If by applause you mean agreement, then yes, that is what I'm waiting for. But all I've met with is disagreement - some of it, quite vitriolic. In part, I believe that's because I don't subscribe to the 'limits to growth' approach to sustainability - promoted by the left as an anti-capitalist trojan horse.
In my view, a left wing, stop this, carbon tax that, pay more and have less approach to sustainability - isn't necessary, and wouldn't work anyway. If they had an honest desire to secure a sustainable future - they should be delighted all these cuts, taxes and prohibitions aren't necessary. But they don't want to know. The left love telling people what they can and can't think, say and do. They get off on it.
I can show windmills cannot produce enough energy to meet our needs. Don't want to know. Battery powered cars are an environmental and economic disaster. Don't want to know. Fusion is a non starter. Don't want to know. That's what I mean by an apparent determination to misunderstand and stumble into extinction.
I am duty bound to promote truth - in particular, a scientifically rational idea of truth, because that's the philosophical method I advocate. I have to live up to my own philosophical standards. Everything I wrote there is true, but that doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humour about it. — counterpunch
But when people are so attached to their opinions, having those opinions challenged becomes a loss of identity. — Garth
Leftists are trying to stop me from having sex with my own brain, but I won't let them. — Maw
I'm sure the "Icelandic" will be sending you a cheque for you excellent suggestion that they use pipes. — Banno
I don't think that industry being owned privately means this "complete and sacrosanct" libertarianism you talk of. The kind of Ayn Randian libertarianism in the US isn't any kind of natural consequence or end result of capitalism, it is just one result that has happened in one specific country, which has a multitude of reasons why it has gone the way it has. The idea that if you have capitalism, then you social programs and welfare state is considered theft is just quite bizarre.If that private ownership were truly considered complete and sacrosanct, then the taxes that fund the social programs of a welfare state would rightly be considered theft. — Pfhorrest
Well, actually no.If the laws of the land hold it justified and right for the state to confiscate some of the wealth of those private owners for the benefit of all of society, that is in effect saying that the people as a whole, represented by their democratic state, have some rights in that wealth, i.e. a stake in it, a bit of ownership of it. — Pfhorrest
I am duty bound to promote truth - in particular, a scientifically rational idea of truth, because that's the philosophical method I advocate. I have to live up to my own philosophical standards. Everything I wrote there is true, but that doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humour about it. — counterpunch
I think about the issue in a similar way. Identity is sacrificed in the pursuit of truth. — five G
to be rational is to be virtuously depersonalized — five G
Say and Say's law isn't part of the economic theory of supply and demand on which modern mainstream economics is based on. I'm not familiar with what Bastiat has said on this.Marx wrote about the limitations of treating supply and demand as an economic law as it was the predominant bourgeois economic theory in his own time (e.g. Say, Bastiat) — Maw
Which doesn't take into the account of demand in the equation. That simple.Value for Marx in his Labor Theory of Value is determined by socially necessary labor time in a given society — Maw
And here what you have described the market mechanism of both supply and demand tell far better what is going to happen.But let's think about the brief example within Menger's quote using Marx's actual analysis and see why the former's criticisms is so absurd. Menger asks why the consumer should care about the productive origins of a commodity in regards to price (which Marx would call commodity fetishism). Fair enough, but what about the capitalist? In order to have a product in market she has to have a labor force comprised of wage laborers who require monetary compensation (and also require reproduction, i.e. they need to minimally feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and begin the working day again). She will additionally need the raw material along with the machine(s) or other technology that the laborers will use in producing her commodities. Likewise, the raw material requires wage laborers to extract and distribute to producers, as do the machines which need laborers to be build. — Maw
I don't think that industry being owned privately means this "complete and sacrosanct" libertarianism you talk of. — ssu
The kind of Ayn Randian libertarianism in the US isn't any kind of natural consequence or end result of capitalism, it is just one result that has happened in one specific country — ssu
It's simply called taxation.
And people are and have been perfectly OK with taxation for millennia to fund the state. And that state can be a monarchy, an Empire, a theocracy or whatever. People have understood that if you are going to have something like armed forces to defend the society, that obviously costs something. That libertarian individualism you refer to is a quite recent idea in the history of nations and them taxing their people. — ssu
With that I can agree with. Any economic theory that gets support usually have a point and a kernel of truth in them. And what is obvious is that real economic policy and real economic structures don't follow the pure ideological theories, but are a mixture of many.It's a movement that considers every economic theory had something useful to say and that economist should be aware of all of them. — Benkei
Capitalism is the ownership of industry is held in private hands. Private ownership doesn't lead to that. For example, land ownership hasn't concentrated into relatively few hands, there are lot of small landowners in every country. Competition leads to larger producers being more efficient than smaller ones and the most likely situation is an oligopoly situation where there are a few large companies which dominate a large part of the market, but a huge portion is made up of a vast amount of small companies with niche segments of the market. Perhaps here one should make a difference between capitalism and market economy.Capitalism is the concentration of ownership of capital in relatively few hands. — Pfhorrest
And how do you explain absolute monarchies then? Hobbes? How much different is the state actually if it's a monarchy or a republic? The postman is the same postman even if the monarchy is overthrown and is replaced with a republic.Ownership of something is just is having rights in it, and vice versa. If the public has rights to the profits of industry, e.g. if taxation is legitimate, then that is in effect (even if ot in name) at least partial public ownership. — Pfhorrest
For the state it's not only an issue of checks and balances, it's also interested in it's own power.Nowadays in a post-agricultural economy there is capital other than land, which is not subject to exactly those same old feudal laws. But if it is legitimate for the state to tax the proceeds from that capital, then the state in a practical sense owns an interest in it, regardless of the words used in statutes to describe that relation. — Pfhorrest
If capitalism would be so all encompassing greed, how do you explain then that even with capitalism many countries do have a lot of social cohesion and are just fine with things like the welfare state. Bismarck wasn't a leftist, but he went on with social-welfare legislation. — ssu
You are absolutely correct, but corruption is part and parcel of all human activity. I do realize that the temptations are perhaps greater when wealth (power) is involved, but it's everywhere (all the time). — synthesis
The fact that capitalism does appear to result in increasing concentrations of wealth can be attenuated by keeping the system as "honest" as possible, i.e., maintaining competition, keeping the politicians somewhat under control, using real money, etc. At present, it's a complete mess. — synthesis
And I am not convinced that all but the few have such a maniacal propensity to go towards avarice. Just the same, keeping those things that can be regulated (within the context of freedom), regulated, you will get the best result possible. — synthesis
Capitalism (like all human systems) has it's issues, but it's so incredibly efficient and has lifted an incredible amount of people out of poverty. It also a system that rewards merit, hard work, and most importantly panders to the market, where it is the masses [mostly] that decide what is going to be a successful product/service.
Top-down economics (like top-down everything else) is a disaster. — synthesis
As for the idea that capitalism has 'lifted an incredible amount of people out of poverty' - no, people have been lifted out of poverty in spite of capitalism, not because of it: — StreetlightX
But the idea that capitalism brought people out of poverty is true historically. — Brett
Interestingly the video states that no advanced country has achieved low poverty rates without high levels of government spending. Government spending is the result of taxation. — Brett
Wait - you think taxation is capitalist? — StreetlightX
Wait - you think taxation is capitalist?
And conversely, you think "globalism" isn't capitalist? — StreetlightX
So basically you're saying there are circumstances in which capitalism can bring people out of poverty, even if we're not in those circumstances and likely never will be. — Kenosha Kid
Actually that was the reason and which shows that politicians that supported a monarchy can still see the needs of the people and react to social issues before they turn into open revolution.Bismarck is not perhaps the best example you could pick here, since the reason he added the "drop of socialist oil" to the mix was to avoid a socialist revolution. — Echarmion
Yet doesn't unrestrained socialism lead to unrestrained power? Look at history.But that doesn't mean there isn't always the inherent danger of unrestrained capital accumulation leading to unrestrained power. I think the struggle between welfare, unions and regulation on the one side and the profit motif on the other is hard to overlook. — Echarmion
No I’m not saying that either. — Brett
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