Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor

[BasketCase]

Basket Case is arguing that business is like Highlander

Wrong again, dude.

What's your point? I don't see the correlation.

There wasn't supposed to be one; I wasn't performing a comparison, I was performing a contrast.

Crony capitalism = rich people working together with other rich people.

Deep pockets = rich people ripping off other rich people.

You don't make money from poor people. Because they don't have any. You make money from rich people.

 

[Crezth]

Wrong again, dude.

Well, no, it doesn't have to be Highlander. Any movie with Mel Gibson would substitute. Passion of the Christ would work, too, if Christ was a rich person and, um, the Romans were other rich people, and the Jews were, uh, the poor, who betray the rich... hm... maybe the Jews are the rich, and the Romans are the poor, and... no, that wouldn't work...

 

[BasketCase]

No, Mel Gibson doesn't cut it.

Business is like Avatar. Most folks don't realize that the people who bankrolled that left-wing environmentalist propaganda flick are the SAME PEOPLE who bankroll Glenn Beck and Fox News. Now, why the hell would a bunch of conservative blowhards produce a film like Avatar?

FOR MONEY!!! Remember what I said earlier on about how the rich adapt? This is them adapting. When society is a socialist utopia, how do rich people profit from it? By making films that tell people what they want to hear. Society is not tailor-made for rich people. Rich people adapt to the system, and they will always find ways to make a profit no matter what system they actually find themselves in.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

No, Mel Gibson doesn't cut it.

Business is like Avatar. Most folks don't realize that the people who bankrolled that left-wing environmentalist propaganda flick are the SAME PEOPLE who bankroll Glenn Beck and Fox News. Now, why the hell would a bunch of conservative blowhards produce a film like Avatar?

FOR MONEY!!! Remember what I said earlier on about how the rich adapt? This is them adapting. When society is a socialist utopia, how do rich people profit from it? By making films that tell people what they want to hear. Society is not tailor-made for rich people. Rich people adapt to the system, and they will always find ways to make a profit no matter what system they actually find themselves in.

I'm aware of no socialist who thinks that a man isn't entitled to wealth he has himself created. The objection comes from when people get rich by keeping the wealth other people have created (and thusly denying them it) through a contract of exploitation.

You are correct, that the rich adapt to new ways to perpetuate their privilege. This is why the solution is to remove the institutions which create that privilege, so that people stand on their own merits and not on their parents' accomplishments or on what they can browbeat other people into doing for their benefit.

 

[BasketCase]

In free nations such as the United States, you can't have a contract of exploitation. A rich guy can't force people to work for him any more than the movie theaters could force people to sit down and watch Avatar. There is no contract of exploitation.

The only places it happens are totalitarian states such as North Korea. And the only way to get rid of those is with bombers and M1A1 Abrams tanks.

 

[Crezth]

In free nations such as the United States, you can't have a contract of exploitation. A rich guy can't force people to work for him any more than the movie theaters could force people to sit down and watch Avatar. There is no contract of exploitation.

There is not much choice between "work for me" and "starve," and you don't need a contract to exploit someone.

 

[peter grimes]

In free nations such as the United States, you can't have a contract of exploitation. A rich guy can't force people to work for him...

Of course he can't force them in the manner of a DPRK work / re-education camp! Nobody is claiming that.

But every family has to have an income (mountain men, hermits, and FLDS enclaves excepted).

Most income comes from exchanging time and labor for money.

The people doing the work and giving up the time rarely hold the power in the relationship. When they do, we find a much more equitable distribution of wealth, we find more productive workplaces, and we find, on average, happier people.

I know which system I'd prefer, had I a choice, which most people don't....

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

In free nations such as the United States, you can't have a contract of exploitation. A rich guy can't force people to work for him any more than the movie theaters could force people to sit down and watch Avatar. There is no contract of exploitation.

The two situations are fundamentally different. If going to see Avatar for 40 hours a week was the only way to get food and shelter, then yes, making people pay you to go to see Avatar over and over again would be exploitative. There are no guns forcing people to go to work (except when an anti-strike injunction is handed down by our "impartial" courts), but the lack of a realistic alternative makes it compulsory nonetheless. The choice between self-destruction and not is no choice at all. So long as people must be forced to go to work with the threat of starvation, vagrancy, or bankruptcy, the relationship between the people who fleece them by making them work the machines for their benefit and the people who must do so to survive will be an exploitative one.

 

[BasketCase]

Of course he can't force them in the manner of a DPRK work / re-education camp! Nobody is claiming that.

It still needed to be made crystal-clear.

But every family has to have an income (mountain men, hermits, and FLDS enclaves excepted).

Most income comes from exchanging time and labor for money.

Key word being "most". That's simply how most people choose to do it.

The people doing the work and giving up the time rarely hold the power in the relationship.

No reason they should. The other half of the relationship (the half that got left out until now) is that you can't force people to hire you. If the workers make the terms of employment too onerous for the EMPLOYER, the employer will simply close up shop.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Key word being "most". That's simply how most people choose to do it.

I can't believe I never thought of this before! I'm going to quit my job and go out and start my own restaurant right now.

Oh right, I can't because I'm poor and have no capital.

Not much of a choice for me then, it seems.

 

[Crezth]

I can't believe I never thought of this before! I'm going to quit my job and go out and start my own restaurant right now.

Oh right, I can't because I'm poor and have no capital.

Not much of a choice for me then, it seems.

No, you fool! Leave the country! Live in the wilderness! Be a self-made man!

That's how our Capitalist overlords did it. Ave in gloriosa nomine bourgeousie. Amen.

 

[BasketCase]

I can't believe I never thought of this before! I'm going to quit my job and go out and start my own restaurant right now.

Oh right, I can't because I'm poor and have no capital.

Good. Now you're exactly where most rich people are. Now you know how it feels.

BORROW from somebody. That's how most of the businesses you see today got started.

 

[timtofly]

I can't believe I never thought of this before! I'm going to quit my job and go out and start my own restaurant right now.

Oh right, I can't because I'm poor and have no capital.

Not much of a choice for me then, it seems.

What capital? I thought that it was "just" credit people needed and good looks? Wait maybe I am confusing that with "who you know"?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Good. Now you're exactly where most rich people are. Now you know how it feels.

BORROW from somebody. That's how most of the businesses you see today got started.

And what if I didn't have the credit history for that? Or the knowledge to start and run a business myself?

Back to square one it is.

 

[Traitorfish]

Does BasketCase really believe that we could all be Fortune 500 CEOs if we just put a bit of backbone into it, or does is his contempt for the human race so staggering as to permit him to believe that it doesn't what condition the other 99.9% of the human race is, as long as some people are able to rise to that station?

 

[innonimatu]

In free nations such as the United States, you can't have a contract of exploitation. A rich guy can't force people to work for him any more than the movie theaters could force people to sit down and watch Avatar. There is no contract of exploitation.

The only places it happens are totalitarian states such as North Korea. And the only way to get rid of those is with bombers and M1A1 Abrams tanks.

Money is just a tool and a metric, the goal is power over other people. That's what drives some people to accumulate wealth: more money means more influence, more power.

So you can't say that a society where making profit is a protected and promoted activity is "free": making profits is all about gaining a disproportionate amount of power over others (and doing that usually leveraging on already existing power disparities). Consenting to that is like consenting to a "totalitarian" government where power is embodied in something other than money: any form of accumulation and exercise of power can be legal, can rely on a legal framework to which people theoretically consented, a "contract". In your typical capitalist heaven violent coercion will certainly be used to crush anyone who disrespects property rights and contract law and thus threatens the ability to make a profit. But, of course, you will never see that to be in any way "totalitarian"...

 

[timtofly]

Money is just a tool and a metric, the goal is power over other people. That's what drives some people to accumulate wealth: more money means more influence, more power.

So you can't say that a society where making profit is a protected and promoted activity is "free": making profits is all about gaining a disproportionate amount of power over others (and doing that usually leveraging on already existing power disparities). Consenting to that is like consenting to a "totalitarian" government where power is embodied in something other than money: any form of accumulation and exercise of power can be legal, can rely on a legal framework to which people theoretically consented, a "contract". In your typical capitalist heaven violent coercion will certainly be used to crush anyone who disrespects property rights and contract law and thus threatens the ability to make a profit. But, of course, you will never see that to be in any way "totalitarian"...

What does it mean when a government borrows trillions of dollars then? They lost "power" and are trying to get it back?

 

[BasketCase]

And what if I didn't have the credit history for that?

Whose fault would that be?

Or the knowledge to start and run a business myself?

Knowledge doesn't come to you. If you want it, you have to go get it.

Most likely your credit history, Cheezy, is just fine. And you can get the knowledge to start a biz if you want (or, team up with somebody who has it--lots of businesses do it that way). Fact of the matter is, the reason you're not running a biz of yer own is because you choose not to.

Does BasketCase really believe that we could all be Fortune 500 CEOs if we just put a bit of backbone into it

Yeah, pretty much. Though random chance does play a part.

Money is just a tool and a metric, the goal is power over other people.

sourceplz

Gotcha. With a very few exceptions such as dictators, it's impossible to know why people do things. Only Miss Cleo knows that, and she ain't talkin'. Though I can speak for myself: the reason I want money is not power over other people (I use deceit and manipulation for that). The reason I want money is a nice house, a nifty car, and personal safety (the more money I have, the less likely I'll starve or be unable to fix myself up after a nasty car accident or some such)

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, pretty much. Though random chance does play a part.

I wasn't clear enough: do you believe that we can all simultaneously be wealthy entrepreneurs, so long as we make a decent effort at it? If not, then you're more or less openly stating that you're happy to see the majority of the population reduced to a state of dependency, and, call me a traditionalist, but that doesn't sound recognisably like "freedom" to me.

 

[BasketCase]

No, you were perfectly clear the first time. Problem is, you need to stop assuming that "understanding you" means "agreeing with you".

I disagree with you.

do you believe that we can all simultaneously be wealthy entrepreneurs, so long as we make a decent effort at it? If not, then you're more or less openly stating that you're happy to see the majority of the population reduced to a state of dependency

The correct answer is "neither". Statistically it's possible for everybody to be rich entrepreneurs at the same time, but it's not likely, and I see no reason why it should. Further, unequal wealth does not reduce the poor to dependency.