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vix86 wrote:
You only need look over at China to see what a system without much government involvement would look like.
China has a system without much government involvement? I really don't know that much about how China actually works and I'm interested in knowing in what ways it all can be viewed as a system without much government involvement, all I've been hearing until now is the opposite (in comparison to other countries, at least). Can you expound on this or give me a couple of good links for reading about this viewpoint?
Surreal wrote:
China has a system without much government involvement? I really don't know that much about how China actually works and I'm interested in knowing in what ways it all can be viewed as a system without much government involvement, all I've been hearing until now is the opposite (in comparison to other countries, at least). Can you expound on this or give me a couple of good links for reading about this viewpoint?
China has a govt. I won't lie and say it doesn't. But either China lacks regulation or it lacks the enforcement of regulation.
Business have been polluting the environment and areas in rural parts of China for quite a while now. If you google around you can find stories about rivers running with heavy metals. I can find some pics about some of the nasty polluted rivers as well that run through/by some cities/villages in China too. Do remember that also even in Beijing where they ran the Olympics, the air was so polluted it was deemed unsafe for athletes to compete in. China caught huge flack int'l because of this and started heavy crack down to bring air quality back in check. They did so by cutting the number of cars on the road, but still the point stands; no regulation.
Food products like milk have been shown to have poisonous chemicals in them and was a big scandal in China for awhile. Remember the baby food scare in the states due to contamination from China? Again lack of regulation or simply a lack of government oversight and enforcement.
Lead in the paint on child toys sold in the US, from China.
The Bullet train wreck caused by lack of safety oversight by the train company (and the subsequent cover up by BURYING the entire train with the bodies in it).
Just try going to Google Image search and punch in "china river pollution" and see all the colorful images of China's rivers pop up. The US use to be just like this but then movements were started and people demanded that the places they live in be safer and the food they eat be guaranteed to be safe to each. And so was born government regulation.
I do want to point out though that the government in China has started to step up their involvement though. The people involved in the baby food contamination and the milk contamination which affected China, were executed. More people in China have been demanding that the environment be safer.
EDIT: Just an example, !NSFW! The bridge made of rubbish !NSFW!
Last edited by vix86 (2012 January 28, 8:09 am)
The chinese goverment in invovled in everything. In a nearby city a foreign langauge book shop was ordered to stop selling books because they are going to build a "book city" in a area within this city.
In this city all the buses are sleek and new, the bus company was ordered to buy a new fleet of buses. Motorbike sales are also banned. Some factories were forced by the goverment to use heating in the factory in the labourers work area. Without that goverment action they would still be in the cold, Ironically all the employees now open all the windows because they are so used to the cold.
To cut to the point, I am trying to say goverment intervention there. However I would say the rules are not as heavy as western nations but the authorities are adding more. Recently the minimum wage was also increased, by quite a large amount. The Americans here ( they are mostly American) talk about givinging Chinese workers a fair deal. But now talk of actually having to pay for heating comes in and they are " thinking of moving operations to another country"
@nadiatims:
so, yeah, i really think it'd be better if we get to the heart of the issue, because i'd really like to know whether the reason you believe these things actually comes down to a fundamental difference in values that you are willing to stick to regardless of the consquences, or whether you simply have an idealised vision of how a society that runs on these idealised principles would end up.
i think it's probably a bit of both, but in the latter case, you should probably reconsider your ideas.
So yeah, please could you answer the following questions?
1. You accept that those at the top levels of companies will always cream off their profits at the expense of their workers and consumers. You also think this is fair enough because those workers and consumers entered into those contracts voluntarily.
What counts as "voluntarily" here is only that they weren't threatened with force. The fact that there is no viable alternative is irellevant to you, right? We can choose to not work for or buy from one company or another, but we can't choose to not buy from or work for any of them, if we also want to live.
2. Capitalism raises the standard of living for everyone as a general trend, so it's good. But since those at the top levels will always cream off their profits at the expense of workers and consumers, the gap between the rich and poor in society widens. The rich are able to outsource the risk of their business failing onto their workers, and again, it's fine because they entered the contract "voluntarily".
Of course, in a society with no government, those CEO's would have more individual risk, because the workers can use violence as a method of redistribution instead of the government when things go wrong. Or, just when they feel like it. Greed isn't limited to CEO's.
Is your picture of of a great society really one which runs on the principles of unchecked greed and violence?
(regardless of how different it may or may not be today, i mean)
3. Given that we've been running under a pretty liberal economic model since the 80's, we know that we can't expect unemployment to be at 0 with a capitalist system, and neither is it ideal for it to be so. Without any welfare for those whose incomes are sacrificed temporarily at the hands of the system, doubtless more insurance companies would pop up to profit from us in those times.
For those who can't afford to pay these insurance companies, because other CEO's were creaming off too much of the profits of their labour, well... tough. The CEO's won't need this kind of insurance because their only fear is violence, not starvation when there's a recession. (But if they're clever, they'll also have secured the money for the next private flight to the Caribbean, bodyguards to the airport, etc, so there's not all that much need to worry). The rest of us get to pay for this insurance, again at a mark up, for the profit of someone else who owns resources.
Do you really believe, in a society which unemployment of some people (regardless of their skills) is necessary, that paying for the exact same service in a way which allows a company to profit from it is a better option than paying less for that exact same service through government?
Since the only people who actually reap the benefits of this extra "freedom" in society to not pay tax are CEO's, and everyone else in fact ends up paying more "tax" in the form of insurance, why is it a better model for society than just paying tax in the first place?
4. I don't understand very high level economics yet, but i have read from more than one source that a totaly unrestrained economy can never stabilise itself outside of a theoretical model, and will lead to collapse. But lets have that argument when i do understand. In the meantime, maybe you should read some stuff about that too.
Last edited by IceCream (2012 January 28, 6:36 am)
vix86 wrote:
Surreal wrote:
China has a system without much government involvement? I really don't know that much about how China actually works and I'm interested in knowing in what ways it all can be viewed as a system without much government involvement, all I've been hearing until now is the opposite (in comparison to other countries, at least). Can you expound on this or give me a couple of good links for reading about this viewpoint?
China has a govt. I won't lie and say it doesn't. But either China lacks regulation or it lacks the enforcement of regulation.
Oh, now I understand what you meant, I thought you were saying that there was little governmental intervention in general in China. This is more related to, at least I'd say it is, many Chinese politicians choosing not to care about these issues because they were so foucsed on economical growth, etc. Also, many of them viewed and still view themselves as an elite that shouldn't have to care too much about the common people, while there definitely are a few politicians with good intents(just like many other governments). In other words, the government still looms large in most areas but it chooses to turn a blind eye to many pollution problems is what you're saying, right? Then I agree - and I also agree that it seems like there is a greater number of politicians in China today that want to tackle the issues with pollution/citizen safety than before, or maybe they just want to give the impression that they are tackling them, I don't know.
Btw, you might want to add a NSFW tag to that link... Also, I'd just like to say that I think Sankaku Complex is a terrible terrible "news"-site, it's all just shock/sex material and of what I've seen, they seem to have a penchant for stereotyping women/japanese/russians you name it to the point where it's not even funny, it's just plain racism/misogyny/etc. I quite enjoy dark humour usually, but in Sankaku's articles there isn't any real 'humour' part. It is a site made up of hateful bile, tits and overall distasteful coverage of serious matters like murder. Seriously, while that site has the occasional tidbit that doesn't reach other western media, I think as a whole it doesn't do anyone good. It is the epitome of what shitty evening newspaper journalists are aiming for all the time, with all the little finesse and delicacy that was left even there stripped away, abusing copyrights, breaking all conventions of respected journalism, and getting into a game where they need to be ever more cynical, sarcastic and loathsome to try to squeeze out every possible bit and kind of negative emotion in the reader.
So yeah it's not a very good site. Just, y'know, throwing that out there.
Last edited by Surreal (2012 January 28, 7:06 am)
Surreal wrote:
I wasn't very clear, sorry. Some people think that people with more resources taking responsibility means "taking care of" people with less resources, ie treating the resource-poor like they're unable of taking care of themselves. Of course, this IS a very real issue and it should be taken into account. Some of the people on benefits for example feel ashamed and useless, even making it less likely that they will get back into work because their self-esteem goes down. At the same time, there are a lot of people that have an easier time getting back into work after being on benefits because their health hasn't deteriorated, they still have proper clothes (which is very important for job interviews at pretty much any workplace) and so on. Not to mention that a huge amount of people would simply die if it weren't for the benefits. So, there are costs of using the system as well as benefits that have to be considered. Regarding this particular system, it's used so widely that few citizens question its existence, but like you said many do question to what degree it is used, and far too often one meets persons who fail to consider both the costs/benefits involved in these things.
Yeah, there are costs as well as benefits. However, these costs arise from the way the system is run rather than as a necessary consequence of having the system at all in the first place, i think.
I actually think that more "taking care of" people with less resources needs to be done, not less. But it needs to be directed differently, and not in a way which undermines people.
One of the 1st problems, in Britain at least, is the length of time it takes for benefits to be given in the first place. It takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months to start receiving benefits, depending on your circumstances. Housing benefit can take 6 months or longer in some areas. When it's such a long process to receive the benefits, it's very demotivating, and by the time it arrives, you've either found a new job already, or are past that original motivation to do otherwise. It's a similar circumstance for any change of circumstance, and working a couple of days cash in hand is more trouble than it's worth while on benefits.
Another way the system as it's run isn't particularly conducive to finding work is that government run job centres focus on bottom rung work at minimum wage rather than trying to match peoples skills and abilities to jobs they will find fulfilling in some way. If you're not looking for a min wage job, you're on your own. While there are some apprenticeships and retraining options, they are often only aimed at young people.
I think these are the kinds of things that lead people to feel useless and demotivated, not the receiving of benefits as a whole.
Surreal wrote:
Anyway, another problem is that many of the measures for punishing the resource-rich for irresponsible actions need to be accepted and implemented BY the resource-rich because they are the ones with the most power, and I think lots of people don't want to be reminded of that and so come to associate it with 'elitism'.
The problem is that loads of people keep swaying between different ideas and don't gain the ability to recognize how you can try to link together the different perspectives (this isn't made easier by common modern journalism). At the same time, you often have groups of resource-rich who are very much aware of this way of thinking, and abuse it by always bringing up the aspects favoring their group from all ideas. So they'll go from talking about how they deserve everything they have and so they shouldn't be questioned, to saying that well they DO have a lot of power but that makes sense because they are clearly the most fit for wielding it, to saying that it would be very unfair of them to use their power to tell other people/themselves what as that goes against the idea of liberty, to saying that they are part of a system just as much everyone and so they couldn't have foreseen what would happen even though they seem to have so much power, etc etc.
These are difficult problems, and ones which i don't have any clear answer to either. It seems like these problems will occur over and over under any system which only values one thing, and has no handicap or recognised negative balance for the ownership and use of resources. It's something that i want to think more about as i learn more about economics.
Surreal wrote:
Something that is really controversial with a lot of people is when it comes to mental resources. It is a fact that healthy people, with no neural damages or anything like that, vary in how good they are at mental tasks in general. Regardless of why that is the case and what factors cause it, it is how it is right now and we have to accept that. It is no secret that our modern society places very high demands on one's mental capacity, you have to drive a car, you have to use a computer daily, you need to become 'informed' and be conscious of social debates, you need to plan out your economy, and so on. What this means is that there is a big difference between having a lot of mental resources at your disposal and having little mental resources. Like I mentioned in my last post, if you have trouble learning how to read and so can't read very well even as an adult, you will have problems getting as good medical treatment as you would have received if you could read well (eg because you can't understand the medical info given to you in text, for example instructions about when and how to use medicine, as well). Systems that are supposedly accessible to everyone are actually less accessible to some citizens because they don't have skills that are often taken for granted.
So, clearly there are some areas where it would be good if there was extra support given to persons with a relatively low amount of mental resources. Now, it's understandable to be very wary in this issue because there is so much social stigma surrounding the issue and because there would be many undesirable consequences if societies started flagging citizens as "low on mental resources". However, I'm certain that more can be done to provide mental support etc. and just avoiding the discussion altogether is, in my opinion, an unreasonable way of dealing with the issue, it just means that societies passively accept that resource-"poor"(the term doesn't fit very well here, I admit) in this area are treated badly. I mean, it's just so easy for people to call you "stupid" if you mess up your economy because you don't know how economy really works since you had a very hard time understanding it, there is such a huge discrimination against indvididuals low on mental resources. The problem is that the great majority of all debates are always lead by the "intellectuals" and they have a tendency to forget all this about humans' equal value and all when it comes to what they see as the "non-intellectuals". Widespread discrimination against resource-poor individuals and despicable treatment of them in any area is almost always seen as a very uncomfortable issue by the resource-rich and so they try to avoid it or in any case act like they shouldn't have to take any action in regards to it.
When it comes to support of people with low mental resources in terms of hospitals or benefits, i don't think you find many intellectuals disagreeing with you, though it is far too often ignored entirely.
But in general, this is probably one of the biggest problems, and one which i even have trouble with. For instance, the idea of democracy is nice and all, but really i'd hate it if a load of people who don't have the mental resources to really critically consider ideas and their practical consequences were allowed to vote on every issue. Not only that, but the extent to which the "masses" thinking can be manipulated by advertising, journalism, and so on is just appalling. So having such a system wouldn't really help anything, it'd just return power to those with those resources.
One thing that could help this though is actually recognising different types of mental resources though, and have ways of valuing the way we rely on different people's resources in a much clearer way. It's actually impossible for all of us nowadays to have the requisite knowledge in all areas of our lives to be self sufficient, in terms of mental resources as well as physical. And this leads to the biggest degree of difference in mental resources, i think.
For instance, i may have the critical ability necessary to consider all social issues from all angles, but i don't actually do that for most of the time. I outsource the research and some of the conclusions to other people, whose job that is. I may have the ability to learn mechanics if i wanted (or, probably, i don't in actual fact), but i outsource the need to know that to someone else. So mental resources are often relative to time, as well as natural abilities. But no matter which way you don't have them, it ends up with the same result.
The problem is that those with mechanical mental resources have to take responsibility for failing, whereas a journalist, politician or corporate head don't. But really, without mechanical mental resources, our society would fail pretty quickly. We don't value that type of knowledge enough, and demand the mechanic to become an expert in economics as well, despite the fact that they should have been able to outsource that to someone equally reliable and responsible.
i always loved the slogan
From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.
But they should have added in responsibility to that. However, it signals a basic respect for different qualities that our society doesn't reflect, i think.
Surreal wrote:
vix86 wrote:
Surreal wrote:
China has a system without much government involvement? I really don't know that much about how China actually works and I'm interested in knowing in what ways it all can be viewed as a system without much government involvement, all I've been hearing until now is the opposite (in comparison to other countries, at least). Can you expound on this or give me a couple of good links for reading about this viewpoint?
China has a govt. I won't lie and say it doesn't. But either China lacks regulation or it lacks the enforcement of regulation.
Oh, now I understand what you meant, I thought you were saying that there was little governmental intervention in general in China. This is more related to, at least I'd say it is, many Chinese politicians choosing not to care about these issues because they were so foucsed on economical growth, etc. Also, many of them viewed and still view themselves as an elite that shouldn't have to care too much about the common people, while there definitely are a few politicians with good intents(just like many other governments). In other words, the government still looms large in most areas but it chooses to turn a blind eye to many pollution problems is what you're saying, right? Then I agree - and I also agree that it seems like there is a greater number of politicians in China today that want to tackle the issues with pollution/citizen safety than before, or maybe they just want to give the impression that they are tackling them, I don't know.
Btw, you might want to add a NSFW tag to that link... Also, I'd just like to say that I think Sankaku Complex is a terrible terrible "news"-site, it's all just shock/sex material and of what I've seen, they seem to have a penchant for stereotyping women/japanese/russians you name it to the point where it's not even funny, it's just plain racism/misogyny/etc. I quite enjoy dark humour usually, but in Sankaku's articles there isn't any real 'humour' part. It is a site made up of hateful bile, tits and overall distasteful coverage of serious matters like murder. Seriously, while that site has the occasional tidbit that doesn't reach other western media, I think as a whole it doesn't do anyone good. It is the epitome of what shitty evening newspaper journalists are aiming for all the time, with all the little finesse and delicacy that was left even there stripped away, abusing copyrights, breaking all conventions of respected journalism, and getting into a game where they need to be ever more cynical, sarcastic and loathsome to try to squeeze out every possible bit and kind of negative emotion in the reader.
So yeah it's not a very good site. Just, y'know, throwing that out there.
Oh I know Sankaku is crap for legit news but its one of the direct sites that tends to translate stuff that reaches Japanese outlets (mostly 2chまとめ sites). Usually they link to the original news article or まとめ article which links to an original post. But I can't read Chinese so...
IMO, Sankaku is less "evening journalist" and more a display of the negativity that's on the internet. So many of the "news articles" are really a focus of the negative response from the 2ch denizens.
On the point of the govt. though. You are right, it is indeed a result of the govt. turning a blind eye to the situation and as eggcluck pointed out; its also because the officials are corrupt. It still demonstrates beautifully why a society devoid of some sort of government oversight and regulation will ultimately lead to an unsafe society.
vix86 wrote:
nadiatims wrote:
Seriously who is going to bother setting up torrents or whatever else for a 1 dollar e-book? even if they only sell 5000 copies thats better than 0.
Plenty of people in fact. I believe there has actually been a few studies looking at the fact that many people are quite anal about spending 99cents on an app on the App Store; nevermind the fact that they then turn around and have no problem with buying a $4 espresso at starbucks.
People who release free music (which you can go to their site and download and pay nothing for it) or free games; still have people that then turn around and upload torrents for it. Some people say this has to do with the issue of "sharing" which some people like to do. I'm not sure why people do it, but regardless, there it is. So if authors released 1 dollar books, they would STILL be pirated. In fact, probably more so.
Why is that supposed to be something bad, or even a problem?
The real problem is not people pirating stuff. The problem is whether authors and people productively involved in their works receive the money they deserve.
Imagine an author who knows he/she will receive the money he/she deserves, regardless of how many people copy his/her work. How do you think that author would feel about people copying his/her work? Actually, I guess not getting pirated would be even a shame, as that would mean people just don't care about his/her work (or he/she is awful at spreading the word).
Let me take this time to simply say that I think the only TRUE solution to the copyright problem is
1) Re-education of people to try and get them to realize that without financially supporting (read: buying content), that eventually the system will eventually shrink.
2) A change in distribution system. Corporations need to be eliminated from the process. Corps are beholden to their shareholders to constantly push for more profit so in a system where there may not be huge profits to begin with, they need to be eliminated. Otherwise it'll be about either constant exploitation of artists or constant attacks against consumers.
None of which are intrinsically related to reducing free sharing. Free sharing and supporting authors aren't intrinsically opposites. You can perfectly do both, and even you can through content sharing get to know and eventually support artists that never would have reached you through the traditional means of the past century.
TLDR: The problem is not how to make sharing harder. It's how to make easier for authors to get what they need and deserve.
Now I just remembered an example. Recently I discovered there are "IStore cards" you can buy at combini. I think the way it works is like this: you pay for the card, it has a secret code, and you use the code to buy contents at the IStore. If you could use a similar system for all kinds of replicable contents, could create incentives for people to get contents from their authors or authorized distributors, cards were as accessible as bread or sodas, and prices were reasonable enough, you wouldn't need to worry much about "piracy" or sharing.
Yes, I know that's a lot of "ifs", but planning how to answer them is a much more realistic and productive plan than trying to obliterate sharing from humankind.
vix86 wrote:
Oh I know Sankaku is crap for legit news but its one of the direct sites that tends to translate stuff that reaches Japanese outlets (mostly 2chまとめ sites). Usually they link to the original news article or まとめ article which links to an original post. But I can't read Chinese so...
IMO, Sankaku is less "evening journalist" and more a display of the negativity that's on the internet. So many of the "news articles" are really a focus of the negative response from the 2ch denizens.
Reading my post again now that you quoted it I realize that I sounded like I was insulting you for reading the site, sorry for that. More than anything I just wanted to take up the issue of Sankaku being such a horrible site because I have some friends who read it and it's so frustrating talking to them because they simply have no interest in considering for a moment what it is they're feeding their minds with. I'd like to summarize what I find to be wrong about the current articles linked on the main page:
Disney Crushes Doujin Game – “What Did You Expect!?” - No original news source, the article just ends with random quotes supposedly from 2ch but since the original posts aren't anywhere to be seen, only English translations with no links, it could just as well be the writer of the newspiece that wrote them. Besides, since there is no way of knowing how these particular posts were picked it's impossible to know if they even represent common opinions or just the voices of a few 2ch users that happened to say things that Sankaku thought would fit their narrative. Moreover, what does it even matter what random Japanese people on the internet think about this particular issue, what is the "thing" with 2ch quotes? I honestly don't get it. Even if you want to know about the otaku world, far from all otaku(otakus?) go to 2ch, a lot of them, especially the more reserved ones, avoid 2ch because it's filled with spam and trolling and yeah.
Okay so I didn't make it any farther than the first article. Still, what is it in Sankaku's "reports" that appeals to you? What does it matter to you what people are saying on 2ch? I mean, I would feel totally weirded out if some news site started quoting posts from here when they report on the opinions of "Japanese Learners" regarding "Remembering the Kanji"... it's just, it's like anti-journalism.
Actually, one more: "18-Year-Old Arrested for $100 Sex with 17-Year-Old Schoolgirl" Well okay. But what's directly under it? An ecchi drawing of a high school-ish teenage girl with huge breasts undressing, from an angle that is obviously intended to show her her breasts more clearly. It's just like what. is. this. And then this piece of immature scribbles are ended with "Online the Japanese are as usual unable to comprehend the application of their own often bizarrely applied sex crime laws" followed by another series of supposedly translated posts, not even saying what boards they were pulled from. Note especially that these mini-quotes are supposedly a reflection of the views of "the Japanese", turning an entire people into some kind of dumb caricature. It's like quoting the SomethingAwful posts when you want to know about what "Americans" think! Moreover, a lot is bound to be lost in translation and when context is lost so that even posts that were supposed to be ironic or joking come off as pure raging drivel. The site has no respect for anything and can't be said to somewhat accurately reflect the views of anyone! I simply do not understand it. Am I missing something here? Why would anyone want to read a "display of the negativity on the Internet" on a daily basis? Personally I only ever have problems with dosages of Internet raging going beyond my senseless negativity RDI which is practically nil.
Sebastian: You and some others who have been propagating totally unrestricted free sharing seem to assume that since there are some people who have been able to sell their works to people even after they've been widely freely shared, it should be able to work for everyone. I don't really know what would happen if free sharing flourished and all creative, digitally replicable works started being distributed for free on the 'Net. But I think that the views of paying for works would change in some way. Perhaps we would all come to take free sharing too much for granted and so most of us would stop paying for creative works altogether - the people buying for example Gaiman's book even though they already have a copy on their computer are not only supporting Gaiman's writing, they are also supporting his decision to aid the free sharing movement. As a rule, I like free sharing, but we shouldn't expect everything to solve itself if we just remove all regulations surrounding it. We cannot extrapolate the successes of some artists supporting free sharing in this stage to the successes of artists living in a world where everything is freely shared.
Icecream wrote:
The idea that we should all pay back our individual debt and save instead is just wrong though. It would send the country into a massive recession if we actually all did that. Growth relies on spending, and investment, not saving.
Growth may be dependant on investment, but where does that money for investment come from? Save then invest, borrow responsibly, spend wisely. You have to consider quality and sustainability of growth. It's possible you could have some closed system, where the population is stable and food, housing, services, energy are all affordable, and quality of life is high but no actual growth. Deflation isn't the big enemy that politicians make it out to be, its just a correction that takes place when demand falls and output is left un-utilised. This could be for a number of reasons: output was artificially high (producing tanks during a war), demand was fuelled by an unsustainable credit expansion, etc. Either way money saved gets reinvested in areas for which there is demand, used to address debt, or whatever. People don't just stop buying the things they need. People don't hold out on buying food because it might be cheaper next week.
Icecream wrote:
1. You accept that those at the top levels of companies will always cream off their profits at the expense of their workers and consumers. You also think this is fair enough because those workers and consumers entered into those contracts voluntarily.
Execs/high-ups switch jobs to chase higher salaries. They get headhunted because of the value they provide to the company. Profits are increased by beating competitors in price/quality or whatever else consumers care about. Company A pays whatever is necessary to get the CEO whose leadership will let them beat company B. If company A goes out of business, all its workers lose jobs…
Icecream wrote:
We can choose to not work for or buy from one company or another, but we can't choose to not buy from or work for any of them, if we also want to live.
Sure. But food/necessities can not be created yet out of thin air and that means we have to work to live, perhaps even in a job you don't like. But live within your means, save money, invest in yourself and you can increase your bargaining power, switch jobs etc. People have a lot more power than they think. Just how many western university graduates are willing to work in as a cleaner or in a factory or something?
Icecream wrote:
The rich are able to outsource the risk of their business failing onto their workers, and again, it's fine because they entered the contract "voluntarily".
People don't want their businesses to fail, that costs them money. That may mean occasionally lowering wages and/or cutting jobs/hours. What do you do if your government (voted in by workers) forces you to pay wages that make your company uncompetitive.
Icecream wrote:
3. Given that we've been running under a pretty liberal economic model since the 80's, we know that we can't expect unemployment to be at 0 with a capitalist system, and neither is it ideal for it to be so.
First of all, I'm not necessarily for 100% no government, just very very small with strictly limited function. If the economy can be kept strong and most people employed, then there should be enough revenue to support a small number of disadvantaged people (disabled, jobless, etc) even with very low tax rates so long as money isn't being funnelled into wars, pointless create work programs, funding tertiary education and healthcare, administration, etc. Then you also have charities and the human tendency to look after their loved ones, personal savings (I think this sense of responsibility would only increase with a reduced welfare state) so I think some safety net is not incompatible with a strong free market. Maybe 0 percent unemployment is impossible, but at least the people that are employed are directed to where there is market demand and driving down the cost of living.
Icecream wrote:
Do you really believe, in a society which unemployment of some people (regardless of their skills) is necessary, that paying for the exact same service in a way which allows a company to profit from it is a better option than paying less for that exact same service through government?
Please name me one service which the government supplies better than the private sector…
Icecream wrote:
Since the only people who actually reap the benefits of this extra "freedom" in society to not pay tax are CEO's, and everyone else in fact ends up paying more "tax" in the form of insurance, why is it a better model for society than just paying tax in the first place?
Because the private sector almost always provides better services at lower cost than the government can.
Icecream wrote:
If you're not looking for a min wage job, you're on your own.
Well that's a start. You have to take into account supply/demand. We can't all start out in our dream job.
Icecream wrote:
One thing that could help this though is actually recognising different types of mental resources though, and have ways of valuing the way we rely on different people's resources in a much clearer way. It's actually impossible for all of us nowadays to have the requisite knowledge in all areas of our lives to be self sufficient, in terms of mental resources as well as physical. And this leads to the biggest degree of difference in mental resources, i think.
I'll end on a positive note:
Year 2060: Education Predictions
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
The idea that we should all pay back our individual debt and save instead is just wrong though. It would send the country into a massive recession if we actually all did that. Growth relies on spending, and investment, not saving.
Growth may be dependant on investment, but where does that money for investment come from? Save then invest, borrow responsibly, spend wisely. You have to consider quality and sustainability of growth. It's possible you could have some closed system, where the population is stable and food, housing, services, energy are all affordable, and quality of life is high but no actual growth. Deflation isn't the big enemy that politicians make it out to be, its just a correction that takes place when demand falls and output is left un-utilised. This could be for a number of reasons: output was artificially high (producing tanks during a war), demand was fuelled by an unsustainable credit expansion, etc. Either way money saved gets reinvested in areas for which there is demand, used to address debt, or whatever. People don't just stop buying the things they need. People don't hold out on buying food because it might be cheaper next week.
The majority of consumer facing business in the West in driven by people's wants, not needs... and the manufacture of the desire to consume things we don't need.
I don't think we actually disagree on this issue though. The original quote you took was from a paragraph where i was talking about Cameron and the way he uses PR. If everyone paid back their debts and started saving right now, the economy would go into an even worse recession, because there's less spending, there'd be even higher unemployment, meaning higher welfare bills, at a time when they're trying to pay back the deficit.
The point i was making was that he knows this, and doesn't really want people to pay back all their debts (in fact, knows they can't), but wants people to accept the cuts he's making without objecting too much.
It's good for the economy if people do pay off their debts, just not all at once and too quickly.
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
1. You accept that those at the top levels of companies will always cream off their profits at the expense of their workers and consumers. You also think this is fair enough because those workers and consumers entered into those contracts voluntarily.
Execs/high-ups switch jobs to chase higher salaries. They get headhunted because of the value they provide to the company. Profits are increased by beating competitors in price/quality or whatever else consumers care about. Company A pays whatever is necessary to get the CEO whose leadership will let them beat company B. If company A goes out of business, all its workers lose jobs…
Right, but again, i quoted a piece showing earlier that top execs salaries are rising much faster than the median wage. It seems fairly clear that top execs are overvaluing themselves at the expense of everyone else.
You seem to avoided the main points and started talking about other things rather than actually considering your ideas.
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
Do you really believe, in a society which unemployment of some people (regardless of their skills) is necessary, that paying for the exact same service in a way which allows a company to profit from it is a better option than paying less for that exact same service through government?
Please name me one service which the government supplies better than the private sector…
The NHS has a lot of holes, but it costs a lot less than the American insurance system, and covers everyone in the country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_car … ted_States
More money is spent per head on medical expenses in the US than in any other country in the world, while still failing to cover 16% of the population, and causing 60% of all personal bankruptcys.
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
If you're not looking for a min wage job, you're on your own.
Well that's a start. You have to take into account supply/demand. We can't all start out in our dream job.
Not everyone who becomes unemployed has no skills, education or experience. Treating people like they're idiots and not offering a good service to those who are unemployed leads to greater feelings of worthlessness and longer term unemployment. Well, that's the point i was trying to make, anyway.
I'm glad you don't object to at least a minimal welfare state, anyway.
nadiatims wrote:
Please name me one service which the government supplies better than the private sector…
Roads.
Sebastian wrote:
Now I just remembered an example. Recently I discovered there are "IStore cards" you can buy at combini. I think the way it works is like this: you pay for the card, it has a secret code, and you use the code to buy contents at the IStore. If you could use a similar system for all kinds of replicable contents, could create incentives for people to get contents from their authors or authorized distributors, cards were as accessible as bread or sodas, and prices were reasonable enough, you wouldn't need to worry much about "piracy" or sharing.
I'm trying to figure out why you think iTunes point cards are going to save artists from piracy. We've had an even more convenient way of paying for things online for about 15 years now, and it's called a Visa card.
Also, you seem to have missed part of vix86's post that you yourself quoted:
vix86 wrote:
nadiatims wrote:
Seriously who is going to bother setting up torrents or whatever else for a 1 dollar e-book? even if they only sell 5000 copies thats better than 0.
Plenty of people in fact. I believe there has actually been a few studies looking at the fact that many people are quite anal about spending 99cents on an app on the App Store; nevermind the fact that they then turn around and have no problem with buying a $4 espresso at starbucks.
Sebastian wrote:
Imagine an author who knows he/she will receive the money he/she deserves,
How does an author know they'll receive the money they deserve?
Sebastian wrote:
Why is that supposed to be something bad, or even a problem?
The real problem is not people pirating stuff. The problem is whether authors and people productively involved in their works receive the money they deserve.
Imagine an author who knows he/she will receive the money he/she deserves, regardless of how many people copy his/her work. How do you think that author would feel about people copying his/her work? Actually, I guess not getting pirated would be even a shame, as that would mean people just don't care about his/her work (or he/she is awful at spreading the word).
I'm quite confused. How else would an author get the money they deserve without selling the product? In some cases an author might receive money from a publisher in the form of a contract fulfilled for writing a book. I suspect only major authors get this though. The rest of the time authors are depending on royalties from selling the book to be able to "get the money deserved." I guess the only other way I can understand what you said is if you think most people, after pirating, will then turn around and buy the book. Possible, but I think its unlikely.
None of which are intrinsically related to reducing free sharing. Free sharing and supporting authors aren't intrinsically opposites. You can perfectly do both, and even you can through content sharing get to know and eventually support artists that never would have reached you through the traditional means of the past century.
TLDR: The problem is not how to make sharing harder. It's how to make easier for authors to get what they need and deserve.
Now I just remembered an example. Recently I discovered there are "IStore cards" you can buy at combini. I think the way it works is like this: you pay for the card, it has a secret code, and you use the code to buy contents at the IStore. If you could use a similar system for all kinds of replicable contents, could create incentives for people to get contents from their authors or authorized distributors, cards were as accessible as bread or sodas, and prices were reasonable enough, you wouldn't need to worry much about "piracy" or sharing.
Yes, by letting people download free copies of a book you are "supporting the author." .... True support might come in the form of reviews, or if you really wanted to support and author that wasn't well known, share partial copies of the book. Like the first few chapters. The iTunes store does this by letting you sample tracks before buying which I feel is very effective.
I don't understand what you are trying to get at with the iStore example. You are still paying money for the card which has an equivalent amount of credit tied to the store. You buy a product on the store and the author gets the money. This isn't any different than going to the bookstore to buy a physical copy of the book or going on amazon to buy a kindle version.
----
Surreal wrote:
Still, what is it in Sankaku's "reports" that appeals to you?
Honestly I read Sankaku for the articles on anime, manga, and tidbits on stuff happening in Japan that are interesting but won't ever make any real news rag. Stuff like "a maid train," the occasional cool article where people show off their rooms, latest retarded top 10 poll. Its the otaku stuff that I visit the site for and there aren't many other sites out there on the English side of the web covering it. The other stuff that sankaku carries is basically tabloid material level: stuff about Ishihara's latest antics, latest osaka police bulletin, most recent bizarre arrest involving sex, murder, etc. I get my news on Japan from http://newsonjapan.com (lol)
---
nadiatims wrote:
People don't want their businesses to fail, that costs them money. That may mean occasionally lowering wages and/or cutting jobs/hours. What do you do if your government (voted in by workers) forces you to pay wages that make your company uncompetitive.
This is certainly true of small businesses (usually), but may not turn out to be the reality for large corporations. A CEO for instance can make decisions which they know will likely inevitably lead to the down fall of the company. The CEO merely needs to cut run before the company falls. The same holds true for large investors. If the 'bad' decision leads to short term profits but downfall in the long term, many investors would see it as "legitimate risk." While not exactly the same situation, one of the things that US Republican primary candidate Mitt Romney has been criticized about is about some of the tactics Bain Capital used. Critics say Bain Capital invested into companies and offered advice to the company, much of this advice often came in the form of having the company take out loans, which pumped profits. Bain would then cut and run and the company would collapse under its debt. Romney hand-waves it away with "sometimes companies fail" nonsense but its just one example where the actions of companies may not be in line with making sure a company succeeds. The people burned in this were the workers that were laid off after the companies collapsed.
Please name me one service which the government supplies better than the private sector…
Infrastructure. Primarily roads, but also water pipes, power lines, and even general postal services. Many will argue on that last one and point to UPS/FedEx in the US, which is true; they did take the parcel delivery system and improve it quite well. However I will point to Japan, where back in early 00's Koizumi privatized the entire JP Post system. Recently they have been talking about bringing parts of the postal system back into the government though, why? Because JP Post started closing down post offices in rural regions where they were not making enough money. This was forcing some people to have to travel 30 minutes to go to the post office.
I'll also add healthcare to the list of things that govt. can do, whether or not its better is a matter of how you are trying to define "Better" when it comes to healthcare.
This isn't a service but I think the govt. does it best because private business won't usually: Fund basic research. Private industry funds lots of applied research but never much basic research which is what lays the groundwork for application.
vix86 wrote:
Surreal wrote:
Still, what is it in Sankaku's "reports" that appeals to you?
Honestly I read Sankaku for the articles on anime, manga, and tidbits on stuff happening in Japan that are interesting but won't ever make any real news rag. Stuff like "a maid train," the occasional cool article where people show off their rooms, latest retarded top 10 poll. Its the otaku stuff that I visit the site for and there aren't many other sites out there on the English side of the web covering it. The other stuff that sankaku carries is basically tabloid material level: stuff about Ishihara's latest antics, latest osaka police bulletin, most recent bizarre arrest involving sex, murder, etc. I get my news on Japan from http://newsonjapan.com (lol)
Okay, that's reasonable enough. (Though I probably wouldn't bear having to trudge through the site to get what I wanted even if I was interested in these things, really : p )
Surreal wrote:
Sebastian: You and some others who have been propagating totally unrestricted free sharing
Come on, it doesn't need "advocates" to "propagate" sharing. Sharing is already here and it won't go anywhere, so authors would better deal with it and evolve. If you try to swim against the flow, you'll drown sooner or later. If you go with the flow, you can go even further than before.
seem to assume that since there are some people who have been able to sell their works to people even after they've been widely freely shared, it should be able to work for everyone.
It's not imagination, it's the way things will be in the future (if not the present already).
I don't really know what would happen if free sharing flourished and all creative, digitally replicable works started being distributed for free on the 'Net.
You talk like it wasn't already happening.
But I think that the views of paying for works would change in some way.
That's my point. The whole concepts of "buying", "selling" and "paying" have to and will change.
Perhaps we would all come to take free sharing too much for granted and so most of us would stop paying for creative works altogether - the people buying for example Gaiman's book even though they already have a copy on their computer are not only supporting Gaiman's writing, they are also supporting his decision to aid the free sharing movement. As a rule, I like free sharing, but we shouldn't expect everything to solve itself if we just remove all regulations surrounding it.
That's my point too. People focus on what to do to prevent people from having things for free, and to little on how to make money flow into author's pockets. Efforts have to be done to make it easier for people to send money to authors and people productively involved in their works.
We cannot extrapolate the successes of some artists supporting free sharing in this stage to the successes of artists living in a world where everything is freely shared.
People involved in those business have to make that success happen. Evolve and prosper or get stale and die. You can't try to stop the world from evolving forever just because you feel more comfortable with the way things worked in previous centuries and hope to actually succeed. At some point someone else will get the point, evolve with the rest of the world and leave you behind.
vix86 wrote:
I'm quite confused. How else would an author get the money they deserve without selling the product?
That's (almost) the point!
I guess the only other way I can understand what you said is if you think most people, after pirating, will then turn around and buy the book. Possible, but I think its unlikely.
The concept of "selling" actually in use works like this: Get as much money as you can from as many people from a very limited subset of the population who can afford to pay you. You get as much as you can from each individual, and then try to reach more people with the same "price".
It has to evolve towards something similar to this: Get as little money as you can from as many people as you can (so they almost don't even feel they're using their money on you). Then try to expand your public, at the same time you repeat the previous process with the same people already supported economically, once and again.
I don't understand what you are trying to get at with the iStore example. You are still paying money for the card which has an equivalent amount of credit tied to the store. You buy a product on the store and the author gets the money. This isn't any different than going to the bookstore to buy a physical copy of the book or going on amazon to buy a kindle version.
The fact of money flowing from public to authors is basically the same, but the process of "buying" is totally different.
Compare:
A: You go to the bus stop, wait for the bus, going to the store, search for what you want to buy. If it's in stock, you'll buy it by paying a price similar to what you would pay for a dinner at a nice restaurant with your partner (which of course you don't do everyday or you'd go bankrupt).
B: You buy a card at any store on your way to work. You go home, open your browser, in less than a minute find whatever you're looking for, and buy by paying less than you would pay for a snack or a bus ticket. You enjoy what you bought, share it with people and they also like it. You and all of your friends can go to the authors webstore whenever they want and make as many donations as you want.
Model A is based on high prices and "owning". Model B is based on high scales and "sharing" and "rewarding".
If buying or making donations to your favorite authors was as easy an painless as giving a "Like" on Facebook or retwitting, no one would care about who copies what.
@Sebastian
Dude, are you seriously unaware of the concepts of credit/debit cards and online shopping? There is nothing new about these iTunes cards that credit cards haven't been doing much better for a long time, and I can buy practically any book I want without leaving my home or purchasing any point card.
I'm also not sure how much you think books cost (I'm assuming you don't buy many) or what you consider to be a nice restaurant, but I'm pretty sure you can't buy a meal for two at a nice restaurant for the cost of a typical book.
Also, nothing that involves money is as easy and painless as giving a Like on Facebook or "retwitting[sic]", because it involves money.
You seem to be talking down to the rest of us considerably while telling us to get with the times, but it's you who seems to be out of touch with the times and reality.
So let's take stock. So far we've got a militant libertarian telling us why we should eliminate intellectual property, government, and taxes, and we've got a confused cyberhippie patronizingly telling us how fixed in our ways we are. I think we need to call up mezbup so that we can have a "Yay free sh**!!!" utopian telling us about the futuristic paradise-like society that he's already taking advantage of.
Last edited by JimmySeal (2012 January 28, 7:19 pm)
Sebastian wrote:
vix86 wrote:
I'm quite confused. How else would an author get the money they deserve without selling the product?
That's (almost) the point!
I guess the only other way I can understand what you said is if you think most people, after pirating, will then turn around and buy the book. Possible, but I think its unlikely.
The concept of "selling" actually in use works like this: Get as much money as you can from as many people from a very limited subset of the population who can afford to pay you. You get as much as you can from each individual, and then try to reach more people with the same "price".
It has to evolve towards something similar to this: Get as little money as you can from as many people as you can (so they almost don't even feel they're using their money on you). Then try to expand your public, at the same time you repeat the previous process with the same people already supported economically, once and again.
I feel like there are some other flaws in your argumentation just like JimmySeal, but I'd just like to ask you if you realize that what you're saying here is that all artists should become even more mainstream, seeking wider audiences? Don't you think that that would have some seriously bad consequences for the world of creativity (I mean it's already happening everywhere and IMO it leads to more and more blandness)
Sebastian wrote:
Surreal wrote:
Sebastian: You and some others who have been propagating totally unrestricted free sharing
Come on, it doesn't need "advocates" to "propagate" sharing. Sharing is already here and it won't go anywhere, so authors would better deal with it and evolve. If you try to swim against the flow, you'll drown sooner or later. If you go with the flow, you can go even further than before.
Okay so you're saying that unrestricted free sharing for everyone is unavoidable, and that it's basically already happening. Well, it's far from everyone who dabbles in piracy and moreover, there ARE still people being brought to court over it, there are filters at university campuses etc. So no, we don't have totally unrestricted free sharing in the world as a whole, and only a small proportion of the world is partaking in what we have that is the closest to it.
And you don't really understand that my whole argument was that you can't just count on everyone in the world just being all-around goodwilled and deciding that they should still pay the author's of what they consume even though they can get it for free. There will be some people who feel like that, no doubt, but I'm saying that it's impossible for both you and me to say how many of us would be part of these "some people" and if it would be enough for smaller artists to get by. Maybe the creative world would stagnate and most everyone would either be listening to extremely mainstream bands that have millions of fans or old music from the eras before wholly unrestricted, free sharing everywhere. Other than the occasional live band viewing at a local concert hall of course, only the smaller live bands aren't really that good because they can't make a living out of it and so can only practice a little bit now and then. Who knows what it will be like? Not you, not me.
Really, your whole argument seems to build on two assumptions:
1. Unrestricted, global free sharing is totally unavoidable and therefore the only possible "future" for artists as well as consumers
2. People will always be nice consumers that want to support the creators of the works they listen to regardless of what the economic situation in the world will be, where they come from, what changes in values there will be regarding creative works and so on...
The first assumption might be true - though it's hard to say really, for example totalitarian regimes will continue to find ways to hamper peoples' consumption of media even for a long time from now and there's still many people in the world without good internet access. As for the second assumption, I really don't think we can say too much about that.
Last edited by Surreal (2012 January 29, 3:46 am)
(EDIT: Just to be clear. I'm agreeing with you Surreal, not attacking you.)
Surreal wrote:
2. People will always be nice consumers that want to support the creators of the works they listen to regardless of what the economic situation in the world will be, where they come from, what changes in values there will be regarding creative works and so on...
This is basically the assumption I simply can't get behind.
Lets use a movie example:
You don't bother to go to the theater to see the latest big movie and instead just wait 5 months for it to come out on DVD. At this point you download it and watch it. What are the chances you are going to then go out and buy it or even rent it again? In this instance consumption of content is basically a used condom. Once you have seen a movie you know what happens, and unless its just that good that you might see it again and again; you won't be buying it. Since movies are sort of large, expensive, multiple people creations; they don't tend to garner the same sort of support structure that a book or music band has.
Books and Music could possibly benefit from piracy as maybe you will buy future releases from the author/band, but that is a big maybe. I really would like to see more studies done on downloaders. I'd be interested to see if chronic downloaders are less likely to buy content than say someone that only downloads a bit.
Eduction is really the only thing that will save us from content stagnation I think. I was coming through middle/high school during the time that Napster was still running strong. Broadband hadn't quite hit the full consumer market yet. People still bought CDs often enough but after Napster fell and Kazaa showed up I remember seeing lots of people start to burn CDs and make mix CDs for other people that didn't know how get music and what not. There was nothing ever explained to us in school about the situation or the damage it could potentially cause, up till my Econ class. My econ teacher had a guy from a small record label that bought up copyrights for older music like "The Beach Boys" and sold it. He came into class and explained the business structure to us and talked about the damage of Napster, but it came off way too much like a "woo is me, take pity on us record labels!" and the message was lost. I don't know if they teach anything in schools any more, but they should I think.
Last edited by vix86 (2012 January 29, 4:46 am)
That's very true, I guess the free sharing movement in some ways boosts the individual-centralized art culture, ie less attention spent on appreciating collective works as well as even the works in themselves and more emphasis on the main creators' "attitude" and "artistic lifestyle". I'm so tired of hearing people talk endlessly about musicians' clothes,or about film creators' themselves more than about films made by the creator, and there's so much in the shape of "American Idol"-like programs with all this orchestrated drama. Can't we just appreciate art in itself without having to force this synthetic human dimension into everything? If there's going to be MORE of that, oh man.
Last edited by Surreal (2012 January 29, 5:51 am)
Icecream wrote:
Right, but again, i quoted a piece showing earlier that top execs salaries are rising much faster than the median wage. It seems fairly clear that top execs are overvaluing themselves at the expense of everyone else.
Well it may well be true that exec salaries are rising faster now. I suspect that may be related to globalisation. Large companies may be expanding their businesses into new markets with the rise of developing nations, meanwhile workers in the west may be suffering from outsourcing. I believe there will be a levelling of the playing field though. People have a responsibility to ensure their own competitiveness.
Icecream wrote:
More money is spent per head on medical expenses in the US than in any other country in the world, while still failing to cover 16% of the population, and causing 60% of all personal bankruptcys.
That could reflect better quality of care (that people are happy to spend for) or generally poorer health of americans due to wealth related lifestyle diseases. Ironically the quality of of healthcare for those who can afford it might allow a greater level of irresponsibility towards their health and keep extremely unhealthy alive longer (again racking up medical bills). As for 16% uninsured, that is almost certainly caused by poverty, and that can be addressed by fixing the economy. In a healthy economy with competing insurers everyone should be able to afford cover.
Icecream wrote:
Not everyone who becomes unemployed has no skills, education or experience. Treating people like they're idiots and not offering a good service to those who are unemployed leads to greater feelings of worthlessness and longer term unemployment. Well, that's the point i was trying to make, anyway.
I didn't mean to imply anyone is an idiot. Just it's an unfortunate reality of life that people who have skills in areas of low demand are of lower value to the market, that might mean you get people with science degrees or whatever else driving taxis but that is reality.
vix86 wrote:
Infrastructure. Primarily roads, but also water pipes, power lines, and even general postal services. Many will argue on that last one and point to UPS/FedEx in the US, which is true; they did take the parcel delivery system and improve it quite well. However I will point to Japan, where back in early 00's Koizumi privatized the entire JP Post system. Recently they have been talking about bringing parts of the postal system back into the government though, why? Because JP Post started closing down post offices in rural regions where they were not making enough money. This was forcing some people to have to travel 30 minutes to go to the post office.
Is there any evidence that typical state based infrastructure is even an optimal solution though? It's entirely unlikely that a stateless system would address these needs in exactly the same way. It's also impossible for me to be an expert on everything and predict how something as complex as a society/economy made up of millions of individuals with different needs would solve these problems, just as it would be almost impossible to predict the internet or mobile phones 100 years ago. That said let me point out though that places like department stores are perfectly capable of maintaining things like car parks, private roads are not unheard of. One thing I predict though, is that people would choose to live closer to where they work if the cost of a road system like we have today would have to be felt directly. I also wonder if things like power generation might be handled in a much more distributed fashion, with a huge number of privately competing energy companies operating networks of much smaller plants. Regarding Japan Post, why should the tax payer have to foot the bill for your postal service if you live in northern most tip of Hokkaido?
Icecream wrote:
So far we've got a militant libertarian telling us why we should eliminate intellectual property, government, and taxes
Well I'm not totally sure about labels and think I'm on the fence somewhere between anarchist/minarchist/libertarian, but I'm pretty sure libertarians are some of the least militant people on the planet. They operate on the no-harm principle; no taxation via threat of force, and without a powerful state, large scale conflicts become pretty much impossible.
Last edited by nadiatims (2012 January 29, 9:43 am)
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
Right, but again, i quoted a piece showing earlier that top execs salaries are rising much faster than the median wage. It seems fairly clear that top execs are overvaluing themselves at the expense of everyone else.
Well it may well be true that exec salaries are rising faster now. I suspect that may be related to globalisation. Large companies may be expanding their businesses into new markets with the rise of developing nations, meanwhile workers in the west may be suffering from outsourcing. I believe there will be a levelling of the playing field though. People have a responsibility to ensure their own competitiveness.
Globalisation will be one part of this, im sure.
However, there's no reason we can't redistribute now. It's not even an absolute that capitalism will in fact result in better living quality for everyone, all we can really say is that it has that tendency in countries that are still developing. In real terms, the trend has been for costs of living to be rising much faster than real wages for those with the lowest paid jobs in developed countries like America.
Also, more recently there have been new studies into motivation. While it's found that for labour intense jobs people are in fact motivated by money, for high level jobs the opposite is true. Using money as an incentive either doesn't work, or in some cases even restricts the abilities of those performing.
Part of that is because these types of jobs are ususally fulfilling in themselves to those performing them, probably.
The thing is, it basically makes no difference to the performance of someone if they're getting paid 1.2million or 1.3million. So even if that's what the "market" thinks someone's worth, it doesn't really make a difference. It's not actually reflecting a real situation in the world. So i see no reason why it isn't fair to tax and redistribute that.
nadiatims wrote:
Icecream wrote:
More money is spent per head on medical expenses in the US than in any other country in the world, while still failing to cover 16% of the population, and causing 60% of all personal bankruptcys.
That could reflect better quality of care (that people are happy to spend for) or generally poorer health of americans due to wealth related lifestyle diseases. Ironically the quality of of healthcare for those who can afford it might allow a greater level of irresponsibility towards their health and keep extremely unhealthy alive longer (again racking up medical bills). As for 16% uninsured, that is almost certainly caused by poverty, and that can be addressed by fixing the economy. In a healthy economy with competing insurers everyone should be able to afford cover.
That's not necessarily the case. Why should everyone be able to afford cover? No company is going to offer the insurance at a rate that is going to cost them money. And healthcare is expensive.
Also, though it could reflect those things, the data suggests that it probably doesn't. The link i posted before to the wiki article suggests it isn't. The USA lags behind other wealthy nations in infant mortality rates even. Life expectancy is also worse in the USA than in Chile and Cuba.
The USA isn't the only country that's inflicted with wealth related diseases, it's just doing a much poorer job of tackling them than other wealthy nations.
Also, something that might appear to drive down costs... niggling over treatments and insurance companies refusing to pay out for certain things / refusing to insure those who have prediagnosed illnesses at prices they can afford, while apparently bringing costs down, are either inhumane or may actually drive up costs in the healthcare system overall... like having to employ whole teams of people to deal with these insurance companies. There will also be more pressure to keep hospitals constantly repainted and looking new, but these things cost money without actually affecting the standard of care.
I'm not saying that a privately run medical service could never work, but in America's case, it is certainly not working as well as the government run service in the UK. Other countries also have partially privately run models that are working better than the United States.
nadiatims wrote:
JimmySeal wrote:
So far we've got a militant libertarian telling us why we should eliminate intellectual property, government, and taxes
Well I'm not totally sure about labels and think I'm on the fence somewhere between anarchist/minarchist/libertarian, but I'm pretty sure libertarians are some of the least militant people on the planet. They operate on the no-harm principle; no taxation via threat of force, and without a powerful state, large scale conflicts become pretty much impossible.
^^i didn't say this, but i'll just add in a point here anyway.
There are, in history, large amounts of corporate interest in, and money poured into various wars. If a large corporation can forsee that they'll make money by changing a power regime in a certain area, they'll be more than happy to go to war to see that happen.
Check out "the mayfair set" for some information on how private interests funded wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e-6lBGCOfA
A defence only policy like Japans is a much better option, i think.
Finally, again, "no taxation via threat of force" creates more freedom for one group of people only. And what is this "threat of force" to begin with. You could just as easily call it a social contract... business is free to move to Somalia if they don't wanna pay tax. But they don't want to do that, because they'd make less profit.
Freedom to not pay tax for them is the same as freedom to not work for the majority. We may not like it some of the time, but it's a necessary evil if we want to operate in the society we live in.
p.s. i liked the Khan Academy video 
Last edited by IceCream (2012 January 29, 11:26 am)
IceCream wrote:
Surreal wrote:
I wasn't very clear, sorry. Some people think that people with more resources taking responsibility means "taking care of" people with less resources, ie treating the resource-poor like they're unable of taking care of themselves. Of course, this IS a very real issue and it should be taken into account. Some of the people on benefits for example feel ashamed and useless, even making it less likely that they will get back into work because their self-esteem goes down. At the same time, there are a lot of people that have an easier time getting back into work after being on benefits because their health hasn't deteriorated, they still have proper clothes (which is very important for job interviews at pretty much any workplace) and so on. Not to mention that a huge amount of people would simply die if it weren't for the benefits. So, there are costs of using the system as well as benefits that have to be considered. Regarding this particular system, it's used so widely that few citizens question its existence, but like you said many do question to what degree it is used, and far too often one meets persons who fail to consider both the costs/benefits involved in these things.
Yeah, there are costs as well as benefits. However, these costs arise from the way the system is run rather than as a necessary consequence of having the system at all in the first place, i think.
I actually think that more "taking care of" people with less resources needs to be done, not less. But it needs to be directed differently, and not in a way which undermines people.
One of the 1st problems, in Britain at least, is the length of time it takes for benefits to be given in the first place. It takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months to start receiving benefits, depending on your circumstances. Housing benefit can take 6 months or longer in some areas. When it's such a long process to receive the benefits, it's very demotivating, and by the time it arrives, you've either found a new job already, or are past that original motivation to do otherwise. It's a similar circumstance for any change of circumstance, and working a couple of days cash in hand is more trouble than it's worth while on benefits.
Another way the system as it's run isn't particularly conducive to finding work is that government run job centres focus on bottom rung work at minimum wage rather than trying to match peoples skills and abilities to jobs they will find fulfilling in some way. If you're not looking for a min wage job, you're on your own. While there are some apprenticeships and retraining options, they are often only aimed at young people.
I think these are the kinds of things that lead people to feel useless and demotivated, not the receiving of benefits as a whole.
Well, first I want to say that I didn't mean to take a political stance on the welfare system in the UK since I know next to nothing about UK politics, I was mostly discussing how we reason about these kinds of things. That said, i think that even in a situation where a system of benefits works flawlessly there would still be some people who feel ashamed about relying on them for a while, especially strongly individualistic persons, because it might make you feel less independent. IMO though these kinds of things are a small cost when viewed in relation to the many benefits, I only brought it up because it's the kind of thing that people against social security systems might think of, while personally downplaying the actual benefits of the system. Oftentimes we can be more convinced by a great number of different weak arguments if they're simpler and especially if they suit our preconceptions than we are by more balanced and complex reasoning. And once we have a pile of arguments, strong or weak, for our opinion we tend to stock up on more and more of them becoming increasingly less picky about what kind of arguments we pick up because we feel so invested in the opinion(does saying that work? "invested in an opinion"? oh well, hope it makes sense).
Regarding the application process taking such a long time and being such a hassle, it's probably partly because it's thought to block frauders... On this issue, I remembered an extraordinarily good post made by Pony at the Penny Arcade forums, I'll just link it because he discusses the issue in a much more enlightening way than I ever could http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussi … cs-by-pony
IceCream wrote:
One thing that could help this though is actually recognising different types of mental resources though, and have ways of valuing the way we rely on different people's resources in a much clearer way. It's actually impossible for all of us nowadays to have the requisite knowledge in all areas of our lives to be self sufficient, in terms of mental resources as well as physical. And this leads to the biggest degree of difference in mental resources, i think.
I agree about this, and it's an area that often is impossible to discuss because all of us carry prejudices regarding what kind of skills are valued highly and everyone is too scared of being labeled as a bigot to even explore what implicit value system they have with others. So again, there is a silent agreement to turn it into a non-issue in the fora that should be debating these things, instead it only ever comes up in gatherings with the real self-righteous bigots and our everyday unconsciously discriminating behavior that only makes things worse.
Also, there are many persons with little mental resources just in general, that don't have a specific area of expertise or anything, and they tend to be the most spited... The majority of people never even stop to think about how these people can be helped, they're satisfied with just calling them "idiots", in fact I'd say that very few even consider what it actually is like to be one of these "idiots" or what they really mean when they use the word "idiot".
IceCream wrote:
i always loved the slogan
From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.
But they should have added in responsibility to that. However, it signals a basic respect for different qualities that our society doesn't reflect, i think.
Haha, this is brilliant. I actually recited that exact phrase (except I said it in Swedish) at a discussion session I had with my coursemates half a year ago. We were discussing an article regarding findings that suggest that much of the variance in IQ scores - as a (somewhat good) reflection of "mental capacity" or whatever you might call it - in most rich countries is affected by genetics. The article is pretty good but on top of being longer than it needs to be, it has some unneeded hinting at what the writer thinks should follow in the shape of political choices. Anyway, most of my coursemates lamented the finding that we aren't born equal when it comes to level of "disposition toward developing mental skills" or whatever you want to call it, even when there is no neural pathology involved(is this news? I was pretty surprised that this should be thought of as controversial in itself, though of course it's very hard to say anything too specific about magnitudes). At one point, one group of my coursemates argued that it was a hard hit for the socialistic ideal that much of Sweden's political history has been shaped by, because they thought the idea behind socialism is that everyone should be able to attain the same things if only everyone gets the same things... Cue the quote. Now I don't care so much about what people think about socialism, but what frustrated me is that almost noone in the room seemed to really understand the meaning of the quote and there were many ?-faces.
And yeah it was in relation to that whole discussion that I really came to realize how, at least here in Sweden, nobody wants to really talk about these things seriously, the "clever" people just want to keep avoiding it and comfortably continue to look smugly down on people with less mental resources. I mean even one of our lecturers who talked about how society needs to do more for people with low IQ as a group (because they tend to get into more accidents, often receive inappropriate medical treatment etc.) pulled a stupid "playful" joke on his way out about how the lecturer after him, known for being hella competent, would have low IQ, giving an acid aftertaste to his whole lecture... And people laughed at it! So. Annoying.
By the way, if you or anyone else here would like to look it up, the article I mentioned is "Intelligence: Is It the Epidemiologists’ Elusive “Fundamental Cause” of
Social Class Inequalities in Health?"(2004) by Gottfredson.
(sheesh, it's kinda hard writing these huge posts interspersed with quotes)
Edit:
icecream wrote:
Also, more recently there have been new studies into motivation. While it's found that for labour intense jobs people are in fact motivated by money, for high level jobs the opposite is true. Using money as an incentive either doesn't work, or in some cases even restricts the abilities of those performing.
Part of that is because these types of jobs are ususally fulfilling in themselves to those performing them, probably.
I understand what you are trying to say but if you're thinking of the kinds of studies that I think you're thinking of, we can't really say that it is always the case that these with high level jobs become less inclined to do their best when there's money involved - if they know that performing better will lead to more money they may be spurred by that, for example. They might not enjoy the job itself more, but that's not the only way to better performance. Besides, when companies say that they must let their CEO's have such high wages it's usually not because they think that the money is making the CEO do a better job, it's because they think that the CEO would leave for another company, taking all mythical CEO überskills with her/him... Right? I started tuning out all company official talk a long time ago because it's always the same, but there isn't anyone saying that the extra money in itself is making the CEO work better, like it was some kind of dollar bill nitro pumped into the CEO's forever gaping mouth, right? That just wouldn't make any sense... Not that any of the justifications for CEO's grossly oversized payrolls make sense when you consider them for more than two seconds, but still. This one would take the 'worst injustice justification' prize out on a romantic car ride to a seacliff and hold it proudly out over the edge as if it were cub Simba.
Last edited by Surreal (2012 January 29, 3:37 pm)
nadiatims wrote:
Is there any evidence that typical state based infrastructure is even an optimal solution though? It's entirely unlikely that a stateless system would address these needs in exactly the same way. It's also impossible for me to be an expert on everything and predict how something as complex as a society/economy made up of millions of individuals with different needs would solve these problems, just as it would be almost impossible to predict the internet or mobile phones 100 years ago. That said let me point out though that places like department stores are perfectly capable of maintaining things like car parks, private roads are not unheard of. One thing I predict though, is that people would choose to live closer to where they work if the cost of a road system like we have today would have to be felt directly. I also wonder if things like power generation might be handled in a much more distributed fashion, with a huge number of privately competing energy companies operating networks of much smaller plants. Regarding Japan Post, why should the tax payer have to foot the bill for your postal service if you live in northern most tip of Hokkaido?
There may not be much evidence to show that private industry could do infrastructure better, but I think there is enough evidence to show that private market would do it badly. Between monopolies and the competitive, race-to-the-bottom for-profit nature of businesses, I can think up half a dozen reasons why letting free market try and do something like roads would be an overall bad idea. And this is ignoring the fact that probably large portions of rural areas would fall back into a state where their own method of getting around is via dirt roads. Toll roads, usually a semi-privatized roadway, often work so well because of high volume traffic wanting to go between two places.
Power generation stands a pretty good chance of being privatized if stuff like fusion plants can ever be made, and made to small scale like is predicted. Even considering this though, I think you would still need to use taxes and subsidize the laying of power lines. Someone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong, but power actually started off as a privatized venture and then became controlled by govt. for a couple reasons. Not everyone was getting power, so govt. laid power lines with tax money; and power companies became monopolies and people had no option BUT to pay the one company that had power lines running to their house. Utility rates in the US are regulated by the govt. because of this exact reason.
On the point of JP Post and Hokkaido. Basically what you are stating then is that everyone should just move into suburbs or large semi-urban communities. No more rural areas. The point of taxes and their distribution to services is that; Yes, you may not be using part of the system now, but that does not mean you won't be using in the future. You may not need to mail or use the post offices in Hokkaido, but if you need to send something to a friend or relative that just happens to live in this sparsely populated area or you end up moving there; you'll quickly become thankful for it. I guess the only middle ground to this is have the state collect the taxes and fund the postal system in this instance instead of having the federal/national government do it.
Taxes exist to fund and support public services which you use or may use. I won't claim these services are always efficient (lawl roads, bridges to nowhere enough proof, though those points may be illegal were there any justice in the world) but I don't believe there is any comparable reason to believe that private industry would do it any more efficiently. Sure they will operate on a far less wasteful scale but that doesn't necessarily mean you will end up with a far superior service. It just means that 'sure, maybe you don't have to wait an hour or 2 at the hospital for care, but now you might die because the doctor wants to rush you through and bill you for bare minimum services.
I really don't understand the mantra "for private industry." You need only take a look at history to see how "private industry" would handle many things. "Big govt." and regulation at the scale we have it today are fairly new "inventions." They only appeared at the scale we seem them now within the last century to century and half. We ended up going to more regulation because of the actions of private industry.
Last edited by vix86 (2012 January 29, 6:15 pm)
Icecream wrote:
However, there's no reason we can't redistribute now. It's not even an absolute that capitalism will in fact result in better living quality for everyone, all we can really say is that it has that tendency in countries that are still developing. In real terms, the trend has been for costs of living to be rising much faster than real wages for those with the lowest paid jobs in developed countries like America.
First of all, why should so called advanced nations stop developing? Why make a fundamental distinction? Why not set rules that put the whole world on an upward trajectory? (Though I guess, if you're for wealth distribution, you really ought to be pro wealth shifting from former powers to the developing world.)
Secondly, what do you think is the major driver of inflation in America (and more broadly the west)? Obviously it's been the unsustainable expansion of credit to fuel to allow all those people who can't afford houses to get houses, government borrowing to fund wars and expanding social programs and so on. Meanwhile the nations that adopted the most hardcore socialism (china and former USSR) tanked their economies economies pretty damn quickly causing poverty and famines, eventually leaving them with no options but to adopt the economic reforms that are now causing them to do better (especially china since the 80s).
Icecream wrote:
The thing is, it basically makes no difference to the performance of someone if they're getting paid 1.2million or 1.3million. So even if that's what the "market" thinks someone's worth, it doesn't really make a difference. It's not actually reflecting a real situation in the world. So i see no reason why it isn't fair to tax and redistribute that.
Well when these CEOs invest that money, they are more likely to invest it in projects and businesses create wealth by benefitting society, after all that's one of the ways they become rich in the first place, being better at managing their money. Otherwise when the CEO's deposit their money in the banks, they are increasing the potential lending power of the banks, in effect saving money on behalf of society.
re healthcare in cuba, I recommend you read the analysis section of the wikipedia page.
Icecream wrote:
^^i didn't say this, but i'll just add in a point here anyway.
There are, in history, large amounts of corporate interest in, and money poured into various wars. If a large corporation can forsee that they'll make money by changing a power regime in a certain area, they'll be more than happy to go to war to see that happen.
Check out "the mayfair set" for some information on how private interests funded wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e-6lBGCOfA
yeah, I knew you didn't write that, I just filled out the quote tag wrong.
Anyway I don't doubt that there is corporate funding for war, however, they operate through government. The government has always been who corporations look to for help in protecting them from competition or create work for them (lobbying for government projects etc). Arms companies obviously profit from conflict, but the wars are ultimately funded by taxpayers.
Icecream wrote:
business is free to move to Somalia if they don't wanna pay tax. But they don't want to do that, because they'd make less profit.
That actually got me interested in reading about the economy of somalia.
also interesting: a traditional Somalian decentralized legal system.
this is interesting: "Unlike Western states, however, Somali society surprisingly also makes a distinct separation between law and government. Whereas in most Occidental legal systems government officials determine and write the law, in the Xeer legal system government is expressly prohibited from interfering with the law."