[RD] Surrender Summit

[Traitorfish]

I've actually spoken to people who have lived under dictatorship-style governments, that were subsequently overthrown in favor of communist or democratic ones, who have stated something similar. The general sentiment seemed to be that a benevolent dictator > corrupt/oppressive democratic/communist government.

How often do we encounter benevolent dictators, as opposed to dictators who are very good at cultivating a patronage network, the members of which end up out in the cold when the regime shifts?

But where this ends in usefulness for economic development is at something called "total factor productivity". This is a somewhat nebulous term. But what it amounts to is continuous process and product improvement and innovation. Slaves aren't good for that. While a significant number of slaves can be made to do craftsmans work, most only do rote work. Same thing, same way, over and over. What very few, if any, slaves do is to improve the process or quality of their product. Free labor does. Proprietors do. Innovation, invention, industrialization, these were the products of people who had no master but themselves.

That's not an economic argument against slavery, though, only in favour of a mixed slave-free economy. Even as slavery was being abolished, the sort of rigid discipline that slaves were subject to was being busily re-invented in the mills and factories, because when all you need from somebody is rote labour, craftsmanship isn't important let alone innovation and invention. One technician or foreman can innovate for a dozen, a hundred unskilled labourers, all the more so when those labourers are women, children or ethnicky, and therefore disallowed from having opinions in the first place, as they very often were in the most unskilled (and deskilled) jobs.

To the extent that the Southern planter economy was uninnovative, it was less clearly to do with unfree labour, and more to do with the political and business culture of the Old South, of absentee planters with aristocratic pretensions.

 

[Farm Boy]

This was also a known "scientific" feature of industrializing England at that same time, as the national product could be enhanced with the systematic beating of children in factories, as argued by industrialists before parliament.

I'm thinking about this still. And I'm not exactly sure how this ties in - but hey, I like bouncing things off people. Read an article today that compared Assclown to Andrew Johnson in that "he was the last president to choose enemies over allies" and was somewhat struck by the author's 21st century cluelessness. Not that Johnson was a gem, Lincoln would have been better(but if he had personally led the occupation/reconstruction, I'm not sure he would be quite so saintly as he is in martyr'd form(it's tough to beat probably bestest American ever but I digress)), but he did do some crushingly important things - including and of no small import, initiating the technological catch-up of severely backwards conditions of Southern sharecroppers(largely white) through the Grange and its Masonic-y connections. Not that the Gilded Age was a treat, but it could have been worse. Also much of the root of much of the bonding that in light of later mechanization/industrialization/debtor antagonism with former allies that still leads northern country kids in the 21st to wave around "rebel" flags when the men who initiated that bonding had been literally murdering each other not long past.

 

[metalhead]

401Ks are portable. Pensions that relied on years of service, salary and vesting, not so much. When you started at a different compaany, you started a new pension and had to wait to be fully vested. I wish my pensions had been portable, i'd already be retired.

But if you're vested, you get what's vested right? My parents worked for Philadelphia Electric Co. 40 years ago, both receive pension payments even though my mom only worked there for 7 years or so, my dad about 30.

I realize they aren't "portable" in the sense you take your old accrued pension bucks and dump them into your new one, but you eventually get whatever amount has vested when you leave. And even if you take a hit on what is vested, it's nothing compared to what you miss out on if you have 15 or 20 years of seniority built up. Especially now that manufacturing pays peanuts at entry level. Once you hit that, they have you for life.

 

[rah]

I was in Management so seniority was meaningless. The positions I held were never assigned based on seniority.
But yeah, that would have helped "non-exempt" positions.
And you're right, if you were vested you were good.
But one job I did, I was squeezed out before I was fully vested. It cost me a considerable chunk of change.

 

[Sommerswerd]

How often do we encounter benevolent dictators, as opposed to dictators who are very good at cultivating a patronage network, the members of which end up out in the cold when the regime shifts?

What I gathered from the conversations, was that there was no difference, really. The dictator is always "benevolent" when you're in that "in-group"... and of course those on the outside... who are going to be the ones eventually doing the revolution'ing and exiling and guillotining are going to come off as pretty damned oppressive to the ones who are being exiled and stripped of their wampum and relieved of their heads and so on.

The main nuance it seems then, is the size of that in-group. You can go with a few in a choice aristocratic class, leaving the great unwashed masses out in the cold... Or you can go with the Glorious united labour class with some despised ethnic or religious minority out in the cold. Either approach works... until, as you point out, the revolution/coup. Then we start all over... Or form a democratic (or communist) government that does essentially the same thing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

It's even better when it's a state plan that keeps you from paying enough into social security. Talk about an employer with teeth! Effing Illinois.

I see you are still attacking teachers unions as the root of all economic problems in your state.

 

[Cutlass]

How often do we encounter benevolent dictators, as opposed to dictators who are very good at cultivating a patronage network, the members of which end up out in the cold when the regime shifts?


That's not an economic argument against slavery, though, only in favour of a mixed slave-free economy. Even as slavery was being abolished, the sort of rigid discipline that slaves were subject to was being busily re-invented in the mills and factories, because when all you need from somebody is rote labour, craftsmanship isn't important let alone innovation and invention. One technician or foreman can innovate for a dozen, a hundred unskilled labourers, all the more so when those labourers are women, children or ethnicky, and therefore disallowed from having opinions in the first place, as they very often were in the most unskilled (and deskilled) jobs.

To the extent that the Southern planter economy was uninnovative, it was less clearly to do with unfree labour, and more to do with the political and business culture of the Old South, of absentee planters with aristocratic pretensions.

See, this is fundamentally not true. For the economy, as opposed to the firm, or the proprietor, the maximum wealth creation exists where the maximum freedom of labor exists. And this is the point. The person doing the job usually knows better how to do it best than the person telling them how to do it. Now everyone has to learn a job from someone. And many people don't know, or don't care, how to improve their work. But to think that the bosses have all the answers, and that the bosses will maximize productivity, well that's just wrong. The more removed bosses are from the actual production process, the less they know about how to actually do it, and do it well. In many cases they make it rote, simply for the purpose of standardizing it. But standardizing it does not maximize it.

Toyota back in the 1990s built an auto factory in Kentucky. Instead of the bosses calling all the shots right down to micro-management, they gave bonuses to employees who came up with ideas that lowered costs. They ended up with one of the best auto factories in the world, and it went a very long ways towards building Toyota's reputation as one of the highest quality automakers in the world.

Management tends to regiment workers because they think they should. Not because it is the most cost effective or best for economic growth.

 

[Traitorfish]

Management tends to regiment workers because they think they should. Not because it is the most cost effective or best for economic growth.

None of that indicates that these anecdotes represent common practice among capitalists, let alone that it was so in the 19th century.

If the anecdote even proves anything, which isn't clear. Scientific management doesn't call for micro-management it calls for clear processes which do away with the need for micro-management. Overbearing managers are either incompetent or insecure; they speak to a discipline problem with the company, not a surplus of discipline. Toyota's factories are by all accounts the model of the highly-disciplined Taylorist workplace; that workers are encourage to give feedback doesn't really proves that the management are willing to accept an insight for what it's worth, not that workers' are granted any moment-to-moment autonomy.

 

[Cutlass]

None of that indicates that this is common practice among capitalists, let alone that it was so in the 19th century.

That's a different question. In the 19th century capitalism was overwhelmingly small firms. Manufacturing was overwhelmingly small firms. Innovation was overwhelmingly small firms. This is where the growth of the economy comes from.

Large firms that squelch innovation slow the growth of the economy as a whole. So there are times when a firm looking to maximize profits extracted is in fact working against maximum economic growth. That's not the least uncommon. Where you are wrong is in assuming that those firms are like they are for reason of the economy, rather than they are as they are for the benefits of the owners.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's a different question. In the 19th century capitalism was overwhelmingly small firms. Manufacturing was overwhelmingly small firms. Innovation was overwhelmingly small firms. This is where the growth of the economy comes from.

Large firms that squelch innovation slow the growth of the economy as a whole. So there are times when a firm looking to maximize profits extracted is in fact working against maximum economic growth. That's not the least uncommon.

This sounds more like Silicone Valley PR than settled fact. What are we basing this on? I appreciate that risks innovation is more likely to come from small firms than large corporations, but small firms will mostly play itself, there are simply more of them occupying smaller space and they are forced to be more competitive as a result. It's an argument for competition, not an argument about labour.

I mean, you just cited the example of a Toyota factory in Kentucky the 1990s. What about that is small or local?

Where you are wrong is in assuming that those firms are like they are for reason of the economy, rather than they are as they are for the benefits of the owners.

It's not self-evident what the difference between these is.

 

[Ironsided]

In response the OP. Trump is the most American president ever - he really embodies what America is, has been and most probably will be for some time yet. Opportunistic, selfserving and accusing anyone who does not put themselves first of being dangerous and of false intent.

 

[Ajidica]

How often do we encounter benevolent dictators, as opposed to dictators who are very good at cultivating a patronage network, the members of which end up out in the cold when the regime shifts?

I've actually spoken to people who have lived under dictatorship-style governments, that were subsequently overthrown in favor of communist or democratic ones, who have stated something similar. The general sentiment seemed to be that a benevolent dictator > corrupt/oppressive democratic/communist government.

Just to add to this, I remember an interview Robert Fisk did with an Afghan trader under the Taliban. The trader remarked that he preferred living under the Taliban because you knew where you stood with them. If you sold false goods or stole from someone, you had to pay back the customer or get your hand chopped off. In the trader's view, this was a massive improvement over the warlords where it all came down to who you knew and the bribes you paid to the warlord.
There were some similar sentiments among Zairean farmers working on plantations in the late 60s and 70s, in that they expressed a preference for Belgian colonialism and paternalism over Zairean kleptocracy.

 

[Cutlass]

This sounds more like Silicone Valley PR than settled fact. What are we basing this on? I appreciate that risks innovation is more likely to come from small firms than large corporations, but small firms will mostly play itself, there are simply more of them occupying smaller space and they are forced to be more competitive as a result. It's an argument for competition, not an argument about labour.

I mean, you just cited the example of a Toyota factory in Kentucky the 1990s. What about that is small or local?

Large firms can innovate. Just look at Bell Labs. But large firms are just as likely to quash innovation. Just look at Intel and Microsoft. Whether or not a market is competitive matters a lot. But other factors do to.

The point I was originally trying to make, and maybe I wandered off topic too much, is that the maximum good for the economy itself comes from the maximum innovation. And the maximum innovation comes from the maximum of each individual person benefiting from any innovation they happen to come up with.

3rd world countries are 3rd world countries because very few people in those countries can benefit from innovating. 1st world countries are 1st world countries because most people in those countries can benefit from innovating. It's not about the leaders, it's about the populace. A freer populace creates more wealth. An unfree populace only allows the maximum possible extraction of wealth by existing means.

An economist once quipped that there are 4 types of economies in the world: Developed, undeveloped, Japan, and Argentina.

Argentina is instructive because as late as WWI Argentina was one of the wealthiest nations in the world. And then fell back in the rankings rapidly. And the reason was not that Argentina actually had a shrinking economy, but rather that their economy was entirely based on the extraction of wealth from existing modes of production. And when new modes of production, and new products, came into existence, they were just left behind in the dust. Japan is instructive, for after WWII they were flattened. But by mastering first the tech that was new at the time, and then by mastering new technology, they became for a while the second richest nation in the world.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

3rd world countries are 3rd world countries because very few people in those countries can benefit from innovating. 1st world countries are 1st world countries because most people in those countries can benefit from innovating. It's not about the leaders, it's about the populace. A freer populace creates more wealth. An unfree populace only allows the maximum possible extraction of wealth by existing means.

Third world countries are third world countries because they were ravaged by colonialism and imperialism, not because they are "not innovating." There is a metric ton of innovation and inventors in Africa, for example, but think about the history of Africa: during the Atlantic Slave Trade, people were extracted from the continent, and once slavery was outlawed in Europe and America, Europe turned to Africa for its raw resources, like diamonds, sugar, salt, cobalt, aluminum, iron, cocoa, silver, gold, uranium, etc.

Keeping poor countries poor is a great economic scheme: you force them to extract their resources to make money, and you can also outsource and use their cheap labor to manufacture goods and get raw materials. Anglo-Saxon economists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or Milton Friedman, of course, did not have to concern themselves with such insignificant matters, so they could only judge economies in a vacuum, as if they existed outside of time and space and were never a consequence of political forces.

Anyway, African countries have shown the largest development growth in the world over the past couple of decades — you know, some time after they gained full independence from Britain, France, Belgium, and others.

 

[Berzerker]

In the big picture, the 1860 Census counted a total of 31,443,321 people, of which 3,953,760 were slaves. So slaves accounted for 12.6 percent of the national population.

https://www.politifact.com/punditfa...viral-post-gets-it-wrong-extent-slavery-1860/

Of course they were concentrated in the south and border states but to suggest this country was built mostly by slaves requires us to believe almost 90% of the population wasn't doing much and the country stopped being built after 1865.

 

[Cutlass]

Third world countries are third world countries because they were ravaged by colonialism and imperialism, not because they are "not innovating." There is a metric ton of innovation and inventors in Africa, for example, but think about the history of Africa: during the Atlantic Slave Trade, people were extracted from the continent, and once slavery was outlawed in Europe and America, Europe turned to Africa for its raw resources, like diamonds, sugar, salt, cobalt, aluminum, iron, cocoa, silver, gold, uranium, etc.

Keeping poor countries poor is a great economic scheme: you force them to extract their resources to make money, and you can also outsource and use their cheap labor to manufacture goods and get raw materials. Anglo-Saxon economists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, or Milton Friedman, of course, did not have to concern themselves with such insignificant matters, so they could only judge economies in a vacuum, as if they existed outside of time and space and were never a consequence of political forces.

Anyway, African countries have shown the largest development growth in the world over the past couple of decades — you know, some time after they gained full independence from Britain, France, Belgium, and others.

Yeah, all of that imperialism stuff was certainly real. But it also all ended long enough ago that it's no longer an excuse.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Yeah, all of that imperialism stuff was certainly real. But it also all ended long enough ago that it's no longer an excuse.

Most of African countries got their independence between 1960-1980, and South Africa had apartheid until the early 90's. That's literally half a generation. Besides, the consequences of resource extraction and impoverishment do not disappeared overnight.

In any case, you are factually wrong, as there is plenty of innovation in Third World countries.

 

[Cutlass]

Most of African countries got their independence between 1960-1980, and South Africa had apartheid until the early 90's. That's literally half a generation. Besides, the consequences of resource extraction and impoverishment do not disappeared overnight.

In any case, you are factually wrong, as there is plenty of innovation in Third World countries.

There is innovation. But there is not general prosperity. And that comes from there being less innovation.

And I'm not denying that imperialism held these countries back for a long time. But there are many nations which have been independent far longer than it would take to become upper-middle income nations. Yet they haven't. Why? Because the leaders of those countries like to keep them poor.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, all of that imperialism stuff was certainly real. But it also all ended long enough ago that it's no longer an excuse.

I mean, that's not only the same argument that Republicans use to dismiss Jim Crow as a cause of black poverty, it's working on pretty much the same timescale.

Large firms can innovate. Just look at Bell Labs. But large firms are just as likely to quash innovation. Just look at Intel and Microsoft. Whether or not a market is competitive matters a lot. But other factors do to.

The point I was originally trying to make, and maybe I wandered off topic too much, is that the maximum good for the economy itself comes from the maximum innovation. And the maximum innovation comes from the maximum of each individual person benefiting from any innovation they happen to come up with.

3rd world countries are 3rd world countries because very few people in those countries can benefit from innovating. 1st world countries are 1st world countries because most people in those countries can benefit from innovating. It's not about the leaders, it's about the populace. A freer populace creates more wealth. An unfree populace only allows the maximum possible extraction of wealth by existing means.

That's all completely besides the point. The claim was that the Deep South was incapable of innovation because it was economically dependent on slaves, that only a society based on free labour can successfully innovate. That claim has yet to be substantiated.

Innovation is more likely when people can see the benefit of their work, for sure. But that doesn't require that most or even many people be free, only that those innovating are free, or even just free enough to enjoy the benefits of their work. Most actual innovation in a capitalist society is carried by a relatively small strata of technicians, engineers and managers. Most workers are given very little input into their work process. They may be asked for feedback, but they have little or nor say in actually alternating that work, nor are they likely to see any direct compensation for increased efficiency resulting from that feedback. This is all possible under slavery, this is all possible under wage-labour, this is possible under debt-peonage. When a majority of workers function in a purely executive role, their freedom or unfreedom isn't of direct consequence to the efficiency of the whole system.

In both a plantation and a factory, the majority of human workers have historically acted as machines. They perform tasks which are either slightly too complicated to leave to machines, or which they can perform more cheaply than machines. They are more efficient insofar as they are more cost-effective, not because they bring some spark of innovation to the process. To the extent this is not longer the case, it is because they have been totally supplanted by machines, proving quite finally that the human element was never necessary to the process, and the extent that is, an ever-shrinking number of technicians are quite capable of meeting that need.

The argument essentially boils down to, in a society in which all human beings are white collar technicians and managers, freedom is important to ensure efficiency and innovation. And that might be fine as far as it goes. But it has very little relevance for the nineteenth, twentieth or even early twenty-first century.

 

[Hygro]

https://www.politifact.com/punditfa...viral-post-gets-it-wrong-extent-slavery-1860/

Of course they were concentrated in the south and border states but to suggest this country was built mostly by slaves requires us to believe almost 90% of the population wasn't doing much and the country stopped being built after 1865.

I think about 5% of the Bay Area is IT and it's driving that economy. Much of the economy is fairly neutral on its impact toward profit accumulation and growth.