@Nadiatims: Well I don't even have American voting rights so I can't participate in your survey. But I mean, even if there is some "divide" between people who have different politicial affiliations, there's no way to know if that is at all representative of what adherers to these different political parties/ideologies IN GENERAL think. Anyway, butchering up the current States to create new boundaries based on political affiliation is crazytown. To begin with you're assuming that the majority of people would actually like to base their choice of where to live primarily on whether their peer residents tend to hold similar political views as them. I mean, if I'm not mistaken the constitution protects secession and allows it, so long as people want it. That is, if 3/4 (I'm assuming, that's what I've understood to be general majority needed for secession internationally) of all the people who are already living in the area that would be seceding are in agreement, fine! They can create a nation or a number of nations within that area as they see fit. And if I AM mistaken about the constitution here and it doesn't allow secession, screw the constitution. If an overwhelming majority of the American people in all USA states would want to divvy up the USA in the way you're suggesting, let them.

But it's not very likely that people would want to leave their historical roots, separate from their families and so on just to hang around with other people spouting the same ideological words. Even if for some reason they DID, it's hard to imagine that the new 'ideology boundaries' would hold very long, since people would still move to find better jobs, to go to the university they want, and they'd still have kids who aren't guaranteed to agree with their parents ideology unless you're envisioning this weird, Orwellian indoctrination process for all citizens. And people's ideologies, or lack of ideology, change even in adulthood! Or maybe you're thinking those people should be forced to move to the corresponding ideology's state? That also seems problematic to say the least.

It's not practically feasible at all and it's not going to be considered in our lifetime by any significant amount of Americans so it really just strikes me as a completely moot point. Did you even think two steps ahead from "it would be so cool if everyone could live in a society that agrees completely with their ideology!"?

Icecream wrote:

The same way any non-dictatorship acheives anything without needing the approval of every citizen. (Except, Marx never wanted to "acheive" communism in the 1st place. It was supposed to emerge naturally as a result of the previous stages of history)

I'm asking concretely, how can the use of coercion be avoided when the factory/shop/farm owner objects to the collectivization? Do you pay them? Why would they accept that money if it cannot be used to acquire other capital? remembering that private ownership of capital is not allowed under marxism. How does communal ownership of the means of production 'emerge' without at some point coercing someone who doesn't agree to it? Will communism emerge naturally from a heavily taxed left-leaning democratic state? What if 45% of the population don't even want that?

When a non-dictatorship  has to get something done without the approval of a citizen, it either gives up, compensates them, or ultimately disregards their rights (quite possibly with majority approval). Say, the government wants to build a highway but your house stands in the way. I think we can agree that you, as the owner, ought to be able to negotiate compensation and ultimately choose whether or not to sell.
In the communist context though, if the powers that be (or whatever democratically elected body) decide that a highway is necessary then they'll build the highway, because ultimately the rights of the individual are secondary to 'the good of society.'

Icecream wrote:

Are you thinking that those on the left will object to your state splitting off cos they're lazy and therefore dependant on those who would move to the libertarian state? Because if so, you're making the same error Romney did.

Honestly I was expecting slightly more objection from the left leaning due to objection to individual economic liberty, though i think there would also be objection from the right for nationalist or other reasons. To be honest though I think the left right political spectrum is in many ways rather meaningless and a second axis relating to government size would tell you a lot more.
At any rate if 55% in states A vote democrat, and 55% in states B vote republican, why not allow them to have their own entirely autonomous governments and allow for free travel between them. You wouldn't have to move states but at least the option  of switching sides would still be there. As it stands now, in many democracies large segments of the population are ruled over by governments they never elected. It's rather curious to me that so many should support things like the free tibet movement but would be against an amicable division of their own country. In the case of america (and i'm not even american btw), why not just let Romney run the red states and Obama the blue states. You could also have one city operating as a kind of HK style free market autonomous economic zone for libertarians.

A situation like this would generate a lot of data for individuals to use to judge the quality of each government and its effect on citizens' quality of life.

Icecream wrote:

i think it's more that you just haven't thought about why your system is good, or better than another one.

I actually used to be rather left leaning myself. But since having worked in both the public and private sector and having read a lot about economics and history I've changed my mind. I think it would serve you well to read some alternative view points regarding capitalism in particular among other things. I also recommend making sure you actually understand the terminology used wrt to the economy.

Last edited by nadiatims (2012 September 29, 7:55 am)

nadiatims wrote:

When a non-dictatorship  has to get something done without the approval of a citizen, it either gives up, compensates them, or ultimately disregards their rights (quite possibly with majority approval). Say, the government wants to build a highway but your house stands in the way. I think we can agree that you, as the owner, ought to be able to negotiate compensation and ultimately choose whether or not to sell.

I don't think that's entirely obvious. Certainly the UK has 'compulsory purchase' legislation such that the government can force you to sell your house for certain 'public good' reasons (including road building). There's only a limited amount of land and this seems a reasonable enough way to avoid small landowners being able to hold the rest of us to ransom over the path of a new railway or road. The fact that this might happen is one of the risks you take when you choose to buy property/land.

man, i just wrote a whole bunch but lost it all and need to rewrite it.

pm215 wrote:

nadiatims wrote:

When a non-dictatorship  has to get something done without the approval of a citizen, it either gives up, compensates them, or ultimately disregards their rights (quite possibly with majority approval). Say, the government wants to build a highway but your house stands in the way. I think we can agree that you, as the owner, ought to be able to negotiate compensation and ultimately choose whether or not to sell.

I don't think that's entirely obvious. Certainly the UK has 'compulsory purchase' legislation such that the government can force you to sell your house for certain 'public good' reasons (including road building). There's only a limited amount of land and this seems a reasonable enough way to avoid small landowners being able to hold the rest of us to ransom over the path of a new railway or road. The fact that this might happen is one of the risks you take when you choose to buy property/land.

It is unlikely that there isn't a price at which the owner would sell. They would be insane not to sell at twice or triple it's usual value. The owner could only push the price up so high before the government gives up and the owner loses their opportunity for a tidy profit, and if they truly were selfishly holding back the advancement of the nation by refusing to sell, then they would likely face catastrophic loss of reputation.
At any rate, the government could continue attempting to persuade the owner, wait for them to die, or just build around or under their property.

But this is a rather extreme example. How about a situation where an entire village would need to be relocated for the construction of a dam. Should the entire village be forced to move just because a small majority in some distant part of the country decided so? What if there are questions about the validity of the project. If the government decides to build an airport where your town happens to be, should they essentially be allowed to say "f**k you, we're the government." or should they be expected to win the approval of land owners via negotiation/compensation? If your property ownership is just a government lease, then doesn't that make you a serf?

Icecream wrote:

I wasn't trying to be insulting here... you genuinely haven't told me what it is about your system that makes it better than other ones. You can incorporate the good aspects of capitalism like competition while making the system fairer overall and making sure that nobody falls beneath a certain standard of living. So what makes your way better than that? What would "better" mean in this context? Who does it benefit? Who does it hurt?

If you recall, I was suggesting a small government with very low taxation with a certain amount (with a strict per-capita cap) allocated towards maintaining domestic civil order, and a small amount as a safety net for the severely disabled, and for insurance against catastrophe for uninsured people below a certain income level (perhaps using a voucher system). A certain amount of surplus tax revenue could be saved for disaster relief and humanitarian causes, and the rest returned to the populace. The core principle of the law would be the protection of the individual against violence and coercion.

I would also add the economic freedom for individuals to use any currency of exchange they feel like using, to prevent monopoly control of the money supply and subsequent out of control money printing.

I don't think people are entitled to a pension or retirement at a certain age. If you want to live happily into old age, you should work hard, save, live healthy and treat your kids such that they'll want to look after you in old age.

Likewise, people shouldn't be entitled to study any old useless subject and have it paid for through taxation or debt.

Icecream wrote:

About the Marx thing, this whole thing seems a bit ridiculous to me. I brought up a Marxist interpretation of capitalism to show how capitalists steal the value of their worker's labour, and now i'm supposed to justify communism when that wasn't even what i advocated as a solution?!

You seem to have a very one dimensional view of capitalists as monocle wearing monopoly men who violently trample over workers. If you're a plumber or freelance designer or translator or whatever else and you invest your savings in tools or pay others to help you achieve more for less then you are a capitalist. The use of violence and coercion is not part of capitalism.
Violence and coercion occurs when individuals or groups believe for some reason or other that their means justify the ends (it doesn't) and when the groups or individuals believe they can outsource their personal responsibility to fight for their own freedom to some greater power (which then screws them over).

Icecream wrote:

Does the government compensate you for potential loss of earnings from that decision? No. It simply tells you that you can't keep slaves any more, because it's exploitation, which is illegal.

That is why I suggest freedom of the individual against violence or coercion as the principle right. Obviously enslaving someone violates those rights.

Icecream wrote:

In a democracy, that kind of coercion is legitimised by the majority of the population having voted for them.

So at the end of the day, you think it's legitimate for the majority to screw over the individual. You know it's fine if you think that way, but at least be honest with yourself. And don't be surprised when those who don't think that way fight back by offshoring their capital, or displaying general disdain for the sheeple.

Icecream wrote:

There is nothing to prevent a communist government being democratically elected and having exactly the same kind of mandate a capitalist government does to impose whatever it was elected for.

Sure, but then it wouldn't be a communist system.

Icecream wrote:

There is no government that is going to please all of it's citizens all of the time.

Indeed, which is why government should be decentralized as much as possible so that people can choose.

nadiatims wrote:

pm215 wrote:

Certainly the UK has 'compulsory purchase' legislation such that the government can force you to sell your house for certain 'public good' reasons (including road building). There's only a limited amount of land and this seems a reasonable enough way to avoid small landowners being able to hold the rest of us to ransom over the path of a new railway or road. The fact that this might happen is one of the risks you take when you choose to buy property/land.

It is unlikely that there isn't a price at which the owner would sell. They would be insane not to sell at twice or triple it's usual value.

Er, it is not uncommon for people to refuse to sell even at significant markups to market price. People aren't the purely rational financially motivated creatures of economic theory. (And any system of politics or economics which assumes that people are like that is significantly flawed.)

But this is a rather extreme example. How about a situation where an entire village would need to be relocated for the construction of a dam. Should the entire village be forced to move just because a small majority in some distant part of the country decided so? What if there are questions about the validity of the project. If the government decides to build an airport where your town happens to be, should they essentially be allowed to say "f**k you, we're the government." or should they be expected to win the approval of land owners via negotiation/compensation?

Unsurprisingly, the sensible approach is a mix of consultation, negotiation, compensation and occasionally compulsory purchase. Governments or councils that went around steamrollering locals via compulsory purchase orders all the time would get voted out...

If your property ownership is just a government lease, then doesn't that make you a serf?

Serfs: can't leave the land without permission; can't sell the land; owe service (as cash, produce or labour) to their lord.
Leases: involve paying rent to somebody; usually have a fixed duration and so gradually decline in value.

Neither of these is like owning freehold property in a country with a compulsory purchase system.

sheeple

*eyeroll*

I'm sorry, I think I misunderstood the wording of that part of Icecream's post.

Indeed a communist government can be elected democratically.

The distinction between the communist governed country and something like the minimal government market friendly state I described lies in who gets screwed over. In the communist state a a large segment of the population has their assets collectivized against their will because some 55% of the population who are basically clueless about economics decide mass theft will solve their problems for them. In the state I described, there is no such tyranny of the minority. No one gets screwed over (except a minority that chooses to live parasitically).

JimmySeal wrote:

Er, it is not uncommon for people to refuse to sell even at significant markups to market price. People aren't the purely rational financially motivated creatures of economic theory. (And any system of politics or economics which assumes that people are like that is significantly flawed.)

Yes, but does that then justify the use of coercion? Would you feel the same way if you were to be the victim of mob rule?

JimmySeal wrote:

Unsurprisingly, the sensible approach is a mix of consultation, negotiation, compensation and occasionally compulsory purchase. Governments or councils that went around steamrollering locals via compulsory purchase orders all the time would get voted out...

Except if it's a communist regime that owns the entire productive capacity of the nation. Good luck voting them out.

nadiatims wrote:

Icecream wrote:

I wasn't trying to be insulting here... you genuinely haven't told me what it is about your system that makes it better than other ones. You can incorporate the good aspects of capitalism like competition while making the system fairer overall and making sure that nobody falls beneath a certain standard of living. So what makes your way better than that? What would "better" mean in this context? Who does it benefit? Who does it hurt?

If you recall, I was suggesting a small government with very low taxation with a certain amount (with a strict per-capita cap) allocated towards maintaining domestic civil order, and a small amount as a safety net for the severely disabled, and for insurance against catastrophe for uninsured people below a certain income level (perhaps using a voucher system). A certain amount of surplus tax revenue could be saved for disaster relief and humanitarian causes, and the rest returned to the populace. The core principle of the law would be the protection of the individual against violence and coercion.

I would also add the economic freedom for individuals to use any currency of exchange they feel like using, to prevent monopoly control of the money supply and subsequent out of control money printing.

I don't think people are entitled to a pension or retirement at a certain age. If you want to live happily into old age, you should work hard, save, live healthy and treat your kids such that they'll want to look after you in old age.

Likewise, people shouldn't be entitled to study any old useless subject and have it paid for through taxation or debt.

Yes, i remember what you suggested. But you're still not telling me why it is better.

Let's just assume for the sake of argument that you can get all of that out of a simple 5% income tax, which i'm really not sure is possible. (where are you pulling this figure from btw?)

So, we have no unemployment benefit, which means that anyone who can't find work starves to death. On a humanitarian basis, this is pretty bad, but also remembering that capitalism needs a pool of unemployed to fuel growth and keep wages down, why is it better to have no unemployment benefit to help support people until they find a new job?

I disagree at the most basic level about pensions, so perhaps there isn't much to say here. I think everyone should be entitled to a pension, it seems like a basic human right to me. But let's talk on your terms. So, people who have worked hard, saved, lived healthily and treated their kids well deserve to have a pension. What kind of effects will result from this system? One obvious effect is that it will become rational to have more kids to make sure you can be supported. Given that the planet is already overpopulated, is this a good idea? What about those that didn't want children, or could not have them? What about those people who have worked hard all their lives and saved what they can, but their jobs did simply did not pay enough to provide a livable pension? What about those who cannot afford to save? (remembering that in your society there are many jobs that do not even pay a living wage to their workers). What about those who could not afford schooling, and so don't have any better chances, or went to low quality budget schools, and then found that other people were picked first for the higher paying jobs?
what makes your system so good that it is worth a ton of old people not having a basic standard of living, and starving and freezing to death?

There's no minimum wage in your society, and no guarantee of working conditions. As you say, introducing a minimum wage does have an effect on business. However, the effects on small business can be mitigated with other tax breaks, or top ups from the government and so on.
At the start of this thread i recommended a documentary about a rubbish collector in Indonesia. Did you happen to watch it? If not, it's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EWLQw9TiCM
He works from early in the morning until after midnight collecting rubbish then sorting it for recycling. He doesn't make what i would call a living wage even so, and he's one of the lucky ones. Health and safety conditions are appalling. He has no pension, and can't afford to pay into one because it's pretty much hand to mouth living. Rubbish collectors like him can't unionise and demand higher wages because the population there is huge and there would be 100 people to replace him in about a second.

So, what happens if you introduce a minimum wage, and health and safety conditions here? Does it destroy the fabric of society? No. Two things could happen. One option is that people realise that actually, having their rubbish collected and sorted was worth paying somebody a living wage for after all, and simply buy one less gucci handbag a year to afford that. The other option is that they realise that having their rubbish collected wasn't worth paying someone else a living wage for, and they do it themselves instead. In the cases where people decide that the work wasn't valuable enough to pay someone a living wage, yes, that person becomes unemployed. But since they weren't providing a service that was very useful to humanity in the first place, at least that gives him the time to retrain as something that will be useful. (assuming that you have accessible education and unemployment benefits that is, and don't just leave them to starve.)

We don't even need to talk about big business or rich people exploiting workers here though; what not having a minimum wage acheives is a race to the bottom as people try to provide services to the ever poorer people at the bottom. Let's take another example from a different episode of that show... pagpag. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Ht_19N … re=related (from 45:00). In the Philippines there are people who provide the service of going round rubbish bins and taking the half eaten remains of food from fast food restaurants, washing it, recooking it, then reselling it. If you have a minimum wage, this kind of business simply does not exist. People are forced to do this kind of thing because there is no minimum wage and no unemployment benefits.

why then, is it not better to have a minimum wage, and then find out which services are actually beneficial enough to humanity to pay a living wage? If genuinely useful small businesses are affected, other methods can help with that. But if a service is just not beneficial enough to humanity to provide a living wage, why should anyone have to do that job? How can you even call it a job?

nadiatims wrote:

You seem to have a very one dimensional view of capitalists as monocle wearing monopoly men who violently trample over workers. If you're a plumber or freelance designer or translator or whatever else and you invest your savings in tools or pay others to help you achieve more for less then you are a capitalist. The use of violence and coercion is not part of capitalism.
Violence and coercion occurs when individuals or groups believe for some reason or other that their means justify the ends (it doesn't) and when the groups or individuals believe they can outsource their personal responsibility to fight for their own freedom to some greater power (which then screws them over).

I brought up one specific problem with capitalism. I don't have a problem with plumbers as long as they don't employ someone else and then steal the value of their employee's labour. Even fixing this one problem still leaves you with a bunch of other problems, such as those Imaam faces (nobody is stealing the value of his labour, it's simply that his labour is judged to be practically worthless due to there being too many potential workers). So, i don't think that fixing it would fix everything.
My view of capitalism isn't particularly one dimensional, i think. It's not like "capitalism BAD" without any reasoning. There are parts of capitalism that work well, and parts that don't, and i support regulation where there's a part that isn't working so well. That seems a whole lot less one dimensional to me than assuming that everything that results from capitalism is a good and that we don't need any regulation at all.

nadiatims wrote:

Icecream wrote:

Does the government compensate you for potential loss of earnings from that decision? No. It simply tells you that you can't keep slaves any more, because it's exploitation, which is illegal.

That is why I suggest freedom of the individual against violence or coercion as the principle right. Obviously enslaving someone violates those rights.

What about when somebody is desperate enough that they are willing to sell themselves into slavery just to ensure their family doesn't starve? Is that freedom?

nadiatims wrote:

Icecream wrote:

In a democracy, that kind of coercion is legitimised by the majority of the population having voted for them.

So at the end of the day, you think it's legitimate for the majority to screw over the individual. You know it's fine if you think that way, but at least be honest with yourself. And don't be surprised when those who don't think that way fight back by offshoring their capital, or displaying general disdain for the sheeple.

Firstly, you are assuming that this kind of situation is only a problem for governments, which it isn't. Haven't you ever heard of people who stand in the way of a shiny new shopping centre being built? If people refuse compensation and there is enough money to be made, eventually, the thugs are sent in to do a little "convincing". There's no society in which we can all have our own way all of the time, because space and resources aren't infinite. We have to compromise.

I do beleive that there are some circumstances where the rights of the majority come before the rights of the individual, yeah. It's an inherant part of democracy, and i can't see an option which is better than that, either. I don't beleive that humans have the right to unrestricted wealth, especially unrestricted wealth that is derived from exploitative and unfair methods. And i don't believe we have the right to take what we want from the earth without considering the consequences, and giving back.

Do you really consider that your right to not be taxed is more important than somebody else's right to not starve to death? Because that seems incredibly selfish to me. If it is that, i guess it does come down to f*** u got mine after all.

nadiatims wrote:

Icecream wrote:

There is nothing to prevent a communist government being democratically elected and having exactly the same kind of mandate a capitalist government does to impose whatever it was elected for.

Sure, but then it wouldn't be a communist system.

?? huh?!

p.s. thanks for the links, i'll start watching them now.

Last edited by IceCream (2012 September 30, 8:56 am)

*** Note to self: Never mention the M word in a discussion again, present the idea on it's own instead.

Sigh. It's a good job i never recommended communism as a solution then, isn't it?!

Still, there's nothing about communism that makes it ideologically opposed to democracy. If enough people wanted communism, there's no reason why it couldn't be run in the same way as a democracy. In practise, not that many people do actually want it, so the government ends up acting like totalitarian idiots. But to mix up the ideas of communism and totalitarianism is wrong.

M*** was actually a big beleiver in democracy. His concept of what communism would be and the way it would come about was really very different to how it ended up being applied. He never advocated government land ownership, for one thing. If he thought capitalism alienated a worker from his labour, how alienating would that be?! No, he wanted ownership in the hands of the worker. What he advocated was the social ownership of the means of production. Eventually, a communist society would result, which would be classless and stateless. But he thought that that would be a whole other phase of history, just like capitalism arose from feudalism, and socialism would arise from the inherant failings of capitalism. It wasn't ever supposed to be something a government would implement.

In the words of Marx: if that is Marxism, I am not a Marxist.

Yeah, i've read Capital (not the whole thing, but chunks of it anyway lol). It's actually pretty good. There's some things he got wrong, and some things are now outdated, but a lot of it was dead on as an analysis of capitalism. He correctly predicted that capitalism would have problems with boom and bust for example. His stuff on dialectical materialism is also really interesting and worth reading, i think.

It does also work as a good paperweight though

Last edited by IceCream (2012 September 30, 6:37 pm)

It's not confusion. Marx talked about the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communism is a radical system. It requires confiscation and coercion. I don't see how it can be compatible with democracy.

This excerpt from the manifesto: "The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions." Doesn't seem so peaceful and democratic.

Last edited by Eikyu (2012 October 01, 10:00 am)

nadiatims wrote:

Yep. Economics is a science, which is why it's so unfortunate that economic policy is to a large extent chosen by popular opinion.

I thought this statement was worth pointing out. To what extent to people here agree with the statement that "economics is a science" and not merely just a social science?

Unlike things like theory of evolution where the vast majority of scientists are on the same page, economists seem to be a lot more divided when it comes to predicting the future and suggesting solutions. Weather forecasters sometimes get a bad flack but they're right more often than not. On the other hand, it seems that economists are wrong more often than not on specific issues and 50% right and 50% wrong on the more binary issues and on non-specifics such as "the economic will go up/down", "unemployment will go up/down", "the dollar will go up/down." It's basically a multiple choice question with two answers that any idiot on the street can try!

What do you think? Is economics in the field of science or social science?

Wikipedia seems to agree that it is a social science. After all, all markets consist of individual persons and group peoples socializing with each other.

So maybe the question isn't whether economics is a proper science or not, but what value do economists have when they're so sharply divided in views?

Last edited by qwertyytrewq (2012 October 01, 11:15 am)

what do you mean?

i thought that it was perfectly clear that ideas such as Leninism and Maoism came into being because Marx never wrote with enough clarity or depth on the practical aspects of socialism / communism himself, which allowed idiots to try and make it up as they went along...