Does socialism work?

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Takuan_Soho said:

j0x said:
there is no reason to regulate if not remove all irrational criminal tendencies like violence/sadism

Seriously, read the story, it may do you some good.

So basically, we will have complete freedom as long as we use this freedom to completely accept what society tells us is the truth.

Don't quite see that working out as well as you think....

well tell me is it a science fiction story? since one of the issue i got with all the science fiction stories i know is that the human nature especially human psychology/mind did not change/progress/evolve at all too which makes sense since once irrationality of humanity is lessen or remove then there will be less wrong things to make a story about

May 12, 2017 7:38 PM

#52

Takuan_Soho

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j0x said:
well tell me is it a science fiction story? si

It was written in 1899, so unless you think Wells is "SF", then no, far too early.

The story has an interesting pedigree in that it is the first true "dystopia" in literature. It predates Wells, London, and Zamyatin by at least a decade (or quarter century). But, since Jerome K Jerome was England's greatest comedic writer, it has its own unique flair.

May 13, 2017 12:38 AM

#53

TheBrainintheJar

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Does capitalism work?

I heard we never had 'real capitalism' either according to Libertarians.

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May 13, 2017 12:47 AM

#54

Ikaros_42oh

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does anything 'work'. government is flawed because people are flawed.

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May 13, 2017 2:16 AM

#55

LJohn

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The marxsist theory separates history into inevitable economic ages and predicts what happens after history stage 4 capitalism as he puts it, he bases it on two assumptions one of which is false that being the labor theory of value in which the value of something is dictated by how many hour are put in, the other is the tendency for the rate of profit to fall over time which seems true enough, iphones used to be more profitable.

And so Marx makes a prediction that capitalists will squeeze money even harder to make up for falling profits increasing competition to the point that even small businesses will give up and work for somebody else eventually leading to 99.9% workers and 0.01% capitalist, at that point a revolt will happen which leads us to stage 5, socialism, where workplaces work democratically and wealth is increasingly meaningless as needs are fully satisfied finally leading to communism which is perfect socialism.

Now some of his preditions are coming true but even Marx would laugh at the idea that you can seize a country and start an industrial revolution in equitable terms (leninism), socialism is simply an inevitable consequence of history more akin to a natural phenomenon that you can't force.
In conclusion everyone who tries to force socialism is retarded.

May 13, 2017 2:49 AM

#56

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j0x said:

NekkoArc said:
This thread is a mess. What does "pure" socialism even mean? What's "pure" or "total" capitalism? Laisezz faire? Is Hong Kong a free market? Milton Friedman during his life considered Hong Kong to be free market. I don't think Anarcho-capitalists would consider Hong Kong, free market. Provide historical examples if you want meaningful discussion.

there is no real socialism and communism done yet in history
you can read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Satania- said:
inb4butreelsozializmhasntbeentriedyet

What does post-scarcity economy have anything to do with socialism?

incisorr said:
i love it when people start acting like some neutral almighty unbiased godly judge and they even believe their own shit, suddenly its not their thoughts and opinions anymore but the righteous justice god way, they are unbiased, non-subjective, they just are! To be honest, everyone is like this quite often, me included, but i don't forget myself and i still post a lot of personal shit which is what forums are made for , if they didn't want us to have our own style and posts it would be an article instead a forum thread.

May 13, 2017 3:18 AM

#57

Zekkenshin

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@traed - I guess at the end of it, the responsibility as to whether a system works or not comes down to humans. I just fundamentally believe in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. Rather than looking for ways to steal from the rich, the goal should be to end poverty. Furthermore, it seems like socialism almost implies that the poor can never be responsible for their circumstances. The truth is that some people are poor because they make poor decisions, they're bad with money, or they squander any opportunity to rise up the ladder. In this case, the real solution is showing them the error of their ways. You can take $1,000,000 from a wealthy 1%er and distribute it to 10 impoverished people. If they don't understand how to wisely manage and save their money, that $100k will be gone within weeks.

In short, the responsibility goes both ways. Fix a system of poverty but those within it also have a duty to work hard.

I went off on a bit of a tangent there so if I'm mistaken on the premise of socialism, feel free to clarify.

May 13, 2017 4:02 AM

#58

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Ratohnhaketon said:
@traed - I guess at the end of it, the responsibility as to whether a system works or not comes down to humans. I just fundamentally believe in equal opportunity as opposed to equal outcome. Rather than looking for ways to steal from the rich, the goal should be to end poverty. Furthermore, it seems like socialism almost implies that the poor can never be responsible for their circumstances. The truth is that some people are poor because they make poor decisions, they're bad with money, or they squander any opportunity to rise up the ladder. In this case, the real solution is showing them the error of their ways. You can take $1,000,000 from a wealthy 1%er and distribute it to 10 impoverished people. If they don't understand how to wisely manage and save their money, that $100k will be gone within weeks.

In short, the responsibility goes both ways. Fix a system of poverty but those within it also have a duty to work hard.

I went off on a bit of a tangent there so if I'm mistaken on the premise of socialism, feel free to clarify.

What you described isn't exactly socialism, that's an exaggerated form of social democracy. Social democracy is wealth redistribution, socialism is a change to the economic system. Social democracy is keynesian capitalism that tries to treat the symptoms of capitalism. Social democracy is only about allowing everyone the right to have a quality of living conditions that is actually liveable so it's not about equal outcome it's about giving a equal starting platform to have a good start. Socialism is a full replacement to capitalism that tries to solve problems of capitalism at the source by doing away with it. Capitalism is hierarchal in power structure while socialism is horizontal decentralized power (unless it's state-capitalism like all those bad places people try to call communist but actually arent). Social democracy is still hierarchal. In socialism you either direct democracy or at least proportional representation or something and you also have a federation or confederation often but not necisarily since it could also function through labour unions and mutual aid. There are many forms of socialism so it's difficult to talk about broadly and in general so it's easy to get a bit lost. There is socialism with a state, and socialism without a state. There is socialism with money (but not traditionaly as far as theory goes iirc) and socialism without money or it uses something similar but not the same as money. There is socialism without a market and there is market socialism. Socialism can be national or be global.

May 13, 2017 4:08 AM

#59

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NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

there is no real socialism and communism done yet in history
you can read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Satania- said:
inb4butreelsozializmhasntbeentriedyet

What does post-scarcity economy have anything to do with socialism?

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

degMay 13, 2017 4:24 AM

May 13, 2017 11:40 AM

#60

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@Pirating_Ninja
Crony Capitalism isn't trickle-down economics. It is capitalism where the government interferes in the wrong ways and supports certain corporations over others, either directly or indirectly, as is the case in many areas of the US economy today.

The way minimum wage works is this: You force people to pay a certain wage for an employer they need. Thus, to cover the higher cost, they have several options.
They can employ the employee for less hours, which allows him to make more money in the same amount of hours if he manages to find another job to fill the gap, but otherwise ONLY hurts the business.
They can fire the employee and replace him with a higher quality one, which is probably not the intended result.
They can fire the employee and avoid replacing him altogether, because they need more money to function.
Or they can raise the prices on their products/services, resulting in a higher cost of living for everyone else.
I am opposed to forcing someone to work or to employ someone else, so if the guy gets fired he's screwed unless you are not opposed to that, in which case I'll point to Venezuela and Soviet Russia where they've already tried forcing people to work.
No minimum wage allows experienceless employees to negotiate with employers in order to acquire experience and be able to demand a higher wage when applying for a job elsewhere or a raise in the same place, preventing the situation many people are now in where they're stuck looking for places that are willing to hire lower-quality workers.

America was not at all capitalistic during the great depression, exactly the opposite. Hoover (which is funny since I always see people present him as a laissez-faire guy just because he was a republican) and FDR's incessant meddling served to elongate the depression, significantly. Recessions can be healed by the market itself--in fact, by June of 1930 the unemployment rate, which spiked to 9% in the stock market crash, was already back down to 6.3%. They aren't a failure of capitalism, just a sign that the market is faced with changes it needs to adjust to. Prior to the Depression it was indeed capitalist, and it had grown quite a bit during Coolidge's presidency, with which the vast majority of people were happy. The beginning of the Great Depression, nevertheless, had plenty to do with government. For example, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, which resulted in the inflationary booms that led to the malinvestments leading to the stock market crash (which wasn't the only cause for the depression).

The unemployment rate in 1931 was 16.3%, and fluctuated on the way to 17.2% by 1939. To claim that FDR's policies (large parts of which were extrapolated from Hoover's programs according to, among others, Rexford Tugwell, part of FDR's "Brain Trust") helped the economy is dishonest, or at least ignorant. At best they provided public relief while the artificial wages and inflation, as well as his absurd regulations (government agent decides how much people have to pay as wage and how much people have to be paid as wage, disagreements lead to industry shut down, bank reforms prohibiting expansion, etc.), kept the economy from improving.
FDR's public programs were generally wasteful and counterproductive to the economy, and the Supreme Court even outlawed some of them (for example the NRA in 1935 and the AAA in 1936). Even his own treasury secretary said, "we are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." He also talked about how after 8 years the unemployment rate is back to where they started except they have a debt now too.
This all got so much better in the war because FDR's pre war policies were essentially war policies. The massive spending on army rather than artificial, wasteful and mandatory public programs solved the unemployment issue and gave people money that was NOT causing inflation.

After the war, congress cut taxes. government spending fell from $85 billion in 1945 to 30 in 1946. Between 1944 and 1948, government spending was brought down from 44% of GNP to 8.9. I heard this without a source, but controls were also supposedly lifted, which makes enough sense for me to believe unsourced. I could probably find it if I looked hard enough. Regardless, some people argue that THIS is what ended the Depression rather than the war's consequences, though I believe it's a combination of both.

The 50s and 60s were an economic success for multiple reasons. First, the fact that government did not impede the economy as much--the effective highest tax bracket, according to a calculation that includes capital gain, by Marc Linder, a law professor, was 49% in 1953. Further calculations show that it dropped further throughout the decade, reaching a mere 31% in 1960. Even the Internal Revenue Service did not estimate it as any higher than 70%, which are all much lower than the official 91% recorded and touted, which barely even applied to anyone. A 2009 study (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15369.pdf) calculated that the AVERAGE marginal tax rates, inclusive of federal and state income taxes as well as social security taxes, equaled 25% in the 50s, as opposed to the 2000s' 37%. It's possible that effective taxes were even lower. The Tax Notes magazine found that those earning more than $100,000 back then (which is much more now) paid less than 5% of the total taxes collected, which is significantly less than what the rich pay today. The aforementioned highly likely deregulation (I find it hard to believe that FDR's tens of thousands of new laws were still adhered to when the government was not in charge of everything, seeing as how most of the laws related to the government programs and intervention) is also relevant.

The other element of the economic success is the enormous boon the war was to the people and the war research that followed, leading to developments in electronics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, atomic energy and other fields--the fact that other nations were recovering from their damages during WW2 allowed the US to function as a world research center, as well as for American factories to export goods that could not be created elsewhere. Sales of synthetics and electronics, for example, soared. The planes and ships of the war had direct peacetime applications, and the large amount of money accumulated by US citizens during the war was available to support the economy. There are other reasons the economy was booming after the war, but Roosevelt's policy was not part of it.

You risked your life eating canned food? Capitalism allows you to spot an opportunity there and start producing food of higher quality, which you can then sell for higher prices. Which did happen, Pillsbury and Washburn for the first example that comes to mind.
Working 12 hours for 2 meals may seem like a terrible thing to you, but it was way better than the alternatives in those times. They aren't any different from modern people in third world countries, "exploited" by capitalists who actually provide them something. There's also the fact that with decreases in prices and more innovation, wages steadily increased, and that the low standards of living then, which were not BECAUSE of capitalism but rather existed alongside it, were constantly improving until they became much better for everyone--America's economy grew by over 400% between 1860 and 1900. 440,000 patents were issued during the same period. Less hours of work eventually produced the same products, making life much easier for workers. Furthermore, the bottom class, of people from the slums who were not skilled at work, are the ones this applied to. The middle class, as in, majority of the population, was absolutely better off.
You also don't mention how the monopolies were created by people who were not any richer than others when they started; Rockefeller and Carnegie, for example, crushed their competitors through clever deals and foresight, effectively earning their monopoly by their own virtues until later when they got state intervention to make it easier. Also regarding Carnegie, like many others, he received his education at a free school, gifted to his town by a philanthropist, the kind of which were much more common when the state wasn't taking money from them to supposedly give to the poor. Furthermore, monopolies are not invariably bad--the above examples both significantly reduced the prices of their products, Carnegie from $160 per ton to $17 in a quarter century and Rockefeller from ¢30 to ¢5.9. Both of them did so in their road to attaining their monopoly and kept improving, because in order to maintain their monopoly with no government intervention, they had to remain innovative and responsive to consumer demands, as well as obviously offer desirable products in affordable prices. Both of them, among many others, improved the standard of life for Americans. Monopolies are only bad if the ones holding them have complete control over the market (as in, invariably prevent competitors from ever trying to rise) AND their products are necessary for consumers (i.e. health, food). Out of all the 17 monopolies in the Gilded Ages, the only ones where prices didn't decrease (usually significantly) were the match industry and the castor oil industry, which I'm sure you'll agree were not exactly necessary--they were services improving your life, but their producers pitched them at a certain price.
Without government intervention, complete control over a market requires very specific circumstances and is very rarely achieved. Even in the case of the incomplete monopolies of the Gilded Age, some were assisted through government intervention--Carnegie enjoyed steel tariffs for a time, for example. Patents and copyrights were used to suppress competition in some cases. Land was also often assigned on the basis of political pull rather than trade. All this also ignores the heavy impairment to freedom that the anti-homosexual, nonwhite and women laws were. Calling the Gilded Age an accurate representation of capitalism is wrong. Regardless, maintaining a government-free monopoly is not as easy as people like to claim--a monopoly is still a business. If it lowers prices too much in order to drive competition out, it loses money much faster than that competition. But even after it drives out the competition, as soon as it tries to raise prices to a point that gives a high enough profit margin, new competitors can enter to take advantage of that profit margin and it would be forced to lower prices again. The fact that consumers continuously receive the product at a cheaper than normal price means the demand goes down and it takes longer for the monopoly to recover.

After the war, poverty rates steadily declined. But then the war on poverty happened (1965 or 1967, don't remember), and effective percentages of poverty, despite the fact that standards of living have improved enough to make it significantly harder to be considered poor, have INCREASED. The lower class expanded, because the welfare state allowed them to do so. The taxes on the middle class have slowed economic growth and hurt families. The increase in crime rates resulting from the decrease in responsibility also costed middle class people money.
America has almost 200 welfare programs. It spends a trillion a year on these, excluding Medicare and Social Security. A quarter of that would get all of the poor to the poverty line. But it won't stop them from being poor. Gifts don't make you wealthy. The reason poor people stay poor is because they don't try to improve, are bad at managing money, or had a child out of wedlock or before having a secure job, 95% of the time. The reason they don't try to improve is obvious; when the state gives you money, when you believe that all of your issues are a result of victimization, you don't try to improve your situation in any way that isn't complaining. When you depend on welfare, you sometimes don't WANT to make enough to get out of it. The bit about managing money is also obvious. If you work but don't have money, you used it on something. Unless you had a child before getting a secure job or married, you probably didn't use it very well.
No one wants to get rid of these programs because it means they lose votes--because they've now made the poor depend on them, or in most cases develop a mentality that doesn't see any alternative.

I don't see too many differences between Sanders's version and actual socialism. I don't know which kind of socialism people are advocating for here, so I'll just attack possibilities:

A high tax rate disincentivizes work. The same applies to having all your needs fulfilled. This is almost invariably what has led to dictatorships in communist countries trying to force people to work. Socialism depends on everyone willing to work for everyone's sake. When there's no other incentive than the betterment of the world, it collapses, because not everyone care about the betterment of the world. Often, when high taxes are utilized to (immorally) milk the rich, they eventually end up leaving. France is a recent example where they had to drop the taxes to stop the rich from leaving and taking away the money they provided for public goods.

Consider this. Let's say we enacted socialism. Let's say I have a friend who can sing well. In order for him to sing, I'll do anything. But he doesn't want to, and he doesn't need anything. I can't offer him payment to sing for me. But me and a bunch of other people want to hear him sing. So we either force him to, try to pay him SOMEHOW (in which case socialism collapses) or have to contend with the fact that we'll never hear him sing. There simply aren't enough singers in the entire society willing to invest their time to replace him, because there's no incentive for them to do so. Meaning we're either stuck without singers or we try to force them. @traed, you said the incentive will be better than profit, but you have everything you described in Capitalism already--the only difference would be taking away the profit. Already, in capitalism, when trying to make a profit, you try to understand what will better the lives of yourself or others, so that people will enter a voluntary transaction with you. The desire for fame doesn't suddenly disappear when you try to make a profit.

Another relevant aspect of socialism is that it isn't really compatible with multiculturalism. Nordic socialism hasn't collapsed yet (but it's on the way there, and this is why they're starting to elect more economically right governments) because they are very ethnically homogeneous, and have a united culture. There's no tribalism to ruin it like in the US. They also have the US paying for their defense budget and make their revenues using a free market system, which they then through taxation (approx. 60% income tax on the middle class) distribute to social net programs. Like I said though, they're moving to the right because their economic growth is incredibly slow and people want cheaper prices, as well as the fact that inevitably, despite their culture encouraging work (heard about this offhandedly so take it with a grain of salt, although obviously it makes sense), unemployment is on the rise and they're running out of money (in case it wasn't clear, these I didn't hear offhandedly).

When there's no price mechanism, when everyone just provides the fixed amounts of a thing, unaware of the amount of demand for that thing, there are shortages. If everyone tries to increase their production capacity to avoid this, they will have to buy resources, and if the resources are not sold but given, they will run out of them and need to find/export new ones. In things like food, shortages are dangerous.

Finally, and most importantly, it is immoral. The idea that I owe you something because you exist is immoral. The idea that because I make something more people want, I need to give away a larger amount of my money, that because I managed to amass a fortune I need to give away more of it is just wrong, and forcing it onto people will only lead to suffering.

Personally, I believe the role government should play in the economy is preventing fraud and protecting what I consider to be rights by fighting theft, coercion or any other impeachments on freedom.
Regarding welfare benefits, the only one I think the government (or preferably, municipalities and states) ought to provide is payment for education up to high school, because good education is the most important thing for a society and the economic state of the people. Even then, I think it should be done in a manner that tries to utilize the efficiency of the free market, such as the voucher system, and that regulations and restrictions should therefore not be imposed, which will improve the awful system that's currently in place and allow students to actually prosper. Likely, when schools need to compete and don't have someone dictating what they teach, they will offer programs that could replace a degree in the market.

@_Ako_
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. In contrast, socialism has resulted in deaths of millions and collapse of societies (albeit not always due to its own issues, because outside forces interfered before it collapsed). I discussed the few governments that work socially above, but the bottom line is that the Nordic countries operate on a free market system trying to avoid government intervention and just use taxes to provide social programs, don't have cultural tribalism, have the US pay for their defense budget (big one), have low economic growth due to 60% taxes on middle class and such so prices take longer to decrease (also very high taxes on some luxuries), and some of them (Denmark for example) have started moving to the right because the welfare state increased unemployment and put them at risk of running out of money.

@TheBrainInTheJar
We haven't had complete capitalism in all aspects, because government keeps interfering where it shouldn't, but the free market mechanism has demonstrated its effectiveness countless times when the government stayed away (and even when it didn't, the theory worked). So the principle has been proven, but the system was not wholly or unobtrusively implemented. Usually government, often encouraged by lobbying big corporations, imposes regulations and turns the economic system into crony capitalism, which is gay.

@j0x
There's nothing wrong with capitalism collapsing when literally everything is automated. As has happened before, automation will make people lose jobs; this time it will be much more extreme, and likely they would not be able to recover. But because it would be so extreme this time, they would also not NEED to recover, and space communism would come about naturally, maybe costing people jobs for a few years, but eventually it will stabilize, albeit not into capitalism. I do wish it had more time left, but whatever. I considered advocating for socialism for a while because I wanted to see economic growth curbed and postpone the singularity, since losing my humanity or my appreciation for art is my biggest fear.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 12:05 PM

#61

RIP CE, thank you and fuck you for bringing Rule 7 that ultimately killed you and this shithole

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92480

omfgplzstop said:

@j0x
There's nothing wrong with capitalism collapsing when literally everything is automated. As has happened before, automation will make people lose jobs; this time it will be much more extreme, and likely they would not be able to recover. But because it would be so extreme this time, they would also not NEED to recover, and space communism would come about naturally, maybe costing people jobs for a few years, but eventually it will stabilize, albeit not into capitalism. I do wish it had more time left, but whatever. I considered advocating for socialism for a while because I wanted to see economic growth curbed and postpone the singularity, since losing my humanity or my appreciation for art is my biggest fear.

ye i just mean that people do not want to live on those uncertain times when capitalism collapses thats why socialist policies today like universal basic income is getting more popular and talked about

May 13, 2017 12:07 PM

#62

FragMentized

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Friedman proves how effective it is

Today they say you're crazy, tomorrow they will say you're a genious.

May 13, 2017 12:42 PM

#63

_Ako_

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omfgplzstop said:

@_Ako_
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. In contrast, socialism has resulted in deaths of millions and collapse of societies (albeit not always due to its own issues, because outside forces interfered before it collapsed). I discussed the few governments that work socially above, but the bottom line is that the Nordic countries operate on a free market system trying to avoid government intervention and just use taxes to provide social programs, don't have cultural tribalism, have the US pay for their defense budget (big one), have low economic growth due to 60% taxes on middle class and such so prices take longer to decrease (also very high taxes on some luxuries), and some of them (Denmark for example) have started moving to the right because the welfare state increased unemployment and put them at risk of running out of money.

You know what... Actually, you've just said what Youmiko-user or something said to me... :/

I still love the idea that government just have to sit and sip tea while business owners do their job. Capitalism works because of that; yeah, we love the business owners...

May 13, 2017 1:09 PM

#64

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Mar 2014

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_Ako_ said:

omfgplzstop said:

@_Ako_
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. In contrast, socialism has resulted in deaths of millions and collapse of societies (albeit not always due to its own issues, because outside forces interfered before it collapsed). I discussed the few governments that work socially above, but the bottom line is that the Nordic countries operate on a free market system trying to avoid government intervention and just use taxes to provide social programs, don't have cultural tribalism, have the US pay for their defense budget (big one), have low economic growth due to 60% taxes on middle class and such so prices take longer to decrease (also very high taxes on some luxuries), and some of them (Denmark for example) have started moving to the right because the welfare state increased unemployment and put them at risk of running out of money.

You know what... Actually, you've just said what Youmiko-user or something said to me... :/

I still love the idea that government just have to sit and sip tea while business owners do their job. Capitalism works because of that; yeah, we love the business owners...

Business owners are the ones providing services and making your life easier.
They're also the ones providing jobs to people who need money to survive.
If the government doesn't interfere, which almost always results in either everyone suffering or the rich playing around the government regulations because they can afford it, competition allows businesses, workers and standards of living to prosper.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 1:15 PM

#65

Veronin

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Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

May 13, 2017 1:21 PM

#66

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Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

shhhhh
it wasnt true socialimim

Yes though, I agree that elements of socialism can work, but generally they come at a cost to liberty and economic growth that can be avoided. Not having them might cause a little more harm to a smaller group in the short-term, but improve their condition in the long term, and not hurting everyone's freedom on the way there is a preferable option to me. I only advocate for socialistic support for high school education (and even then, voucher system--if you let the government handle it as seen in plenty of countries already including the US, it's awful), because that bit is important to having as equal an opportunity as anyone else.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 1:26 PM

#67

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Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

May 13, 2017 1:34 PM

#68

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j0x said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 1:40 PM

#69

Online

Jan 2009

92480

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

May 13, 2017 1:53 PM

#70

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor. Also, it's not as though current America is completely enforcing crony capitalism. It's crony capitalism in some markets (healthcare for my favorite example), and in that kind of market everyone suffers. In other, freeer markets, the only people falling into the poor class are the ones who simply exploit welfare benefits.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

omfgplzstopMay 13, 2017 1:56 PM

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 2:01 PM

#71

Online

Jan 2009

92480

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

i think you are one of those libertarian conservative that wants either small government or no government at all and i think thats a scary thought since who will regulate/control capitalism or greedy businesses? even today you will hear news of child labor or borderline slave labor because of how cheap the salary is but with dangerous or long hours of work

a true free market is just a fantasy at this point imho because you cannot separate capitalism from greed or more profit making, its like capitalism is natural selection that is survival of the fittest and only few become the winners or fittest

May 13, 2017 2:29 PM

#72

Offline

Aug 2011

994

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:

What does post-scarcity economy have anything to do with socialism?

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than a slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as it is now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand is fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

NekkoArcMay 13, 2017 2:33 PM

incisorr said:
i love it when people start acting like some neutral almighty unbiased godly judge and they even believe their own shit, suddenly its not their thoughts and opinions anymore but the righteous justice god way, they are unbiased, non-subjective, they just are! To be honest, everyone is like this quite often, me included, but i don't forget myself and i still post a lot of personal shit which is what forums are made for , if they didn't want us to have our own style and posts it would be an article instead a forum thread.

May 13, 2017 2:50 PM

#73

Online

Jan 2009

92480

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as they are now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand if fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

not this time, if you keep up with news a lot of experts are saying that automation technology this time will not create more jobs

and it makes sense since the point of automation is to lessen human work

plus high skilled jobs will be the remaining jobs sooner or later since automation will take over all low skilled jobs, so not everyone can be qualified for a job in the future since it takes more intellect or skill, a greater number of the population will be unemployed by then

and i do not know about that claim that economists are not considering this technological unemployment possibility when you have economists like this

What of the worry that new, high-tech industries are less labour-intensive than earlier ones? Mr Frey cites a paper he co-wrote last year showing that only 0.5% of American workers are employed in industries that have emerged since 2000. “Technology might create fewer and fewer jobs, while exposing a growing share of them to automation,” he says. An oft-cited example is that of Instagram, a photo-sharing app. When it was bought by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion, it had tens of millions of users, but only 13 employees. Kodak, which once employed 145,000 people making photographic products, went into bankruptcy at around the same time. But such comparisons are misleading, says Marc Andreessen. It was smartphones, not Instagram, that undermined Kodak, and far more people are employed by the smartphone industry and its surrounding ecosystems than ever worked for Kodak or the traditional photography industry.

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21700758-will-smarter-machines-cause-mass-unemployment-automation-and-anxiety

Automation may be destroying jobs faster than it's creating new ones, but all hope isn't lost. TechRepublic spoke to MIT economist Erik Brynjolfsson on changing the course of the future.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-is-destroying-more-jobs-than-it-creates-what-it-means-and-how-we-can-stop-it/

May 13, 2017 2:58 PM

#74

Offline

Mar 2008

46903

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

MUH JOB CREATORS meme. Guess how the 1% makes that money? They steal it from those who work for them. They didn't do the work that it took to make that. They don't work millions upon billions of times harder than anyone and a large sum of that money they were born into so they didn't work for that either. They aren't job creators they are privileged few and thieves. Do you have any idea how much profit they make more than the people who do actual work? A pair of shoes costs about 3 dollars to make and the people who make it make about 5 cents per pair of shoes and they sell for about 30 to even 200 dollars. Guess who made all that money? The person who made the shoes! Then the capitalist takes that money away and tosses them scraps for huge profits for themselves. People can't buy the products produced by private business if they arent paid enough. it has already been proven time and time again that it stimulates the economy to be paid better or have welfare. Also you're not even talking about socialism that's Keynesian economics or social democracy.

May 13, 2017 2:58 PM

#75

TWG

Offline

Sep 2015

78

In my opinion, believe whatever you want, but I think we should stop treating socialism like the devil. 'Oh, he wants to give healthcare to the poor, nasty communist.' No, he wants to help poor people. That's it. You can call it whatever you want, capitalism, socialism, communism, but those are just definition we either strive for or stray away from, more not. We should start looking more at the end result, instead of grouping a whole bunch of stuff under 'Dirty socialism' and ending every conversation with 'It may work there, but out situation is different, so won't work here.' Most countries in Europe have 'dirty socialism' and compared to the united states we are in general happier, live longer and won't be forced into debt because you were forced to go under surgery. 'Then where do you think that money will come from?' Oh, I don't know, maybe your ridiculously large military may be fit for a budget cut for once. Yes, you keep keep most of the western world safe, but that doesn't mean you need to shoot yourself in the foot for it. Also, rising taxes on the more wealthy part of the population, so that you can invest that money in science, education and health care, won't drop incensitive to climb the social ladder. People are stuck in the social ladder because they have 3 jobs and are still barely able to substain themselves. If you think, fuck other people, their problems are not my problems, fine, I won't judge. Still, you need to pay some taxes, whether you want it or not, maybe get your priorities straight on what and how you spend it on. This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree, let us keep this civil.

May 13, 2017 3:03 PM

#76

Online

Jan 2009

92480

found this too

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research aims to add some solid numbers to the debate, looking at the historical effects of robots on employment in the US. Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, looking at employment rates in different areas and industries while controlling for the influence of factors like increased imports from China and the offshoring of jobs.

A paper looking at US employment from 1997 to 2007 suggests not all jobs lost to robots are replaced

They found that each new robot added to the workforce meant the loss of between 3 and 5.6 jobs in the local commuting area.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15086576/robot-jobs-automation-unemployent-us-labor-market

May 13, 2017 3:04 PM

#77

Offline

Aug 2011

994

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as they are now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand if fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

not this time, if you keep up with news a lot of experts are saying that automation technology this time will not create more jobs

and it makes sense since the point of automation is to lessen human work

plus high skilled jobs will be the remaining jobs sooner or later since automation will take over all low skilled jobs, so not everyone can be qualified for a job in the future since it takes more intellect or skill, a greater number of the population will be unemployed by then

and i do not know about that claim that economists are not considering this technological unemployment possibility when you have economists like this

What of the worry that new, high-tech industries are less labour-intensive than earlier ones? Mr Frey cites a paper he co-wrote last year showing that only 0.5% of American workers are employed in industries that have emerged since 2000. “Technology might create fewer and fewer jobs, while exposing a growing share of them to automation,” he says. An oft-cited example is that of Instagram, a photo-sharing app. When it was bought by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion, it had tens of millions of users, but only 13 employees. Kodak, which once employed 145,000 people making photographic products, went into bankruptcy at around the same time. But such comparisons are misleading, says Marc Andreessen. It was smartphones, not Instagram, that undermined Kodak, and far more people are employed by the smartphone industry and its surrounding ecosystems than ever worked for Kodak or the traditional photography industry.

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21700758-will-smarter-machines-cause-mass-unemployment-automation-and-anxiety

Automation may be destroying jobs faster than it's creating new ones, but all hope isn't lost. TechRepublic spoke to MIT economist Erik Brynjolfsson on changing the course of the future.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-is-destroying-more-jobs-than-it-creates-what-it-means-and-how-we-can-stop-it/

Oh please. These prophets were spouting the same nonsense since 18th century saying it's different this time and technology has been getting smarter ever since. Few economists buy into it, but they are by no means the majority. Short-term market adjustments are expected and a non-issue.

incisorr said:
i love it when people start acting like some neutral almighty unbiased godly judge and they even believe their own shit, suddenly its not their thoughts and opinions anymore but the righteous justice god way, they are unbiased, non-subjective, they just are! To be honest, everyone is like this quite often, me included, but i don't forget myself and i still post a lot of personal shit which is what forums are made for , if they didn't want us to have our own style and posts it would be an article instead a forum thread.

May 13, 2017 3:12 PM

#78

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

i think you are one of those libertarian conservative that wants either small government or no government at all and i think thats a scary thought since who will regulate/control capitalism or greedy businesses? even today you will hear news of child labor or borderline slave labor because of how cheap the salary is but with dangerous or long hours of work

a true free market is just a fantasy at this point imho because you cannot separate capitalism from greed or more profit making, its like capitalism is natural selection that is survival of the fittest and only few become the winners or fittest

I don't want "no government at all." Government has a role, but it should not be to interfere in business or redistribute wealth, both because it's ineffective and because it's immoral. The role of government is to provide basic human rights, such as the right to security and life, freedom of speech, religion, and other such things. An army is something we can't avoid using, and protects all of us together. The police enforces the laws intended to protect rights, and in that case as well, it is something we need for protection of rights and can't avoid using.
Among the laws government enforces are ones that try to maintain the free market--laws preventing fraud, theft, coercion, intimidation, and other impeachments on freedom. For example, I did not mind the Net Neutrality law because it prevented impeachments on the freedom of the people who only had the option to rely on these providers for internet (without losing money, of course). It was akin to mailman cutting parts of a newspaper before delivering it to the people subscribed.
I'm actually not entirely libertarian because I advocate for the voucher system. I believe that better education is the key to everything, and that we should pay for everyone's high school education because it will better the life of everyone if the entire society was better educated. This is the only aspect where I am not entirely libertarian, and even then, the vouchers are produced using the taxpayers' money; I simply believe that the tax allotted to them should be smaller for people who made poor decisions because their children and society would benefit from the opportunity to receive quality education. It is at least a choice of WHERE you want to use your voucher, as well as that most people would choose to get high school education, and the ones receiving it offer you a service themselves.

A free market is not a fantasy. Desire for profit is not inherently bad; if anything, I'm willing to argue that it's inherently good based on the fact that it drives people to innovate and improve the general standard of living. Yes, the best few rise to the top, but it's not as though everyone at the bottom is devoured. When rich people grow their business, in order to maintain their position or even assuming they do nothing to expand their business, they use more money, which is then distributed among society based on who provides services that are good enough to collect it. Why do you care that Elon Musk makes billions if you aren't making cents?

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than a slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as it is now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand is fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

I think he was specifically trying to justify it by using the singularity theory where machines can do absolutely everything humans do much more efficiently, including innovation. The general scenario described is that transhumanism will result in an elite few who got there first, and the rest of humanity will become worthless, in which case specific government restrictions could maybe prevent this elite few from getting there before everyone else.

how do you feel about the voucher system, by the way? I'm still on the fence because I wouldn't want to force people, but the authoritarian deep inside tells me people don't know what's good for their children and everyone else.

omfgplzstopMay 13, 2017 3:16 PM

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 3:22 PM

#79

Online

Jan 2009

92480

NekkoArc said:

Oh please. These prophets were spouting the same nonsense since 18th century saying it's different this time and technology has been getting smarter ever since. Few economists buy into it, but they are by no means the majority. Short-term market adjustments are expected and a non-issue.

the difference today and in the past is that the world got computers, robots and artificial intelligence now and they are progressing fast

May 13, 2017 3:28 PM

#80

Online

Jan 2009

92480

omfgplzstop said:
I don't want "no government at all." Government has a role, but it should not be to interfere in business or redistribute wealth, both because it's ineffective and because it's immoral. The role of government is to provide basic human rights, such as the right to security and life, freedom of speech, religion, and other such things. An army is something we can't avoid using, and protects all of us together. The police enforces the laws intended to protect rights, and in that case as well, it is something we need for protection of rights and can't avoid using.
Among the laws government enforces are ones that try to maintain the free market--laws preventing fraud, theft, coercion, intimidation, and other impeachments on freedom. For example, I did not mind the Net Neutrality law because it prevented impeachments on the freedom of the people who only had the option to rely on these providers for internet (without losing money, of course). It was akin to mailman cutting parts of a newspaper before delivering it to the people subscribed.
I'm actually not entirely libertarian because I advocate for the voucher system. I believe that better education is the key to everything, and that we should pay for everyone's high school education because it will better the life of everyone if the entire society was better educated. This is the only aspect where I am not entirely libertarian, and even then, the vouchers are produced using the taxpayers' money; I simply believe that the tax allotted to them should be smaller for people who made poor decisions because their children and society would benefit from the opportunity to receive quality education. It is at least a choice of WHERE you want to use your voucher, as well as that most people would choose to get high school education, and the ones receiving it offer you a service themselves.

A free market is not a fantasy. Desire for profit is not inherently bad; if anything, I'm willing to argue that it's inherently good based on the fact that it drives people to innovate and improve the general standard of living. Yes, the best few rise to the top, but it's not as though everyone at the bottom is devoured. When rich people grow their business, in order to maintain their position or even assuming they do nothing to expand their business, they use more money, which is then distributed among society based on who provides services that are good enough to collect it. Why do you care that Elon Musk makes billions if you aren't making cents?

the bold part is classic idea of trickle down economics that the wealth of the rich will eventually trickle down to poor, but the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and Panama Papers scandals shows that the rich will just hide their excess wealth so those extra money do not circulate back to the greater economy at all, as they say with capitalism the rich becomes more rich while the poor becomes more poor (but ye not extremely poor)

and i can agree with you that education should be top priority of the government

May 13, 2017 3:35 PM

#81

Offline

Aug 2011

994

j0x said:
found this too

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research aims to add some solid numbers to the debate, looking at the historical effects of robots on employment in the US. Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, looking at employment rates in different areas and industries while controlling for the influence of factors like increased imports from China and the offshoring of jobs.

A paper looking at US employment from 1997 to 2007 suggests not all jobs lost to robots are replaced

They found that each new robot added to the workforce meant the loss of between 3 and 5.6 jobs in the local commuting area.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15086576/robot-jobs-automation-unemployent-us-labor-market

Did the study include new emerging jobs I mentioned that do not fall under the category of "traditional/real jobs" and hence not included as a factor in the study? Even if the study included it, it's been centuries since and there's no grand socialist revolution due to ridiculous level of technology induced unemployment happening anytime soon.

incisorr said:
i love it when people start acting like some neutral almighty unbiased godly judge and they even believe their own shit, suddenly its not their thoughts and opinions anymore but the righteous justice god way, they are unbiased, non-subjective, they just are! To be honest, everyone is like this quite often, me included, but i don't forget myself and i still post a lot of personal shit which is what forums are made for , if they didn't want us to have our own style and posts it would be an article instead a forum thread.

May 13, 2017 3:46 PM

#82

Online

Jan 2009

92480

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:
found this too

A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research aims to add some solid numbers to the debate, looking at the historical effects of robots on employment in the US. Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, looking at employment rates in different areas and industries while controlling for the influence of factors like increased imports from China and the offshoring of jobs.

A paper looking at US employment from 1997 to 2007 suggests not all jobs lost to robots are replaced

They found that each new robot added to the workforce meant the loss of between 3 and 5.6 jobs in the local commuting area.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/28/15086576/robot-jobs-automation-unemployent-us-labor-market

Did the study include new emerging jobs I mentioned that do not fall under the category of "traditional/real jobs" and hence not included as a factor in the study? Even if the study included it, it's been centuries since and there's no grand socialist revolution due to ridiculous level of technology induced unemployment happening anytime soon.

i got no idea, i did not read the linked paper there

and what are this new emerging jobs you are saying? with how high the potential of artificial intelligence is it can replace any intellectual jobs too, plus you are forgetting that a lot of people just have average intellect so they cannot normally qualify for high skilled jobs right?

May 13, 2017 4:28 PM

#83

Offline

Mar 2008

46903

@omfgplzstop
You lolberts crack me up.

May 13, 2017 5:10 PM

#84

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

WorstOtakuEU said:
In my opinion, believe whatever you want, but I think we should stop treating socialism like the devil. 'Oh, he wants to give healthcare to the poor, nasty communist.' No, he wants to help poor people. That's it. You can call it whatever you want, capitalism, socialism, communism, but those are just definition we either strive for or stray away from, more not. We should start looking more at the end result, instead of grouping a whole bunch of stuff under 'Dirty socialism' and ending every conversation with 'It may work there, but out situation is different, so won't work here.' Most countries in Europe have 'dirty socialism' and compared to the united states we are in general happier, live longer and won't be forced into debt because you were forced to go under surgery. 'Then where do you think that money will come from?' Oh, I don't know, maybe your ridiculously large military may be fit for a budget cut for once. Yes, you keep keep most of the western world safe, but that doesn't mean you need to shoot yourself in the foot for it. Also, rising taxes on the more wealthy part of the population, so that you can invest that money in science, education and health care, won't drop incensitive to climb the social ladder. People are stuck in the social ladder because they have 3 jobs and are still barely able to substain themselves. If you think, fuck other people, their problems are not my problems, fine, I won't judge. Still, you need to pay some taxes, whether you want it or not, maybe get your priorities straight on what and how you spend it on. This is just my opinion, feel free to disagree, let us keep this civil.

They want to help poor people (a majority of which don't want to help themselves) without realizing they'll only hurt poor people and everyone involved. Unhindered capitalism can help more poor people in the long run. Neither option can help ALL OF THEM in the short run. An estimated 40 thousand a year occuring due to lack of healthcare out of 2.6m deaths is not worth doubling (probably more than doubling) taxes. Which by the way, had idiotic regulations not been around, would have been cheaper. For example, companies would have the option to make special programs for people who don't smoke, drink or do any other thing that affects health and thus need to cover less things so they can offer a much cheaper price overall. And as technology improves, prices would go down naturally, except technology improves much slower when economic growth is slowed down.

I already explained the less specific reasons it will not work in the US and why it HAS not worked. To say 'ok whatever, but its better for the poor!' is ignorant and honestly frustrating because I don't even consider it moral and it was equally frustrating to see the whole "tax the rich more" thing.

My priorities for taxes like I said in another post are law enforcement, army, public goods, POSSIBLY education using a voucher system. Those are the only roles government should ever play.

The US cannot afford to cut its defense budget. It has a role to play in the world, and several enemies. China is likely to start developing its army because of its huge influx in poor males and its aggressive tendencies, NK is trying to pick fights with the US's allies, and Russia has been problematic for a while now.

People in the US are not "generally happier" because of the idiotic oppression olympics pushed in politics. Measurements of happiness are usually meaningless, but if you go by public opinion, that's the reason. Like I told traed, the 1% pays a huge part of federal taxes. That money will be invested in science, education and healthcare without the government using it that way, provided the government stops regulating those areas, because everyone knows if they can invest in a laboratory that researches a certain possibility that would make everyone's life better it will be a huge profit opportunity.

Show me someone with 3 jobs who is still barely able to sustain himself, then tell me his circumstances. There are plenty of people climbing the social ladder, as I mentioned.

traed said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

MUH JOB CREATORS meme. Guess how the 1% makes that money? They steal it from those who work for them. They didn't do the work that it took to make that. They don't work millions upon billions of times harder than anyone and a large sum of that money they were born into so they didn't work for that either. They aren't job creators they are privileged few and thieves. Do you have any idea how much profit they make more than the people who do actual work? A pair of shoes costs about 3 dollars to make and the people who make it make about 5 cents per pair of shoes and they sell for about 30 to even 200 dollars. Guess who made all that money? The person who made the shoes! Then the capitalist takes that money away and tosses them scraps for huge profits for themselves. People can't buy the products produced by private business if they arent paid enough. it has already been proven time and time again that it stimulates the economy to be paid better or have welfare. Also you're not even talking about socialism that's Keynesian economics or social democracy.

So just because they have more money, that means they stole it? That's some impeccable logic. Should we imprison Bill Gates, Zuckerberg and Musk? Surely they've stolen all that money. According to the surveys conducted when writing The Millioner Next Door, a good book about this subject, 80% of America's millionaires are first-generation millionaires. I've seen another survey pointing to the majority being self-made. Let's put them all into prison.

A pair of shoes does not cost as little to produce as you think it does.
Let's break it down. The producer of the shoe needs to buy various materials--leather, ink, threads, mesh, etc.--Because he intends on producing a number of shoes, he buys a large amount of each of these materials to save on costs, taking the risk that not all of his products will be bought and he will lose money, or if he believes he knows how much he will sell and it's not big enough, he can't save too much money by buying a large amount of materials, meaning his profit margin is smaller. If we look at public companies like Nike and Adidas, we can see that production costs range from $18 for a product sold for $100, to $76 for a product sold for $350.
After seeing the above, considering marketing costs, cargo/store upkeep costs and shipping costs, a retailer has to charge significantly higher than the production cost to still make a profit that's worth his time and investment off each purchase. If we assume that the retailer lets someone else do the marketing, he needs to pay that person as well. If we assume the factory is not overseas, the cost of shipping is decreased, but the price of employment (and thus production) rises. This is all assuming this is your own factory (which you had to spend money to construct in some way), otherwise we need to add the supplier's profit margin which admittedly can be mitigated somewhat if you can afford to buy wholesale (but again, this is taking a risk).
Most smart sellers would pay for insurance. Then, if it's overseas (because the price of production would honestly just be much higher locally), tariffs further increase the cost. Add taxes, depreciationto all of this and that's a significant increase in cost, especially if we don't forget regulations forcing you to pay more for your employees. And then you have to consider that in this theoretical scenario, everything is your own and there's no middlemen, meaning you're the retailer (presumably you don't employ one), you own the factory that produces the shoes, you own the store that sells them, you market, etc.
Usually brands just sell their shoes to retailers after importing them, and the retailers have salaries, taxes, marketing and shipping of their own to account for.
As you grow bigger, you can afford to decrease prices to compete more--before that, you have to charge a certain price to make the effort worth your time, otherwise you're better off working as the cleaner.
Like I said, adidas and Nike are public companies, meaning we can see their net profit. And the net profit on a shoe for them stands between $3-5 per average shoe. Some shoes have a higher profit margin because there's a higher demand for them for whatever reason.

The most important thing about all this, though, is that NO ONE is obligated to buy your shoes. It's their choice to pay whatever price you name. To call it theft is just stupid. There are plenty of cheaper alternatives to Nike and adidas, that cost less to produce. But those companies established their brands well, people like them more than the alternatives, and they buy from them. It's that simple.

How has it been proven that it stimulates the economy to have welfare? Welfare has resulted in a significant increase in poverty over time, because even though the percentages are about the same since the war on poverty started, you need to pull much less in rgdp now than you needed back then in order to not be considered poor. Also America has a massive debt. That's not even close to stimulating the economy. The Scandinavian countries which try to maintain a free market also suffer from very slow economic growth and that's why Denmark elected a more economically right-wing government recently, people want prices to go down.

Being paid better is a natural part of the free market. Labour is a competition just like anything else that is being supplied. Demand for labour and different quality of labour shifts. People want more efficient workers so that they can lower the costs of their products and get a larger part of the market, thus profiting more--it still results in an improvement for the general public.

The reason products produced by private businesses cost more is because they need to cover taxes and a bunch of regulations. Why should my product go through a bunch of inspections? If it's bad, people won't buy it (or very few) and I'll be punished by losing money, probably in the future as well since my reputation will be tainted depending on how bad my product was. If it's guaranteed that more people would buy, it is profitable to lower a product's price until you reach the point where the costs to bring it to the buyer are higher than the price. But you can't afford to lay off your workers, who likely won't agree to a decrease in wage, because there's competition, and as businesses expand, they need more workers.

The top 1% of earners already pay over 40% of federal income taxes. One thing that's probably worth mentioning is the enormous income mobility in America. People constantly enter and drop out of the 1%.
If you want to better the situation of the people, give them more opportunities by eliminating regulations. Regulations often benefit these big corporations you hate so much, because they're the only ones who can afford accountants and lawyers to bypass them. This is also why I mentioned how big corporations lobbyed for these things during the Gilded Age and why they still do today.

i hate crony capitalism aaaaaaaaa

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 5:12 PM

#85

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

@traed
Try to actually argue next time.
I explained why the FDA causes more harm than good to you in another thread. I could elaborate on it if you tried to counter my points.
@j0x
He mentioned the fashion and entertainment industries, which would grow if more physical/mundane tasks disappeared and the demand for those kinds of things increased. And as usual, as businesses expanded, more employees would be needed.
As technology evolved, new types of jobs would be required, such as, for example, a VR world designer or something of that nature.

Jobs will only be gone when AIs can perform just as well as humans or better in absolutely all aspects, which is the scenario described in the singularity. That's not the reason it's my biggest fear though, it's transhumanism taking away the broadly-defined human element from me and/or my appreciation for art/the experience of consuming art.

omfgplzstopMay 13, 2017 5:17 PM

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 5:22 PM

#86

Yomiyuki

Offline

Sep 2012

4153

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

i think you are one of those libertarian conservative that wants either small government or no government at all and i think thats a scary thought since who will regulate/control capitalism or greedy businesses? even today you will hear news of child labor or borderline slave labor because of how cheap the salary is but with dangerous or long hours of work

a true free market is just a fantasy at this point imho because you cannot separate capitalism from greed or more profit making, its like capitalism is natural selection that is survival of the fittest and only few become the winners or fittest

I don't want "no government at all." Government has a role, but it should not be to interfere in business or redistribute wealth, both because it's ineffective and because it's immoral. The role of government is to provide basic human rights, such as the right to security and life, freedom of speech, religion, and other such things. An army is something we can't avoid using, and protects all of us together. The police enforces the laws intended to protect rights, and in that case as well, it is something we need for protection of rights and can't avoid using.
Among the laws government enforces are ones that try to maintain the free market--laws preventing fraud, theft, coercion, intimidation, and other impeachments on freedom. For example, I did not mind the Net Neutrality law because it prevented impeachments on the freedom of the people who only had the option to rely on these providers for internet (without losing money, of course). It was akin to mailman cutting parts of a newspaper before delivering it to the people subscribed.
I'm actually not entirely libertarian because I advocate for the voucher system. I believe that better education is the key to everything, and that we should pay for everyone's high school education because it will better the life of everyone if the entire society was better educated. This is the only aspect where I am not entirely libertarian, and even then, the vouchers are produced using the taxpayers' money; I simply believe that the tax allotted to them should be smaller for people who made poor decisions because their children and society would benefit from the opportunity to receive quality education. It is at least a choice of WHERE you want to use your voucher, as well as that most people would choose to get high school education, and the ones receiving it offer you a service themselves.

A free market is not a fantasy. Desire for profit is not inherently bad; if anything, I'm willing to argue that it's inherently good based on the fact that it drives people to innovate and improve the general standard of living. Yes, the best few rise to the top, but it's not as though everyone at the bottom is devoured. When rich people grow their business, in order to maintain their position or even assuming they do nothing to expand their business, they use more money, which is then distributed among society based on who provides services that are good enough to collect it. Why do you care that Elon Musk makes billions if you aren't making cents?

NekkoArc said:

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than a slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as it is now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand is fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

I think he was specifically trying to justify it by using the singularity theory where machines can do absolutely everything humans do much more efficiently, including innovation. The general scenario described is that transhumanism will result in an elite few who got there first, and the rest of humanity will become worthless, in which case specific government restrictions could maybe prevent this elite few from getting there before everyone else.

how do you feel about the voucher system, by the way? I'm still on the fence because I wouldn't want to force people, but the authoritarian deep inside tells me people don't know what's good for their children and everyone else.

what people see wrong with this is that tha wun pahcent doesn't re-invest in the economy. i cant blame people for being hesitant at a free market when even with goverment we still have predatory businesses. but then its just a question of if you have more faith in a free market than giving goverment another chance at regulating corparations. and im too lazy to get into that right now.

Oh maybe, maybe it's the clothes we wear
The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair
Or maybe, maybe it's our nowhere towns or our nothing places
But we're trash, you and me
We're the litter on the breeze
We're the lovers on the streets
Just trash, me and you
It's in everything we do
It's in everything we do

May 13, 2017 5:30 PM

#87

Online

Jan 2009

92480

omfgplzstop said:

@j0x
He mentioned the fashion and entertainment industries

well the movie industry is starting to get flooded with 3DCG, its only a matter of time when the Uncanny Valley is solve and then all actors/actresses will be replace by 3D computer animation for example

and you get this hologram technologies that are progressing too, Tupac and Hatsune Miku (if i remember her name right) are all just 3D animation on their live concerts now a days

May 13, 2017 5:32 PM

#88

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

Yomiyuki said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

i think you are one of those libertarian conservative that wants either small government or no government at all and i think thats a scary thought since who will regulate/control capitalism or greedy businesses? even today you will hear news of child labor or borderline slave labor because of how cheap the salary is but with dangerous or long hours of work

a true free market is just a fantasy at this point imho because you cannot separate capitalism from greed or more profit making, its like capitalism is natural selection that is survival of the fittest and only few become the winners or fittest

I don't want "no government at all." Government has a role, but it should not be to interfere in business or redistribute wealth, both because it's ineffective and because it's immoral. The role of government is to provide basic human rights, such as the right to security and life, freedom of speech, religion, and other such things. An army is something we can't avoid using, and protects all of us together. The police enforces the laws intended to protect rights, and in that case as well, it is something we need for protection of rights and can't avoid using.
Among the laws government enforces are ones that try to maintain the free market--laws preventing fraud, theft, coercion, intimidation, and other impeachments on freedom. For example, I did not mind the Net Neutrality law because it prevented impeachments on the freedom of the people who only had the option to rely on these providers for internet (without losing money, of course). It was akin to mailman cutting parts of a newspaper before delivering it to the people subscribed.
I'm actually not entirely libertarian because I advocate for the voucher system. I believe that better education is the key to everything, and that we should pay for everyone's high school education because it will better the life of everyone if the entire society was better educated. This is the only aspect where I am not entirely libertarian, and even then, the vouchers are produced using the taxpayers' money; I simply believe that the tax allotted to them should be smaller for people who made poor decisions because their children and society would benefit from the opportunity to receive quality education. It is at least a choice of WHERE you want to use your voucher, as well as that most people would choose to get high school education, and the ones receiving it offer you a service themselves.

A free market is not a fantasy. Desire for profit is not inherently bad; if anything, I'm willing to argue that it's inherently good based on the fact that it drives people to innovate and improve the general standard of living. Yes, the best few rise to the top, but it's not as though everyone at the bottom is devoured. When rich people grow their business, in order to maintain their position or even assuming they do nothing to expand their business, they use more money, which is then distributed among society based on who provides services that are good enough to collect it. Why do you care that Elon Musk makes billions if you aren't making cents?

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:
This thread is a mess. What does "pure" socialism even mean? What's "pure" or "total" capitalism? Laisezz faire? Is Hong Kong a free market? Milton Friedman during his life considered Hong Kong to be free market. I don't think Anarcho-capitalists would consider Hong Kong, free market. Provide historical examples if you want meaningful discussion.

there is no real socialism and communism done yet in history
you can read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Satania- said:
inb4butreelsozializmhasntbeentriedyet

What does post-scarcity economy have anything to do with socialism?

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than a slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as it is now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand is fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

I think he was specifically trying to justify it by using the singularity theory where machines can do absolutely everything humans do much more efficiently, including innovation. The general scenario described is that transhumanism will result in an elite few who got there first, and the rest of humanity will become worthless, in which case specific government restrictions could maybe prevent this elite few from getting there before everyone else.

how do you feel about the voucher system, by the way? I'm still on the fence because I wouldn't want to force people, but the authoritarian deep inside tells me people don't know what's good for their children and everyone else.

what people see wrong with this is that tha wun pahcent doesn't re-invest in the economy. i cant blame people for being hesitant at a free market when even with goverment we still have predatory businesses. but then its just a question of if you have more faith in a free market than giving goverment another chance at regulating corparations. and im too lazy to get into that right now.

THA WUN PAHCENT, to keep making profits, has to be providing something, whether its wages or payments to whatever is keeping the business running. Even without this, if we assume they won the lottery and keep 90% of their money in the bank, the money they spend still goes back to the economy and helps it grow. Even the money they put in the banks allows banks to offer more loans and allow more businesses to kick off (unless regulations kill them, surprise surprise).

Unregulated, which doesn't mean lawless, capitalism, despite the myths, is not bad 98% of the time. Ideal capitalism is one where the only regulations are ones preventing fraud (I offer x, you pay and get y), theft, coercion/intimidation (the kind of regulations currently employed is exactly this), and anything else that obstructs freedom. That's all that should be enforced.

omfgplzstopMay 13, 2017 5:38 PM

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 5:35 PM

#89

libertarianmind

Offline

May 2017

143

TheBrainintheJar said:
Does capitalism work?

I heard we never had 'real capitalism' either according to Libertarians.

We haven't. And intelligent libertarians like Friedman or Hayek understand that it's not practical to have unfettered capitalism. Only radical ancaps and minarchists want that

May 13, 2017 6:05 PM

#90

Offline

Mar 2008

46903

omfgplzstop said:
@traed
Try to actually argue next time.
I explained why the FDA causes more harm than good to you in another thread. I could elaborate on it if you tried to counter my points.

Your posts are so full of bull I dont know where to start so it's not worth the effort knowing you're so deeply engrained in ideology that you clearly wont really listen to anything that shows you're wrong.

May 13, 2017 6:30 PM

#91

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

traed said:

omfgplzstop said:
@traed
Try to actually argue next time.
I explained why the FDA causes more harm than good to you in another thread. I could elaborate on it if you tried to counter my points.

Your posts are so full of bull I dont know where to start so it's not worth the effort knowing you're so deeply engrained in ideology that you clearly wont really listen to anything that shows you're wrong.

Meanwhile, I'm the one presenting stats, logical arguments and my own experience and you're the one posting memes.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 6:44 PM

#92

Offline

Mar 2011

25073

Yomiyuki said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

omfgplzstop said:

j0x said:

Veronin said:
Elements of socialism can work, but I also find that it is the dominant economic philosophy of people who don't actually understand anything about economics. Guess who gives you your salary? The top 1%. Now guess what happens to that salary when they have less money to give their employees.

how can you explain the stagnant income growth for decades now especially on rich countries? the current wages are not adjusted to the current inflation

and you are like saying taxing more the rich will make them unable to give better salaries, guess what a lot of tax cuts (trickle down economics) have been done in decades but the wage of workers did not improve at all and worse economic inequality is rising that you will hear news like only 8 people have the same wealth as the half of the world population, so Bernie Sanders is right the new wealth generated by the world economy is only accumulating at the top 1%

and also good thing that extreme poverty is eradicated now but the middle class is shrinking especially on rich countries so there are actually more people entering poverty

consumer spending is down for a lot of countries because salaries did not improve and when consumers spend less then capitalism and the world economy will become stagnant or even collapse

That's more the result of crony capitalism than anything. In every country that's relatively laissez-faire we've seen plenty of growth (Hong Kong, Switzerland, etc.) and tax cuts that weren't accompanied by regulations benefitting bigger business resulted in more people getting jobs if it didn't result in higher wages. The middle class in the US is shrinking thanks to mostly welfare policies and regulations preventing small businesses from growing.

well crony capitalism is inevitable imo since the point of capitalism is to maximize profit and that means being greedy and doing market monopoly so influencing/lobbying the government is the sure way to do it

Bernie Sanders knows this and thats why he wants your country USA to stop lobbying if i recall right

Bernie wants socialism. He wants much higher taxes to give people free stuff, tax the rich more so people are equal in the end regardless of the amount of work they put in. I explained why I find it immoral and why it hasn't worked for long in the past, with few exceptions that didn't get to collapse on themselves before outside intervention destroyed them.
Welfare policies and culture are far more harmful to the middle class and the poor than capitalism. Even crony capitalism results in more of the citizens becoming part of the rich--it's not like EVERYONE who used to be middle class is becoming poor.

Crony capitalism is not inevitable. If you cut regulations and culturally push the idea that the government has no right to do these things, it will likely be overwritten or protested against by voters. If the government doesn't have a lot of power, lobbying won't really help, since if it tries to do something people will pay attention to it.

i think you are one of those libertarian conservative that wants either small government or no government at all and i think thats a scary thought since who will regulate/control capitalism or greedy businesses? even today you will hear news of child labor or borderline slave labor because of how cheap the salary is but with dangerous or long hours of work

a true free market is just a fantasy at this point imho because you cannot separate capitalism from greed or more profit making, its like capitalism is natural selection that is survival of the fittest and only few become the winners or fittest

I don't want "no government at all." Government has a role, but it should not be to interfere in business or redistribute wealth, both because it's ineffective and because it's immoral. The role of government is to provide basic human rights, such as the right to security and life, freedom of speech, religion, and other such things. An army is something we can't avoid using, and protects all of us together. The police enforces the laws intended to protect rights, and in that case as well, it is something we need for protection of rights and can't avoid using.
Among the laws government enforces are ones that try to maintain the free market--laws preventing fraud, theft, coercion, intimidation, and other impeachments on freedom. For example, I did not mind the Net Neutrality law because it prevented impeachments on the freedom of the people who only had the option to rely on these providers for internet (without losing money, of course). It was akin to mailman cutting parts of a newspaper before delivering it to the people subscribed.
I'm actually not entirely libertarian because I advocate for the voucher system. I believe that better education is the key to everything, and that we should pay for everyone's high school education because it will better the life of everyone if the entire society was better educated. This is the only aspect where I am not entirely libertarian, and even then, the vouchers are produced using the taxpayers' money; I simply believe that the tax allotted to them should be smaller for people who made poor decisions because their children and society would benefit from the opportunity to receive quality education. It is at least a choice of WHERE you want to use your voucher, as well as that most people would choose to get high school education, and the ones receiving it offer you a service themselves.

A free market is not a fantasy. Desire for profit is not inherently bad; if anything, I'm willing to argue that it's inherently good based on the fact that it drives people to innovate and improve the general standard of living. Yes, the best few rise to the top, but it's not as though everyone at the bottom is devoured. When rich people grow their business, in order to maintain their position or even assuming they do nothing to expand their business, they use more money, which is then distributed among society based on who provides services that are good enough to collect it. Why do you care that Elon Musk makes billions if you aren't making cents?

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:

j0x said:

NekkoArc said:
This thread is a mess. What does "pure" socialism even mean? What's "pure" or "total" capitalism? Laisezz faire? Is Hong Kong a free market? Milton Friedman during his life considered Hong Kong to be free market. I don't think Anarcho-capitalists would consider Hong Kong, free market. Provide historical examples if you want meaningful discussion.

there is no real socialism and communism done yet in history
you can read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Satania- said:
inb4butreelsozializmhasntbeentriedyet

What does post-scarcity economy have anything to do with socialism?

well you can read the wikipedia link to find out more but the gist of it is that post scarcity economy envisions a future where automation/technology take over most human jobs and prices of goods is so cheap to the point of being free, capitalism with its main goal of maximizing profit while minimizing cost through cheap labor would go for automation like robots and artificial intelligence to create goods so there will be no more need for humans to work and when this is reach then expect socialism and its final form communism to take place

try googling about the meme Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism too for more info

the main reason socialism and communism is being advocated by more people now is because automation is starting to increase that either human jobs are getting more cheaper salary or human jobs are being replace by robots and artificial intelligence so capitalism will eventually collapse (since there is less and less consumers) if the economic system does not change base on the trend of automation

This is what you call a "Luddite fallacy". And the idea that advancement of technology will necessarily cause mass unemployment and eventually, break down of world order as we know it is nothing more than a slippery slope fear-mongering tactic no serious economists will buy at this point. This stance was famously criticized by Henry Hazlitt in the book "Economics in One Lesson" in 1940s and the origin of this fallacious doomsday scenario dates back to 18th Century.

You operate under the false premise that demand is fixed. When society develops, demand can shift and new values can arise. Was the entertainment industry or fashion industry as big back then and available to lower-class back then as much as it is now? Did anti-virus market exist back then and did streamers exist? New technology can create jobs and even create more demand! Maybe this demand is fundamentally no different than the old, but you see, you now have jobs that are contingent upon new technology.

Also, the idea of technological development causing massive unemployment is empirically baseless. If what you're saying is true, there must be a fixed amount of unemployment that kept on rising almost irrespective of ups and downs of the economy that correlates in proportion to the development of technology.

I think he was specifically trying to justify it by using the singularity theory where machines can do absolutely everything humans do much more efficiently, including innovation. The general scenario described is that transhumanism will result in an elite few who got there first, and the rest of humanity will become worthless, in which case specific government restrictions could maybe prevent this elite few from getting there before everyone else.

how do you feel about the voucher system, by the way? I'm still on the fence because I wouldn't want to force people, but the authoritarian deep inside tells me people don't know what's good for their children and everyone else.

what people see wrong with this is that tha wun pahcent doesn't re-invest in the economy. i cant blame people for being hesitant at a free market when even with goverment we still have predatory businesses. but then its just a question of if you have more faith in a free market than giving goverment another chance at regulating corparations. and im too lazy to get into that right now.

right when fior the most part he most porftable anything has not innvated in years

i use video games like COD for an example over have thye inovate d there market in the last 5 years in game play mechanics or story telling over all not
there
but it make money hand over foot and as i have said veyr little to no innovation in gameplay mechanics or story telling not even any real technical innovations [ it engine has been the same for years ]

so your wrong here

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine"

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
For the Union makes us strong

May 13, 2017 7:01 PM

#93

Offline

Mar 2014

3693

Cases like CoD installments, where consumers buy it no matter what, do not require innovation. But making the first CoD and building the brand did require innovation, and it has been rewarded.

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 7:05 PM

#94

Offline

Mar 2011

25073

omfgplzstop said:
Cases like CoD installments, where consumers buy it no matter what, do not require innovation. But making the first CoD and building the brand did require innovation, and it has been rewarded.

nope my view is innovation in forever needed cod has never innovated overall

stagnation is the enemy of innovation

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine"

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
For the Union makes us strong

May 13, 2017 7:06 PM

#95

libertarianmind

Offline

May 2017

143

It's 2017, the answer is "Mixed Economy"

May 13, 2017 7:07 PM

#96

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Mar 2014

3693

DateYutaka said:

omfgplzstop said:
Cases like CoD installments, where consumers buy it no matter what, do not require innovation. But making the first CoD and building the brand did require innovation, and it has been rewarded.

nope my view is innovation in forever needed cod has never innovated overall

stagnation is the enemy of innovation

too bad people playing cod don't want innovation and have proven that they don't want it
in other industries/franchises, when the consumers show they want innovation, innovation comes
forcing it to come through whatever means is significantly less effective and depending on how you try to force it, can be counterproductive

Rinth said:
Every opinion is not equal. Some opinions are simply made out of shit.

nasuverse > your favorite anime

May 13, 2017 7:10 PM

#97

Offline

Mar 2011

25073

omfgplzstop said:

DateYutaka said:

nope my view is innovation in forever needed cod has never innovated overall

stagnation is the enemy of innovation

too bad people playing cod don't want innovation and have proven that they don't want it
in other industries/franchises, when the consumers show they want innovation, innovation comes
forcing it to come through whatever means is significantly less effective and depending on how you try to force it, can be counterproductive

art is about innovation over all anime is stagnating to

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine"

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
For the Union makes us strong

May 13, 2017 7:11 PM

#98

Takuan_Soho

Offline

Oct 2012

6648

libertarianmind said:
It's 2017, the answer is "Mixed Economy"

But it is not "mixed".

No matter how much the government screws with "distribution" it doesn't become socialism. Socialism is about production and the ownership of capital. No "mixed system" pretends to deal with the production side of the equation, thus they are not "socialist".

May 13, 2017 7:14 PM

#99