Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

[eagleseven]

Do you like low prices?


Do you like competition to necessitate low prices?


Do you like anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws to ensure competition in the market?

If so, thank a social democrat.


Do you like lead-free paint? do you enjoy knowing those chocolates don't contain antifreeze and your toothpaste doesn't either? If you enjoy such regulation, thank a leftist for demanding the capitalists' rights be restricted to protect the masses.


Do you work? Do you enjoy a wage that pays for more than a cardboard shack? Do you enjoy not living like the poor in England one hundred years ago? Do you enjoy having safety regulations, hazmat laws, workers' comp, and a right to know what you're working with? If so, thank a union and the First and Third International for sparking and leading the way for the labour movement.


If you want to return to 1the pasty, then you can sing the praises of the bourgeoisie and spit on the Left while your working in a coal mine with no respirator, no shoring of the mine, no medical insurance in case of injury- all for a few bucks a day so you can rent your house form the mining company for which you work.

None of your examples justify the abandonment of a Capitalist economic core...you identify adjustments, regulatory icing on a Capitalist cake. Simply put, a market system is the core of every successful economy known to man. Every attempt to supplant the market economy has ended in painful failure.

Of course, I wouldn't expect that to stop you from trying. All I ask is that you leave me out of your social experiments.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I never advocated 'supplanting the market economy', you idiot. Even the majority of communist systems include a market economy.

Let me know when you're ready to be honest for a change.

 

[Big Fitz]

Simply put, a market system is the core of every successful economy known to man. Every attempt to supplant the market economy has ended in painful failure.

That's because it's like trying to build a bridge while saying "we ignore the old rules of physics and metallurgy". Economic laws and markets can never be done away with. It is the way all commerce and civilization works and you cannot escape it anymore than you can escape gravity.

 

[Oddball]

I never advocated 'supplanting the market economy', you idiot. Even the majority of communist systems include a market economy.

Let me know when you're ready to be honest for a change.

The last thing on Earth that Chomsky cultists are is honest....Least of all with themselves.

Gotta hand it to the man insofar as his linguistic skills are concerned...Nobody in academe is more slick, slippery, misdirecting and deceiving with their use of semantics than Chomsky.

It's little wonder gullible college boys fall for his junior grade hypno-snake oil.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

I'm still waiting for you to actually refute something.

 

[Dr Grump]

Let's see, since Capitalism has been a driving force in the world, we have had a technological explosion like no other, more food is being produced with less effort, and my personal favorate, we no longer have to go to an outhouse when nature calls.

All and all, i think life is better. But maybe you prefer crapping in a shed in your backyard.

You mean all those technological advances that have come from 'socialist' countries like those in Europe? Those kind?

You mean like the light bulb?....er...alternating current?....er...the telephone and telegraph?...er...the airplane?...er...television?...er...peanut butter?...er...rock-n-roll?...er...the 392 hemi?

Yeah, you're right....All the really cool stuff was invented in Europe.

You think peanut butter is cool? And the last time I looked the telephone was invented by Bell who was Scottish. America invented the airplane? Not so sure about that....

Naw I was talking about things like the combustion engine, television, penicillin, pasteuristation, braille, THE BIKINI!!!, Scuba gear...er, I could go on....

Goddamn those pesky socialist Euros!

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Grump, if you are in fact using 'socialist'; in the Marxian sense, do you believe that any such society as Marx envisioned will ultimately evolve given enough time?

 

[eagleseven]

I never advocated 'supplanting the market economy', you idiot. Even the majority of communist systems include a market economy.

Let me know when you're ready to be honest for a change.

Perhaps I inferred too much from your avatar?

I was under the impression that communists desire to eliminate the private ownership of capital (ie the means of production), in favor of a communal owner (run in most cases by a benevolent government/proletariat council). An economy with only one (communal) producer is not a market, but a monopoly.

Am I confused?

 

[Oddball]

I'm still waiting for you to actually refute something.

What's the point in refuting a know-it-all college boy cultist, who has all the answers?

What you need is more along the lines of an intervention and deprogramming.

 

[Oddball]

I never advocated 'supplanting the market economy', you idiot. Even the majority of communist systems include a market economy.

Let me know when you're ready to be honest for a change.

Perhaps I inferred too much from your avatar?

I was under the impression that communists desire to eliminate the private ownership of capital (ie the means of production), in favor of a communal owner (run in most cases by a benevolent government/proletariat council). An economy with only one (communal) producer is not a market, but a monopoly.

Am I confused?

Yes....That's the point of Chomskyite Never-neverland doublespeak.

You're supposed to be so confused that you see the "brilliance" of Chomsky's cut-rate stage hypnotism act.

 

[uscitizen]

Let's see, since Capitalism has been a driving force in the world, we have had a technological explosion like no other, more food is being produced with less effort, and my personal favorate, we no longer have to go to an outhouse when nature calls.

All and all, i think life is better. But maybe you prefer crapping in a shed in your backyard.

Has capitalism reached or is approaching a point where it is not mutually beneficial to the average citizens?

I do not believe that any one system will exist on it's own for long.

Unless of course if the principles of saving for a rainy day and if you don't have it you can't spend it principles are applied in that system.

 

[Contumacious]

None of your examples justify the abandonment of a Capitalist economic core...y

True, but Capitalism was abandoned circa 1900,

.

 

[uscitizen]

None of your examples justify the abandonment of a Capitalist economic core...y

True, but Capitalism was abandoned circa 1900,

.

We are still closer to capitalism than anything else at the core of our economy.

 

[Oddball]

The illicit drug trade is closer to capitalism than any semblance of it in America.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Perhaps I inferred too much from your avatar?

Red flags can signify a warning, martial law, defiance, or left-wing politics....

As early as the 15th century, the red flag was used as a "flag of defiance."[3] It was raised in cities and castles under siege to indicate that they would not surrender.[4] "The red flag is a signal of defiance and battle," according to Chambers Cyclopedia (1727–41).[5]

"Waving a red flag" is a metaphor for incitement; the metaphor comes from the sport of bullfighting, in which the matador provokes the bull by waving a red cape at it.
A signal of danger or a problem can be referred to as a red flag, a usage that originated in the 18th century.

Red flag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also my user title.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/gener...-your-avatar-say-about-you-9.html#post1864143

I was under the impression that communists desire to eliminate the private ownership of capital (ie the means of production), in favor of a communal owner (run in most cases by a benevolent government/proletariat council).

I do not support such communist systems as they too easily become oligarchies.

An economy with only one (communal) producer is not a market, but a monopoly.

I do not support the nationalization of industry, as such a system again places too much power in too few hands. Oligarchy and totalitarianism are enemies of egalitarianism and liberty.

Am I confused?

It would seem so.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

None of your examples justify the abandonment of a Capitalist economic core...y

True, but Capitalism was abandoned circa 1900,

.

Only in its raw bestial form.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

The illicit drug trade is closer to capitalism than any semblance of it in America.

Excellent point. And being subject to no regulation, you never know what your dope is cut with.

Compare aspirin and alcohol, which must meet certain criteria for legal sale.

You're arguing my case for me.

 

[Oddball]

Yeah...We don't know what it's cut with, yet we don't have those mythical people "dying in the streets" from bad dope.

OTOH, the big gubmint protection racket FDA cannot be sued for approving medications that do kill people, like Phen-fen and Vioxx, because they can hide behind sovereign immunity.

I'm not making your argument, I'm blowing it clean out of the water and you're too much of a Chomskite cultist to see it.

 

[Dr Grump]

Yeah...We don't know what it's cut with, yet we don't have those mythical people "dying in the streets" from bad dope.

OTOH, the big gubmint protection racket FDA cannot be sued for approving medications that do kill people, like Phen-fen and Vioxx, because they can hide behind sovereign immunity.

I'm not making your argument, I'm blowing it clean out of the water and you're too much of a Chomskite cultist to see it.

But you can sue the manufacturer...

...so no you haven't...

 

[☭proletarian☭]

Yeah...We don't know what it's cut with, yet we don't have those mythical people "dying in the streets" from bad dope.

Clearly, you've no idea what you're talking about. You've never seen that world.