Is Socialism an Utopia?

[Ron_Tomkins]

The reason I ask is because I recognize that I have a lack of knowledge on many aspects of politics and economics, and this seems a crucial aspect.

So it all started with a conversation between me and a friend. This friend of mine is a socialist and I greeted him with this joke I have about an imaginary Bus that goes around putting burglars behind bars.

He said something in the lines that the real people who need to be put behind bars are the people in charge of corporations that exploit workers. He also added that he didn't support Private Property as a mechanism that works, because Private Property is always about exploitation. He said that in all types of work that are salary based, the "boss" (the one who pays) is taking ownage of part of the work that the workers do; and that the only thing that makes this possible is the Private Property industry.

I asked him if there were any Countries that had already reached this type of Socialism, that he considered role models and he said: The Soviet Union until 1953, Cuba, Yugoslavia and Hungary.


It is my belief that trying to come up with a system in which there are no differences in class is an utopia. However, I agree, it would be great if there were no such differences. It would be great if there were no rich people exploiting poor people. And I understand that that's where the rationale starts from: Since there has to be a difference of classes for the rich man to exploit the poor man, then we must eliminate such differences. There must be no ranks. But I think this is an utopia.

I don't know.

Thoughts?

[Eyeron]

The problem I can see is that Socialism can only be a Utopia if it is something that everybody agrees to.

And the other problem is that even in Socialist countries, you still have class division. The people who control the wealth are the ones who have the most power and are often far wealthier than the people they say they are spreading the wealth to.

[Ron_Tomkins]

The problem I can see is that Socialism can only be a Utopia if it is something that everybody agrees to.

I'm not sure I understand why. Maybe I was using the wrong word. What I meant by Utopia was "an ideal". Such ideal, I think, may or may not be shared by everybody. That wouldn't change the fact that it's still nothing but an ideal (more specifically a non realistic ideal).

In fact, I would think that the closest thing a non realistic ideal could ever come to becoming materialized is precisely if everyone agreed on it. Then, perhaps everyone could agree to live a fantasy together. A sort of shared delusion (and the history of myths and religion certainly has proved that that can be the case).

And the other problem is that even in Socialist countries, you still have class division. The people who control the wealth are the ones who have the most power and are often far wealthier than the people they say they are spreading the wealth to.

That sounds interesting. Is there any material where I could read more and expand on that? Because that's the kind of things I wanted to communicate my friend: I think that no matter what, there are always going to be such differences. You cannot have a completely homogenic society, in terms of social classes (or anything for that matter). I also believe that there has to be ways that someone can make more money without having to exploit other people. But my friend insists that you can't have it both ways: That there is absolutely no way you could end up having more capital than other people, without having become an exploiting capitalist. That issue seems to be at the core of Socialist thinking.

[Cain]

I can confidently say socialism is NOT an utopia.

[Thunder]

any society where no one is homeless, everyone has a job, everyone has health-care, everyone can pay their bills, and everyone has relatively happy....sure is Utopia.

but thats not socialism. its Social-democracy with a strong welfare state and a social-market economy/mixed economy.

[XBoxWarrior]

any society where no one is homeless, everyone has a job, everyone has health-care, everyone can pay their bills, and everyone has relatively happy....sure is Utopia.

I'm pretty sure I saw that episode of Star Trek...;)

It could actually work, as the means are there, but I seriously doubt if it will happen in today's political landscape. People want to have the opportunity to actually be Bill Gates, even when they are purchasing their next lotto ticket on the way home from the liquor store to their mobile home, getting ready for the next "tea bag" rally...:confused:

[psychictv]

He also added that he didn't support Private Property as a mechanism that works, because Private Property is always about exploitation.

He sounds more like an anarchist.

[Eyeron]

Is there any material where I could read more and expand on that?

You might want to start with this Wiki here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_socialism

[Earthborn]

The Soviet Union until 1953, Cuba, Yugoslavia and Hungary.None of these strike me as particularly utopian, and IMHO the Soviet Union actually improved a bit after 1953 (the end of the Stalin era).

[Skeptic]

He also added that he didn't support Private Property as a mechanism that works, because Private Property is always about exploitation.

Ask him for his car keys for a minute.

Sit in his car's driver's seat and tell him you're taking the car for a ride.

When he asks, "where?", say, "What do you care? Thanks for the keys!"

When he says, "but it's my car, you can't just take it", remind him that he just said that private property is always about exploitation, and he doesn't want to be an evil exploiter, does he?

[Skeptic]

I'm pretty sure I saw that episode of Star Trek...;)

It could actually work...

Yes, on some other planet, with a species different from homo sapiens.

[Pardalis]

Ask him for his car keys for a minute.

Sit in his car's driver's seat and tell him you're taking the car for a ride.

When he asks, "where?", say, "What do you care? Thanks for the keys!"

When he says, "but it's my car, you can't just take it", remind him that he just said that private property is always about exploitation, and he doesn't want to be an evil exploiter, does he?

He probably doesn't own a car, you know, those evil fossil fuels and all...

[kellyb]

I think we need to define "socialism", first.
A completely classless society (one definition of "socialism") is doomed to failure, IMO. Humans do, in fact, respond to incentives with productivity.

But if "socialism" is defined as having stuff like single-payer healthcare, progressive taxation, and a strong communal "safety net" for people in times of misfortune? Then sure. That works. And is comparatively Utopian in a good and plausible way.

[Puppycow]

He said something in the lines that the real people who need to be put behind bars are the people in charge of corporations that exploit workers. He also added that he didn't support Private Property as a mechanism that works, because Private Property is always about exploitation. He said that in all types of work that are salary based, the "boss" (the one who pays) is taking ownage of part of the work that the workers do; and that the only thing that makes this possible is the Private Property industry.This is a really nefarious way of looking at things. People are paid market wages for their work. Iam an employee for a company. By allowing my capitalist bosses to "exploit" me, i.e., work for wages, I am able to afford a very comfortable middle-class lifestyle. I have no doubt that I would be much poorer if I didn't have access to a capitalist who wanted to exploit my labor.

I asked him if there were any Countries that had already reached this type of Socialism, that he considered role models and he said: The Soviet Union until 1953, Cuba, Yugoslavia and Hungary.Your friend seems to be a fan of Stalin, who died in 1953. I think that it is almost universally agreed that Stalin was a terrible dictator and the Soviet Union under Stalin was an awful place to live. There were massive famines and gulags.

[Ziggurat]

Your friend is not a socialist. He is a communist. And private property rights are not exploitation: they protect the little guys, the people who don't have political connections or lots of money. Those guys can always come out on top, and they can exploit the little guys far more in the absence of property rights than they ever can with it. If you have no property rights and no connections, people can do anything to you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The history of the nations your friend cites are living proof of the lie that abolishing property rights protects anyone.

[Darat]

According to the proponents of any ideology the end result is a utopia. The problem of course is that no ideology is an accurate model of how the world actually works so in practise following the dictates of an ideology will not result in an utopia.

[Ziggurat]

According the proponents of any ideology the end result is a utopia.

Nonsense. Only ideologies which posit the perfectibility of man consider utopia as their end result. If you think man is inherently flawed and can never be made perfect, then while you may think that the world can reach a best state by following your ideology, it still won't be a utopia.

And yes, the difference between ideologies which posit the perfectibility of man and those which do not is quite real, quite profound, and has massive real-world consequences (http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/A_Tale_of_Two_Revolutions%3A_The_War_of_Ideas_%26_ the_Tragedy_of_the_Unconstrained_Vision/2403/).

[Darat]

Nonsense. Only ideologies which posit the perfectibility of man consider utopia as their end result. If you think man is inherently flawed and can never be made perfect, then while you may think that the world can reach a best state by following your ideology, it still won't be a utopia.

And yes, the difference between ideologies which posit the perfectibility of man and those which do not is quite real, quite profound, and has massive real-world consequences (http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/A_Tale_of_Two_Revolutions%3A_The_War_of_Ideas_%26_ the_Tragedy_of_the_Unconstrained_Vision/2403/).

Not nonsense, however if you want to use a definition of utopian which simply means "perfection" then please feel free to do so, it's a not a definition I will be using.

[Ziggurat]

Not nonsense, however if you want to use a definition of utopian which simply means "perfection" then please feel free to do so, it's a not a definition I will be using.

I'm using a definition which matches the origin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28book%29) of the name. Which doesn't require perfection, but does require a view of human nature which not all ideologies share. If you want to redefine it as meaning merely the best achievable result, well, you've stripped it of its significance.

[HansMustermann]

Well, the problem is that it's not an all or nothing situation. At least a certain kind of typical USA propaganda seems to be an OCPD exercise, i.e., suffer from an excluded middle: you're either right wing all the way, or it's the worst stalinist redefinition of socialism.

In reality, most of western european socialism has moved towards a more mixed model. Sometimes called "social democrat" rather than "socialist".

Can it work? Well, Germany seemed to work OK ever since WW2 with a "social market economy" model, which is just such a hybrid. France is a major economic power too, and it's pretty left wing. And I don't just mean wellfare and health care. The government of France owns extensive chunks of key industries, like railway, and is a major investor in a lot of companies and funds a lot of their research. And not just weapons and military: they own a chunk of TFT patents, for example.

And neither ended up hanging CEOs or whatnot.

In fact, in some aspects you just have to wonder. For example one of the most waved around aspects of unrestricted all-out capitalism is that it motivates people. Well, France has the highest productivity per hour worked of the G8 countries. Hmm...

[The Painter]

"The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money."

[Darat]

I'm using a definition which matches the origin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28book%29) of the name. Which doesn't require perfection, but does require a view of human nature which not all ideologies share. If you want to redefine it as meaning merely the best achievable result, well, you've stripped it of its significance.

The problem with using such a definition is that everyone will use different criteria to determine if a society is perfect or not, so the term becomes pretty much useless if you want to have a meaningful discussion regarding what different ideologists state is the "best possible" society that will arise if their ideology is followed.

[Ziggurat]

The problem with using such a definition is that everyone will use different criteria to determine if a society is perfect or not

Except that's not the criteria I'm using.

so the term becomes pretty much useless if you want to have a meaningful discussion regarding what different ideologists state is the "best possible" society that will arise if their ideology is followed.

No, Darat. By your own admission, you definition applies everywhere. In contrast, I have given a clear ideological divide between utopian and non-utopian ideologies. The ability to make such a distinction, along with the real-world consequences of that divide, make my definition useful where yours, because it can be applied everywhere, is useless.

[leftysergeant]

"The problem with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people's money."

That was no more funny (or true) the first time I heard it. You don'y have anything identifiabnle as "your money" until you have paid all your utility bills, made your contribution to the infrastructure that allowed you to have any income.

The bad thing about capitalism, per se, is that it appeals to the least desireable characteristic of human kind - the drive to acquire stuff, as much of it as possible, and devil take the hindmost.

Soccialism, in any of its known manifestations, is aimed at ensuring that all get a reasonable share of the resources that the environment has to offer, that all benefit from their labor, and that labor and resources shall be pooled to enhance the available resources for the common good.

This is, to my mind, in keeping with the better characteristics of mankind, especially and specificly with those that raised us up above the common animals.

There is proof in the fossil record that out earliest ancestors acted cooperativelty, rather than competitively. The collective is greater than the individual, but the individual who is part of a c0llective is greater than the soliotaire

The only self-made man is the naked savage running about the bush poking animals with a sharp stick for a living.

An ideal society takes this into account, and tries to find some way to balance the drive to acquire stuff.

[Darat]

Except that's not the criteria I'm using.



No, Darat. By your own admission, you definition applies everywhere. In contrast, I have given a clear ideological divide between utopian and non-utopian ideologies. The ability to make such a distinction, along with the real-world consequences of that divide, make my definition useful where yours, because it can be applied everywhere, is useless.

Then we shall have to agree to disagree.

[Ziggurat]

There is proof in the fossil record that out earliest ancestors acted cooperativelty, rather than competitively.

No there isn't. Cooperation and competition are not mutually exclusive. There is strong evidence our ancestors cooperated, but NO evidence that they did not compete.

[Ziggurat]

In fact, in some aspects you just have to wonder. For example one of the most waved around aspects of unrestricted all-out capitalism is that it motivates people. Well, France has the highest productivity per hour worked of the G8 countries. Hmm...

Want to know the fastest way to increase that figure? Fire all the low-wage workers. That figure will shoot up. But things won't be any better.

France's labor laws provide strong disincentives to hire low-productivity workers. Figures like this don't mean as much as you might think.

[Francesca R]

The bad thing about capitalism, per se, is that it appeals to the least desireable characteristic of human kind - the drive to acquire stuff, as much of it as possible, and devil take the hindmost.The useful thing about capitalism is that it works with a human trait that is in plentiful supply (thanks to evolution or whatever you believe)--namely self-interest. Altruism etc is perhaps a little more scarce, limiting the efficacy of doctrines that require it in its pure form (IE not combined with self-interest)

There is proof in the fossil record that out earliest ancestors acted cooperativelty, rather than competitively.rCare to provide it? To be clear you seem to be saying that they co-operated demonstrably more than they competed. I doubt that.

No there isn't. Cooperation and competition are not mutually exclusive. There is strong evidence our ancestors cooperated, but NO evidence that they did not compete.Agreed. Moreover there is bountiful evidence everywhere that modern capitalist societies (that sanctify property and contract rights) co-operate stupendously more than folks did in any prior era.

[Francesca R]

IMHO the Soviet Union actually improved a bit after 1953 (the end of the Stalin era).It's hard to discern actually, with data available for life expectancy (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:RUS&q=russia+life+expectancy) and income per person (row 65) (http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_03-2009.xls).

[leftysergeant]

The useful thing about capitalism is that it works with a human trait that is in plentiful supply (thanks to evolution or whatever you believe)--namely self-interest. Altruism etc is perhaps a little more scarce, limiting the efficacy of doctrines that require it in its pure form (IE not combined with self-interest)

As evidence that altruism out-weighed self-interest, at least of the individual level, is to be seen in the many fossils available. Individuals so badly injured that they could hardly have stood upright frequently survived and recoivered, even though many of them clearly would have continued to need a great deal of community support. The Homo habilis remains found by Donald Johanson at Oulduvai showed clear indications of totally debilitating bone disease from which the individual recovered. Many of the Dmanisi remains (Homo ergaster? H. erectus?) are clearly geriatric, some to a debilitating extent. There seems only one explanation. Even at that low level of physical evolution, they cared about each other and were willing to donate a good deal of the community wealth to maintaining these people in their old age and infirmity.

Agreed. Moreover there is bountiful evidence everywhere that modern capitalist societies (that sanctify property and contract rights) co-operate stupendously more than folks did in any prior era.

The record of that is spotty and, since 1980, at least, trending more toward ruthless competition.

[Darth Rotor]

I can confidently say socialism is NOT an utopia.

Two votes.

Once again, we see the excluded middle crap again, and lack of acknowledgement of the sliding scale.

You got chocolate on my peanut butter!
No, you got peanut butter on my chocolate!
Where along this continuum does a system fall? What's the mix?

Pure Socialism......................................... .........................Pure Capitalism

..............↓.............↓...............↓..... ........↓...............↓...

100............................................... .......................................0

[HansMustermann]

Want to know the fastest way to increase that figure? Fire all the low-wage workers. That figure will shoot up. But things won't be any better.

France's labor laws provide strong disincentives to hire low-productivity workers. Figures like this don't mean as much as you might think.

Nevertheless, France doesn't have a massive unemployment problem either. So those workers have to go _somewhere_, where apparently they're more productive.

The fact is that humans are humans, and France has to figure out a way to use X% of the Y million of people it has. Same as the USA. That figure is at the scale of the whole country, not just of one company.

So if France's laws can create that kind of optimization, yes, I think it says what I thought it does.

[Francesca R]

Relative to what/where? Unemployment in France is usually lower than Germany, (at least, since unification), and about the same as Italy, but generally a couple of % higher than in Japan, the UK or US.

[Praktik]

According to the proponents of any ideology the end result is a utopia. The problem of course is that no ideology is an accurate model of how the world actually works so in practise following the dictates of an ideology will not result in an utopia.

QFT and definitely not nonsense. I think every politics has a vision of what society would be like if there were no ideological competitors and their ideas could be implemented in an unfettered manner: the socialist sees a world where inequality is mild and all the poor are treated with dignity and respect, the Hayek crowd sees a society bequeathed with efficiency wealth and individualism by the glories of the free market, the RedStateUSA sees America returned to a mythical golden age before all the trouble started and the lessons of the founding fathers (as they see them) were polluted by foreign ideas and corruption... etc etc

I don't think socialism therefore has anything about its particular vision that separates it from other political perspectives, in fact, it would be a pretty dry politics and a pretty unimaginative individual that doesn't have some kind of vision of the better world that would result if their particular politics were applied.

[Eyeron]

Considering that the goal of Socialism is to wipe out poverty, through the expectation of wealthy people to give up at least 90 of everything they have, because it is their social duty to pay for the poor because they have a lot more stuff, I'd consider it a utopia.

[JJM 777]

The problem I can see is that Socialism can only be a Utopia if it is something that everybody agrees to.
"Everybody" seldom agrees with anything in politics. In best cases a direct majority over 50% agrees with something. Even that situation is rarer than you would expect, because the statistical chance that more than 50% agree with one declared option out of infinite possibilities is very small.

A solution would be giving the followers of major political trends more autonomy about their own affairs, so they would agree with their own decisions, no matter what the other political factions decide about their own economy etc.

And the other problem is that even in Socialist countries, you still have class division. The people who control the wealth are the ones who have the most power and are often far wealthier than the people they say they are spreading the wealth to.
Well uhm ahh ehh. Okay, this has happened.

If this described activity is legal in the system, and not technically illegal corruption, then the legislation is not designed to be true Socialism. No Socialism, a false flag operation.

[Toke]

The main characteristics of utopia's is that they don't exist.
And there are uncountable versions of socialism.

I like the idea of a country with UHC, good unemployment benefits, and extensive government check on private companies.
Capitalism is useful, but like fire it should not be left unchecked.

[Eyeron]

If this described activity is legal in the system, and not technically illegal corruption, then the legislation is not designed to be true Socialism. No Socialism, a false flag operation.

It may not be technically legal corruption by that definition, but capitalism has been defined by some socialists as a corrupt system because it allows for the unequal distribution of wealth and control of all wealth in the hands of a few. So whenever there is class division based on unequal wealth division, then it is corruption. If not technically legal then ideological.

[Cain]

Two votes.

Maybe I should have italicized my last two words for you.

[Pardalis]

As evidence that altruism out-weighed self-interest, at least of the individual level, is to be seen in the many fossils available. Individuals so badly injured that they could hardly have stood upright frequently survived and recoivered, even though many of them clearly would have continued to need a great deal of community support. The Homo habilis remains found by Donald Johanson at Oulduvai showed clear indications of totally debilitating bone disease from which the individual recovered. Many of the Dmanisi remains (Homo ergaster? H. erectus?) are clearly geriatric, some to a debilitating extent. There seems only one explanation. Even at that low level of physical evolution, they cared about each other and were willing to donate a good deal of the community wealth to maintaining these people in their old age and infirmity.

May I ask you if you would care for an aging, ailing disabled Republican? Would you spend money to take care of him, or does your altruism only work for people who think like you?

I see alot of belligerent competitivity in your overall behavior on this forum.

[Francesca R]

As evidence that altruism out-weighed self-interest, at least of the individual level, is to be seen in the many fossils available. Individuals so badly injured that they could hardly have stood upright frequently survived and recoivered, even though many of them clearly would have continued to need a great deal of community support. The Homo habilis remains found by Donald Johanson at Oulduvai showed clear indications of totally debilitating bone disease from which the individual recovered. Many of the Dmanisi remains (Homo ergaster? H. erectus?) are clearly geriatric, some to a debilitating extent. There seems only one explanation. Even at that low level of physical evolution, they cared about each other and were willing to donate a good deal of the community wealth to maintaining these people in their old age and infirmity.I don't see where this account says it outweighed self interest. Supposing it did--did this collective trait get "co-operated away"? What happened to it?

The record of that is spotty and, since 1980, at least, trending more toward ruthless competition.No, the evidence of self-interested co-operation is ubiquitous. For example, a fundamentalist muslim working for a state-owned business in Iran, whose government then lends money to a life sciences firm in Switzerland which then develops arthritic painkilling medication which is later purchased by a distributor in the US and then finds its way to alleviating the suffering of an elderly fundamentalist christian conservative farmer in the midwest. Through the system of capitalism, the xtian-hating muslim co-operated with the islamophobic christian. Not because they decided to be nice to each other, but because their self-interest (and that of the other links in the chain) was served.

[HansMustermann]

May I ask you if you would care for an aging, ailing disabled Republican? Would you spend money to take care of him, or does your altruism only work for people who think like you?

I see alot of belligerent competitivity in your overall behavior on this forum.

I don't know about him, but personally I never put conditions like that. Society should be judged by how it treats his least fortunate members, regardless of what they happen to believe in.

[Darth Rotor]

Maybe I should have italicized my last two words for you.

I got it, and I agreed with your zing. ;) So I voted with you.

My further along comments were addressing the rest of the comments, maybe I should have specified.

[Achán hiNidráne]

Capitalism is useful, but like fire it should not be left unchecked.

Depending on the situation, one could say the exact same thing about socialism, too.

I find that I'm becoming more and more of an economic pragmatist: Whatever works, we should use it, and I don't see any thing inherently "moral" or "immoral" about capitalism or socialism.

It's how it's used that matters.

[HansMustermann]

Relative to what/where? Unemployment in France is usually lower than Germany, (at least, since unification), and about the same as Italy, but generally a couple of % higher than in Japan, the UK or US.

I don't think that a couple of percent more unemployed would skew the productivity/hour numbers that much, sorry. I don't think the numbers support the kind of simplistic "yeah, well, they just don't hire the least productive people" that I was answering to.

Plus, it seems to me that the Phillips Curve still applies. Lower unemployment means higher inflation, or viceversa. The UK was aiming at a different equilibrium point with 2.3% inflation compared to France's 1.5%, at least in 2007, while the USA was having 2.9% inflation in the same year.

So, you know, it's not exactly the "all else being equal" kind of thing that would support that handwaved conclusion. The fiscal policy of the 3 countries, as reflected in the inflation rate, accounts for a lot of the unemployment difference. There's hardly any more need for the kind of speculation that the french just deny someone employment, that, again, I was answering to.

[Pardalis]

I don't know about him, but personally I never put conditions like that. Society should be judged by how it treats his least fortunate members, regardless of what they happen to believe in.

As far as Lefty is concerned, there's a war going on within his own country between two competing factions, and he's doing everything he can do undermine his nemesis, which is anything but altruism, so I'm calling his bluff about how he alledgedly so highly values altruism over self-interest. I'm not buying it.

[Francesca R]

I don't think that a couple of percent more unemployed would skew the productivity/hour numbers that much, sorry.Au contraire I think that higher unemployment is in large part the price paid for higher output per hour. Not that French labour laws are in any way aimed at pushing up productivity per hour, by the way.

[HansMustermann]

Right. At about half a percent unemployment difference from the EU average, it can't possibly have anything to do with Euro fiscal policy, and it must be the doing of France-speciffic laws ;)

[MikeMangum]

Not nonsense, however if you want to use a definition of utopian which simply means "perfection" then please feel free to do so, it's a not a definition I will be using.

I guess we can simply come up with our definitions for words now, in spite of their actual meanings? Utopia doesn't mean "the best we can do" or "optimum society", it means a perfect society.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/UTOPIA
Main Entry: uto·pia
Pronunciation: \yu̇-ˈtō-pē-ə\
Function: noun
Etymology: Utopia, imaginary and ideal country in Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou not, no + topos place
Date: 1597
1 : an imaginary and indefinitely remote place
2 often capitalized : a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions
3 : an impractical scheme for social improvement


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/utopia
U⋅to⋅pi⋅a  /yuˈtoʊpiə/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [yoo-toh-pee-uh]

–noun 1. an imaginary island described in Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) as enjoying perfection in law, politics, etc.
2. (usually lowercase) an ideal place or state.
3. (usually lowercase) any visionary system of political or social perfection.


http://www.yourdictionary.com/utopia
Uto·pia (yo̵̅o̅ tō′pē ə)

noun

1.an imaginary island described in a book of the same name by Sir Thomas More (1516) as having a perfect political and social system
2.
a.any idealized place, state, or situation of perfection
b.any visionary scheme or system for an ideally perfect society
c.a novel or other work depicting a utopian society or place

That's why for the Soviets to create their version of Utopia required perfecting mankind itself, hence the New Soviet Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man).
The three major changes postulated to be indispensable for the building of the communist society were economical and political changes, accompanied with the changes in the human personality.[citation needed]

The Soviet man was to be selfless, learned, healthy and enthusiastic in spreading the socialist Revolution. Adherence to Marxism-Leninism, and individual behaviour consistent with that philosophy's prescriptions, were among the crucial traits expected of the New Soviet man.

Author and philosopher Bernard Byhovsky, Ph.D. writes: "The new man is endowed, first of all, with a new ethical outlook."

Here's a hint for those who believe in marxism: if your perfect political structure requires a radical change in human nature to work, your political structure might not be so "perfect".

[leftysergeant]

May I ask you if you would care for an aging, ailing disabled Republican?

As long as he was, prior to his disability, contributing to the over-all health of the community, and not abusing his fellows. If he has destroyed the commons so that everyone else is starving, he is just going to have to suffer with the rest of us, and a lot of people are not going to take any special care to see that he gets what he feels he needs as long as someone who has played by the rules is suffering disproportionatly.

Would you spend money to take care of him, or does your altruism only work for people who think like you?

My altruism is addressed toward the good of the collective, rather than toward individuals. During our productive years, we should all contribute to building up resources to carry the collective through the tough times

The individual who squanders common resources during prosperous times has no right to whine when the resources are not there to sustain him in times of famine.

Looking out for everybody is part of looking out for yourself. A lack of altruism, isolating your interests from those of the collective, is as risky as it is petty.

[Darth Rotor]

Looking out for everybody is part of looking out for yourself. A lack of altruism, isolating your interests from those of the collective, is as risky as it is petty.
I am trying to figure out who isolates their interests from those of society, or the other citizens. Where you seem to have a disagreement with others is on the degree of overlap. I cannot imagine a perfect overlap model, but maybe there is a close to optimal band? :confused:
15891

Can you please clarify what you mean by "the collective" before I offer comment on that?

DR

[Pardalis]

As long as he was, prior to his disability, contributing to the over-all health of the community, and not abusing his fellows.

But as a Republican, and potential rapist, would you help take care of him?

[HansMustermann]

I'm thinking you're upping the ante a bit there, with the "potential rapist". I don't remember it being a part of the original question.

Plus, what's a "potential rapist" anyway? Someone with male genitalia?

[Pardalis]

Plus, what's a "potential rapist" anyway? Someone with male genitalia?

According to Lefty, a Republican.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5330802&postcount=19
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=5336737&postcount=68

[leftysergeant]

But as a Republican, and potential rapist, would you help take care of him?
As an individual, probably not. I haven't the resources to take care of people who have acted morally. An ideal society will have collective funds available to help all who fall behind. Those who have not contributred to the best of their ability to build that safety net have no business whining that it does not catch them.

[Pardalis]

As an individual, probably not.

But it's your responsibility to take care of all individuals within the collective, whatever their political affiliation is, right?

I haven't the resources to take care of people who have acted morally. You mean immorally? What about the prisons, and the inmates, aren't they part of the collective and shouldn't they be cared for?

Those who have not contributred to the best of their ability to build that safety net have no business whining that it does not catch them.What does that mean, "have no business"? What is to be done to them? Shun them from society? Execute them? What?

How do you sort out who is entitled to help and who isn't ?

[HansMustermann]

I am trying to figure out who isolates their interests from those of society, or the other citizens. Where you seem to have a disagreement with others is on the degree of overlap. I cannot imagine a perfect overlap model, but maybe there is a close to optimal band? :confused:
15891

Can you please clarify what you mean by "the collective" before I offer comment on that?

DR

Actually, if you want a graph, personally I'd rather use the one here:

http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html

Why? I keep hearing for example that greed is good, but that seems to be handwaved at the expense of leaving no room for how much or at whose expense. Those 4 quadrants and especially the second diagonal offer a much more productive view into it.

There are people who make a profit while contributing to the others' wellfare too. And transactions like that. The classic example of England exporting wool to France and importing wine from there is exactly that kind of transaction: each gets something that for it is more expensive than what it exported.

There are people who make a profit at others' expense. What on that site is called "bandit". Their win comes at the expense of someone's loss.

And for some they make a much smaller gain than the loss they caused.

And to be fair in the altruism quadrant (what he calls "helpless") not all is good either. There are people who make a much bigger loss than the good they caused.

Basically the real question IMHO isn't whether self-interest is black or white, or even if altruism is pure white or black. Nor one of abstract overlap of "we" and "me".

The question is whether an action or model falls on the upper-right side of that second diagonal, or the lower left. Actions in the upper right side actually cause a net gain on the whole, those in the lower left cause a net loss.

Additionally, everyone who's consistently in the lower 2 quadrants effectively causes a loss to others. Whether they actually make a gain ("bandit") or they make a loss too ("stupid"), they nevertheless are a sink for society's resources. And while I won't be hard on them if it's by bad luck, disease, sheer stupidity, etc, anyone whose very philosophy is to aim for someone else's loss, is a parasite plain and simple.

[Francesca R]

Right. At about half a percent unemployment difference from the EU average, it can't possibly have anything to do with Euro fiscal policy, and it must be the doing of France-speciffic laws ;)I compared it with Japan, UK, USA. France and Germany (which has similar labour/industrial policy, except it also had to accommodate former East Germany 20 years back which had a long-lasting upward impulse on Pan-German unemployment) are a huge part of the EU by themselves, so that limits the use your comparison.

[Darth Rotor]

Actually, if you want a graph, personally I'd rather use the one here:

http://www.cantrip.org/stupidity.html
No, not a graph, a sketch of sets that overlap to varying degrees, between the individual and "everyeone else" who lefty seems to call "the collective" in his post.
Why? I keep hearing for example that greed is good, but that seems to be handwaved at the expense of leaving no room for how much or at whose expense. Since you are having that discussion with somebody inside your head, why do you bring that up to me? :confused:

But it's a funny page.
There are people who make a profit while contributing to the others' wellfare too. And transactions like that. The classic example of England exporting wool to France and importing wine from there is exactly that kind of transaction: each gets something that for it is more expensive than what it exported.
Short version: win-win.
There are people who make a profit at others' expense. What on that site is called "bandit". Their win comes at the expense of someone's loss.
Short version: win-lose

And for some they make a much smaller gain than the loss they caused.
Poor aim.
And to be fair in the altruism quadrant (what he calls "helpless") not all is good either. There are people who make a much bigger loss than the good they caused.
Short Answer: UN, and the varietal NGO's who feed foreign aid junkies.

The overlap, Hans, is where it starts. It informs what is optional or that which can be compelled by "legitimate" force, be it threat, physical, moral, what have you.

Additionally, everyone who's consistently in the lower 2 quadrants effectively causes a loss to others. Whether they actually make a gain ("bandit") or they make a loss too ("stupid"), they nevertheless are a sink for society's resources.
So you do need that abstract "we" after all. Thanks. ;)
And while I won't be hard on them if it's by bad luck, disease, sheer stupidity, etc, anyone whose very philosophy is to aim for someone else's loss, is a parasite plain and simple.
I thought you called him a bandit. Which is it? Or they are both parasites. The model, which like most models is limited, has left out the simply and deliberately lazy, who do exist in finite numbers, be they large or small. (They aren't all stupid). Do you consider them thieves?

So, whilst trying to divert me from "the collective" you have amused me, so thank you. No surprise that Prof. Cipolla scratched out that paper in 1991, when the country (Italy? California? US?) was obviously "going to hell" in his educated estimation.

DR

[HansMustermann]

Since you are having that discussion with somebody inside your head, why do you bring that up to me?

Because while it's a different over-simplification, I feel you're doing that kind of over-simplification too. And I'm finding it counter-productive by now that this kind of talk degenerates into useless abstractions every single time.

So you do need that abstract "we" after all. Thanks.

The abstract "we" isn't what I was disputing. It was the various abstract over-simplifications, including that "how much overlap there is" which IMHO miss the point. The more relevant issue is whether someone's actions and philosophy benefit society or are detrimental to it.

I thought you called him a bandit. Which is it? Or they are both parasites.

If you would call a bandit anything else than a parasite, I'm curious what :p

But yes, I was talking about both lower quadrants in as much as they're deliberate.

The model, which like most models is limited

The model wasn't even made for that, although it does come from an economics professor. Nevertheless, as makeshift aides go, I find it more useful than the usual abstractions that miss those two variables entirely. It's a start.

has left out the simply and deliberately lazy, who do exist in finite numbers, be they large or small. (They aren't all stupid). Do you consider them thieves?

They fall in his "stupid" category if they cause a loss without even gaining anything out of it, or even at a personal loss. They fall into "bandit" if their gain is someone else's loss.

But, yes, if anyone's plan is that someone else should pay so they can idle at home and watch football, then they are exactly what the bandit quadrant is about.

[Darat]

I guess we can simply come up with our definitions for words now, in spite of their actual meanings? Utopia doesn't mean "the best we can do" or "optimum society", it means a perfect society.

..snip...

Please tell me what "perfection" means in terms of a society.

[Ziggurat]

I don't think that a couple of percent more unemployed would skew the productivity/hour numbers that much, sorry.

Except unemployment measures are not terribly useful at capturing these differences, because people who aren't looking for work, for example, are not considered unemployed. Additionally, the shorter work week in France will also inflate the "productivity per hour" figure. People tend to prioritize their labor: if you cut your hours, you will cut the less productive work first. But of course, this ALSO ignores the issue of non-market work. For example, if you fix your own toilet instead of calling a plumber, that work and its value won't get counted in most economic figures. And we know that French do more non-market labor than Americans (surveys of leisure hours come out pretty close). But what non-market labor do people engage in? Well, mostly low-productivity labor, because that's the stuff that doesn't require special skills. And that's also the stuff that labor laws will inflate the cost of the most, and which we should expect the biggest difference in terms of whether people do it themselves or hire someone to do it.

And of course, we haven't even touched on immigration. If we kicked out illegal aliens, that too would raise our productivity per hour. I'll leave it for you to decide whether or not that's a good thing, but the effects on that statistic are rather obvious.

Plus, it seems to me that the Phillips Curve still applies. Lower unemployment means higher inflation, or viceversa.

Sometimes. But frequently not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar).

There's hardly any more need for the kind of speculation that the french just deny someone employment, that, again, I was answering to.

Strawman. I never said that's what France actually does. I said that doing so would have the effect of raising productivity per hour, and so using that statistic as a metric of merit for an economic system was dubious.

But while France doesn't deny employment to people as a matter of policy it does discourage employment of low-productivity workers. While you mention that the unemployment rate isn't really very high, the unemployment rate among young males of immigrant descent is simply ginormous.

[The Painter]

As an individual, probably not. I haven't the resources to take care of people who have acted morally. An ideal society will have collective funds available to help all who fall behind. Those who have not contributred to the best of their ability to build that safety net have no business whining that it does not catch them.



WOW I mean WOW. Selective Socialism. It only applies to those who produce. A completely new governing system. Congratulations to Lefty. Did you think of this all by yourself? Does this sound a little like independent capitalism or am I wrong??

[Phrost]

Please tell me what "perfection" means in terms of a society.

That's like trying to find two or more people that agree on a choice of pizza toppings.

[Cain]

I got it, and I agreed with your zing. ;) So I voted with you.

I see. I didn't know I was voting, but in retrospect I did cast a worthless opinion.

----

Has anyone here read Sir Thomas More's small book? I purchased a copy from the bookstore, which meant I overpaid. Not just because I bought it from a a physical store store, but because I paid for something in the public domain. (I was with a girl and I HAD to buy something to pretend I liked theory. Maybe I rationalized it on the grounds that it's a "new" translation and features extensive footnotes.)

I highlighted a few passages, and this one seems relevant:

The natives who refuse to live under their laws are driven out of the territory the Utopians have marked off for their use; if they resist, the Utopians make war against them. For they think it is quite just to wage war against someone who has land which he himself does not use, leaving it fallow and unproductive, but denying its possession and use to someone else who has a right, by the law of nature, to be maintained by it.

I'm suddenly reminded of More's obsession with conditioning (binding slaves with gold, so they grow to dislike the metal).

From here they bring the cattle which have been slaughtered andcleaned by the hands of bondsmen. For they do not allow their own citizens to become accustomed to butchering animals; they think that to do so gradually eliminates compassion, the finest feeling of human nature.

and on compassion in general:

To mock someone for being disfigured or crippled is considered shameful and disfiguring, not to the person mocked but to the mocker, since ti is stupid for him to blame someone for a defect which it is not in his power to avoid.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Guys, thank you all for the contributions to the thread. However, this conversation I had with my friend did leave me with some essential questions that I would like to have answered:

-Is it true that there is no other way an individual can reach an independent economical status without being part of a chain-reaction type of exploitation from other people, as Socialism claims?

-Is it true that this "exploitation" that Socialism criticizes is actually an exploitation per se or is this relative? (Especially considering that no one's being held a gun to their head and forced to work for a company)

-Is it feasible to conceive of a society that has no division of classes, where everything is equal or does this ignore some basic aspects of human nature that would make this an Utopia?

-Is such scenario actually envisioned by Socialism, or is there always a certain type of class division no matter what?

[daenku32]

I can confidently say socialism is NOT an utopia.

Oh come one, having happiness that doesn't depend on the amount of your paycheck? That's pretty sweet sounding to me.

Maintaining finances and having to worry about having money in the account is no fun.

[HansMustermann]

-Is it true that there is no other way an individual can reach an independent economical status without being part of a chain-reaction type of exploitation from other people, as Socialism claims?

It depends on what you mean by "independent economical status". The only way to be truly independent of the rest of the economy is to be alone on an island.

-Is it true that this "exploitation" that Socialism criticizes is actually an exploitation per se or is this relative? (Especially considering that no one's being held a gun to their head and forced to work for a company)

I'm not sure what you mean. Having a gun to the head was never a central argument of it all, so I have to wonder.

The fact is, it goes kinda like this: let's Joe, Tom, Dick and Harry make their own late 19'th century style car workshop and make 2 cars. Joe takes one car 'cause he's the boss. Tom, Dick and Harry get to carpool in the other one, 'cause they're the ones who actually hammered metal. Is it a fair distribution of the result of their work? Does it really matter if Joe held a gun to their heads, or just talked them into being shafted, or there was some other kind of setup?

But in RL situations you have CEOs who get 1000 times as much as the guys at the assembly line. Even when they're driving the company in a death spiral.

The fact is, money don't exist in a vaccuum. For the purpose of wages, it's just a way to divide the pie. A million people make a huge pie, and they get vouchers for how much of it they can take. That's money in a nutshell. And some guy gets to take 1000 times as much as the next guy who put the same 8 hours into it. WTH did he do for that? Crap golden eggs? The fact is, it's only possible because there were other people chipping in some work to make that 1000x portion possible. That's exploitation.

Gun to the head is a red herring. We created a system where that's the only choice, even without guns involved. The farmers still plough, the bakers still bake, and builders still build houses for them, but somehow they have to make a banker or VC rich in the process too. They may not have a gun at their heads, but they live in the system where most available choices boil down to the same thing, and they _have_ to pick one. Because that's how the system works.

And then some of us think it's high time to fix the system a bit.

-Is it feasible to conceive of a society that has no division of classes, where everything is equal or does this ignore some basic aspects of human nature that would make this an Utopia?

Nature? No. Other societies functioned perfectly well in cultures of sharing. The bushme, potlatch cultures, etc. Even in Europe before Adam Smith greed was a mortal sin, not something to flaunt and get social status out of.

Nurture? Yes. That's the culture we live in, and that's the kind of behaviour we learn.

Unfortunately, it boils down to largely the same problem. Culture turns slower than a battleship, and if you push too hard, it actually starts pushing back. It's not particularly realistic to have a plan that involves radically changing the culture, as the USSR amply proved.

So, yes, we'll never really be classless. That much is very much clear. Yes, some guys will have to take a bigger slice than other guys. It's what motivates people in this culture. But we can at least see to it that some people don't get entirely trampled up in the others' rush for gold.

-Is such scenario actually envisioned by Socialism, or is there always a certain type of class division no matter what?

Depends upon which definition of socialism you use. In the USA the term has been hijacked to be largely a synonim for communism. In Western Europe the aim is more like just to reduce the inequality a bit more.

[Francesca R]

WOW I mean WOW. Selective Socialism. It only applies to those who produce. A completely new governing system.It smacks of retribution against the enemy rather than anything else. As such, not really new, no.

[Eyeron]

Plus, what's a "potential rapist" anyway? Someone with male genitalia?

This is a term that comes from any feminazi, and yes they do indeed mean it to be a man.

[MikeMangum]

Plus, it seems to me that the Phillips Curve still applies. Lower unemployment means higher inflation, or viceversa. The UK was aiming at a different equilibrium point with 2.3% inflation compared to France's 1.5%, at least in 2007, while the USA was having 2.9% inflation in the same year.

Didn't Milton Friedman essentially earn his Nobel by providing empirical evidence against the Phillips Curve and by showing that inflation is an monetary issue?

[Skeptic]

Those who have not contributred to the best of their ability to build that safety net have no business whining that it does not catch them.

(Yawn)

And the police should not investigate the murder of anybody who voted democrat. If you didn't do your utmost to keep them all in jail as long as possible, you have no right to complain if they murder you once they're out.

[daenku32]

Didn't Milton Friedman essentially earn his Nobel by providing empirical evidence against the Phillips Curve and by showing that inflation is an monetary issue?

At least according to Wikipedia, Friedman certainly believed in connection between inflation and unemployment. It's just some particular details that he challenged. But I'm not at all familiar about why he won the medal.

[Newtons Bit]

This is a term that comes from any feminazi, and yes they do indeed mean it to be a man.

Should we start calling all women "potential prostitutes"? It's the same style of absurdity.

[dudalb]

If the OPs friend considers Stalin's Russia to be some kind of a great ideal to look up, that alone is enough to put him in the "individual whose opinions on Politics and Economics are best ignored" category.

[MikeMangum]

At least according to Wikipedia, Friedman certainly believed in connection between inflation and unemployment. It's just some particular details that he challenged. But I'm not at all familiar about why he won the medal.

I can see how unemployment would affect inflation indirectly in the short term (wikipedia chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M2VelocityEMratioUS052009.png) showing M2 velocity and EM-ratio), if inflation is based on money supply and velocity, which is what I've been taught. Increased unemployment would tend to reduce velocity. But long term, unemployment is not a driver of inflation, certainly not directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply
That relation between money and prices is historically associated with the quantity theory of money. There is strong empirical evidence of a direct relation between long-term price inflation and money-supply growth.

M*V=P*Q

EDIT: The reason for Friedman's Nobel, according to the Nobel website: "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy".

[Grizzly Bear]

Depends upon which definition of socialism you use. In the USA the term has been hijacked to be largely a synonim for communism. In Western Europe the aim is more like just to reduce the inequality a bit more.
If you think about socialism as being on a scale with anarchy on the far left and authoritarian/communism on the far right it would probably fall somewhere between middle and the extreme right.

Communism proposes the creation of an egalitarian society with the means of production controlled and having collective ownership. But the fatal flaw is exactly how you determine who has the best intentions in mind for controlling those means. Historically communism has never worked according to the ideals it proposes, and socialism in its most radical form is modeled by examples such as Venezuela. It's basically a power balance.

IMO by accepting it as a general model one must accept that the government itself is somehow partially/and or entirely immune to the same corruption that afflicts economics in a capitalist society. I don't think the difference that stark.

[Ron_Tomkins]

If the OPs friend considers Stalin's Russia to be some kind of a great ideal to look up, that alone is enough to put him in the "individual whose opinions on Politics and Economics are best ignored" category.

Why?

(And I don't ask in a tone of defending my friend. I just want to hear an elaboration of what each side has to say)

[MikeMangum]

Why?

(And I don't ask in a tone of defending my friend. I just want to hear an elaboration of what each side has to say)

Not to speak for someone else, but it might have something to do with the fact that Stalinist Russia is basically THE benchmark for totalitarian police states that engage in repression and pogrom against their own people.

[Ron_Tomkins]

I guess the bottom of the matter, the issue where it got to me was when I was being told that the concept of "Private Property" is simply put, wrong.

I come from an ideology that anyone should be free to handle their lives however they see fit, as long as they don't hurt others.
I also believe that one has a right to have things of their own, as well as a private property. Heck, even animals have an instinct for territorial demarcation.
So, the question is, is this feasible? Is it possible to have a system that allows private property, without being part of an exploitation scheme? (Or at least one where the exploitation is reduced to a minimum).
And if not, just exactly what kind of world are we suggesting? How does a world where there is no private property look like? Where absolutely everything is public and there are no social classes. Because I can't help thinking that this is more like a man's ideal than a reality. I don't think Stalin's Russia actually achieved that, or did I miss something?

[Ziggurat]

So, the question is, is this feasible? Is it possible to have a system that allows private property, without being part of an exploitation scheme?

What counts as exploitation? It's in the eye of the beholder. And since there will always be people who are willing to be exploited under most definitions, it's unavoidable without enacting totalitarianism. And human nature being what it is, that totalitarianism will itself exploit people.

How does a world where there is no private property look like?

1984. The book, not the year.

[stevea]

That was no more funny (or true) the first time I heard it. You don'y have anything identifiabnle as "your money" until you have paid all your utility bills, made your contribution to the infrastructure that allowed you to have any income.

Of course we ALL owe for utilities and infrastructure; so lets identify the deadbeats who aren't paying their share. Ignoring the lowest quintile some of whom certainly deserve a break, - the second quantile of the US populate pays about 1/10th as much as top quintile in Federal taxes. Clearly the ppl NOT paying their fair share for public services and utilities are the lowest half of household incomes and those paying more than their fair share are the wealthy.

It's nonsense to think that Bill gates (personally, not MSFT) uses 5000 times the Federal infrastructure as you and I, yet he is forced to may about 5000 times the median household income tax.

This attitude is defiantly wrong in another sense. If say Google offered to set up a software development center in a city - how much does that cost the city over a decade ? Obviously it creates new income for the city almost immediately. This is why cities have often PAID industry to move into town. They aren't a net drag, they are a net boon. Yet we attempt to take a punishing ~23% of profits as taxation and thus discourage expansion and competition.

Treating business and successful people to extra financial punishment is only part of a social/moralistic agenda and has nothing to economic justice.

The bad thing about capitalism, per se, is that it appeals to the least desireable characteristic of human kind - the drive to acquire stuff, as much of it as possible, and devil take the hindmost.

That's another point where you are off completely the rails. It is a normal human motive to accumulate value when possible - has nothing to do with capitalism. Commies do it, socialists do it, even communal indians of the NW do this as part of potlatch. All capitalism does is constrain that motive, so the only legal way to accumulate wealth is to provide goods and services through voluntary purchases in a competitive market. If you don't like Bill Gate's products you are free to buy Steve Jobs or else to use none - there is no coercion. There is a special problem with monopolies, but this isn't the place for that discussion.

Further it's absolutely no detriment to you if you choose to live in a cabin the woods while Bill Gates chooses otherwise, except of course you suffer from severe envy which is a major part of the current zeitgeist; the nonsense idea that we are obligated to determine who are the "undeserving rich" and then steal value from them by force of government.

Soccialism, in any of its known manifestations, is aimed at ensuring that all get a reasonable share of the resources that the environment has to offer, that all benefit from their labor, and that labor and resources shall be pooled to enhance the available resources for the common good.

No - it's a system for removing motivation to work. Which is exactly why the extreme forms fail, and all forms act as a boatanchor around the necks of productive people. Very popular with the unsuccessful for obvious reasons. Why should I work harder just so others can benefit and I get nothing extra ? It's complete nonsense to anyone aware of human motivations. In case you haven't figured it out already, taxation, except for use-taxes, is a form of socialism since they are NOT apportioned by use.

I lived in Germany for two short periods and it's very clear that the standard of living is quite different. If you are a top engineer or an employee scientist with a high skill level in Germany you can live a decent life style a a 1-car family living in a ~200sq.m house near a public transport station in a rather congested city-edge. If you want to start your own company it will be a huge battle - almost impossible. OTOH I know ppl in the US who have small horse farms (keep a few horses for the daughters) or run a small cattle operation as a side business, and they have decidedly blue-collar jobs (post office, truck driving). I know many ppl who have started their own businesses i nthe US including myself. The fact is you have more options in the US with less income to fuel them. Obviously these sorts of options can be destroyed by punishing taxes, just as it had been mostly destroyed within the EU. Removing the opportunity to fail also destroys the opportunity to succeed.

I believe in Germany that if you approached your employer looking to do extra work hours for extra income they would look at you as though you had three eyes. No one does it. Even when a project is in trouble salaried ppl are extremely reluctant to "pitch in" extra paid hours and make the project succeed - and I've seen that first hand.

This is, to my mind, in keeping with the better characteristics of mankind, especially and specificly with those that raised us up above the common animals

Envy, theft, taking from others, not by appeal to charity by my threat of imprisonment, then the whole discouragement of ppl working for their own benefit by providing value to others - those are terrible traits you are encouraging.

We see this already in the US where almost 40% of workers pay ZERO federal income tax, and Obama blithely claims he will balance vast new spending programs on the backs of ppl who earn above $250k (note it was initially $350k during the campaign). Class envy and usurping the proprty of others. Demonizing successful ppl and using the force of government to take what they have fairly earned as an extraordinary tax is not a lofty endeavor. It is demeaning to anyone with aspirations.


An ideal society takes this into account, and tries to find some way to balance the drive to acquire stuff.

The ideal society provides maximal individual freedom of choice - period.

If you want to live like a hermit and I want to start a company and make loads of "stuff" our goals do not conflict and we should rationally not have cause to interfere with each other. But lo - you have another agenda. You see the great pile of stuff that I built by my own work and risk and sacrifice, and you ignore that I have labored for this and you are filled with envy. Because of envy you begin rationalized imaginary ways that this stuff *must* belong to you and others. You falsely imagine that I must have taken this unfairly from others, or that I have used utilities and services that I haven't paid as much for as you.

Face it - you are trying to rationalize envy and theft in lofty terms, as petty theives do.

==

We all recognize that some small fraction (certainly less than 10%) of the population will be in need of social services, health care and various living costs that they cannot provide for themselves - and this is a social cost we should ALL bear. BUT it's my contention that just because you CHOSE to to be a lay-about and make little of that "stuff" that you so disdain, doesn't mean you owe any less of these social costs than does Bill Gates. Pay up slacker !

[Skeptic]

It's nonsense to think that Bill gates (personally, not MSFT) uses 5000 times the Federal infrastructure as you and I, yet he is forced to may about 5000 times the median household income tax.

Please stop. You're making me cry. The injustice of it all.

Further it's absolutely no detriment to you if you choose to live in a cabin the woods while Bill Gates chooses otherwise, except of course you suffer from severe envy which is a major part of the current zeitgeist;

I'm not so sure. I think envy is overestimated as a force. We are all sometimes envious of others, for numerous reasons, but most of us don't want to kill Bill Gates just so we shall feel less envious.

After a certain age, I think most people realize that people are different, and that some people want to live in a log cabin (or the equivalent) since it is more quiet and has less pressure. I don't think everybody, or even most people, really want to be the hot-shot newly-minted computer millionaire, with all the stress and pressure. For some people, it's a dream come true; for others, a nightmare.

I know such people -- they aren't envious of Bill Gates. It's not that they think he is miserable, or think he "doesn't realize what's really important in life". They're sure he is quite happy being who he is. They're just saying they would be less happy in his place, due to the pressure and problems involved in his job.

[Francesca R]

Treating business and successful people to extra financial punishment is only part of a social/moralistic agenda [ . . . ]Not half as much as calling it "punishment" is. :rolleyes:

Hmm . . .

Taxing value added, or profit, or income, or wealth, is punishment for doing/acquiring these things. Designed to take these things away from people (correction) and to deter other people from doing/acquiring them (prevention). Plus a little bit of old-fashioned vengeance (retribution).

Well that's bad! All that stuff benefits society, and is the trappings of hard work and success. Goodness, what a crazy idea to tax it! Let's tax debt, absence of income, losses, and value destroyed instead. That will encourage folk not to be lazy arse deadbeats looking for a free ride.

Wait, they haven't got any money. Oh well, indentured servitude / slavery then.

Hmmm . . .

[JJM 777]

By the way, Poland is planning to legally ban any Communist symbols, because they represent a genocidal political system like Nazis, whose symbols are banned in many European countries. No mention of banning American political symbols due to Hiroshima bombing or invasion of Iraq etc.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577305,00.html?test=latestnews

-Is it true that there is no other way an individual can reach an independent economical status without being part of a chain-reaction type of exploitation from other people, as Socialism claims?
The very concept of economy implies a "chain-reaction type of exploitation from other people", if that is how you want to describe the scenario that a person does a requested service for another person, otherwise uninterested and unwilling, but interested in the payment.

A fine system, if people are paid equally for the services that they give to others. Class struggles emerge when some are paid better for less work, and some others are paid little for hard work done to others.

-Is it true that this "exploitation" that Socialism criticizes is actually an exploitation per se or is this relative?
"Socialism" is a wide range of different ideologies. Anarchists want no central governmental planning, abolish all laws, including the monetary system. People would simply receive what they want and work as they wish. Doesn't sound like a formula that produces a high standard of living, but in the circles you hear people claim that it would function and be economically superior to Capitalism.

The opposite end of the scale of Socialist ideologies are supporters of a strong central government, which plans all economical activity in the country, allocating resources and labour force with statistical precision, without necessarily abolishing the monetary system. The Soviet version is called State Capitalism, because the state-controlled system didn't give equal standard of living to all people, and never even tried to do so, which is a central idea in Socialism.

-Is it feasible to conceive of a society that has no division of classes, where everything is equal or does this ignore some basic aspects of human nature that would make this an Utopia?
The inevitable freedom of thought and political opinion is a problem for making a state that forces everyone to serve one chosen ideology. If not utopia, then at least very boring for those who don't personally share the political ideology of the state. A solution would be to abandon the basic Communist doctrine of "revolution" to force the entire society to serve Socialism, and instead creating a Socialist economy among the segment of the society only, who voluntarily choose to join the system.

-Is such scenario actually envisioned by Socialism, or is there always a certain type of class division no matter what?
Everyone who talks about "Socialism", usually talks about abolishing any class divisions in the society.

[Skeptic]

By the way, Poland is planning to legally ban any Communist symbols, because they represent a genocidal political system like Nazis, whose symbols are banned in many European countries. No mention of banning American political symbols due to Hiroshima bombing....

Awwwwwwwwwww. How unfair.

Well, maybe Japan should have considered that before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

You know, that unprovoked surprise attack?

Because the USA was not letting it quietly enslave a few hundreds of millions of lousy, inferior Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, etc. in its planned feudal empire, a.k.a. the "Greater Asian co-prosperity sphere"?

Six million Chinese are estimated to have been murdered by the Japanese. 200,000 in the "rape of Nanking" alone.

But somehow I don't think you want Japanese symbols banned, however.

When there isn't a white nation to blame for a crime, you just don't care, do you.

[Skeptic]

Folks, it's very simple.

Germany and Japan fought the United States and killed Americans so that America will let them build and enlarge a racist feudal system, built around concentration and extermination camps to all those the 'master race' feels like exterminating. (whether Jews, Slavs, Chinese, or Koreans.)

The USA fought Germany and Japan to force them to STOP creating a racist feudal system, built around concentration and extermination camps to all those the 'master race' feels like exterminating.

Germany and Japan fought so that Auschwitz and Nanking could be repeated endlessly, all over the globe, wherever the German or Japanese soldier sets foot. The USA fought so that Auschwitz and Nanking would NOT occur any more, wherever the American GI set foot.

Kapish?

If the people here who claim moral equivalency exists truly cannot see this, they're moral idiots. If they can and ignore it, they're knowingly siding with evil.

And in neither case there is any point to arguing with them.

[Skeptic]

By the way, an excellent work of fiction that shows very well the difference between the USA, Japan, and Germany, see C. M. Kornbluth's superb science fiction story, Two Dooms.

[Darth Rotor]

I see. I didn't know I was voting, but in retrospect I did cast a worthless opinion.

----

Has anyone here read Sir Thomas More's small book?

Yes.

From here they bring the cattle which have been slaughtered and cleaned by the hands of bondsmen. For they do not allow their own citizens to become accustomed to butchering animals; they think that to do so gradually eliminates compassion, the finest feeling of human nature.

and on compassion in general:

To mock someone for being disfigured or crippled is considered shameful and disfiguring, not to the person mocked but to the mocker, since it is stupid for him to blame someone for a defect which it is not in his power to avoid.
It's been years, I think I'll get a few cups of coffee this weekend, and thumb through More's little tract again. Thanks for the reminder.

DR

[JJM 777]

Uhh how quickly a good chat on Socialism can go derailed.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Uhh how quickly a good chat on Socialism can go derailed.

You haven't seen nothing. It derails ten times faster on forums such as the Okcupid forums :D

[Ron_Tomkins]

Here's the basic issue:

Where does The Government fall within the Socialist idealism of a world where there are no class differentiations? As far as I know, the people in charge have always had more power and wealth than the rest of the people.

[psychictv]

I know I'm a bit late to the game here but...

It's nonsense to think that Bill gates (personally, not MSFT) uses 5000 times the Federal infrastructure as you and I, yet he is forced to may about 5000 times the median household income tax.

Not necessarily. How many thousands of people did he employ? How many of them were freely educated in public schools? How much money did his company make from the internet which was developed through public subsidies? How much does he benefit from police protection for his private wealth compared to you and I? Or copyright and patent protection for his business? Or the benefits of allowing H1B workers into the country. I think 5000x is probably an understatement.

[stevea]

I know I'm a bit late to the game here but...

Not necessarily. How many thousands of people did he employ? How many of them were freely educated in public schools? How much money did his company make from the internet which was developed through public subsidies? How much does he benefit from police protection for his private wealth compared to you and I? Or copyright and patent protection for his business? Or the benefits of allowing H1B workers into the country. I think 5000x is probably an understatement.

First you need to read more critically. My assertion was about Bill Gates PERSONALLY NOT MSFT. Gates does NOT have thousands of personal employees, Gates does not personally have anything to do w/ H1B employees or MSFT patents. You have completely misunderstood the argument.

=========

Switching to *YOUR* example of MSFT *CORPORATION*.

Most companies, like MSFT use public services (water, sewer, fire police, ...) and they also pay a very hefty tax for these. The amount is usually disproportionately high to the actual value since these public systems all have "deadbeat" users. People who pay little or no actual local tax but use water, sewer, fire & police. You should look up your local or nearby city fire codes for commercial building and also the tax codes for business. You are in for a surprise - businesses underwrite public services to a great extent.

The US very early created the modern patent system specifically to recognize ownership rights for invention.. Copyright recognized controlling ownership for certain kinds of work also. You cannot seriously claim then, that the patent or copyright holder now owes us a social cost for recognizing his rights !!! There are many many things wrong with the US and international copyright & IP systems but your contention, that a patent/copyright holder owes society for not stealing his work is just dim. You are wrong in another way. The government does NOT "protect" or defend your patent or copyrights claims/work. YOU have to go to court on your own dime. ((I've been there and it's ugly & expensive)). Fileing a patent is roughly like filing a land-deed for your home. It does not mean the police will help assert your rights, but only that you have evidence of ownership recognized by the Govt in court.

We can't discuss the H1B visa problem on this thread as it would take us too far off-topic. H1B system was vastly abused by both business and the Visa holders IMO. The whole program was a crock IMO. I'm unaware of MSFTs involvement, but MSFT is just an example of a successful company. Pick another if you like.

EDUCATION:
You seem unaware that employment is just a simple contract. When you go to the grocer and buy a piece of fish you shouldn't expect indirect costs to appear. Yes the fishermen needed nets and fuel and the processor needed labor and the refrigeration but those are all part of the embedded costs. The contractual exchange is that you get a bit pf fish and the venor gets the agreed to amount of cash without encumbrances either way. If you decide to work for MSFT or some other company it's much the same . You provide perhaps software development services in exchenge for the agreed-to wages and benefits. MSFT is NOT buying you an education. They rationally should not care if you were self-taught, home-schooled, went to public schools or private schools - the ONLY thing they are buying are sw development services in exchange for wages and benefits.

If there was some new extraordinary tax imposed on hiring a publicly educated person that cost would directly decrease the salary of those individuals. This is necessary to stay competitive. In a sense MSFT is already paying for the education as an indirect cost of employment in the wages.

Your erroneous thinking about education costs has two sources. You ignore that education is a general good with value outside of the workplace. You assume that education is roughly equivalent to "trade school". The stay-at-home parent who never holds a job (do they still exist?) still benefit greatly from a decent education. Actually the children of these educated caretakers benefit greatly from that education too. Without education the electoral process becomes less sane and stable. The second error is that you have a "Wage-slave's" view of what employment is about. It is an exchange of value. Both parties benefit or else the voluntary exchange never takes place. But is is also a careful balance of value on both sides of the ledger. You can't make up some new cost on business and imagine it won't appear as lower wages or else higher product costs. The higher product costs are prohibited by competition (See GM for example).

Similarly the City of Redmond is free to Tax the heck out of MSFT and when/if MSFT leaves town they are hosed. And MSFT like all businesses is required to flee to the most advantageous business environment in order to remain competitive.

==========

So in your world view how does society pay for the education of the guy who chooses to live in a cabin, write non-commercial poetry and live by begging ? Who pays for police and fire for the indigent (who actually use a great deal of this service).

Balancing these social costs on the back of companies that bring vast benefits to an area, that may never have existed given the extra burden, and that can, at a modest cost, move elsewhere is just stupid and incomprehensible.
===

You have a very fanciful but wrong history of the internet. My first univerisity (private btw) was on the APRANET for most of my undergrad time there 1969-1974. DARPA charged universities and private sites for access and a very hefty fee too. The only sense in which ARPANET is a predecessor to the internet is that it formed an early model of networking and developed a few protocols, but few remain in use. ARPANET in it's state of the mid-1970s was useless for industry or home use.

The lasting legacy of ARPANET to modern networking was in the form of the TCP/IP protocol developed with DARPA funding BUT heavily influenced by CYCLADES a French research network schema. There were other competing schemes in the 1970s, primarily supported for telephony.

You also ignore that practical modern networking was mostly PRIVATELY developed. Xerox-Parc's ethernet coax, which was standardized by IEEE(private) into the modern media including. Vint Cerf's rfcs were replaced with the IEFT(private) organizations network standards. If you read through the RFCs you'sll see nearly all were contributions from private companies, Sun, Xerox, IBM, BoltBeranek&Newman, DEC, etc.

So if your argument is that the Federal government should have patented their TCP/IP invention, I agree; however since there were a plethora of alternatives the price would either be remarkably low or else ppl would have used another protocol.

Of course unless you are really ignorant you'll realize that all companies using such a government patents would pass all the cost along to their customers - who are roughly the same ppl who invested their tax dollars into the original development..

Your other error is in assuming that MSFTs fortunes were founded on the internet. Actually MSFT was very slow to adopt networking in their products, ignoring it until the late 1980s. Apple by contrast was using a PRIVATELY developed appletalk protocol later adapted to 802 media (so for a long time Apple was not using any publicly developed network product). Biil Gate was very wealthy long before they ever attached Windoze to a network (late 1980s IIRC).

Now let's put that shoe on the other foot. MSFT software (tho' I personally hate it) has made the operation of many parts of government vastly more efficient. Ppl get emails via MSFT proprietary protocols, displaying MSFT .doc proprietary encoded documents in MSFT proprietary GUI. MSFT funds a lot of projects that use up money but fail. Perhaps the government should pay something extra for their use of all the proprietary MSFT goodness that they didn't contribute to. Perhaps Bill need a new Mazzerati and a vacation in Italy due to his unhappy childhood, so perhaps they should pay for that too ?

Again this is contract lunacy. The MSFT product is sold at competitive price for cash. Thats's the contract and trying to include all sorts of secondary issues makes a muddle of commerce and runs counter to the purpose and utility of money.

I still suspect your attitude stems from the looney-left view that if anyone has made money that it somehow involves depriving others of that same money (economic hokum). Then the corollary lefty-thought that if there is wealth, since it it ill-gotten we have the right to take it . Outside of progressive circles these thoughts are called envy and theft.

[JJM 777]

The only thing wrong with MSFT
Only one thing wrong about MSFT?

I don't bother to give my list.

[Ziggurat]

Only one thing wrong about MSFT?

I don't bother to give my list.

Trivia: Firefox's spell checker doesn't object to Micro$oft. Cute, huh?

Of course, it doesn't object to Micro, or oft, or Micro%oft, or dollar$sign, so one shouldn't read much into that, but it's an amusing curiosity.

[stevea]

Only one thing wrong about MSFT?

I don't bother to give my list.

Apologies JJM, but in an edit I've corrupted your quote and lost my own reference to it.

This IS NOT Meant to be a debate about Microsoft Corp, they were merely an example. Substitute IBM, GOOGLE or CISCO if you prefer.

I have my own long list of reasons to dislike Microsoft; their products fail to follow well recognized standards. Their products often perform poorly. Many basic functions are missing from their home & small business products. They have repeatedly used their near-monopoly power unfairly in the market place IMO. They have abused the patent system when it is to there advantage. ....

Still it's nearly a "don't care" since there are other viable OS & software options. MS hasn't received a dime from me in over a decade.

[stevea]

Please stop. You're making me cry. The injustice of it all.

So your vision of justice is that all take equally from social services and those who work hardest pay more ?

In a less lofty example, i used to live next to a guy and we were in similar lines of work earning roughly as much. Then I started a side business and in ~16 months I was earning about 1.75 times a much. My taxes went up by a factor of roughly 2.5. So who is contributing more to society ? How is it fair that I pay more at all ? How is it fair that I pay disproportionately more of my income ? I'm not using any more social services or education then before and no more than my neighbor.

Sorry but is should be a use tax.

I'm not so sure. I think envy is overestimated as a force. We are all sometimes envious of others, for numerous reasons, but most of us don't want to kill Bill Gates just so we shall feel less envious.

After a certain age, I think most people realize that people are different, and that some people want to live in a log cabin (or the equivalent) since it is more quiet and has less pressure. I don't think everybody, or even most people, really want to be the hot-shot newly-minted computer millionaire, with all the stress and pressure. For some people, it's a dream come true; for others, a nightmare.

I know such people -- they aren't envious of Bill Gates. It's not that they think he is miserable, or think he "doesn't realize what's really important in life". They're sure he is quite happy being who he is. They're just saying they would be less happy in his place, due to the pressure and problems involved in his job.

Envy doesn't imply the murder motive. It doesn't imply you want to BE Gates either. Do you understand the term ? It means you resent Gates and want his possessions for your own ends.

I think everyone down to some minimal income level should pay something for social services since it benefits all. The recent trend tho' has been to look to impose nearly all of these social costs on a small successful minority. That is envy. The only reason that Obama's "Soak the >$250k incomers" and 'Skeptics' inability to empathize with Gates occurs is because their sense of fairness is distorted by their resentment/antipathy for those better off financially. Face it you WANT something. You see that some resources are held by a minority. And you want to assert government power to take things away from the minority to create a social benefit of all. How could that not be envy ? There is no rational or moral basis for taking about twice as much tax from someone working 50% longer/harder/smarter..

Substitute "Polish-American" or some other minority group for "wealthy American" in this talk of social costs and you will see how ludicrous and biased the idea is. The suggestion that this minority disproportionally uses social resources isn't supportable by evidence - just the opposite.

Not half as much as calling it "punishment" is. :rolleyes:

Hmm . . .

Taxing value added, or profit, or income, or wealth, is punishment for doing/acquiring these things. Designed to take these things away from people (correction) and to deter other people from doing/acquiring them (prevention). Plus a little bit of old-fashioned vengeance (retribution).

Well that's bad! All that stuff benefits society, and is the trappings of hard work and success. Goodness, what a crazy idea to tax it! Let's tax debt, absence of income, losses, and value destroyed instead. That will encourage folk not to be lazy arse deadbeats looking for a free ride.

Wait, they haven't got any money. Oh well, indentured servitude / slavery then.

Hmmm . . .

Your reductio ad absurdam became absurd itself, and went right off the rails. Taxes are a forced payment, and taxes have a clear measurable negative impact on the related economic activity. There have been literally thousands of papers on the topic. Perhaps you need to read a little more widely with your "rolleyes" (like an econ101 text).

You are inadvertently correct in that if we taxed personal debt starting with the removal of the mortgage deduction, we'd all be a lot better off today !

My wife makes nice money, works in a nice environment, so she has continued working dspite some health problems. Now Obama want to create a new "punish the productive" tax and impose costly new requirements on insurance. It makes a lot more sense for my wife to retire (very) early. If the taxes get too bad I will/can retire early too.

Yes, Virginia/Francesca, taxes do punish productive people right out of working. ! You must be incredibly naive to think otherwise. It also pushes them into making income appears as cap-gains and other tricks to avoid the tax.

[Toke]

Have you heard the expression "the heaviest burdens for the widest shoulders"? It is somewhat related to my sig, the idea is that it takes money to run a country and you have to take them where they are.

[psychictv]

First you need to read more critically. My assertion was about Bill Gates PERSONALLY NOT MSFT. Gates does NOT have thousands of personal employees, Gates does not personally have anything to do w/ H1B employees or MSFT patents. You have completely misunderstood the argument.

I didn't misread or misunderstand that point, I just ignored it because it's nonsensical. Gates' wealth comes primarily from Microsoft, a company he founded and built up from just a few employees. The fact that he was able to do so is largely thanks to all of the factors I listed. If you took Gates circa 1975 with all of his knowledge and inherited wealth and placed him in Somalia, would he have been able to start Microsoft there? Of course not. The society he lives in helped make his success possible.

You should look up your local or nearby city fire codes for commercial building and also the tax codes for business. You are in for a surprise - businesses underwrite public services to a great extent.

As well they should. If my house burns down or all of my possessions are stolen, I don't stand to lose very much money in the grand scheme of things. If on the other hand, a local store was burned to the ground or robbed, they stand to lose potentially millions of dollars in inventory, plus lost revenue while they rebuild. Since they stand to lose more, they benefit more from police and fire protection and therefore should pay more.

If you want a free market analog for this process, take a look at the insurance industry. It performs a very similar function (mitigation of loss rather than prevention) and as in the public sphere, the customers pay more depending on how much they stand to lose.

The US very early created the modern patent system specifically to recognize ownership rights for invention.. Copyright recognized controlling ownership for certain kinds of work also. You cannot seriously claim then, that the patent or copyright holder now owes us a social cost for recognizing his rights !!!

Yes, precisely so. The patent and copyright systems create an environment where people can profit from their creative work. This is a pure government intervention which wouldn't exist in the free market. Indeed, when copyright is threatened by new technological developments, the government steps in again, at the request of private industries to further tweak the laws in their favor.

The government does NOT "protect" or defend your patent or copyrights claims/work. YOU have to go to court on your own dime. ((I've been there and it's ugly & expensive)).

Ah yes, those good old private courts. Oh wait, you say your case was seen in a court provided by the government? That I helped pay for with my tax dollars? It sounds frivolous to me, let's shut this whole patent system down. After all, I've never personally benefited from it. ;)


When you go to the grocer and buy a piece of fish you shouldn't expect indirect costs to appear. Yes the fishermen needed nets and fuel and the processor needed labor and the refrigeration but those are all part of the embedded costs.

And I benefit from the fact that the local health department ensures that the grocer isn't simply pulling month old fish from some rusty barrel out in the alley. And I can be reasonably sure that the FDA or fish and game divisions or somebody is making sure that the fish wasn't harvested from some lake filled with raw sewage. And the fisherman benefits from even being allowed to fish commercially in publicly owned bodies of water.

If you decide to work for MSFT or some other company it's much the same . You provide perhaps software development services in exchenge for the agreed-to wages and benefits. MSFT is NOT buying you an education.

I never said they were.

They rationally should not care if you were self-taught, home-schooled, went to public schools or private schools - the ONLY thing they are buying are sw development services in exchange for wages and benefits.

They certainly do care about the quality of your education. Again, let's see Gates hire a team of local developers in Somalia and tell me how well that works out.

If there was some new extraordinary tax imposed on hiring a publicly educated person that cost would directly decrease the salary of those individuals. This is necessary to stay competitive. In a sense MSFT is already paying for the education as an indirect cost of employment in the wages.

I can't parse this part. It sounds like circular nonsense. If there were an imaginary tax on publicly educated employees, their salaries would have to drop. Therefore since such a tax doesn't exist, their salaries are artificially higher by the amount of the imaginary tax? :confused:

You ignore that education is a general good with value outside of the workplace. You assume that education is roughly equivalent to "trade school". The stay-at-home parent who never holds a job (do they still exist?) still benefit greatly from a decent education. Actually the children of these educated caretakers benefit greatly from that education too. Without education the electoral process becomes less sane and stable.

Sure. This is exactly what I'm arguing. Society as a whole benefits from an educated populace (or police force, fire protection, etc). So we agree on that. What you're missing is that the people who make the most money have benefited the most from this society and therefore owe more in return.

Both parties benefit or else the voluntary exchange never takes place.

Of course. That's why both parties pay taxes. Both parties don't benefit equally though, and the taxes we pay are proportional to the amount of benefit we have made in the exchange (i.e. our income). There are certainly cases where the individual employee will have a greater benefit in their annual salary than their employer who might currently be operating at a loss. In that scenario, the employee could very well be paying more taxes than the employer. And that's the way it should be since they will have been benefiting more in that scenario.

Similarly the City of Redmond is free to Tax the heck out of MSFT and when/if MSFT leaves town they are hosed. And MSFT like all businesses is required to flee to the most advantageous business environment in order to remain competitive.

Very true. This actually proves your entire point incorrect! Since Microsoft has decided to stay in Redmond, they sort of by definition aren't paying too much in taxes as compared to the benefit they get from being in Redmond. If they were they would simply move!


So in your world view how does society pay for the education of the guy who chooses to live in a cabin, write non-commercial poetry and live by begging ? Who pays for police and fire for the indigent (who actually use a great deal of this service).

In my world view? I'm talking about the world we actually live in (at least in the U.S.). We all pay for the beggars and the indigent, proportionally based on how much we benefit from society (our income). It's in the best interest of society as a whole to have somebody putting out the fires the indigent starts, and to have the guy in the cabin writing poetry rather than bomb-making manifestos. Ideally we try to put as much money into such public services to insure that the number of these people is minimized, and we don't devolve into a third world hellhole where the majority is uneducated and unproductive.

Balancing these social costs on the back of companies that bring vast benefits to an area, that may never have existed given the extra burden, and that can, at a modest cost, move elsewhere is just stupid and incomprehensible.

I could say the same for your argument which you've unraveled all on your own. The fact that these companies don't move elsewhere is proof that the system works.

Of course unless you are really ignorant you'll realize that all companies using such a government patents would pass all the cost along to their customers - who are roughly the same ppl who invested their tax dollars into the original development..

Wow, too bad poor Microsoft doesn't do any business overseas. ;)

Now let's put that shoe on the other foot. MSFT software (tho' I personally hate it) has made the operation of many parts of government vastly more efficient. ... Perhaps the government should pay something extra for their use of all the proprietary MSFT goodness that they didn't contribute to.

I'm pretty sure the government already does pay for its software licenses. Are you saying that Microsoft gives them away for free?

[rain]

My main problem with U.S.-style capitalism is that a fairly small percentage of people are allowed to achieve an absolutely ridiculous amount of money and power. Some people try to say that it's all about hard work to earn that kind of money, but in modern reality, the richest people are often opportunists, scammers, and those who were simply born into it. When it comes to these people, I'm all for redistribution of the wealth. Certain European countries seem to be doing just fine with their mixed socialist systems, and yet here in the U.S we are throwing billions of dollars at people who are gifted at activities like hitting tiny little balls great distances with sticks.

[Francesca R]

Taxes are a forced paymentOf course they are. What they are not is "punishment", as in "This is to stop you making money, to deter others from trying to make money, and to avenge the badness of the money you made".

Characterising tax in those terms is a pathetic whimper made by people who got lucky and somehow think they are accordingly extraordinarily deserving of life's good graces. Or for people who like to pretend a lot. Plenty of wealthy individuals agree with progressive tax. They wouldn't donate if the law didn't require it. They still agree with mandatory tax.

taxes have a clear measurable negative impact on the related economic activityOf course they do. Whoever said that taxes promote economic efficiency? Certainly not me. That doesn't shake the truth that bleating "tax=punishment" is moderately hilarious. Are you hoping that people will take pity on wealthy folks if you say it? Or suddenly feel incredibly indebted to them? Sorry to pop your bubblegum but that isn't going to happen. It's what . . . incredibly naive.

You are inadvertently correct in that if we taxed personal debt starting with the removal of the mortgage deduction, we'd all be a lot better off todayErm, removing tax relief on debt service is not taxing debt. Taxing debt involves gathering revenue from those who are highly leveraged or have negative net worth. For you to say "we'd be better off" either marks you out as an anti-credit anti-fractional banking pro-gold-standard type, or as merely not understanding what you write. Which?