Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

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This is surely not true. William Graham Sumner? Ayn Rand? The robber barons?

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Wasn't Ayn Rand a refugee from USSR? kind of different. Was Sumner among the faithful or was he making reasoned arguments?

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Define refuge. If you mean she was disgusted by communism and left, then I guess so.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There are a few reactions one can have to this. 1. To support or oppose the economic processes that lead to this condition 2. To support or oppose the results themselves.


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To make amend for my earlier near derailment of this interesting thread.

Over the last few years, I have pondered on developments of economic development, especially from a dialectical Marxist view point. The reasons being, that indubitably, Marx was the founder of Economics, and I would not know a single economist that would avow not to have read "Das Kapital". I have read, of course, but to make things clear I don't claim to be an economist.

Marxism dialectics, like subsequent economic theories, except for the latest fads, which haven't had the chance to be proven wrong yet, and for AC which never had nor would have a chance, thankfully, have been proven not to model economic realistically.

I have come to the conclusion that the biggest flaw in the Marxist model was it did not account sufficiently for the arbitrary influences of nations sovereignty. I think that the Marxist model, with some correction, will prove more successfully predictive in these times of globalization of economies, and, at the end, the richer will get richer and the poorer poorer. Globalization is playing in the hands of capital very natural and intrinsic accretion qualities [Marx 101 [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ].

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Why is that "too uneven"? What is the acceptable threshhold of "even"?

Is this an increase or a decrease? Compare modern democracy with feudalism.

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Economically feadalism had a far more even distribution of wealth than we do now. In fact, serfs all accross europe were considered to have the right to farm the farm lands until the industial revolution was in full swing.

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If so, how bad can the condition of humanity get before your precious capitalist principles become untenable to you?

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It's become undeniably better.

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There is a sense that this is true in absloute terms, but that's about it. A great many people have made a great many arguments that life was more rewarding a few hundred years ago than it is now. I'm not saying I agree, just that it's not undeniable.
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Compare the serfs of a thousand years ago

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with life spans half that of ours with today's lower middle class, who struggle with obesity.

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It wasn't that bad, life spans weren't that bad in the feudal era. It wasn't till after, I think WW2, but the 20th century anyway, that life spans returned to pre-industrial revolution levels.

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Just because someone else has more doesn't mean you have less.

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Yeah, it really does. Inflation?


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If redistribution results in widespread (but equal) poverty, is that a better alternative?

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Absoloutly not, but that's not the issue.
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Is there any limit at all to your worship of capitalism?

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I don't worship it.

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Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Economically feadalism had a far more even distribution of wealth than we do now. In fact, serfs all accross europe were considered to have the right to farm the farm lands until the industial revolution was in full swing.

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The fact that you have to highlight their government-granted right to farm their own sustinence highlights the distinguishing characteristic of feudalism: property was owned by the feudal lord, not the peasants. They owned next to nothing and lived a very crap life.

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There is a sense that this is true in absloute terms, but that's about it. A great many people have made a great many arguments that life was more rewarding a few hundred years ago than it is now. I'm not saying I agree, just that it's not undeniable.

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I think it's ridiculous. Would you like to live in the pre-medicine, pre-computer, pre-air conditioned, pre-safe sex, pre-vaccinated, pre-educated world of the fifteenth century? I've heard people claim that the amish (who basically live in an anarcho-syndicalist world) are better off than us. I fail to see the logic of this; they get up at three in the morning in a poorly built, uninsulated, uncomfortable cottage to do very, very hard work (much harder than we're used to) all day long, only to enjoy a much agonized over meal for their reward, and must continue to do so throughout their existence. That's poverty.

However, you are right about my use of the word, I should have picked a better adjective.

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I see no reason to, and it affronts my dignity to have to be compared with a serf to feel justified.

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You're offended by the idea of making comparisons in order to observe change. How convenient.

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Yeah, it really does. Inflation?

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Apples and oranges. Inflation is the result of credit expansion, which requires government monopolization of the money supply. I can't think of anything more un-capitalistic.

But yes, value can be produced without removing it from somewhere else. The economy is not zero-sum. You and I are neighbors, and we both have an equal number of trees on our lot. I chop my trees down and add a garage onto my house, thus increasing the value and utility of my property. Has anyone else lost anything?

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Wow. Your entire post is like exactly the opposite of what's going on in the real world. Increasing deregulation? Like trans-fat?

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You're joking right? Have you been paying attention to national and world news the last decade? There are countries privatizing their water supply. I seriously cannot guess how you have arrived at the opposite conclusion, because, that's all the WTO and IMF have been doing the past 20 years. All of the former Soviet block countries have been privatizing and deregulating. The US has been privatizing or decentralizing everything and reducing progressive wealth redistribution schemes. Our military is mostly outsourced now.

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All of your actual examples here are world, not national. I was only talking about national. In your post, you only attached "the rest of the world" as a throw away. We certainly deregulated phone service here in the U.S. (as it was starting to become obsolete, but for every thing deregulated, there are a dozen more regulated. (trans-fats, smoking in restaurants, etc.)

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ok, so 2 examples where laws have been passed, lets add to my list TANIF to the dereguation, and there are plety of power grids accross the country as well. Thankfully SS did not fall.

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other governments accross the world have done a fine jobe regulating their schools.

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Compared to what place where we do it via the private sector?

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Relevance? It's your assertion.... you show me
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And ours was decent for over a century.

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True. Before we started regulating it...

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Maybe you mean, before the federal government started regulating it? Schools have been public in the US for hundreds of years. Boston Latin?
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Would you prefer Catholic schools or Quaker meetings. In order to claim that Govt. controlling schools is the cause of dumbing down the populatin you need show at least some type of correlation between government schools and dumbing down or, even it's opposite, a nation of people who went to private school and being less dumbed down. When you make a claim that absurd, you really should back it up some how.

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America of 100 years ago vs. America of today.

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I thought you were annoyed by the dumbing down of the populace. Have you spent much time reading books from the turn of the century. Aside from a few gifted fiction writers and a few mathematicians, they were stupid... and I'm talking here about the smart and educated people.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

Meanwhile they couldn't build a refrigerator to save their lives.....

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The system leads to this, and it also leads to the innovation that has given us all the technological progress we've had in the past couple centuries. If we were to go back 200 years and make the world a big socialist haven, we'd be lucky to have electricity today.

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Gee, where have I been? Asleep? The communist USSR, although starting a long way behind the USA (from the worst form of feudalism, in fact), was, I thought, the first in space, the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man in space and simultaneously the first orbiting man. The first USA citizen in space did not orbit and it came after the USSR had successfully launched a manned orbital vehicle. I would see these as some of the greatest technological achievements of the last century and the USA was pwnd! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Economically feadalism had a far more even distribution of wealth than we do now. In fact, serfs all accross europe were considered to have the right to farm the farm lands until the industial revolution was in full swing.

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The fact that you have to highlight their government-granted right to farm their own sustinence highlights the distinguishing characteristic of feudalism: property was owned by the feudal lord, not the peasants. They owned next to nothing and lived a very crap life.

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NO, our whole notion of "property rights" came from the 1800s. A lord may have been ruler of a domaine but it was not his property in the sense that we think of it now. He did not have the 'right' to stop the people from farming. This was something that peasants lost in the industrial revolution. To think of it, you really need to rethink ownership. It did not exist in europe in the feudal era the way it did in the IR or now.


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I see no reason to, and it affronts my dignity to have to be compared with a serf to feel justified.

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You're offended by the idea of making comparisons in order to observe change. How convenient.

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Come on, your comparing now to 600 years ago. More than just the economic system has changed, and that is the topic. And your picture of the feudal era is a bit off anyway. A large amount of our considerations of feudal times comes from industrialists trying to end it.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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The system leads to this, and it also leads to the innovation that has given us all the technological progress we've had in the past couple centuries. If we were to go back 200 years and make the world a big socialist haven, we'd be lucky to have electricity today.

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The communist manifesto states, and I agree, that capitalism was useful to build the bridge between feudalism, and socialism. We have already laid the groundwork to have a socialist society. The whole world can easily be fed clothed, schooled, and much more with the incredible productive power that we have now.

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And never cure AIDS or cancer or explore the stars or acheive virtual reality or find more efficient food sources or a million other things. The scientific progress benifits of capitalism don't just stop because someone invented socialism. Perhaps I should have said television or the personal computer instead of electricity? The car or the airplane? Turn the world socialist and the poor will certainly see an immediate improvement in their condition. The problem is that progess will slow to the point that they'll be much, much worse off than they would have been 100 years from now.

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Good thing we had the government, or we would never have nucular power.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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The system leads to this, and it also leads to the innovation that has given us all the technological progress we've had in the past couple centuries. If we were to go back 200 years and make the world a big socialist haven, we'd be lucky to have electricity today.

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Gee, where have I been? Asleep? The communist USSR, although starting a long way behind the USA (from the worst form of feudalism, in fact), was, I thought, the first in space, the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man in space and simultaneously the first orbiting man. The first USA citizen in space did not orbit and it came after the USSR had successfully launched a manned orbital vehicle. I would see these as some of the greatest technological achievements of the last century and the USA was pwnd! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Yeah, a starving population sounds like an exciting trade off. I'll freely admit that endeavors that can't turn a profit (aka, aren't useful to the poor) can suffer under capitalism. None of those things you mentioned actually make the lives of the poor any easier though.

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Neither does our healthcare system. It is intentionally set up to incentivise inovation over care, and the health of the coutry has suffered for it.

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Meanwhile they couldn't build a refrigerator to save their lives.....

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You believe anything you are told, right. You are no different from the USSR citizens of late, they believed that there were homeless people in Washington, DC, sleeping over the sewer vents in winter, covered in newspapers, to survive and keep warm.

I would never fall for such propaganda! Hey, wait a minute, I saw it! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]