I was thinking this over in relation to @Pfhorrest and his hypothetical world where we don’t have to consider the transition from here to there, that it just exists.

If everything that existed now, in terms of business, factories, etc., was collectively owned what business do you think would remain and what would go? What would survive and what wouldn’t. What would happen to Goldman Sachs for instance, or coal mines? Apart from workers owning the capital how would the landscape change?

And "thinking in the abstract" doesn't necessarily lead to an act of creativity. — jgill

True. But a creative act won’t happen without it.

So you’re looking at it in terms of association.? They’d rather be associated with the party as opposed to Trump.

Or are you suggesting they haven’t received pressure from GOP?

Do you mean if the Supreme Court leaned towards Trump their actions could backfire in the Senate runoffs?

“think in the abstract and form images of realities that are not present “ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210003/[/quote]

My reference is from one of three intellectual faculties we have. The other two are categorise and reason.

Thinking in the abstract “enables us to anticipate future events and plan future actions.”

So I’m looking at that as the creativity that comes before the act.

Creativity itself has no purpose. But those who create usually do. — jgill

Does creativity come before the act?

And then there's this: — Xtrix

isn't the whole point of filing for bankruptcy to get off the hook for debt — Pfhorrest

Is this what you mean?

“Bankruptcy offers an individual or business a chance to start fresh by forgiving debts that simply cannot be paid while giving creditors a chance to obtain some measure of repayment based on the individual's or business's assets available for liquidation. In theory, the ability to file for bankruptcy benefits the overall economy by allowing people and companies a second chance to gain access to credit and by providing creditors with a portion of debt repayment. Upon the successful completion of bankruptcy proceedings, the debtor is relieved of the debt obligations that were incurred prior to filing for bankruptcy.” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bankruptcy.asp

have no idea what creativity is. — creativesoul

This is what creative is. Yes, no?

“think in the abstract and form images of realities that are not present “ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210003/ — Brett

Well if this is right (maybe it’s not) then I would think it’s, dare I say it, an essential act of our survival. The fact that it went on to appear as writing, painting or dancing in today’s world is neither here nor there, art being a subjective matter.

was wondering what the point of contention was. If there is none, great. — Baden

None. Peace, brother.

Do you have an argument to make against something I actually said, Brett? — Baden

Oh Baden, you take things so personally.

You still don’t get it. It’s not about Trump. It’s the fact the the Constituition and the way things are worked out still functioned.

Actually I think really you’re frustrated that you didn’t get what you want: Trump removed because he was a Putin puppet, a piss tape, a mental breakdown, death by COVID, war with North Korea, war with Iran, impeachment for a phone call, Jerusalem exploding, a blue wave, a coup.

No, it doesn't mean that. The fact that you fail at something doesn't mean you didn't intend to do it. — Baden

See it’s still about Trump for you. It’s the fact that you had no faith in judges nominated by Trump because they were nominated by Trump that’s your problem. You decided they were too biased to do their job properly. Just like everything else you were wrong.

Oh give it up. Don’t hold your breath for the coup either. It’s over and you still can’t let it go.

So I guess this means Trump didn’t stack the Supreme Court so as to use it in his favour. You morons.

No, you’re just asking questions about how things would work in a world that was like that, so I’m discussing a hypothetical world that is already like that. You can’t then ask how people in a world that’s already like that got to the state that people in such a hypothetical world are already in. They were born into that state, because that’s the normal state of people in their world. — Pfhorrest

Okay, I understand where you’re coming from there. But I guess it’s clear what I think of it and to continue would just be a lot of back and forward that would end up nowhere.

Where did they get the money to buy there homes outright?
— Brett

You're once again presuming that we start in a situation where everything is owned by someone else, and people have to come up with the money to buy it for themselves from nothing. The point of this thought experiment is to imagine a world where that isn't already the case, where ownership is already widely distributed, and how things would function there. — Pfhorrest

So it’s only a theory and wouldn’t actually work in the real world unless someone could snap their fingers and say “ Behold, I give you widely distributed ownership”. Like God creating the world.

Or alternately, if they don't want to compete in that business anymore, sell off their investment in that company and use it to start something else, — Pfhorrest

Why would someone buy a failing business and if they did it wouldn’t be for the price you want.

That is exactly the choice that owners of businesses today face, and there's no difference in my hypothetical world, except that the equivalent of "borrow money" would be "sell other investments for money". — Pfhorrest

Well assuming you had other investments. There’s a lot of investing going on here with very little capital.

The difference now is that the CEO might plan a new direction. He/she might go to the bank with a plan to diversify and seek a loan big enough to carry out that plan over five years. In your new world you couldn’t do that. So you can’t trade out of it, unless you slash costs and wages, but you can’t do that because it’s a collective.

Imagine you own a steel factory. You import your iron ore from another factory. The price of iron ore starts climbing. What do you do? Suck it up and watch your profit/capital shrink, or pass it on with an increase in price on the steel you sell? — Brett

How does your theory address this situation?

And they have lower expenses because they own their homes etc outright — Pfhorrest

Where did they get the money to buy there homes outright?

If the price is low then how much is the factory going to make in profit, bearing in mind that the workers/owners are on good wages and working less hours? — Brett

The factory will make excatly as much in profit as it does already, because nothing that would affect its profit is changed in the hypothetical scenario. — Pfhorrest

If prices fall, for whatever reason, then the owners/workers lose their profit margin and therefor the capital they have for investment shrinks. They’re caught in a position of not having the money to trade out of it, or reinvest in new equipment or whatever may be needed to stop the fall in profits. This time it’s not the capitalist who takes the loss on the chin but the collective. What should they do? Do they take a wage reduction, or work more hours to produce more product or borrow money to trade out of it?

Competition is a central feature of the capitalist market economy based on profit. — Bitter Crank

In the world Pfhorrest is imagining I imagine there will be more than one factory producing steel. After all we wouldn’t want a monopoly would we? How are prices determined in this world? Is everyone forced to sell at the same price?

Another point: would you lend your capital as a collective to another factory?

Imagine you own a steel factory. You import your iron ore from another factory. The price of iron ore starts climbing. What do you do? Suck it up and watch your profit/capital shrink, or pass it on with an increase in price on the steel you sell?

If the price is set by the market, the consumer, then it’s going to be as low as they can get it. Competition will also determine the price. If the price is low then how much is the factory going to make in profit, bearing in mind that the workers/owners are on good wages and working less hours? So the so called capital the workers build up is determined by the markup. So the question about mark up is not irrelevant. If the price is too high then the buyers, owners of other factories, lose the value of their wages. They have less to put away as capital.

Saying it twice doesn’t make it true I’m afraid. It seems to me, and a few others, that there’s a big hole
in your theory that you won’t address or can’t see.

There could instead be a society where that reserve labor is leisure time that all people have on their hands because they can all meet all of their needs with less labor than their maximal output (because their jobs pay them so well and their fixed expenses like rent are so low), and that reserve capital is the savings that all those people have because they're all capable of earning more than they need to get by (because their jobs pay them so well and their fixed expenses like rent are so low). So to get anything new done, you just need to get enough people to agree to pool their time and money together to make it happen. — Pfhorrest

From this I take it that:

1: they’ll be able to work less hours

2: they’ll have higher wages

3: their outgoings will be less

4: they’ll be able to save a larger portion of their wages,

5: they’ll have excess money, capital, because they get more than they need

But we don’t know what that capital amounts to. If it’s excessive then someone else is paying the price.

What would you consider a reasonable mark up on products sold to produce this capital?

I really can’t imagine their savings being enough to guy expensive equipment, unless they’re really loading up the price on their product to make big profits. Some of those savings would also be spent over a financial year on maintenance, unexpected downtime, price increases on the materials they use and so on. Apart from that what happens if a company runs at a loss for a year because of poor management?

Like Janus I think this is just too simplistic as an alternative.
Assuming that factory X is owned by the workers and another factory, factory Y, is producing the same product and, for their own reasons, begin a price war, sacrificing their profits for more sales, driving the price down. The market responds and chooses the lower price. How does factory X respond in this market? What if their only hope is to invest in new equipment that enables them to produce the product for less? It means borrowing to invest in the long term. They need the money now, so they can’t save for it. Where do they get the capital? Who would have it?

My philosophy on philosophy is that it’s interesting to play with but don’t take it too seriously.

No, I mean the whole cancel culture.

“ Canceling, today, is used like a massive, informal boycott when someone or something in the public eye offends … or when we’re just over them.”

It makes me laugh to see people who think they can solve the world's problems from their armchair. — Janus

Watch out Janus, you’ll get cancelled.

Because people in general are not shining bastions of morality, but will exploit a situation to their benefit when given the chance, even at someone else's expense, and then try to rationalize away why what they're doing is perfectly fine.

What's bad is that we systemically, as a culture, give some people that chance, and internalize those rationalizations, and act like everything's fine. — Pfhorrest

Yes I’d agree with you there.

The problem is that “ we systemically, as a culture, give some people that chance, and internalize those rationalizations, and act like everything's fine.” Why do we, did we, give some people that chance, and who is “we” anyway. Capitalism wasn’t introduced from another planet. Someone, maybe Merlot- Ponty, said that Capitalism succeeds because it turns part of our nature into a benefit. I guess that part of our nature he means is the desire to own things, to possess things, to buy things.

This is the problem. Not the individuals themselves, even though they may not be the most desirable people. Like I said, maybe we’ve reached the-use by date for Capitalism.

Edit: more likely Raymond Aron.

Then search for your own meaning and I hope you enjoy doing it! — MondoR

Bingo!

know lots of people who deny themselves fun and get very depressed. — MondoR

I’m not saying fun is not good for you, I’m saying I can’t find any way to see it as the meaning to life.

Isn't the Universe a wonder? — MondoR

From who’s point of view?

Life isn't really that complicated. — MondoR

For some people it’s very complicated, in so many ways.

Life isn't really that complicated. People enjoy having fun and maybe a good laugh now and then. — MondoR

Fine. Just don’t tell me it’s the meaning of life.

Can that really be all to the meaning of life? We’re here just to have fun?
— Brett

Pretty much. To learn about ourselves and our universe, and have fun doing it. The alternative is boredom and possibly depression. — MondoR

Once again boredom and depression are subjective. Not running around doing things is not necessarily boredom and depression.

Are you having fun in your life? — MondoR

First of all fun is a very subjective term. Secondly we can be happy and unhappy, maybe in equal measure. Does that mean that unhappiness is the meaning of life?