Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

[Mr. Peepers]

What economic system is better?

The answer is 'none' and in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for the already wealthy

Fixed. By the way, I have read all of his books and essays. And...How do you know he's rich? He doesn't write to make money. He writes because he has something important and informative to say. And I, for one, think he's right most of the time.

 

[Oldandtired]

What economic system is better?

The answer is 'none' and in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for the already wealthy

Fixed. By the way, I have read all of his books and essays. And...How do you know he's rich? He doesn't write to make money. He writes because he has something important and informative to say. And I, for one, think he's right most of the time.

As someone who has read all his books, you have a right to say that.

I have not, so I do not have my own opinion regarding his writings.....yet.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

you dont even know what you are.

A male homo sapien sapien. A positivist, a pseudofederalist, a Marxo-Austrian social Democrat with classical liberal leanings, a republicanin the truest sense of the word, an agnostic atheist, an abolitionist...

Unlike you and PC, I think for myself. There is no snazzy buzzword you can use to sum up my ideology.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

His claim that '10 years of capitalist reform' put the russians into the third world is so stupid you have to laugh, massive corruption due to the collapse of Russian state security police is what caused that, not 'capitalist reforms.'

Um... Sorry, but you're the "idiot" here. Ideology doesn't make something untrue, no matter how much you disagree. This is EXACTLY what drove Russia into the 3rd world. Massive corruption of OLIGARCHS who now control all of the money and power. It is a legitimized mafia born directly from those capitalist reforms. You don't read much, do you?

 

[Oldandtired]

you dont even know what you are.

A male homo sapien sapien. A positivist, a pseudofederalist, a Marxo-Austrian social Democrat with classical liberal leanings, a republicanin the truest sense of the word, an agnostic atheist, an abolitionist...

Unlike you and PC, I think for myself. There is no snazzy buzzword you can use to sum up my ideology.

You see it that I do not think for myself. Such is your perogative.

I see it that I have used my intelligence and ability to reason to adapt to my society the best I can so I can enjoy life to the fullest; acheive great success; and not compromise my values and core beliefs.

Seems to me we both are doing just fine.

 

[uscitizen]

This is your second less than civil use of 'idiot,' forcing me to return the favor: Liberal!

Definitions of liberal on the Web:

• broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant ...
• having political or social views favoring reform and progress
• tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
• a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
• a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
• One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty
• liberalness - liberality: an inclination to favor progress and individual freedom
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

How revealing that you consider these to be horrible things and that you accuse someone of believing in liberty as an insult.

So one that believes that the government can bail them out when they need it to is one that favors individual freedom.
--- Banks?
One that believes the government should protect them from making poor decisions is one that favors individeual freedom
---- again banks?
I may be wrong....but I see that as being dependant...not INdependant.

 

[Wry Catcher]

You want an education regarding economics, PC? Read Engels, Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas, E. Woods, Garrison, Jevons, your choice of material from this list, and that dimwit Keyens. Hell, ifyou really wantsome laughs, read that retard Ricardo or whatever his nam,e was.

It will easily become apparent who knew what they were talking about (mostly the Austrians, although Marx, Engels, and others provide valid warnings about why the capitalist beast must always be muzzled.)

America has succeeded not because of unabashed capitalism, but because the capitalist beast ias kept muzzled and upon a short leash. Left alone, this beast enslaves, oppresses, and exploits the common man to line the pockets of the capitalist and the politician. Neocolonialism and its sister Globalism are the natural spawn of capitalism left to its own devices. To achieve a prosperous and egalitarian civilization, the market must be watched closely, the capitalist must be ever under the threat of having his head removed, the records of the bankers must be forcefully put into the open for all to review, the State and the Union must stand beside the labourer in order to ensure his safety. Those who use cadmium and lead in their products must be forcefully imprisoned or denied any right at all to to enter the market.

Only then can any but the bourgeoisie be safe, secure, and prosperous in what necessarily must become pseudo-capitalist society.

Nicely written.

I kinda' liked reading that.

But glaring errors in concept.

"...exploits the common man to line the pockets of the capitalist..."

One would have to work long and hard to be even more incorrect.

You see, we, the people of America, are the capitalists of which you speak. 97% of millionaires earned their money. Pension systems are invested in the stock market.

"Marxism rested on the assumption that the condition of the working classes would grow ever worse under capitalism, that there would be but two classes: one small and rich, the other vast and increasingly impoverished, and revolution would be the anodyne that would result in the “common good.” But by the early 20th century, it was clear that this assumption was completely wrong! Under capitalism, the standard of living of all was improving: prices falling, incomes rising, health and sanitation improving, lengthening of life spans, diets becoming more varied, the new jobs created in industry paid more than most could make in agriculture, housing improved, and middle class industrialists and business owners displaced nobility and gentry as heroes.

These economic advances continued throughout the period of the rise of socialist ideology. The poor didn’t get poorer because the rich were getting richer (a familiar socialist refrain even today) as the socialists had predicted. Instead, the underlying reality was that capitalism had created the first societies in history in which living standards were rising in all sectors of society.

Most intellectuals today are aware of what communism, socialism, totalitarianism, or any central command-and-control doctrine has done in Russia, under Mao’s reign of terror, or Cuba or other grotesque examples. Yet great numbers of them will use every excuse to avoid attributing the problems to their economic systems. Even a superficial comparison of North and South Korea, East and West Germany before the Berlin Wall fell, Hong Kong and Mainland China before reforms, or Cuba and other countries in Latin America, demonstrate that free economies are superior at promoting the common good. And yet the mystification continues. Socialist true believers have the power to cloud their own minds.

Older socialists dreamed of a world in which all classes would share in the fruits of the world. Yet when a permutation of this emerges, it is resented if it represents capitalism. An institution beyond the imaginings of socialists of old: Wal-Mart. Within Wal-Mart we see a cornucopia of goods designed to improve human well-being, at prices that make them affordable for all. Millions of jobs are created, and prosperity is spread throughout areas where it was sorely needed. An entity owned by share-holders, people of mostly moderate incomes who have invested their savings, worker-capitalists."


https://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2007&month=05

Sophism, is a plausible argument that is actually fallacious, especially when someone dishonestly presents it as if it were legitimate reasoning.
Presocratic philosophers offered to teach young Athenians how to use logic and rhetoric to defeat opponents in any controversy. Socrates and Plato sharply criticized most of the sophists because they accepted monetary rewards for encouraging unprincipled persuasive methods.
I'm not suggesting anyone is paying Ms. PC. If the rest fits, you must convict.

 

[Oldandtired]

Definitions of liberal on the Web:

• broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant ...
• having political or social views favoring reform and progress
• tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
• a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
• a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
• One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty
• liberalness - liberality: an inclination to favor progress and individual freedom
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

How revealing that you consider these to be horrible things and that you accuse someone of believing in liberty as an insult.

So one that believes that the government can bail them out when they need it to is one that favors individual freedom.
--- Banks?
One that believes the government should protect them from making poor decisions is one that favors individeual freedom
---- again banks?
I may be wrong....but I see that as being dependant...not INdependant.

Those banks made poor decisions and they should have been allowed to go under.
If we, the people, suffered when they failed, we would have bounced back.

Such was not the time to show people how easy it is to make bad decisions and not suffer the consequences of such bad decisions.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

Yeah, Russia's doing GREAT!!! Well, those who grabbed all the "public" works for themselves.

No thanks.

FRONTLINE/WORLD . Moscow - Rich in Russia . The Story | PBS

 

[ihopehefails]

You attacked his character as a means of discrediting or invalidating what he said. That is an ad hominum attack. Had you not had such an intention, there would have been no reason for your comments.

Here is one for you. Lets say he did live his life by the communist code and still preached it. Does that mean I have to agree with him about how I want to live my life? Does this mean that he has a right to demand everyone to live their life the way he thinks we should? Don't give me this crap that free-enterprise is a created thing of the government because, the last time I checked, my actions are not created by the government but can only be hindered by the government. This means that free-enterprise is just people doing what they want with their lives. Its like any other freedom that I have and you are not removing that from me.

 

[ihopehefails]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

How do you have labor movements if their is not business movements first? I'm wondering how do you create a movement about labor if the thing that makes it possible for a laborer to exist is nowhere to be found or how do you have an employee without an employer?

 

[ihopehefails]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

Tell that to the lower income classes in the USA as well. The rich have been getting richer at a far greater pace than the lower classes have.

If you are not doing well then that is your problem.

 

[ihopehefails]

You want an education regarding economics, PC? Read Engels, Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas, E. Woods, Garrison, Jevons, your choice of material from this list, and that dimwit Keyens. Hell, ifyou really wantsome laughs, read that retard Ricardo or whatever his nam,e was.

It will easily become apparent who knew what they were talking about (mostly the Austrians, although Marx, Engels, and others provide valid warnings about why the capitalist beast must always be muzzled.)

America has succeeded not because of unabashed capitalism, but because the capitalist beast ias kept muzzled and upon a short leash. Left alone, this beast enslaves, oppresses, and exploits the common man to line the pockets of the capitalist and the politician. Neocolonialism and its sister Globalism are the natural spawn of capitalism left to its own devices. To achieve a prosperous and egalitarian civilization, the market must be watched closely, the capitalist must be ever under the threat of having his head removed, the records of the bankers must be forcefully put into the open for all to review, the State and the Union must stand beside the labourer in order to ensure his safety. Those who use cadmium and lead in their products must be forcefully imprisoned or denied any right at all to to enter the market.

Only then can any but the bourgeoisie be safe, secure, and prosperous in what necessarily must become pseudo-capitalist society.

Actually if you want to read about the fathers of 20th century totalitarianism then you should read about those authors. You will always find one of their ideas in My Kamp or the writings of Lenin, Stallin, or Mussilini. You will even find their ideas in people like FDR, TR, and many other progressives.

 

[Oddball]

And? He would have then laughed at the capitalist Utopia idiots like you believe in.

This is your second less than civil use of 'idiot,' forcing me to return the favor: Liberal!

Definitions of liberal on the Web:

• broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant ...
• having political or social views favoring reform and progress
• tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
• a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
• a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
• One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty
• liberalness - liberality: an inclination to favor progress and individual freedom
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

How revealing that you consider these to be horrible things and that you accuse someone of believing in liberty as an insult.

Strange that someone who admonished someone else for their ad homs should go for such a crude attempt at appeal to authority.

As if you didn't already know (which I doubt) the Eugene Debs socialist wing of the Democrat Party stole the term "liberal" (which heretofore meant libertarian), in order to obfuscate their Fabian incrementalist agenda.

In that context, the term "liberal" in the modern parlance is on a par with "socialist", and socialist/liberal hack apologists like you know it.

 

[ihopehefails]

This is your second less than civil use of 'idiot,' forcing me to return the favor: Liberal!

Definitions of liberal on the Web:

• broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant ...
• having political or social views favoring reform and progress
• tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
• a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
• a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets
• One with liberal views, supporting individual liberty
• liberalness - liberality: an inclination to favor progress and individual freedom
  wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

How revealing that you consider these to be horrible things and that you accuse someone of believing in liberty as an insult.

Strange that someone who admonished someone else for their ad homs should go for such a crude attempt at appeal to authority.

As if you didn't already know (which I doubt) the Eugene Debs socialist wing of the Democrat Party stole the term "liberal" (which heretofore meant libertarian), in order to obfuscate their Fabian incrementalist agenda.

In that context, the term "liberal" in the modern parlance is on a par with "socialist", and socialist/liberal hack apologists like you know it.

I agree with what you said about liberals not being liberals which is why I am reluctant to call them that anymore.

The thing that gets me is that they define a conservative as someone who opposes change but most conservatives do change. They change in their own life as THEY WISH TO not as the political forces commands them to. At that point, it becomes a choice of the individual over their own lives to either go forward or go backward and that choice to change the way you want to is what most socialist hate.

 

[Oddball]

you dont even know what you are.

A male homo sapien sapien. A positivist, a pseudofederalist, a Marxo-Austrian social Democrat with classical liberal leanings, a republicanin the truest sense of the word, an agnostic atheist, an abolitionist...

Unlike you and PC, I think for myself. There is no snazzy buzzword you can use to sum up my ideology.

Just say "JBeukema".

It's not like everyone here hasn't already figured it out.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

So one that believes that the government can bail them out when they need it to is one that favors individual freedom.
--- Banks?
One that believes the government should protect them from making poor decisions is one that favors individeual freedom
---- again banks?
I may be wrong....but I see that as being dependant...not INdependant.

Those banks made poor decisions and they should have been allowed to go under.
If we, the people, suffered when they failed, we would have bounced back.

Such was not the time to show people how easy it is to make bad decisions and not suffer the consequences of such bad decisions.

Who in this thread ever expressed support for the bailouts?

Responding to something someone never said is a strawman- a logical fallacy characteristic of dishonest individuals.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

You attacked his character as a means of discrediting or invalidating what he said. That is an ad hominum attack. Had you not had such an intention, there would have been no reason for your comments.

Here is one for you. Lets say he did live his life by the communist code and still preached it.

WTF is the 'communist code'? Have you been watching Cold War era episodes of loony toons again?

The subject of this thread is capitalism and whether it truly improves the lives of all the masses without being muzzled and restrained by socially responsible egalitarian principles and policies. Do try to stay on topic. Nobody here has said the CCCP was something to be praised or imitated.

Does that mean I have to agree with him about how I want to live my life? Does this mean that he has a right to demand everyone to live their life the way he thinks we should?

A question that can also be asked regarding the bourgeois liberals and the neochriostian American Conservatives like PC. Of course, you're ultimately arguing in favour of anarchy and lawlessness, but I doubt you're smart enough to even realize it.

Don't give me this crap that free-enterprise is a created thing of the government because, the last time I checked, my actions are not created by the government but can only be hindered by the government

By limiting the actions of others, the State can protect your liberty and ability to act. That is the foundation of all just law: the restriction of liberty to protect liberty and rights. Prime examples include laws against homicide and laws requiring transparency in the market.

Now, please try to get back on topic.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

in fact, capitalism makes for a better life for everyone.

Tell that to India, Viet Nam, the child labourers in China, the child labourers in America before the labour movement gained power, or a mother whose child is now dead from cadmium poisoning because some capitalist wanted a bigger profit margin.

How do you have labor movements if their is not business movements first? I'm wondering how do you create a movement about labor if the thing that makes it possible for a laborer to exist is nowhere to be found or how do you have an employee without an employer?

Men have always laboured. The labour movement grew out of the awakening of the proletariat and the realization that they had been alienated. The proletariat was born of the peasantry, the smiths and men of trade, and other elements of the lower classes with the industrial revolution.

I suggest the writings of Engels for a very simple and easily comprehended explanation of this process. Though I prefer the writings of Marx, Engels is generally considered to be more readily grasped by the uneducated and dimwitted, and should prove more easily digested by yourself.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

You want an education regarding economics, PC? Read Engels, Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Thomas, E. Woods, Garrison, Jevons, your choice of material from this list, and that dimwit Keyens. Hell, ifyou really wantsome laughs, read that retard Ricardo or whatever his nam,e was.

It will easily become apparent who knew what they were talking about (mostly the Austrians, although Marx, Engels, and others provide valid warnings about why the capitalist beast must always be muzzled.)

America has succeeded not because of unabashed capitalism, but because the capitalist beast ias kept muzzled and upon a short leash. Left alone, this beast enslaves, oppresses, and exploits the common man to line the pockets of the capitalist and the politician. Neocolonialism and its sister Globalism are the natural spawn of capitalism left to its own devices. To achieve a prosperous and egalitarian civilization, the market must be watched closely, the capitalist must be ever under the threat of having his head removed, the records of the bankers must be forcefully put into the open for all to review, the State and the Union must stand beside the labourer in order to ensure his safety. Those who use cadmium and lead in their products must be forcefully imprisoned or denied any right at all to to enter the market.

Only then can any but the bourgeoisie be safe, secure, and prosperous in what necessarily must become pseudo-capitalist society.

Actually if you want to read about the fathers of 20th century totalitarianism then you should read about those authors. You will always find one of their ideas in My Kamp or the writings of Lenin, Stallin, or Mussilini. You will even find their ideas in people like FDR, TR, and many other progressives.

Progressives like FDR can trace their ideology back to the Second and Third International. Their principles of egalitarianism and their attacks against the bourgeoisie in an attempt to produce more opportunity for the proletariat- the 'working' or 'middle class' in American lexicon- are the progeny of the early labour movements, specifically of the revisionist vein which became progressivism and social democracy following the dissolution of the International. These ideologies developed in opposition to more radical revolutionary and Utopic veins such as those which influenced Lenin's early rhetoric.