Do I think taxation is theft? No, I don't.Or is your point that, since capitalism gets me a plumber more quickly, I have to concede that a moron who inherits half a billion dollars -- enough to buy a Presidency, say -- deserves that inheritance more than a Projects kid who could change the world if only he could stop his stomach from rumbling and hurting long enough to focus on class? It's difficult to join the dots on that one. — Kenosha Kid
You think only 0,5% of entrepreneurs are successful? You think being a millionaire is this success or what? I would think you are talking about professional athletes or something.This is a psychological malfunction called the illusion of expertise. 200 people try to become successful entrepreneurs. Due to a thousand factors outside of anyone's control or consideration, one person makes it. — Kenosha Kid
I think you didn't get my point but anyway. You were the one saying you are a peasant, so...If it makes sense to you, though, you and you can talk in those terms. I am not obliged to entertain such silliness. — Kenosha Kid
Well, I guess they TOO were quite stringent about just who uses their hunting grounds.You mean what is so wrong that we went from a condition where we could walk the land and hunt and gather to one where, if we wanted to eat, we had to labour for someone who suddenly claimed that land was his? Just that it's theft. Ask the Native Americans how they feel about it. — Kenosha Kid
Sorry, did the vagabonds or, ahem, Luddites own the land? Who was it stolen from? Or is the argument, as Proudhon put it, that property is a theft? — ssu
Well, let's remember again that they weren't as slaves forced into the factory. — ssu
Likely as factory workers, however bad the conditions were then, did get better salaries than working the fields and literally facing hunger. — ssu
So, is the answer Communism or is it capitalism, where we try to fix the problems, jamalrob? — ssu
Do I think taxation is theft? No, I don't. — ssu
No, as long the poorest don't get in absolute terms poorer. — ssu
You think only 0,5% of entrepreneurs are successful? — ssu
I think you didn't get my point but anyway. You were the one saying you are a peasant, so... — ssu
So you bring up this "someone who suddenly claimed that land was his". Who are you talking about? I think that it will go further than just our historical time as animals can be territorial also. — ssu
And things would have been better if they have stayed in the countryside without an industrial revolution? I but I agree that once the changes happened, people are forced by circumstances. But so are now people here who were farmers earlier choose jobs in the local town rather than try to earn a living by farming. Again circumstances, but not so desperate ones.Obviously they were forced by circumstances, if not by direct coercion. — jamalrob
I've majored in economic history so yes, I can say that in general choosing to work in the factories was a major improvement for working the fields. Notice the differences with peasants that either owned their land or rented land and then those that were only agricultural labour. Especially for them a factory job was really a great opportunity. Even if peasants owned their land, you cannot divide the estate to your children perpetually as the land simply won't support them.In any case, I don't know if anyone is saying things were better for peasants than they were for the working class, although in some cases they probably were: peasants sometimes had a level of economic independence that factory workers could only dream of. — jamalrob
I only disagree with you on that I would say "because it's a dangerous utopian dream, it surely isn't irresistible".Although it's irresistible, communism seems like a dangerous utopian dream. I am not sure what the answer is ssu. — jamalrob
I think people understand that you need more to be in the situation that people are willing to pay for your services. Like starting with education and vocational training.The numbers were not the point. The point is that the will to become a successful entrepreneur making you become a successful entrepreneur is a myth. — Kenosha Kid
I assume you labour for yourself to eat.Yes, insofar as I labour for others to eat. — Kenosha Kid
Well, that's a good start.I do not hold inheritors of wealth responsible for the theft any more than I would hold a baby of European stock responsible for the near-genocide and theft of two continents. — Kenosha Kid
Theft = the action or crime of stealingYou seem to share Judaka's view that to say 'Y happened because of X' it follows that 'Y is responsible for X'. Capitalism is based on a theft; it did not perform the theft, rather it inherited from it. — Kenosha Kid
So who had the right to the watering hole at the first place? And why do assume it was a "level playing field"?Sure, tribalism precedes feudalism, one difference being that a group that that took a watering hole by force was on a level playing field with the next group that wanted to take that watering hole by force, another being that social groups as a whole controlled that watering hole, which sounds a bit too commie, doesn't it. — Kenosha Kid
And things would have been better if they have stayed in the countryside without an industrial revolution? — ssu
I think people understand that you need more to be in the situation that people are willing to pay for your services. — ssu
I assume you labour for yourself to eat. — ssu
Hence, when you argue that capitalism is based on theft (meaning stealing), it should not be any wonder to you how I or Judaka interpret your thoughts the way we do (and now naturally speaking just on my behalf). There is someone you stole from if you steal something. And I've asked you again and again, who or what is the thief here and who is the one whose property has been stolen? — ssu
Or is then inheritance theft? Should the wealth you poses be given to the state or what? — ssu
Or, was ownership a way for two tribes to live peacefully side by side with mutually agreeing on that this watering hole is yours and that watering hole is ours? — ssu
You just feel like I'm stomping all the time for capitalism. But I'll take that as a compliment. :wink:No. It's really annoying when you do this. Many things got worse for many people, but it doesn't follow that I think things would have been better had the industrial revolution never happened. It's really odd that you feel the need at every turn to stamp your foot and insist that capitalism is better than what came before. It is not black and white, obviously. — jamalrob
Do we discuss the trauma and destructiveness of communism?You minimize the trauma and destructiveness of capitalist ascendancy, but you don't even have to do that to defend the status quo. — jamalrob
Yet you aren't a slave. You do get an income, I assume. And you do have the option to look for other work (I assume also).No, I labour for others, as the majority of people do. — Kenosha Kid
Someone has. Stealing MEANS that there is property.It is illogical to say that if I say there has been a theft, it follows I personally have been stolen from. — Kenosha Kid
It would make only my point. Animals can only learn from experience that "better not go to that watering hole, because there's a really bad tempered territorial water buffalo there", only after the have been nearly stomped to death by the crazy water buffalo. Humans can agree on issues, either the way the water buffalo does it or even peacefully.You imagine it was peaceful? If you gotta believe it, you gotta believe it I guess. I'd think a glimpse at the natural world would disillusion you. — Kenosha Kid
Yet you aren't a slave. You do get an income, I assume. — ssu
Someone has. Stealing MEANS that there is property. — ssu
The right to own property and that it cannot arbitrarily taken away from you is one of the basic institutions necessary for a functioning society. — ssu
If this institution isn't upheld, like if I just can bribe a judge and come with a paper that the land that you have lived all your life is actually mine, there are huge problems in the society — ssu
The right to own property and that it cannot arbitrarily taken away from you is one of the basic institutions necessary for a functioning society. If this institution isn't upheld, like if I just can bribe a judge and come with a paper that the land that you have lived all your life is actually mine, there are huge problems in the society. In many Third World countries the lack of these institution of property is a major problem. Which indeed itself is a great topic when discussing communism. — ssu
What is so utterly wrong in the fact that the seller of a service and the buyer of a service can reach an agreement what the price of the service is? — ssu
The problem is far too easily people interpret today to being serfs working for a lord. For them it's just a trendy figure of speech. For historical serfs this was something different. Remember that the lord in feudal system was also the judge and the law around. You simply didn't have the option to pack your stuff and work somewhere else. You couldn't just like that move into a city and start a business there. — ssu
No. You are talking that you are working for someone else and don't admit that you get a salary, income, be it large or small, for that.Yes. Slavery did not enter into my argument. Are you setting up a ridiculous dichotomy in which everyone is either a slave or works for themselves? — Kenosha Kid
No. I say that the Native Americans saw it as their property too. I'm saying that property has existed, so when you argue that it has been stolen, where do you put the line where it wasn't stolen? I'm not sure why you don't get this.Does it? So you would argue it was all well and proper that European settlers took the land of Native Americans because it belonged to no one in particular? How horrid. — Kenosha Kid
Yet that group was a specific tribe or family in the tribe. And so are companies a system of group ownership. Just as cooperatives are also.This is begging the question. Capitalism is a system of private ownership; communism a system of group ownership. The tribe with its water hole was a group. — Kenosha Kid
And here it ought to be mentioned that the UK (and hence the US) has gone through this history a little bit differently than Nordic countries where I come from.Throughout history, the norm was that real property, i.e. land, could not be privately held. It was always held by the Band, Tribe, King or state. Individual real property is a relatively new phenomenon. — Echarmion
Now that doesn't mean that there weren't individual rights to certain uses of that land, so it's not a black and white issue of "full property" or "no property". However, European individualism is, historically, an anomaly. — Echarmion
Yes. And when there are too many poor and few if any very rich, then at some time social cohesion is lost. Any power structure has to have enough support to stay alive. If it's just the few rich and their paid soldiers, the society is quite vulnerable to have a bad times ahead. And that's why we do have to have those safety valves called individual rights, democracy, independent legal system etc. to avoid a situation of tyranny by the ruling elite. Goes beyond simple capitalism.The problem is that some people have fantastically more leverage than others in such agreements to the point that the “choices” they make are almost comparable to “your money or your life”. — Pfhorrest
Yes, but there is a difference between a loan shark and long term low interest debt from at least somewhat respectable bank or financial institution. I'd say one of the major reasons why many Third World countries stay poor is because people cannot get a decent loan for buying a home. If the majority of the people have to rent, just barely make enough to feed their family and are outside a normal functioning financial sector, not only is the society going to remain poor. The rich people, the few there are, are going to be similarly poor compared to other countries. Aggregate demand is important, you know.And that there are systemic mechanisms like rent (including interest) that continuously exaggerate differences in such leverage so that small random differences blow up over time into such huge differences which then become self-sustaining and entrenched. — Pfhorrest
I think this wasn't meant directly to you.I didn’t say that absolutely everything today is like it was under feudalism. — Pfhorrest
Globalized capitalism gets it's current form from many different things than feudalism. You can argue that it leads to a somewhat similar situation, that I can admit. This can be seen how capitalism has developed. Take ANY field or sector of the market, be it car manufacturing, making movies, computers or whatever and the situation is that roughly about 20 large oligopolies rule the global market and small producers or providers have large difficulties to compete with them, if the don't specialize in a narrow market. Oligopolies rule the World.Capitalism — which is not the same thing as a free market, NB — is precisely the vestiges of feudalism that still persist. The dependency and subservience of those with less to those with more, because they must borrow a place to live and capital to labor upon in order to have the opportunity of participating in the “free” market. — Pfhorrest
I'd say one of the major reasons why many Third World countries stay poor is because people cannot get a decent loan for buying a home. If the majority of the people have to rent, just barely make enough to feed their family and are outside a normal functioning financial sector, not only is the society going to remain poor. — ssu
Do notice btw, the bigger and longer loans ordinary people can get, the more real estate will cost. The interesting phenomenon is that the modern good apartments or houses in a Third World country will cost roughly the same or even more. The difference is that those are for rich people.This applies plenty to first world countries too. A “decent loan” has to be one with low enough interest that it can actually be paid off eventually. In California here, I’d need to put hundreds of thousands of dollars down to get a loan on the remaining balance with interest not exceeding the cost of my current rent. It’s hard enough saving while paying that rent, so buying would mean it would take even longer to build up enough equity to stop owing for housing. — Pfhorrest
It is without doubt much more fair than the feudal system, which is why I'd prefer to be an honest capitalist than a communist. But all of this is still based on that original theft. People who inherent wealth believe they deserve it, but they don't. They are no more deserving of their inheritance than a trouserless scally playing in a gutter in a street, not entirely sure if its mother is home or not.
Do notice btw, the bigger and longer loans ordinary people can get, the more real estate will cost — ssu
No. You are talking that you are working for someone else and don't admit that you get a salary, income, be it large or small, for that. — ssu
No. I say that the Native Americans saw it as their property too. I'm saying that property has existed, so when you argue that it has been stolen, where do you put the line where it wasn't stolen? I'm not sure why you don't get this. — ssu
And they do deserve the wealth because it is often at great sacrifice such a feat is accomplished. — NOS4A2
Everyone deserves his inheritance because that is the will of the bestower. — NOS4A2
America's colonial past is one fundamental reason for many persistent problems even today. However as Judaka said, colonialism isn't capitalism. Enlargement of ones territories really isn't only an endeavor with capitalistic countries.I'm glad we agree: land, and thus its means of provision, can be stolen from a people. And you would agree, then, that this did indeed happen in the Americas? And that the same land can be bought and inherited by the descendants of those thieves because of that theft? Because if so we're in violent agreement. — Kenosha Kid
However as Judaka said, colonialism isn't capitalism. — ssu
Who is thief let's say in Iran? — ssu
The biggest foreign companies operating in volatile Iraq are CNPC (Chinese), Petronas (Malaysian), Lukoil (Russian), KOGAS (South Korean) among BP (British), Shell (Dutch) and Exxon (American). — ssu
Capitalism today works globally through a rapid increase in cross-border movement of goods, services, technology, and capital along with companies operation in various countries. This makes many times the old 19th Century or early 20th Century criticism of capitalism a bit off. — ssu
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