Correction: Everyone has the right to use violence. But only in self defense. It's the initiation of violence that is immoral. Initiating violence = aggression.

It's the institution of private property that separates man from the animal kingdom. Under the law of the jungle the strong prey on the weak. Under a system of private property, no matter how strong you are you have no right to violate another individual's property rights.

Under a collectivist system, the "collective" ("the state", "the majority",...) preys on the individual. A collectivist system is not much different from the law of the jungle. Collectivists are simply better at coming up with excuses to "justify" their acts of aggression.

Well said. Also there are alot of rich people in socialist countries. I think most people here are calling communism socialism because that's what fox tells them. Its not the same.

How do companies that make a profit by raping the environment fit into this? Weapons manufacturers who profit from war. How has the privitization of the prison system helped society?

The funny thing is that the poorer the region is the happier the people seem to be...

How does one measure happiness?

Well I have no method but just looking at the number of people smiling and having a good time around me I can pretty accurately measure if one place is "happier" than another....

I have noticed a trend...the poorer and sunnier the region is the happier the people are...the richer the region is the less people I see smiling and having a good time...

living standard and happyness do not seem to be related....or the poor people of the world have stopped trying to find happyness in money and they find it in other stuff while the rich regions keep chasing the money...

That may be the case in the UK, but not here:

"1. According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation?s richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.)

2. According to a study by Prince & Associates, less than 10% of today?s multi-millionaires cited ?inheritance? as their source of wealth.

3. A study by Spectrem Group found that among today?s millionaires, inherited wealth accounted for just 2% of their total sources of wealth.

Each of these stats measures slightly different things, yet they all come to the same basic conclusion: Inheritance is not the main driver of today?s wealth. The reason we?ve had a doubling in the number of millionaires and billionaires over the past decade (even adjusted for inflation) is that more of the non-wealthy have become wealthy."

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/01/...herited-money/

There are numerous citations and studies that back this up...



.:2 cents:


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Land belonged to the Native Americans, you lot came along and privatised it. I think you used a great deal of VIOLENCE in making land which belonged to everybody into land that belonged to a few.

In England the first thing capitalism did was with violence throw people of common land and into to cities where they were "free" to work if they did not want their children to eat rat.

This idea of free contracts is also a myth, free would be if both sides have equal power. Example Rio Tinto Zinc lock out all thier miners from the factory until they agree to return to work with reduced pay poorer conditions, The police and State support the "right" of the company to reduce a whole community to poverty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-e..._United_States


"evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much `stickier` than most Americans assume. ... would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society

What a surprise.

On free market capitalism and the environment: In a free market, a company can't simply for example dump its chemical waste in a river because that way it would be causing damage to the property of the people living downstream. I recommend Walter Block on this issue. He's an Austrian economist and has written tons of stuff on how based on the concept of private property rights, problems like pollution, the preservation of endangered species, offshore drilling etc can be handled.

On war and the prison system: The current system in for example the US isn't a free market. It's not free market capitalism. It's a mixed economy with strong corporatist tendencies. I would agree if you called it "crony capitalism", but free market capitalism it certainly is not. In a free market the majority of people currently locked up in US prisons simply wouldn't be in prison because their "crimes" wouldn't be considered crimes.

Take drug use for example. If you want to do drugs all day than imho that would be pretty stupid but since you own your body, you have the right to do that. The war on drugs has placed an incredible burden on society and the economy. People who have not caused damage to someone else's property are being locked up. The state then has to raise taxes to pay for the incarceration of all those people.

People who don't even have anything to do with drugs get caught in the crossfire. Mothers that buy a couple of boxes of sinus pills because their husbands got the flu and their children have allergies get arrested and thrown in jail because by buying more than a certain amount of sinus pills in a certain amount of time they get flagged as pseudoephedrine smurfs.

By limiting production and raising the risks (of violence etc) involved with the manufacturing and distribution of 'drugs' the state essentially guarantees that only people who are willing to take that risk move into that sector. As a result the most violent gangs survive and get richer and more powerful. It's Prohibition all over again. How many liquor store owners do you see shooting other liquor store owners these days? None. How much violence was there between gangs selling liquor during Prohibition? A lot.

Privatizing tiny bits of the state's infrastructure won't suddenly solve everything. Especially when the cause of the problem still exists. One swallow doesn't make a summer. A few privatizations here and there don't make a free market. On the contrary, most of those privatizations are just a corporatist way of rewarding cronies: Politicians use tax dollars to build something and then sell it at submarket prices to their cronies.

I've promised not to get into this anymore. but I think you are under someone's influence . No one is taking anything. On my personal example, my father and my grandmother got their apartements from a state (not buying them or taking credit, simply got them for free). Grandma was just ordinary worker in Bank (nothing more) and father mechanical eingenner (never gave a penny for his education).Does that sounds that someone is taking them something? That's all. They never had a fear about loosing job or private property or anyone tried to do so. Of course, I don't know how it was in other countries, but as I've mentioned above, I guess it depends on country and it's level of socialism. I remember being in Poland somewhere back in 1988 and it looked really depressive, that's for sure. Once socialism went down, people mentioned (and their friends) went into big problems once no one protected them (free market and free will that you are talking about). Most of them loosed jobs and were treated bad because in capitalism, you are worth how much money you have. I can remember times when we were here also asking what kind of people are these when everything is looked through money. And now, first thing someone ask me when I go to doctor is: Have you payed? Humiliating.It just depends how you used to live and your experience. I can bet that radical Islamists don't understand your way of life and are also having their point of view but never tried capitalsim or socialism.

So the "apartment for free" and the "education for free" just appeared out of thin air? Did no one build the apartment, and create, and transport the materials, tools, etc...? Did the education simply float down from the heavens? Did the state then pay for them? If so, with whose money? There are so many things going on with this post in terms of basic economics that I should probably just give up now.

Never mind. Carry on....



:)
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Yep, I could say the same. You are completely missing the point but it doesn't make a difference.

With the money and the wealth that society created together, the clever and the stupid, the lazy and the hard working all created the wealth that was then spent on a free (at point of use ) schools, universities, health service, culture theater and film industry, cheap heating and housing and basic food stuffs.

Of course there were no rich areas or poor areas, little crime, and Poland was not involved in any foreign wars. Compared to a country with the same GNP like Brazil only a fool would risk leaving under capitalism.

JohnnyClips, the Paul Markham of politics

Anyway, everything started as a free market system and then it evolved into what it is today. If its a free market to do whatever you want, people will take advantage of the system and morals with only prevent some of the people. Then everything will be back to an oligarchy Russia style, with a few controlling vast amounts of wealth above the rest of society. I mean c'mon the dropped communism what 30 years ago and switched to a much more free market capitalistic system and this is what it evolved into.

At least governments are in some way accountable to the people in a democracy even though it is far from perfect. Companies are accountable to no one except shareholders and there is no such thing as morals when there are profits on the line. Just look at this industry.

Thanks for the reply U-bob, I don't have your backround in economics and see more of the social side of things but I totally agree with you on the war on drugs.

The question is more, What the fuck world do you live in? I bet you don't even vote.

I live in Aus, the best country on earth.

good luck Johnny

Well gee, if that worker is so aware that his effort is worth $1000/week, why doesn't he produce the goods and sells them himself? Oh, he doesn't have the tools needed for it? Oh, he knows jack shit about sales and marketing? Oh, he doesn't know squat about market prospecting? Oh, he has no clue how to successfully do exports to foreign markets? You don't ACTUALLY think the $800 difference between what the worker earns per week and what the product's price is to the end-consumer is the business owner's profit, do you?

This is one of the most retarded myths peddled by brainless people, who not only failed econ 101, marketing, sales and whatnot, but obviously also failed basic math, not to mention common fucking sense.

This discussion doesn't matter most people are below animals in their thinking. People want to follow nature in a dog eat dog world where death and fear rules the mindset. Following nature or lets say "the ego" is below all animals. You have a great brain but you're not using it to evolve. You just want misery, pain, death, destruction and discrimination. Humans are the least intelligent animal on earth. People are actually arguing for death, famine, war, fear, stupidity, selfishness, greed and misery. Human beings haven't evolved one bit.

Quite often he does and very successfully too. It is call the cooperative movement.

The problem is that most people are born into a situation, if you are born in the town of Boron, where most of the work is the mine owned by Rio Tinto, it is impossible to do it themselves, the land has been grabbed.

The story of the capitalist who took his factory and workers to Australia lock stock and barrel, but complained because all the worker ran off, because there was land so the workers did not have to work for crap wages they could farm for themselves.

The State helped in colonies by forcing "criminals" and natives to work for the capitalist to make him rich.

http://i.imgur.com/VpfTO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VpfTO.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VpfTO.jpg

Socialism is the ONLY PATH to TOTAL FREEDOM!




































/joke joke

And you are using sign made by CIA ?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lpXbA6yZY-8

Define "quite often". Because until now, I've NEVER heard of any doing so. So you actually mean "very rarely", right?

They don't get much publicity and I was going to say that the reason you did not lnow about the movement was because you were from the US, but then I read

"In the United States there are over 29,000 co-operatives employing 2 million people with over $652 billion in annual revenue"

Which I never heard of either.

In the UK it has a long history and is strong in food retail, insurance, banking, funeral services, and the travel industry in many parts of the country.

This may also be of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondrag...ve_Corporation

You do know what they say about people assuming stuff, right? :)

Right. So very rarely.

EXACTLY!! "The State" is the only entity that can legally use force to make people bend to it's decisions. That's not capitalism. Capitalism is a free market where the owner of the company trades currency for labor, and the workers trade labor for currency. If either does not wish to voluntarily enter into the transaction, they are free to not do so. When "The State" gets involved, this free and voluntary interaction between people disappears.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AOdk-xDdPJ...ricanflags.jpg

There is no capitalism or "free market" without the state. The state is there to protect the capitalist against the majority of the population who will form Trade Unions and freely demand ownership of what they create. The Capitalist State restricts Trade Unions, makes laws against them, makes sure the Capitalists win strikes, keeps unemployment high to lower wages, forces people to work on the threat of losing benefits.

Yes the starving worker is as "free" to enter into the transaction as the rich capitalist, if he is prepared to starve to death to prove a point.

You are a genius of economics sir. I can see that not even the most subtle of economic theory or reality gets by you. Congratulations on your marvelously well thought through insights. You obviously are a gifted scholar with years of study and experience. Oh, by the way, which one are you? Are you the starving enslaved worker or the evil rich capitalist?







:1orglaugh.



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You do realize that, under a free market, workers would be free to form unions just like they do today, right?

The Trade Unions organize

http://www.oldukphotos.com/graphics/...20Servants.jpg
The State organizes

http://www.oldukphotos.com/graphics/...0of%201910.jpg

The State supports the capitalist in breaking the strike and helping the workers "freely" except lower wages and high unemployment
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ONXWE2EGPn...e-orgreave.jpg

Why do you keep talking about "the state"? Free market means voluntary exchange of goods and services, the state's only role would be to enforce (voluntarily agreed upon) contracts, should any of the parties involved break them. And I'm sure there are those who'd argue that even that function can be performed by private actors, without bias.

Besides, I'm pretty sure I can find images showing the trade unions initiating violence, just like you showed the opposite above.

you do realize that for the state it makes more sense to have as many people employed as possible to get income tax as opposed to paying unemployement benefits, do you?

I talk about the State because that is the real situation. Do you know of a country with a "Free Market" but no State?

Marx puts it better than me

the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, but because it arose, at the same time, in the midst of the conflict of these classes, it is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class....? The ancient and feudal states were organs for the exploitation of the slaves and serfs; likewise, ?the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capital

Why do you think that? In the UK the people in government are slashing state employment and creating mass unemployment.

Why because that lowers wages and increases profits.

The government are members of the rich capitalist class. The don't care about the government but they do care about their fortunes.

Stupid = less fortunate.
Less fortunate = socialist.

Over and out.

So basically you just hate America, right?

The only fraudulent comedy seems to be all the attempts to a serious political discussion on GFY ...

Karl Marx = Less fortunate = communist
Fred Engels = rich = communist

Your thinking = stupid

Still a Socialist drone? It's not too late. Enlighten and save yourself from your own ignorance. :thumbsup

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/144620000/144627546.JPG

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/102090000/102094650.jpg

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/147990000/147990885.JPG

Romney is a socialist. Did you see his forced healthcare mandate for Massachusettes? How can you get more socialist than that?