EdwardBaiamonte
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we can all post links,dear. Why not tell us why you believe something so idiotic?
Why Capitalism is Doomed
- Thread starter Dragon
- Start date
we can all post links,dear. Why not tell us why you believe something so idiotic?
CrusaderFrank
Diamond Member
- May 20, 2009
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Did it make a lick of sense to you?
EdwardBaiamonte
Platinum Member
- Nov 23, 2011
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as a liberal he has the IQ to post a link but not to defend it
itfitzme
Silver Member
As systems go, along the scale of similarities, it is "free market", "free market unions", "government union positions", "military employment", and "socialism". And I am sure, if we got a hold of someone that lived in the USSR, like my buddy Lenny, he would describe a system that is far less like what we imagine. It might even push "socialism", in it's practical details, over to the other side of the scale of the military.
As an organization, the military is structured more similar to a socialist organization then it is like a free market job. Line up the details, and that's the way they line up.
Yes, unions have a promotion system that includes seniority. Yes, they pay extra money for certain hard to fill skills and have automatic pay increases. It's called COLA and it uses the exact same formula as the military, the civil service jobs, and SSI.
The fact that the military has automatic pay increases on seniority makes it so much more union and socialist then a private industry union or private industry job. The more rules, the closer to socialist. The more planning, the closer to socialist. The more the money comes from general social funds, the more socialist.
Oh, yeah, military have planned housing, managed pricing (PX, really great prices though it is a bit more free market the strict socialist structure.) Oh, of base living allowances. Come on, you know the rules and percs. Just because the US military enjoys better level of wealth that affords its employed better percs then what we understand of USSR socialist companies, doesn't mean it is any less socialist, it just means that the free market is supporting it better through taxes. The US military doesn't grow it's own food. And if it did, it would be even more socialist.
And unions have pay increase schedules depending on time serve. The government, workers and military, are structured as a union is structured. Jobs are classified according to function, pay, and experience. All manner of rules are applied. You can get fired for insubordination or incompetence and, like the military, it is reviewed. Absolutely. And like the military you get representation.
At least in a private industry union job, that promotion is a competition between workers and is dependent on some level of individual achievement, not just because.
What does "stepping on bomb" or "getting shot when they go to work" have to do with it? Firefighters risk their life. Peace officers get shot at.
You obviously know nothing about unions.
And I can assure you I know plenty about private industry, unions, military and civil service jobs. I have even talked with someone from the USSR.
"A socialist organization does not advertise for volunteers, they force people to do what they're told". Like the military never has had a draft. Nor is it a necessary requirement for an organization to have a socialist structure.
"At worst the US military asks you to find other employment," or demotes you, or even sends you to Levinworth. And, it's not even for just breaking public law, it is for breaking military law which has far stricter requirement. But, at least they are published, unlike private industry where there are no written rules.
"They don't let people leave of their own volition, nor do they allow members opportunities to change jobs or bitch about inequities." Yeah, dude, like the military where you are in it for a contracted period of time. You cannot leave of your own volition, whenever you want to. In private industry, you can wake up one day and just never show up again. Do that in the military and you are AWOL. And, while there are contract employment positions in private industry, the police won't be knocking at your door if you don't show up. Even if you get sued on court, let them try and collect.
Oh, and, in private industry, you can walk in one day and find out that you don't have a job, just because one of the manager's just doesn't like your face. There is no requirement for stated reason, for review, for anything.
And, while you may leave a union at your own will (jobs are "at will" in private industry) you cannot leave your job in the military "at will". At the least, you need to wait out the term of your contract. And if you don't... hell to pay. Gee, just like "socialism" as we understand it.
Captalism and the free market has only a handful of rules, many of them that are only loosely enforced. The military has a code of rules that are strictly enforced. Lets see, which is more like a socialist organization?
In all measures, the military is most like a socialist organization then it is like a free market. And it is exactly like a union position. Unions and the military pattern each other, with government workers unions being in the middle between free market unions and the military.
And no matter how you cut it, the military is paid by taxes. It is a social organization that serves a social purpose. While it has come to utilize much more free market processes, like outsourcing, it still maintains the necessary elements of structure that it needs, necessary elements that Socialism tried to force on an entire coutry, which doesn't work very well.
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There are two types of people in this world, those that see the world as divided up into two types of people, and those that don't.
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American Horse
AKA "Mustang"
The military is a meritocracy; nuff said.
itfitzme
Silver Member
Nice word.
"Meritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration (such as business administration) wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education,[1] determined through evaluations or examinations. The "most common definition of meritocracy conceptualizes merit in terms of tested competency and ability, and most likely as measured by IQ or standardized achievement tests."[2]
Meritocracy itself is not a form of government, but rather an ideology. Government positions in a meritocracy would be given to individuals based upon possession of certain merits which could range from intelligence to morality to general aptitude to specific knowledge." - Meritocracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first meritocracy was implemented in the 2nd century BC, by the Han Dynasty, which introduced the world's first civil service exams evaluating the "merit" of officials.
That is tremendously general and applies to any social structure that applies any method by which responsibilities are based upon merit. The private free market is a meritocracy where merit is based on work history and education.
It also is not mutually exclusive of every other nature of categorization. It is not mutually exclusive to a socialist organization, not mutually exclusive to corporatism, not mutually exclusive to any form of government.
But, as it seems that advancement and pay raises in the military are automatics every two years, it kind of kills it as a meritocracy.
Nor, in practice, are such abstract categorizations ever pure in nature.
More said.
American Horse
AKA "Mustang"
Not so about pay raises in the military. I made corporal E-4 in 3 years (served 4) and many men in my platoon got out in four years as Lance Corporals and PFC's. I was offered meritorious promotion to Sergeant E-5 at the end of my first tour for outstanding performance to coincide with re-enlistment and chose discharge. Same disparity of rank exists in the officer ranks.
Men who don't make rank in the military are being told they are not wanted for re-enlistment.
Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
Pay raises are automatic every two years, and the first 3 promotions are time based. If you don't screw up you get promoted after so much time in a pay grade for those first 3 ranks. After that promotions are earned through a complicated system of points for your evaluations, promotion test scores, decorations, time served, and other factors. It ain't that easy, most years the number of promotions is fairly small, especially as you get up into the higher pay grades. No favoritism, no cronyism, you make it on your own merits.
I'm not seeing any correlation to a socialistic organization here, for the most part if you do a good job you get rewarded. If you don't you get the boot. True, that ain't always the case, but for the vast majority it's a meritocracy.
itfitzme
Silver Member
That makes more sense. I was going on what the other poster said. Though,it wasn't clear if any particular statement applied to the military, unions in general, or our rather simplistic view of the now defunct socialist USSR.
I admit, I was left to infer he was speaking of the military, being his primary experience as I know of few unions that promote based on simple years of service. They will get pay increases with years of service. But so does private industry, it's called experience. But if you suck, you suck. And either you are happy with being given the s#!t work and buck up or you eventually quit.
All the rules do is to put some constraints on things so that preferential treatment is not given as promoting someone with less seniority over someone with more years better be reasonably justified. Nobody likes favoritism, except two of the people directly involved. And your not going to get an automatic promotion on simple years served if you suck. Government unions, private industry unions, and military, people are still people.
The only issue that seems to be of recent general concern, in my personal experience, was tenure with teachers, that even a lot of teachers have issue with. And the one particular instance that I am aware of had to do with a university instructor that didn't actually teach the subject, rather just talked about his research. Apparently, to prepare for the exams, you had to know that there was another workshop held by the his senior students.
I am sure that, generally, we hear about the worse instances. And they do not represent the norm. But they stand out in peoples minds and are presented as if they are. Social systems are not always perfect. But they have been implemented because they solved a problem. A decade later, we don't know, we simply don't have the experience to know that, without them, it would be worse.
It's not a good idea to throw out the baby with the bath water, as they say. I suppose that makes me "conservative".
A more interesting thing is that, where ever we a market that has high market leverage, that is good profits on demand for a needed product, we find union like structure. Petroleum, dock workers, health care, automobiles, even food services. The strength of the union seems to be correlated with the amount of money in the market.
Government workers unions and the military is an interesting one. The pricing model is different then the free market, being taxes that are required to be paid, rather then on free market demand. Government has made some head way on outsourcing to the competitive market. But lets face it, there isn't a lot of skill in garbage collection.
I still can't figure out banking though. Tellers are the "odd man out". It may have to do with the fact that they are physically to spread out, with only a few tellers per bank location, rather than them all being located in the same building.
You would think then,that the same thing would apply to nurses and teachers, but there are more of them per campus then tellers and the job itself commands workers that are more "cooperative".
It's a curious phenomena, the factors that go into the formation of union like social structures. And surely, if we could line them all up side by side, like taking all the colors of skin, we wouldn't be able to determine a fine line to divide them into clear groups. People, and the institutions that we devise, are "infinitely" complicated, when we get down to the details.
We are human beings and we like merit. I cannot think of a modern institution where advancement isn't based on some form of merits.
Can you?
itfitzme
Silver Member
Let me clarify. It's the well defined rule based handling of workers, worker rights and restrictions, that makes the military more union like than the pure free market. It is the central planning of resource distribution that makes it structurally like the socialist economic structure.
And, where the pricing for the free market is strictly based on supply and demand, the pricing model for the military, like any government organization, is based on taxes and whatever they do to determine those. It is not subject to the day to day forces of the free market.
The military is, an economy unto itself. What percentage of the GDP is it's budget? Defense spending was .9 trillion in 2012 or 24% of federal spending. GDP was about 14 trillion. And the military budget is 5.8% (exactly) of that size. 5.8% is a huge part of the of the economy.
The free market, in 2000, consisted of 7.7 million businesses averaging something like 16.1 workers per business. There were, on the order of 116 million workers. And while B of A has some quarter of a million employees, most businesses are small businesses with a few employees, including many where an individual has set up shop for themselves, and their business has only one employee.
In the free market, for most workers, you get a raise by getting a new job or making your business more profitable. There are no rules for pay increases, not even COLA. Any COLA is a result of the market directly.
Communism, (the supposed precursor to socialism) was basically just an extension of military structure to the full economy. Dumb idea. It's hard enough to plan a military with scarce resources, let alone a national economy.
You cannot run a military like the free market. It has to be run like a centrally planned system. There has been a lot of privatization of services by outsourcing. I do believe that has done a lot to mitigate costs.
Like you point out, "are time based. If you don't screw up you get promoted after so much time in a pay grade for those first 3 ranks. After that promotions are earned through a complicated system of points for your evaluations, promotion test scores, decorations, time served, and other factors."
Unions, like the military, has well established rules that deterimine those merits.
There is no "favoritism, no cronyism, you make it on your own merits" in the military is the same reason there is none in unions. Promotions have to be justified within the standardized rules.
And those right are negociated against a set of expections and restriction.
And how crappy or good the rights are isn't the point. It is how comprehensive the regs are.
How good the rights are has to do with how scarce the resources are. Markets with a lot of resources have unions that command more worker rights. Markets with scarce resources command not so generous right.
If you've worked in the free market, outside of unions, there are no rights, short of non-discrimination, etc. Even then, discrimination isn't easy to enforce. The bigger the company, the more they work towards no breaking the few laws.
In the free market, tomorrow, your job or company is gone, for no reason except you got beat in the market, as it crashed around you or your boss decided he just didn't like you. And crap, if your a consultant and you don't get paid? You can take it to court and win, but there is no guarantee of getting paid. Consultants, small businesses, do have losses to this regard.
If you want a raise, you go get another job. In 20020, employee turnover was 3.7 years. The average job stint in the free market was less then the basic four year contract of the military.
So, if we put things on a scale, from pure free market to the huge central planning of the USSR experiment, in terms of logistical planning of resources, it's more like the central planning of the USSR then like the free market. And it is more like government unions then like the free market. So just on a basic scale, it goes
Free market ------ Private Unions ------ Government Unions ------ Military ------ USSR Communism.
< ----- Low centrally planned logisics ----------------------------- High centrally planned logistics-->
< ----- Low individual worker rules ------------------------------- High worker rules ----(crap rights)->
But what else would we expect? If you've ever worked inside a huge free market company, it's to the right of the scale on a logistical planning basis. Where it sits on the union scale depends on the market.
And the military better be to the right of the scale, you cannot run a military as a free market enterprise (except perhaps MASH).
It simply has to be, it's just that big. That's how social systems work.
Free market, cluster f'k. Military, well if you ask a lot of people in the military......;-) On the cluster f'k scale, they all sit way on one side. Okay, the cluster f'k measure isn't working well.
But the logistical planning scale and the worker rules scale does work. Remember, in the free market, you get to change jobs and move just because you want to.
In the military, you don't decide to change jobs, change careers, change profession, go to school, whatever, just because you want to. You need to wait until your contract is up or get authorization. Though I am sure that there are plenty, lucky enough to get "stationed" near a major university, and are motivated enough to take advantage of that.
ThinkCritically
Open to opinion
What? What makes you think I'm a liberal? You need to lay off the yayo....I'm a classic liberal, which probably makes me more conservative than you.
Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
Nice post, I'd have to read it and study a little more before I could respond to it. It's true that you can't change jobs, change careers, or change professions without authorization; sometimes the military will offer you the opportunity to do so, and sometimes that opportunity is denied. You can request a change, which does require approval and authorization from somebody. The military does make an effort to reassign people for humanitarian reasons, so your kid can be closer to a hospital where he/she can get the treatment they need, stuff like that.
As far as education goes, every base that I know of has an education office, and they offer off duty education programs to get a degree for a fraction of the cost. Don't know if the deployed folks have that opportunity, usually they're pretty busy and don't have the time. I suspect the Navy guys can work on their degrees even while out at sea, either on-line or in some cases on board ship. Thise things are almost always rubber stamped, if you want to do it, the military is very accomodating, cuz they want their service members as well educated as possible. It's a powerful recruitment tool, don't cha know.
You compare the military to a socialist organization and use unions as an example; do you think that is accurate? I don't think union members in the US or those in the military are close to the same as workers in a socialist country.
But here's the deal with the military - for them the mission comes first, everything is subordinate to that. You work together as a team very well, cover each other's ass and nobody is left behind. Such is not the case in any socialist organization that I know of; in those situations nobody at all cares about whatever the mission is, it's all dog eat dog and CYA. No honor, no integrity, no sacrifice. Sure, the military has a lot of CYA too, but when the bullets start flyin' you can count on the other guys in your foxhole, and such is not the case for the socialists.
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itfitzme
Silver Member
The language has been terribly corrupted and I blame politicians and the so called "conservatives" for having done so.
This is why Baiamonte is so obvioulsy confused. He has no clue what the root meanings of "conservative" and "liberal" actually are. He has never even considered what they mean.
People in other countries, that watch our politics, laugh at how the term "liberal" has been completely corrupted.
I am conservative in my use of language. Most words have technical definitions. "Conservative" and "liberal" are no different. They do not describe a collection of desires, they describe a pattern of behavior.
For the like of Biaimonte, it has no more meaning then ten year olds using the work "gay". It simply mean "I don't like you." It has no refined, technical definition and is literally redefined as he adds in each new experience of "I don't like it." He would make more sense if he just called everything "gay".
"Conservative" no longer has any real meaning. The so called "conservatives" are not "conservative" in most considerations. Strictly speaking, "conservative" means "don't change shit, it's working fine the way it is, and if it isn't broken, don't fix it."
A specific example would be the gold standard. We haven't had a gold standard for like "forever". There was a reason it was left behind, in the dust of history and there is no solid evidence to demonstrate that changing the current system would be improved by implementing something that was abandoned because it sucked.
Technically, Biaimonte is liberal. He wants to change things, from what they are to something else. Change is liberal.
I, on the other hand, do not consider changing things unless I have considerable reason to do so and have exhausted all possible considerations of the effect. As well, I believe in modest changes, not radical changes. Leaving the gold standard was a radical change, going back to a gold standard would be a radical change.
Now that we have been off the gold standard, since forever, I see no reason to change it. The people that changed it did so for a good reason. Technically, I am very conservative.
The problem is that the wing nuts are not capable of grasping the concept of rate of change. Their entire thinking is based on a static reality.
Their misconception is based on thinking that what makes a conservative is based on the collection of desires that conservatives had in days gone by.
"Libertarian" is different. "Libertarian" is derived from "liberty". It represents a collection of behaviors, basically allowing for the liberty to act as one sees fit.
The wing nut, so called "conservative" thinking, is radical, everything is either-or, one end of the scale or the other end of the scale, black or white. There is no finesse of a continuous scale. There are no colors, nuances, or even gray. They are driven by fear and when driven by fear, human beings do act radically. They literally change the meaning of words, on a moments notice, to suit the feeling that they want with no primary consideration of objectivity.
"Oh, your argument is sound based on the term I used? Oh, no , I didn't mean that..."
The problem with wing nuts is compounded by the fact the foundation of economics is "at the margin". "At the margin" is a small incremental changes.
The wing nuts, like Biaimonte, are simply not capable of understanding the idea of incremental change or the idea of actually being conservative.
They call themselves "conservative". I call them wing-nuts.
The more I have learned, the more I have come to realize that I am definitely conservative in nature.
Unfortunately, the wing nuts have so corrupted the language, through their liberal behavior, that it no longer has the same meanings.
A classical Libertarian believe is freedom. Biaimonte believe is his "rules" and would have them implemented.
Curiously, I am a classical conservative, so I'm even more conservative they you are. Isn't it just down right funny?
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CrusaderFrank
Diamond Member
- May 20, 2009
- 153,046
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No matter how you try to conceal it, the crux of it always is the same: who makes the decisions? Who decides when you've made enough money or if you're happy? Is it you or is it Dragon's Happiness Utilization Command Center?
That's why it's always a Guaranteed Fail
That's why it's always a Guaranteed Fail
itfitzme
Silver Member
Yes, it is accurate and precise.
GENERAL
I am distinguishing between two characteristics, logistic planning and the modification of individual behavior such that individual wants are set aside for the benefit gained by working towards the group goal.
Perhaps recognizing these characteristics as one being an economic organizational structure and the other being a political organizational structure might help clarify things. Social and socialist organizations are designed to constrain individual behavior for the purpose of the groups needs. Economic structures are designed to reallocate scares resources.
Political social structures are obviously for the purpose of managing the economics of redistribution of scarce resources and for other purposes. If we consider labor and human life and well being as a scarce resource, then the political organization is simply for the purposes of managing the economic structure.
Perhaps it is similar to considering a Red Corvette is not a car because it is red and most cars are not red. A car is a car in how it functions, not in how it happens to look. Much of the look is the outcome of it's functionality. The size of the rims, whether it has a turbo charger, or every manner of detail isn't the point of a car. Formula one, cross-over, mini-van, SUVs, Jeep, they are all cars in what they do, in their functional structure, not the details of how they look. And just because a Formula One race car can't be taken off road, doesn't mean it is not a car.
A Formula One race car is still a Formula One race car, whether it comes in first or last. All the difference means is that one team did a better job of running it.
SOCIAL AND SOCIALIST
A union's mission is to see to the needs of it's members. The mission does include seeing to the needs of production. But that production is a subordinate part of the larger focus doesn't make it any less mission based then the military.
Unions don't act in a manner that kills the company. The needs of the members rely on that company. The UAW is a huge part of the automobile industry and market. It isn't separate from the market or the companies, it is a subset of the companies. It is simply another department, a human resources department.
That "union members in the US or those in the military are [not] close to the same as workers in a socialist country" is simply a matter of how the socialist structure is implemented, not the fact they it is primarily socialist in structure. Besides, the comparison to the the USSR is primarily the logistics.
Even then, while I do point out that we are to believe that the USSR socialist structure had crappy individual rights, that is secondary to the fact that a socialist organization has definable social rules and enforcement, what ever are the rules and enforcement.
The US military is just better at using positive reinforcement. And why not, we have more resources.
I don't know if you caught it, but when the bailout process was initiated, the three company heads were all sitting together before congress. And the real question was, how was it that these three were so clearly tied together. It was a week or so later that it because obvious when the head of the UAW appeared on the news. The common element was the UAW. There are four heads in that market, three CEOs and one union president (or whatever he is called).
Autoworkers have better incentives then any particular USSR company. And why not, the automotive industry has more resources.
The issue that the unions ran into as a result of the Great Recession is that when the markets were booming, benefits were put in place on the expectation that the economy was going to continue without a recession. When the recession hit, and their companies were headed for bankruptcy because of the contractual agreements, they had to go back and renegotiate based on the new information.
It isn't the details of what the needs are or the implementation of the behavior that focuses on the needs that is the definitive quality. Any two socialist organization could have entirely different specific goals and implementation. What matters is how tightly refined and constrained the individual behavior is in seeing to the group goals. If the military wasn't a highly socialist organization in implementation and practice, it would lose every battle. You cannot have people doing whatever seems the best thing at the time, unless it has been determined that this is the best process. In the heat of battle, being able to predict what your companions are going to do is absolutely required.
There is no predictability of behavior in the free market. Everything is a negotiation. There are conventions, but conventions are not guarantees.
A social, and more strictly, a socialist organization, puts the needs of the group above the needs of the individual while seeing to the needs of the individual in the focus of the needs of the group. The details of how that is accomplished and what the resources are is of secondary consequence. The degree to which is is social and socialist in nature is the degree to which those rules exist and are implemented. Even how they are enforces is of little consideration.
LOGISTICS
The logistical characteristic of the USSR is that of a planned economy where the determination of future production is made on a top down approach. Future supply is determined by estimating future need. It isn't primarily, short term demand driven. It is long term supply driven.
The military is the original social organization. And while every human organization is social, it is the definitive structure of the military that makes it more socialist then free market. The free market has very few rules of behavior. A pure free market has none.
Again, a big characteristic of the USSR communism, which was suppose to have led to Socialism (and entirely different story), is the planned economy. Internally, every organization is logistically a planned economy. There is no money, no primary reliance on bartering or bargaining.
The primary characteristic of the USSR was not how much stuff it produced or how good the standard of living was, it is how it accomplished the economic goal. It relied on central planning of resource allocation.
There is some threshold of size, that we can kind of gauge, where central planning becomes inefficient. It may not even be a straight line. A small company needs little central planning. Decisions can be made on the fly. As the organization gets bigger, or the consequences of variability is greater, the more central planning is required. At some point, the ability to plan centrally become overwhelmed by the shear size, level of uncertainty, and the inability to adjust.
The military, internally, is a planned economy. We understand this clearly and without any meaningful error. Structurally, in organization and logistics, communism was just an implementation of the military structure to an entire country. In fact, historically, private businesses have the pyramid military command structure. The larger the organization, the more tightly organized it is around the pyramid command structure. When really tightly organized, you work with those at your well defined command level, you work for your superior, and those below your level follow orders without question. For a while, starting in the '70s the focus on quality put more decision making into the realm of the individual worker because quality requires individual responsibility to small variability that central planning cannot attend to. In organizations, the line became a bit fuzzier, but organizations are still, internally, most like a military structure then the free market.
CONTRAST TO THE FREE MARKET
In the external free market, no consultant, contractor, or business strictly works for any other. They are hired to do a job for another. And there are certain contract laws that are honored, and loosely enforce. Nothing is centrally planned.
And while there are certainly differences in the implementation as the US military has a serious refinements in terms of making rules that honor personal rights and freedoms, after all, it is affected by our national focus on private personal freedoms and human rights, the military implementation isn't "free unless otherwise determined by definitive rules", it is "these are the precise rules and implementation of them where and when you have personal freedoms".
All in all, of course the military is a socialist organization with central planning. It couldn't function otherwise. The members have a common goal, rules and regs are in place to see to those common goals. The general concept of individual freedom is relinquished for the safely of the group, and the individuals in that group. The determination of how the scarce resources are to redistributed is primarily one of central planning. It seems that a primary job of the Secretary of Defense is just signing orders and requests for resources.
SUMMARY
The difference, in how and when the US implements social and socialist organizations as opposed to China and the former USSR is not in that we don't and they do. It is in how much and to what degree. We implement one or the other, based on which one works best, under what conditions. The conditions of war require a highly structured socialist organization style. The conditions of the free market requires a loosely structured, libertarian non-organizational style. The US, and rest of the modern "western" world, recognizes that a military and socialist organization style has it's place.
We are just better at it because we are not myopic about it. That's why the unions and the military are more centered on the scale. We can delve into every manner of details and push things one ways or the other, but on the scale of things, they still like up.
And the military is organized around the idea of common resources and common behaviors for the purpose of achieving a common goal. It better be. If it wasn't, guys wold be trading all sorts of goods across enemy lines.
Where each sits relative to each other is a continuous scale, ranging from highly predetermined and organized to "We will each decide of our own accord when we get there" is the over riding measure.
Why would we think it is otherwise? Nature and human endeavors are not either-or, black or white. And the US military surely wasn't and isn't going to defeat another big organized military force all standing around voting on things.
-itfitzme
GENERAL
I am distinguishing between two characteristics, logistic planning and the modification of individual behavior such that individual wants are set aside for the benefit gained by working towards the group goal.
Perhaps recognizing these characteristics as one being an economic organizational structure and the other being a political organizational structure might help clarify things. Social and socialist organizations are designed to constrain individual behavior for the purpose of the groups needs. Economic structures are designed to reallocate scares resources.
Political social structures are obviously for the purpose of managing the economics of redistribution of scarce resources and for other purposes. If we consider labor and human life and well being as a scarce resource, then the political organization is simply for the purposes of managing the economic structure.
Perhaps it is similar to considering a Red Corvette is not a car because it is red and most cars are not red. A car is a car in how it functions, not in how it happens to look. Much of the look is the outcome of it's functionality. The size of the rims, whether it has a turbo charger, or every manner of detail isn't the point of a car. Formula one, cross-over, mini-van, SUVs, Jeep, they are all cars in what they do, in their functional structure, not the details of how they look. And just because a Formula One race car can't be taken off road, doesn't mean it is not a car.
A Formula One race car is still a Formula One race car, whether it comes in first or last. All the difference means is that one team did a better job of running it.
SOCIAL AND SOCIALIST
A union's mission is to see to the needs of it's members. The mission does include seeing to the needs of production. But that production is a subordinate part of the larger focus doesn't make it any less mission based then the military.
Unions don't act in a manner that kills the company. The needs of the members rely on that company. The UAW is a huge part of the automobile industry and market. It isn't separate from the market or the companies, it is a subset of the companies. It is simply another department, a human resources department.
That "union members in the US or those in the military are [not] close to the same as workers in a socialist country" is simply a matter of how the socialist structure is implemented, not the fact they it is primarily socialist in structure. Besides, the comparison to the the USSR is primarily the logistics.
Even then, while I do point out that we are to believe that the USSR socialist structure had crappy individual rights, that is secondary to the fact that a socialist organization has definable social rules and enforcement, what ever are the rules and enforcement.
The US military is just better at using positive reinforcement. And why not, we have more resources.
I don't know if you caught it, but when the bailout process was initiated, the three company heads were all sitting together before congress. And the real question was, how was it that these three were so clearly tied together. It was a week or so later that it because obvious when the head of the UAW appeared on the news. The common element was the UAW. There are four heads in that market, three CEOs and one union president (or whatever he is called).
Autoworkers have better incentives then any particular USSR company. And why not, the automotive industry has more resources.
The issue that the unions ran into as a result of the Great Recession is that when the markets were booming, benefits were put in place on the expectation that the economy was going to continue without a recession. When the recession hit, and their companies were headed for bankruptcy because of the contractual agreements, they had to go back and renegotiate based on the new information.
It isn't the details of what the needs are or the implementation of the behavior that focuses on the needs that is the definitive quality. Any two socialist organization could have entirely different specific goals and implementation. What matters is how tightly refined and constrained the individual behavior is in seeing to the group goals. If the military wasn't a highly socialist organization in implementation and practice, it would lose every battle. You cannot have people doing whatever seems the best thing at the time, unless it has been determined that this is the best process. In the heat of battle, being able to predict what your companions are going to do is absolutely required.
There is no predictability of behavior in the free market. Everything is a negotiation. There are conventions, but conventions are not guarantees.
A social, and more strictly, a socialist organization, puts the needs of the group above the needs of the individual while seeing to the needs of the individual in the focus of the needs of the group. The details of how that is accomplished and what the resources are is of secondary consequence. The degree to which is is social and socialist in nature is the degree to which those rules exist and are implemented. Even how they are enforces is of little consideration.
LOGISTICS
The logistical characteristic of the USSR is that of a planned economy where the determination of future production is made on a top down approach. Future supply is determined by estimating future need. It isn't primarily, short term demand driven. It is long term supply driven.
The military is the original social organization. And while every human organization is social, it is the definitive structure of the military that makes it more socialist then free market. The free market has very few rules of behavior. A pure free market has none.
Again, a big characteristic of the USSR communism, which was suppose to have led to Socialism (and entirely different story), is the planned economy. Internally, every organization is logistically a planned economy. There is no money, no primary reliance on bartering or bargaining.
The primary characteristic of the USSR was not how much stuff it produced or how good the standard of living was, it is how it accomplished the economic goal. It relied on central planning of resource allocation.
There is some threshold of size, that we can kind of gauge, where central planning becomes inefficient. It may not even be a straight line. A small company needs little central planning. Decisions can be made on the fly. As the organization gets bigger, or the consequences of variability is greater, the more central planning is required. At some point, the ability to plan centrally become overwhelmed by the shear size, level of uncertainty, and the inability to adjust.
The military, internally, is a planned economy. We understand this clearly and without any meaningful error. Structurally, in organization and logistics, communism was just an implementation of the military structure to an entire country. In fact, historically, private businesses have the pyramid military command structure. The larger the organization, the more tightly organized it is around the pyramid command structure. When really tightly organized, you work with those at your well defined command level, you work for your superior, and those below your level follow orders without question. For a while, starting in the '70s the focus on quality put more decision making into the realm of the individual worker because quality requires individual responsibility to small variability that central planning cannot attend to. In organizations, the line became a bit fuzzier, but organizations are still, internally, most like a military structure then the free market.
CONTRAST TO THE FREE MARKET
In the external free market, no consultant, contractor, or business strictly works for any other. They are hired to do a job for another. And there are certain contract laws that are honored, and loosely enforce. Nothing is centrally planned.
And while there are certainly differences in the implementation as the US military has a serious refinements in terms of making rules that honor personal rights and freedoms, after all, it is affected by our national focus on private personal freedoms and human rights, the military implementation isn't "free unless otherwise determined by definitive rules", it is "these are the precise rules and implementation of them where and when you have personal freedoms".
All in all, of course the military is a socialist organization with central planning. It couldn't function otherwise. The members have a common goal, rules and regs are in place to see to those common goals. The general concept of individual freedom is relinquished for the safely of the group, and the individuals in that group. The determination of how the scarce resources are to redistributed is primarily one of central planning. It seems that a primary job of the Secretary of Defense is just signing orders and requests for resources.
SUMMARY
The difference, in how and when the US implements social and socialist organizations as opposed to China and the former USSR is not in that we don't and they do. It is in how much and to what degree. We implement one or the other, based on which one works best, under what conditions. The conditions of war require a highly structured socialist organization style. The conditions of the free market requires a loosely structured, libertarian non-organizational style. The US, and rest of the modern "western" world, recognizes that a military and socialist organization style has it's place.
We are just better at it because we are not myopic about it. That's why the unions and the military are more centered on the scale. We can delve into every manner of details and push things one ways or the other, but on the scale of things, they still like up.
And the military is organized around the idea of common resources and common behaviors for the purpose of achieving a common goal. It better be. If it wasn't, guys wold be trading all sorts of goods across enemy lines.
Where each sits relative to each other is a continuous scale, ranging from highly predetermined and organized to "We will each decide of our own accord when we get there" is the over riding measure.
Why would we think it is otherwise? Nature and human endeavors are not either-or, black or white. And the US military surely wasn't and isn't going to defeat another big organized military force all standing around voting on things.
-itfitzme
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EdwardBaiamonte
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you lack the IQ to be here, sorry.
Its really very simple. Buckley was perhaps the most well known conservative intellectual of the 20th Century. He said at the 50th anniversary of NR, "those of us who are against government."
Everyone there knew exactly what he meant which is the exactly the function of language. You simply lack the conceptual IQ to know what he meant, and what Jefferson meant when he said the same thing.
itfitzme
Silver Member
By god, what a wonderful and detail presentation. You certainly stick to the idea of "a thousand words or less."
And how full of details it is.
Let us see, what are your primary and intelligent responses that demonstrate your keen intellectual.
"A liberal couldn't understand...blah, blah, blah", "you lack the IQ.." and "What does you fear tell you".
And you repeatedly apply this term "liberal" to absolutely everyone demonstrating that you have no capacity for the subtle and nuanced considerations that are the mark of intelligence.
To you, everyone is a liberal, unless they follow your rules.
Let's see if we can come up with an example of what I mean.
Oh yeah, you want to implement a gold standard, adding in a rule. And your rational is that it would have worked had they followed the rules.
Oh, and that's right, Friedman and Bernanke said that this was the problem, the lack of "following the rules".
You say "rule", I simply accept that you believe in implementing rules.
That Buckley or Jefferson were conservatives, doesn't make you one. That you think you understand what they were talking about doesn't make you one.
Nor is your intellectual capacity even close to either of theirs. Neither of them would be posting one line comments of "A liberal couldn't understand...blah, blah, blah" and "What does you fear tell you". Don't flatter yourself. They didn't write anything in fewer then a thousand words and you can't write anything longer then a half dozen. They would call you a moron.
EdwardBaiamonte
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why not cut the petty personal attack soap opera BS and tell us if you vote Republican or Democrat, and why ??????
If you think I hold a position different from those of Buckley or Jefferson why be so afraid to say what it is exactly?? What does your fear tell you??
itfitzme
Silver Member
"conservative
Adjective: Holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in politics or religion.
Noun: A person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in politics."
"tradition: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior".
"generation: the term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring."
That's the definition I go by. I am very conservative about the use of the term conservative.
Let's see how this idea of a gold standard works. We left the gold standard in 1972. We haven't been on a gold standard for forty years now. That is almost a half of a decade. Oops, it just falls short that definition of a generation.
There is nothing conservative about changing a process that has been in place for almost half a century.
EdwardBaiamonte
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wrong of course! Scalia and Buckley think more in terms of limited or small government than change from a norm of 10 or 30 or 50 or 100 years ok.
Over your head????
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