Why should the government decide what to do with my money? — Agustino
So, in essence, be happy that you're able to post here or elsewhere at leisure, without having to toil to make bread and milk, and don't feel sorry for the poor — Question
Wages remain low in the 3rd world due to discriminatory immigration policies in western countries and if there was free movement of people between countries the poor countries would receive much larger gains in wages. So, if you're going to attack low wages, then you might as well attack immigration policies that allow the rich to live behind gates communities. — Question
It can always be argued comparatively that the poor just have it worse off. That's not the topic though. But, if you insist, I would like to point out that every nation with a demographic of 'poor' individuals is/are always worse off than those who are relatively better or well off instead. I have nothing aginst some socialism for the poor, and I suspect any politician that runs for office in a noncorrupt nation will be answerable to the poor also. So, in the end, the poor eventually get what they need through work and voting. Which, brings to fray the need for strong and stable governments that encourage open markets and intellectual freedom... — Question
In regards to your second point... I would argue that eventually, all externalities have to be accounted for in the end. Typically prices reflect the typical externalities accounted for. Sadly all externalities cannot be accounted for and if some are omitted, then the taxpayer is left to pick up the tab. — Question
I'm not sure about that. The government can just as easily one day seize all my money and put me in jail. If they hold absolute power, then they can also use absolute power. So no - it's not at all certain that the government is working for me, and even if it is, that it will keep working for me. Look at what happened to this guy.But let's just say that the government is the only arbiter and guarantor that your money is your money, and not the mafia's or the marauding mob's. — unenlightened
The government can just as easily one day seize all my money and put me in jail. — Agustino
Interesting.we live in an anarchy — unenlightened
Exactly, but that decision cannot be one that you stick to forever. That decision changes with circumstances.So you just have to decide which busybodies you want to align yourself with — unenlightened
Neoliberalism is a self-serving racket that exempts billionaires and large corporations from the constraints of democracy, from paying their taxes, from not polluting, from having to pay fair wages, from not exploiting their workers. — George Monbiot
The entrepreneur assumed the risk, bought the mine — Agustino
Who else should take the biggest cut? The miner? The miner had it easy. All he had to do was take the gold out. His pay was fixed. Whether he did an average job or a fantastic job - he still got paid. The entrepreneur didn't. He absolutely had to make it work. — Agustino
Are you kidding me? Most entrepreneurs out there fail. Even those who succeed, they fail more times than they are successful. The personality that is required to be a successful entrepreneur is very very different than the common personalities generally found around the world. — Agustino
One can be a successful entrepreneur without becoming a capitalist, but it is very difficult, and the failure of many entrepreneurs is due to one's unwillingness to venture into the realm of capitalism. — Metaphysician Undercover
'The market' conjures an image of some version of the miner selling ore to the blacksmith, who sells tools to the farmer, who sells food them both, and money or barter regulates supply and demand such that everyone provides value to others and receives equivalent value from others.
But obviously it is nothing at all like that. The miner, the farmer, the blacksmith does not get the value of his labour because things are not arranged as a market of that sort at all. Rather, the mine owner, the landowner, the 'entrepreneurs' literally take a cut between every exchange between others, impoverishing them all. The 'market' is institutionalised robbery. — unenlightened
I don't know about that. We have a bunch of homeless people--a bunch of people who have no regular shelter and who have trouble acquiring food, we have a bunch of people who are unemployed or who can't find a decent job that pays well, we have a bunch of people with either no healthcare or who have to worry about whether they'll not go bankrupt should something happen to them that requires any sort of hospital stay, we have a bunch of people who can't afford a home, etc. If that's a good organization of labor and resources, maybe we should try a "bad" organization of labor and resources for a bit. — Terrapin Station
Not so much a marketplace then, as a battlefield, where rather than add value to the community, one seeks to take value from others. And a battlefield is a place that adds no value, but destroys it, and redistributes the remains on an arbitrary and unequal basis.
— unenlightened
Exactly. And that would be Fascism. — Galuchat
It seems to me your post could have been more or less copied verbatim from a text-book on neoliberalism. Self-interest, I can see, but by what's 'enlightened' about it? 'The greatest good for the greatest number', or 'concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 1% who can then game the system in such a way as to increase and maintain their privilege? — Wayfarer
I don't have a problem with billionaires, I have a problem with multinational corporations which use their financial power to squeeze out entrepreneurs. Billionaires, at least most of them, have earned it (through ingenuity and hard work largely). There are some billionaires - like hedge fund managers - who have stolen it, and they often control the corporations (that's how they've made their money).You might well disagree with this or at least find it exaggerated to the point of vacuity. — unenlightened
Indeed. And how will you oppose the government become mafia? By voting? Don't kid yourself. A government become mafia doesn't care about what goes in the pot, but what comes out.Nevertheless, that it makes sense to say it illustrates that a government can become a mafia. — unenlightened
The point is that if all of the costs of "goods produced in China or India" that you specifically refer to were included in their price either demand for them would be so low that they would not be produced in the first place or the price would be so high that people in "rich countries" would instead buy local products. Either way you wouldn't be coming here saying that it helps workers with breathtakingly low pay more to buy the products that their breathtakingly cheap labor produces rather than altruistically directly address their plight--either way we would not be having this conversation. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
You might well disagree with this or at least find it exaggerated to the point of vacuity. Nevertheless, that it makes sense to say it illustrates that a government can become a mafia. And if and when it does, obviously a man of principle and virtue will oppose the government. It is a sign of my left wing bias of course, that this appears in my newsfeed rather than fulminations against Communism. Exactly how one opposes depends on how much of a self-serving racket it is and one's resources, and one's character. Hopefully, many people will oppose such tendencies on an ongoing basis such that the government is obliged to serve the citizens as a whole rather than any clique. That is what approximates to 'good government' in my book, and it depends entirely on the vigilance of citizens in defending their own and each other's rights to fair treatment and a pleasant environment. To take the position that one doesn't mind ill-treatment of people as long as it is not oneself being ill-treated is woefully short-sighted. — unenlightened
If the investment goes bad, the entrepreneur loses. The worker gets his wage. Simple.How is it that putting up a whack of cash is called "risk"? — Metaphysician Undercover
All smart people should be using money to make more money, since money is one of the levers of power, and we all know, that if good men don't rise to the top, then the bad will rise to the top, and everyone will have it bad.You don't seem to have respect for the fact that "money" has a different value to people who earn a wage or salary and use this money to live off of, to pay for the necessities of life, then it does for those who use money to make more money, the capitalist. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes he does have it easy. He takes no risk - if the project goes bad, he still gets paid at the end of the day.The guy who has to physically move the material, dealing with the hazards of the physical world has it easy, while the guy who sits in the office moving numbers around in the books has the difficult job? — Metaphysician Undercover
The only unnatural sense of value that can be attributed to money is when money is seen as a means for facilitating hedonism. If someone uses their wealth in order to sit on a yacht, then yes, that is immoral and unnatural.Crossing that line means giving "money" that unnatural sense of value — Metaphysician Undercover
No, money is just a tool, the way it is used is either moral or immoral. Money in itself isn't immoral.This is immoral. — Metaphysician Undercover
What's not to love about having the government in check by the markets? — Question
That's a very easy question, Question. An ungoverned market will deal mainly in pigs in pokes. To prevent people being poisoned by the food they buy, burned by the shoddy housing they rent, electrocuted by unsafe products, run down by faulty cars and so on we like to have trading standards. When the market controls the government, these standards are called 'red tape' and gotten rid of or relaxed or ignored to free up enterprise. People die. — unenlightened
Maybe if we're talking about monopolies; but, the market isn't controlled by one corporation or one business, as we all know. — Question
During the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th Century, people moved towards towns and cities for work and became reliant on food retailers as a result. Industrial managers became increasingly infuriated by high levels of absenteeism, a major cause of which was the consumption of adulterated foods. In the 1850’s, Thomas Wakley, a surgeon and MP, and physician Arthur Hill Hassall conducted extensive work on samples of food and drink purchased from the marketplace. They catalogued each of the vendors, locations, dates and products purchased. Each food and drink item was analysed and the results were published. It was concluded that food adulteration was a lot more common than was believed and that many of the adulterated foods were actually poisonous. This information, coupled with industrial pressure on the Government, lead to the development of The Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act 1860, which was later revised in 1872, and the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875. The revised Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act 1872 made provisions for the appointment of public analysts. Two years later the Society of Public Analysts was founded.
In the Early 20th Century foodborne illness became more broadly recognised and as a result, statutes connected to food safety and food quality were introduced. These included The Milk and Dairies Act 1914, which covered the production and sale of clean and safe milk for human consumption. Compositional requirements had also been introduced for some foods.
Being a worker is "100% risk-free". being a business owner or investor means it's possible for you to lose more $$$ than you invested. — Question
If the investment goes bad, the entrepreneur loses. The worker gets his wage. Simple. — Agustino
Yes he does have it easy. He takes no risk - if the project goes bad, he still gets paid at the end of the day. — Agustino
The only unnatural sense of value that can be attributed to money is when money is seen as a means for facilitating hedonism. If someone uses their wealth in order to sit on a yacht, then yes, that is immoral and unnatural. — Agustino
All smart people should be using money to make more money, since money is one of the levers of power, and we all know, that if good men don't rise to the top, then the bad will rise to the top, and everyone will have it bad. — Agustino
Take food — unenlightened
The owner may die in the office from obesity and a sedentary lifestyle too. So what? The owner may die in a car crash from all the travelling he has to do, etc. etc. There's risks with everything in life so don't bullshit. The worker also doesn't necessarily risk serious injury or death - it all depends on the job.The worker may be injured or die on the job. — Metaphysician Undercover
Unless you value money more than life, the worker has the greater risk. — Metaphysician Undercover
he or she has far more than what is needed to provide the necessities of life anyway — Metaphysician Undercover
First, no, most entrepreneurs don't have easy access to cash, especially when they show inability to handle it. So losing cash, especially other people's cash, is quite a terrible spot to be in as an entrepreneur. And most entrepreneurs aren't rich, even most successful ones, unless you call 1-10 million dollars as rich. That's being a tiny bug in the large scheme of things. True wealth that can be used to have a significant impact on society starts from $50-100+ million, numbers which are absolutely not easy to achieve.especially when you have many piles of it. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes I have. I've worked as a construction worker for an NGO for example, before I was an engineer. Every night my hands would be more broken than the night before and you'd fall asleep instantly once you hit the bed. So what? Was it difficult? Not really. I certainly don't think I was taking more risk than those who conceived of the project, or those who gave them money. Most people are just very lazy - I don't know but it seems to me you're all born with a silver spoon in your mouths. We are meant to work, and work hard. But most people complain "ugh so hard so this and that" - what the hell?Have you never done physical work in your life? — Metaphysician Undercover
That's your (uninformed) opinion.When money is valued to make more money, then it has no value. — Metaphysician Undercover
I never said ONLY use it to make more money.What value could it possibly have if the only use for it were to make more money? — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, do you want to speak with this guy?Sorry, but you're delusional. Money cannot buy you power, especially is your using that money only to make more money. — Metaphysician Undercover
So long as you can order them to do something and they execute it, then you do have power.But if power is what you value more than money, then money will buy you the illusion of power, so that the people whom you are paying off will make you believe that you have power, when you really do not have power. — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, but nobody has any doubts about that. Governing society requires the use of fair-weather friends since most people aren't that moral to begin with. So leaders always have to make good use of these people in order to successfully govern a society. Their energy, greed and lust has to be channeled in productive directions.These are your fair-weather friends. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand why you say I'm bashful, but to answer your question, power is influence and capacity to direct the march of society - capacity to set the rules. Granted that as unenlightened said, and I agree with him, I actually think it's a great idea, we actually live in an anarchy. There are no property rights, in reality. There are no other rights either. All our political systems are mere attempts of hiding the anarchic system we actually live in - attempts to move, however imperfectly, away from the state of anarchy. But fundamentally, we do live in an anarchy, where most people are not moral, and if given sufficient power, will use that power to oppress and subjugate others to their whims. There's only some people who can handle power morally, and they should as per Plato, want it the most.ell me please Agustino, and don't be bashful, what do you think is the nature of power? — Metaphysician Undercover
Power doesn't mean loyalty. Loyalty is, or can be, an important aspect of power, but it's not the only one.To make more and more money with the idea that this money might be used to buy power is completely illogical because it is well known that you cannot buy loyalty. — Metaphysician Undercover
Power means the capacity to decide on the direction of society, to influence others, and/or the capacity to guarantee (or not) property and other rights. Ghandi was powerful. Hitler was powerful. Bill Gates is powerful. Jesus was powerful. As was someone like Osho in the modern age. Trump is powerful, Putin is powerful, etc.In this context, the way you have used it in this post in relation to these phrases, "rise to the top", "influence society", "authority", what does "power" mean to you? — Metaphysician Undercover
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