good and seize every bit of private property? No reason to cloak what you are up to with popular buzzwords.

Yes. I who understand the markets and their faults am saying to YOU that we can run the show more efficiently and with less perilous consequences. What are your qualifications. Mom and pop capitalism in quotes is long gone by way of corporatism and a market run by nincompoops.

I may be wrong so please, educate me. But not one liners please. Exercise your free speech but prepared to be challenged.

[Cog]

You are the one who stated:

Accumulation for one thing could be socialised and rendered more efficient.

I stated what I believe you are after. Now you can explain what you mean by your statement and then I will respond to it. You complain about my one-liners but you avoid explaining your one-liners.

[americandream]

You are the one who stated:

Accumulation for one thing could be socialised and rendered more efficient.

I stated what I believe you are after. Now you can explain what you mean by your statement and then I will respond to it. You complain about my one-liners but you avoid explaining your one-liners.

Well for one thing I would remove all scalping and hedging strategies and ensure that the market was representative of competency thus minimising the risk of crashes. As long as we have a commodfying economy we will need the exchanges. We can smooth the accumulation process and cut out the wild swings by getting people in there on an even playing field. Those who cannot cut the mustard would soon leave. This would return us to a more investment styled growth than one driven by speculation. This socialises participation as the market runs on longer more ethical I guess would be the word, timelines

I now turn the floor over to you to give me your understanding of how the markets would work in your view.

[Pops]

Ah crap, I find myself in agreement with Cog here, in fact yesterday I even referenced the Ministry of Plenty's chocolate ration announcement!

[Cog]

Ah crap, I find myself in complete agreement with Cog here, in fact yesterday I even referenced the Ministry of Plenty's chocolate ration announcement!

There was a disturbance in the force. I felt it.

[ROCKMAN]

"...we can run the show more efficiently and with less perilous consequences..." Who is the "we" and where do I sign up? LOL. Everyone has a solution to all the problems we face. All they need to figure out is how to implement them. Easy-peazy. LOL

[hvacman]

In both socialist and free-market economies, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. It's just a fact of the universe, regardless of economic bent. In the free market, brutal and unfair luck, hard work, and quick wit all weigh in to provide the balance that determines who is "more equal". In a socialist economy, the Dictator Secretary of Balance, through the sheer magnanimity of his/her being, determines the "fair" balance for all. And, kind of like the free-market economy, the harder you work to become a closer friend of the SOB than the other guy, the more magnanimity you will experience and balanced you will feel.

So, really, it isn't an either-or. It is just a matter of style. With Freedom, you advance through luck, what you do and what you know. With more top-down managed economies such as Collectivism, you advance through luck, who you know, and who you do, so to speak.

If you're more a refined "people" person, Collectivism is for you. If you are a lowly "thing" person and better at world-destroying things like, oh, inventing agriculture, carving out wheels, finding rocks and sharpening them... you know...like farmers, engineers or geologists, then maybe Freedom is a better choice.

[americandream]

In both socialist and free-market economies, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. It's just a fact of the universe, regardless of economic bent. In the free market, brutal and unfair luck, hard work, and quick wit all weigh in to provide the balance that determines who is "more equal". In a socialist economy, the Dictator Secretary of Balance, through the sheer magnanimity of his/her being, determines the "fair" balance for all. And, kind of like the free-market economy, the harder you work to become a closer friend of the SOB than the other guy, the more magnanimity you will experience and balanced you will feel.

So, really, it isn't an either-or. It is just a matter of style. With Freedom, you advance through luck, what you do and what you know. With more top-down managed economies such as Collectivism, you advance through luck, who you know, and who you do, so to speak.

If you're more a refined "people" person, Collectivism is for you. If you are a lowly "thing" person and better at world-destroying things like, oh, inventing agriculture, carving out wheels, finding rocks and sharpening them... you know...like farmers, engineers or geologists, then maybe Freedom is a better choice.

I would recommend reading my posts on the nature of consciousness and its tendencies elsewhere in the Forum, especially in the thread Alternatives to Capitalism:


To COG

I issues this challenge:

Bearing in mind that man is uniquely equipped with self awareness, a notion of cause and effect and is a function of an objective process that contemplates a state of equilibrium by virtue of the cause and effect tool (this can be reasonably inferred)......

AND

Bearing in mind that the flag of your freedom:

1 Is representative of a state of being which is anything but free

1 Has announced its irrational hatred of members of our species of another and darker complexion by taking us to war

2 Has announced certain tendencies which are anything but free such as forcing certain stereotypes to engage with the landowner as commodities free of rent;

WHAT WOULD YOUR FREEDOM LOOK LIKE.

Unlike your notions of subjective freedom which are as fickle as the next opportunity that presents itself for the annexation as someones property because they happen to have a hooked nose or even those of the subjective socialists who blow hither and thither such as China and Europe for example, objective socialism is driven by the core logic of consciousness once fully liberated to function as evolution contemplates, not hamstrung by inconsistents such as uinfree freedom or even unsocial socialism.

[americandream]

Cog

I am still waiting for YOU to elaborate your free social relations right from the economic principles to the social principles, detailed and listed as I have shown my hand FOR YOU TO CRITICISE WITH THE ONE LINERS YOU ARE SO ADEPT AT USING.....CARROTS FOR THE DISAFFECTED BUT THEY ARE VACUOUS.

I DONT KNOW WHAT ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES YOU STAND FOR. MY UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR SOCIAL PRINCIPLES IS THAT YOU DESIRE THE FREEDOM TO PLACE BLACKS AND BOURGEOISIE LIBERALS IN THE CUSTODY CONTEMPLATED BY THE CONDEFERATE FLAG.

I have used emphasis as you keep drawing the crowds with classic demagogic bait ignoring the glaring gap of explanation and that is utterly vacuous until you list your principles so we can debate this issue point for point.

[ralfy]

How do you guarantee universal employment? Going to seize all the private companies or just pass a law that an employer can't turn anyone down? Or perhaps are you going to create government jobs where people watch paint dry or something.

I really want to understand how you are going to pay for this utopian solution.

Yet again another big federal government mandated solution in play. Just pass a law and everything will be fine. Do you guys ever really think about your suggestions to solve Climate change?

Basic food rations? No thanks. Had enough MRE's in the military. Your solution sounds a lot like the book 1984. Are you going to increase or decrease the chocolate ration this week?

The bad news delivered by the telescreen was that the chocolate ration would be reduced from 30 grams to 20 grams at the start of the following week. Later on in the Ministry of Truth as Winston was correcting information for The Times, it was revealed that the Ministry of Plenty had some time back issued a categorical pledge that there would be no further reduction of chocolate rations during that year. Ironically, one day later, demonstrations were held in praise of Big Brother for increasing the chocolate ration to twenty grams. Winston was stunned at how mindless everyone else seemed to be for forgetting in just a span of twenty four hours that the ration had actually been decreased and not increased.--1984

If population is the problem, then a simpler solution is to not provide any health care, rations, or jobs. The problem of excess resource use will solve itself.

The catch is that businesses can only earn more given more sales to growing markets, and that can only happen if consumers receive enough health care, etc. At the same time, governments can only earn more if there is more economic activity, and that means more businesses with growing sales and consumers who spend more.

If the problem of excess resource use solves itself, then all three (businesses, consumer markets, and governments) fall apart.

[americandream]

[b]The catch is that businesses can only earn more given more sales to growing markets, and that can only happen if consumers receive enough health care, etc. A[/b]t the same time, governments can only earn more if there is more economic activity, and that means more businesses with growing sales and consumers who spend more.

If the problem of excess resource use solves itself, then all three (businesses, consumer markets, and governments) fall apart.

+1

[Quinny]

Socialised provision exists and is often much more efficient !

[Cog]

Socialised provision exists and is often much more efficient !

If you like safety and security above freedom, then a jail cell provides you what you seek.

[Newfie]

Bertrand Russle, possibly the greatest mind of the 20th century, wrote about this.

Full text here.....http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

In Praise Of Idlness

Like most of my generation, I was brought up on the saying: 'Satan finds some mischief for idle hands to do.' Being a highly virtuous child, I believed all that I was told, and acquired a conscience which has kept me working hard down to the present moment. But although my conscience has controlled my actions, my opinions have undergone a revolution. I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached. Everyone knows the story of the traveler in Naples who saw twelve beggars lying in the sun (it was before the days of Mussolini), and offered a lira to the laziest of them. Eleven of them jumped up to claim it, so he gave it to the twelfth. this traveler was on the right lines. But in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing. If so, I shall not have lived in vain.

[Newfie]

Isaac Asimov had a different take.....


Moyers: What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if population growth continues at its present rate?

Asimov: It will be completely destroyed. I will use what I call my bathroom metaphor. Two people live in an apartment and there are two bathrooms, then both have the freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want, and stay as long as you want, for whatever you need. Everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in the freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, "Aren't you through yet?" and so on.

The same way democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are the less one individual matters.

[Tanada]

Isaac Asimov had a different take.....


Moyers: What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if population growth continues at its present rate?

Asimov: It will be completely destroyed. I will use what I call my bathroom metaphor. Two people live in an apartment and there are two bathrooms, then both have the freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want, and stay as long as you want, for whatever you need. Everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom. It should be right there in the Constitution. But if you have 20 people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in the freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door, "Aren't you through yet?" and so on.

The same way democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are the less one individual matters.

I tend to be Asimovian on this one. Even Stalin knew this to be true, One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. It was the same with hunting a species like the Passenger Pigeon. Once upon a time they had flocks so large over the eastern USA/Canada that hunting them was a simple case of point your shotgun in the general direction and pulling the trigger, you were bound to hit some. They were also, from what historical accounts say, delicious when roasted. As a result between 1860-1914 we killed all of them. We almost did the same thing with the plains Bison/Buffalo. Humans are often incredibly short sighted.

[Outcast_Searcher]

"...we can run the show more efficiently and with less perilous consequences..." Who is the "we" and where do I sign up? LOL. Everyone has a solution to all the problems we face. All they need to figure out is how to implement them. Easy-peazy. LOL

And of course, if they're from the government, they run things with money someone ELSE earned. "Evil" profits or "excess" profits are what the big government types tend to call it, even as they confiscate it, since they can't earn it in the free market by producing something people want to buy.