Capitalism is the greatest creator of wealth and increased living standards ever.
Actually, economic protectionism is the greatest creator of wealth, a condition utterly anathema to laissez-faire conceptions. For example, consider Ha-Joon Chang's
Kicking Away the Ladder. As noted therein:
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the historical fact is that the rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they now recommend to, and often force upon, the developing countries. Unfortunately, this fact is little known these days because the official historians of capitalism have been very successful in re-writing its history.
Almost all of todays rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.
Of course, this would technically remain capitalism, which is why we are also obliged to prevent a suitable alternative, which is why I'd refer to libertarian socialism of some variety, whether democratic market socialism or participatory and decentralized planning. Their focus on the labor cooperative permits maximization of productivity, and elimination of the conflict between profit and productivity that exists in the capitalist economy.
What immorality? Whose morals?
Immorality as determined by ethical analysis. Perhaps you've heard of "ethics"?
demonstrate that authoritarianism is 'immoral'
Approaching from a utilitarian or consequentialist ethical perspective, our goal is the maximization of happiness. Self-governance is a major source of happiness, authoritarianism inhibits self-governance and therefore happiness, and authoritarianism is therefore immoral. Approaching from a deontologist ethical perspective, we have inherent and inviolable rights to liberty and freedom that are violated by the establishment of authoritarianism.
Members of the 'working class' can become entrepreneurs and, if successful, improve their standard of living.
Here we see your utopian conception of political economy peeking through again. The standard talking point that you've just regurgitated is based on a crude and naive conception of perfect social mobility, but the reality is far different. For example, consider Gangl's
Income Inequality, Permanent Incomes, and Income Dynamics. As noted by the abstract:
As income mobility over time serves to offset income inequality existing at any point in time, cross-national differences in social stratification are preferably assessed from data on average incomes over an extended period of time. Hence, this article uses longitudinal income data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the European Community Household Panel to reassess the received empirical evidence. Even discounting the impact of income mobility, however, the United States continues to exhibit the highest level of permanent income inequality in this particular sample of industrial countries. In addition, older workers and individuals at the bottom of the income distribution have faced significantly worse income prospects than common in many European countries.
Complement that with Corak's
Do poor children become poor adults? Lessons for public policy from a cross country comparison of generational earnings mobility
In the United States almost one half of children born to low income parents become low income adults. This is an extreme case, but the fraction is also high in the United Kingdom at four in ten, and Canada where about one-third of low income children do not escape low income in adulthood. In the Nordic countries, where overall child poverty rates are noticeably lower, it is also the case that a disproportionate fraction of low income children become low income adults. Generational cycles of low income may be common in the rich countries, but so are cycles of high income. Rich children tend to become rich adults. Four in ten children born to high income parents will grow up to be high income adults in the United States and the United Kingdom, and as many as one third will do so in Canada.
I'd advise consulting the empirical research on this matter before making unqualified assertions that are merely regurgitations of standard rightist drivel.
In your socialist pipedream...
There's no "pipedream" to speak of. There's reality, which you ignore because of its inconvenient nature to your primitive absurdities. Remember Murray Bookchin?
In Spain, millions of people took large segments of the economy into their own hands, collectivised them, administered them, even abolished money and lived by communistic principles of work and distribution -- all of this in the midst of a terrible civil war, yet without producing the chaos or even the serious dislocations that were and still are predicted by authoritarian 'radicals.' Indeed, in many collectivized areas, the efficiency with which an enterprise worked by far exceeded that of a comparable one in nationalized or private sectors. This 'green shoot' of revolutionary reality has more meaning for us than the most persuasive theoretical arguments to the contrary. On this score it is not the anarchists who are the 'unrealistic day-dreamers,' but their opponents who have turned their backs to the facts or have shamelessly concealed them.
This is the reality. If you presented a vast array of sound and powerful theoretical arguments against anarchism (and judging by your posts, that'll never happen), that would remain irrelevant nonetheless because empirical reality stands in stark conflict with your assertions.
[T]he individual is a slave to the masses and a victim tot he tyranny of the majority. Protections for the individual worker in the form of working standards, safety standards, limited work hours, and job security cannot be guaranteed, as there exists no authority to enforce any such things or to be challanged should conditions be unsatisfactory.
Wrong again. Individual liberty is at the heart of even the most communistic form of libertarianism. To that end, anarchism cannot be based on anything other than voluntary association, and direct, participatory democracy is based on an element of individual contributions being critical (because of its decentralized nature) to an extent that representative democracy could never muster. The "authority" to speak of is the voluntary associations of syndicates and wider collectives, which exist to prevent more severe hierarchical impositions. It's still absolutely mind-boggling how you're simultaneously shockingly ignorant of anarchist political theory yet absurdly arrogant to an unprecedented level. In fact, you're probably one of the worst cases that I've had the misfortune to encounter.
Your picture might be cute, but it overlooks the reality that the business managers have their own obligations and responsibilities. Maintaining the fiscal records, contacting suppliers and customers, and tending to other administrative that must be taken care of keeps the operation runnning so that all can remain employed.
You've run into the is/ought problem here, and have also inaccurately conflated the financial and coordinator classes. For example, it is indeed the case that the financial class *is* currently the source of capital for enterprises, but this
need not be the case and does not mean that they *ought* to be that source. It's simply a wasteful inefficiency to have a single elite class responsible for doing nothing but hoarding and supplying capital unchecked by democratic control, not to mention immoral, since capital accumulation is based on the theft of surplus labor. And it *is* the case that the coordinator class is responsible for the day-to-day management of firms, but this need not be the case and does not mean that they *ought* to be in charge. Their ranks can be eliminated or likely minimized, since the empirical literature indicates the superior efficiency of both workers' ownership and management.
Take, for example, an automotive plant. The worker who makes the seat cannot be reasonably expected to also weld the vehicle together, drive the trucks, act as a liason between engineers and construction crew, ensure that the bills get paid, and supervise the whole operation. As one reacher the 'higher' tiers of administration, duties oft get more complex. As a result, one is generally paid more.
I never claimed that labor specialization should be eliminated. This comment is thus absolutely pointless irrelevance. Are you sure you're reading my post, or more importantly,
comprehending my post? I somehow doubt it.
Also, you forget another important aspect. If i own the building and the tools and I made the initial investment to start the company, I'm going to expect my cut. This is the motivation for entrepreneurship, investment, and innovation. No great nation have ever existed and achieved any technological advancement that did not allow individuals to benefit from their innovations, labors, and investments.
I didn't "forget" anything; you're merely making my point for me. Capitalism is currently dependent on the maintenance of a sufficiently high rate of equilibrium unemployment to ensure accordingly sufficient effort extraction, which constitutes negative coercive influence. Now, in a market socialist economy, for example, ownership is distributed relatively equitably (not necessarily completely equally) among workers, thus ensuring that all have an interest in the profit of the firm. This unification of ownership and management eliminates agency dilemmas (perhaps more commonly known as principal-agent problems). Capitalism relies on the utilization of profit sharing, efficiency wages, and other broad but ineffective appeasements to partially address agency dilemmas, but this is not sufficient, since the divorce of ownership and control will inevitably cause a divergence in interests between the principal and the agent.
They have that right and the means to exercise it. It's called unionizing, and it is possible because of market regulations and legislation that recognizes that right.
Unionization is not sufficient to implement principal-agent problems, nor other agency costs and problems.
A true 'free market' with o such government influence would deny them that right and leave the individual and his coworkers victims to the whims of the masses. This Tyranny of the Majority is the same reasonthat Democracy was rejected.
Your continuous reference to "tyranny of the majority" even after your claims have been rebutted with no response from you is growing rather tiresome. As I have repetitively explained, libertarian socialism is based on individual liberty and voluntary association, as well as attempts to reach consensus even if they're ultimately abandoned as futile. The decentralized nature of libertarian socialism ensures legitimate participatory input on the grassroots level where representative republicanism will not.
It's called entrepreneurship, or ning your own damn boss and rewarding those with the drive to invest their time and money into their own business. It's at the heart capitalism.
I've already explained precisely why capitalism undermines dynamic efficiency through appeasements to static efficiency, or vice-versa. Try addressing those realities first, before regurgitating standard talking points with no economic sophistication.
One more moronic argument and IO'm not even wasting te time to finish your foolish propoganda.
Far be it from me to call your asinine idiocy an "argument," but it would easily be the most moronic element to plague this thread were KK not present.
Again, unions and entrepreneurship. You are advocating nothing more than class warfare and the theft of the wealth from the successful at the hands of people like you who don't want to work and are too lazy to create their own wealth. You're trying to be the next Mao, but you fail to understand that this is not China and the conditions are not the same.
Your claims are becoming progressively more imbecilic as we continue. This retarded bullshit that you've just posted isn't even an argument; it's just a stupid fucking lie that you've lifted from the Heritage Foundation's website. Try not to be an idiot, unless you're a *gasp* greedy capitalist pig who wants to steal from and rob the workers like the scum that you are. Yeah.
That's the equivalent of the idiocy that you just posted. Don't do it again.
Not really. The upper social classes were preexisting and played a massive role in government- inf act, the elites pretty much made the government while the poor were the footsoldiers, as is usually the case.
This is incoherent and is not a rebuttal of my comment. The state has undoubtedly protected capitalism and the indulgences of the upper classes; I believe that's what I said, however. Thanks for the parrot impression; I'm glad you're learning.
All social systems that emerge from within any given population are inherently elitist. Yours is no different.
This comment is drivel, and merely constitutes the repetition of an inane platitude without acknowledgment of the empirical realities of the Spanish Revolution that I've posted, for example. This is of course because you live in a little fantasy world where evidence that you do not like is merely ignored or dismissed.
In other words, take their stuff and give it over to a clusterfuck and the ineffectiveness of Democracy.
As I said, capital accumulation is itself based on theft of surplus labor, and capital is largely inherited anyway, and the private ownership of the means of production is an inheritance of an openly coercive phase of primitive accumulation of capital. Your comment about the "ineffectiveness" of democracy is also drivel, and merely flies in the face of empirical reality.
and now, I tire of posting such meaningless drivel and propaganda.
That would be far more welcome.
Too pithy and easily understood to con the gullible into accepting authoritarian central planning.
No one's mentioned authoritarian central planning; your mention if it is merely an indication of your deep and moronic ignorance of political economy. If you've ever done anything here except regurgitate crude and primitive rightist talking points and other imbecility, I have yet to see it.
Wall of copy/paste text itself shows you don't know how to debate ... the fact that you had to use a "cute cartoon" as well.
Lack of reply itself shows you don't know how to debate...the fact that you didn't even pretend to offer a sufficient reply shows just how ridiculously out of your league are. As they say...
Maybe you'll do better next time.
This isn't a talking point, it's just rambling. Thought you could do better, but you never cease to disappoint me.
Actually, it's a comprehensive and detailed reply that you merely lacked the ability to reply to, and therefore thought you'd pretend that it was "beneath" you. In reality, it was miles above you.
This had absolutely no relevance to any component of my post, the reason being that you were incapable of understanding the concepts presented therein and instead chose to babble about a typical rightist talking point. If you were actually familiar with the nature of capitalism, you'd realize that regulation and state intervention are necessary conditions to maintain capitalist economic structure. For example, consider Yu's
A new perspective on the role of the government in economic development: Coordination under uncertainty. As noted by the abstract:
This paper argues that the government possesses certain unique features that allow it to restrict competition, and provide stable and reliable conditions under which firms organise, compete, cooperate and exchange. The coordinating perspective is employed to re-examine the arguments for industrial policies regarding private investment decisions, market competition, diffusion of technologies and tariff protection on infant industries. This paper concludes that dynamic private enterprises assisted by government coordination policies explains the rapid economic growths in post-war Japan and the Asian newly industrialising economies.
Later elaboration is provided by this, for instance:
[The government] possesses some unique features that distinguish it from the firm. Such features allows the government to regulate competition, reduce uncertainty and provide a relatively stable exchange environment. Specifically, in the area of industrial policy, the government can help private enterprises tackle uncertainty in the following ways: first, locating the focal point by initiating projects; providing assurance and guarantees to the large investment project; and facilitating the exchange of information; second, reducing excessive competition by granting exclusive rights; and third, facilitating learning and diffusion of technologies, and assisting infant industry firms to build up competence. The history of developmental success indicates that the market and the state are not opposed forms of social organisation, but interactively linked (Rodrik, 1997, p. 437). In the prospering and dynamic nations, public-private coordination tends to prevail. Dynamic private enterprises assisted by government coordination explain the successful economic performances in the post-war Japan and the Asian newly industrialising economies. It is their governments' consistent and coordinated attentiveness to the economic problems that differentiates the entrepreneurial states (Yu, 1997) from the predatory states (Boaz and Polak, 1997).
Of course, the majority of rightists (and you're among them) are genuinely uninterested in empirical analysis; they'll occasionally cherrypick articles and studies supportive of their preconceived ideological conclusions and thus act out their confirmation bias, but will rarely engage in sustained and thorough analysis of these issues.
That's the thing w/ Agana's propaganda. He tries to hard and has to track down obscure theorists and writers- only to have the simplest concepts directly contradict and refute his pipedream fantasies. Sometimes, simpler is better
I've not mentioned anything "obscure." If I'd elaborated on the role of Lagrangian multipliers in shadow pricing, I'd be guilty of the charge. But the realities of extraction of surplus labor, market/wealth concentration, etc., are extremely basic concepts. You've also not refuted anything, because you lack any familiarity with empirical research that would bolster your false assertions. You simply pick and choose what is convenient for you to pretend to refute and what is not, which is why you've utterly ignored every mention I've made of the Spanish Revolution.
