Political Compass

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part 2/2

For me, it's also just a nuance - it's still wrong. I personally do not want healthcare insurance at all. So why should I be forced to take it?
Why don't I want insurance? Well...
If I go into a casino, I have a tiny chance to win huge amounts of money. But I pay every time I want to try my luck. Insurance is also a form of gambling - I pay every month, and there is a tiny chance that one day, I will "win" huge amounts of money. There is one, very significant difference, however. If I go play cards at the casino, I actually want to win the money. I do my best to win. With insurance? Quite the opposite...

By that mindset you'd have to eliminate all and every insurance. My problem here is really the one of the grasshopper versus the ant (I think that was the story - anyways). The grasshopper celebrates all summer long while the ant works and works and puts back resources. Then winter comes. The grashopper demands that the ant hels him out because it has resources left, completely ignoring that the work it needed to build them.
You see if I enforce that the grasshopper takes care for himself in time this problem doesn't arise. With pulic healthcare you actually insure that at least a part of the insurance is payed for by the person himself. However in your charity model its just the reverse. Most people won't care at all and if something occurs they'll be a burden for society. OTOH those few that did insure themself are the stupid ones.
I'll come back to car insurance becaus ehere it is much more evident. I don't pay the insurance for me. I pay it for the others. Similar I could say ok, you don't need an insurance. Pay all the cost yourself. So if someone damages my car isn't insured and is broke, what then?
I am all for the right to pick when it comes to insurances as long as we talk about low insurance values. However if we talk about stuff like fire insurance, health care and so on that have incredibly low rates and incredibly high returns in case of emergency I am all for forced ones, because noone sans millionaires can survive a case where he wouldn't need an insurance but doesn't have one.

1. It's not just progressive income tax that's wrong - income tax in general is wrong. If I pay 20% of my income, I'm still being punished for having a better job than some other guy (whose 20% is lower than mine).

This is very I strongly have to disagree. Of course it is unfair to the rich, but this is a price I'd be very willing to pay.

2. Companies should not be taxed at all. Taxing a company means double taxation - it's as if you taxed the husband and the wife separately, and then in addition taxed the incomes of the entire household.

Well you forget one thing: Earnings that aren't spent. What about a one man company that gets $1000000 a year, but the person owning it only takes $10000 for himself. What about the $990000 that remain. Some sort of tax would have to be applied to them as well. But in general I'd agree.

But you know what are even more disgusting taxes in my eyes?
Taxes on ground.
Even higher taxes on ground if you are allowed to build there, but don't do it.
Taxes if you inherit something.
Taxes on your wealth as a whole (each and every year again).

We got the first 3, the 4th one was in effect prior to the KEST (local the tax on earnings you get on the bank). Now it is temporarily gone, but they are already talking about reviving it. So you get penalized for for saving money versus spending it.

Actually, the monopoly (ex-monopoly!) in the OS sector shows that capitalism always works out in the end. Microsoft had a near-monopoly, and as monopoly-holders inevitably do, it abused its position to screw the customers. It was beaten... by some guy from Finland that nobody had ever heard of. Just like that - to him, Microsoft's monopoly was not a problem, but an opportunity. Of course, he wouldn't have gotten anywhere had there not been rules in place preventing Microsoft from, say, sending a death squad out to kill him - but all capitalists would firmly agree that such rules are a good idea.

IE market share: 98%. Now tell me again how was the monopoly broken?

This is a really, really strange claim - especially when you consider than 1984 was written as a critique of communism. Furthermore, while I can give offhand examples of several left-wing 1984-like police states, I cannot think of a single right-wing example.

Hmm I'll give you the victory on that one. But if you look around present time and look who introduced stuff like TIA, biometric passports,... you'll see nearly all of those are right wing.




Let me ask you something else to get the discussion into another related direction: As you country will be member soon, what is your stance versus the EU? For it or against it and why?

 

[Quarto]

Part 1/2 (disturbingly, I almost ended up with three parts - we must start cutting down, because it's taking too much time to read and reply )

What would you name a governmental funded or governmental supported NGO then?

A bad idea . Seriously though, I guess there are indeed organisations somewhere between public and private. However, as long as the government has no say on the company's operations (i.e., it's just another donor), then I'd classify as private.

Insurance: yes, that's right - any insurance is gambling. That's why I'm against it being forced on people - that's as crazy as requiring people to go to the casino every week (also for their own good - you never know when they might win, right?). Keep in mind, I'm not suggesting insurance should be outlawed or anything like that, just that it should be a choice left to the individual. And if it's done by private companies, abuse will disappear - people will certainly still try it, but private insurance companies can take care of themselves. That's how they earn a living, after all.
You mentioned car insurance. If the guy that crashes into you is broke and uninsured, you sue him and take his house. Tough luck, should've driven carefully. Furthermore, if I'm paying not for myself but for my potential victims... then why am I paying? I do not intend to crash into anyone. On the other hand, when I'm insured... well, it's an interesting thing. Now I have less reason to be cautious, because I feel that I've already paid for any potential accident, so to speak.

Let's stay on this topic for a moment longer:

[...]However in your charity model its just the reverse. Most people won't care at all and if something occurs they'll be a burden for society.

Well now, isn't that a typically socialist argument? You claim to be a believer in human rights, but when you're asked to justify your actions, you end up suggesting that most people are quite simply stupid and need to be taken care of (whether they like it or not), lest they become a burden for society.

Health: the problem of people not visiting the doctor for preventive routine checks is an interesting one. The dentist I go to offers free check-ups. She knows this brings in customers. But she wouldn't be offering free check-ups if such check-ups were covered by public healthcare - in such a situation, she would really have no choice in the matter - the government would insist that she must be adequately compensated for those extra hours she spent checking public healthcare customers. So, what comes at a price in socialism, happens for free in capitalism - and, unlike public healthcare doctors, she earns a great living.

Free will: am I really a slave in capitalism? If I'm unhappy with the job that I have, I can look for another one. Yes, I willingly give my boss a part of my day, but it's purely my choice. And if I'm not happy to work for someone, I can set up my own business. Not an easy thing to do, of course - but since the costs are minimal, it's possible. I know someone here who wanted to set up a small business, making various art stuff and selling it to an art gallery. It looked promising. Except that, to do so, she would have had to pay her own social security - and that cost would completely eliminate the profit margin. The irony of this is rather astounding - forced to stay unemployed because of social security. And this is precisely the kind of person that you would like to force to work.

And yes, I can see the difference between "you can live any way you want and do whatever makes you happy, but if you want society to support you you'll have to work for it" and "slavery". However, that first statement is a capitalist concept - "you don't have to work for me, but if you do, I'll pay you". If this is your idea of unemployment benefits, then you're a hypocrite, one way or another. You're thinking that, in order to rationalise unemployment benefit expenditures without eliminating the "safety net" that they provide, the unemployed should be forced to work. At the same time, you're saying that this is not slavery - which presumably means that people would be able to choose not to work for you, and not get any benefits. This means that in fact, you are trying to eliminate the unemployment safety net, because the people working for the state will not in fact be unemployed, and the people remaining unemployed will not have any unemployment benefits.

So - if it's slavery (benefits for all, forced work for all) you're proposing, at least admit it. And if it's an elimination of unemployment benefits that you want, then you need to admit that as well - and not just to me, but to yourself, as well, since this idea clearly goes against everything you claim to believe. In fact, whereas that slavery system is purely socialist, this other idea is actually a mutated form of capitalism. You're saying that people should only be paid for doing work and not given money just for being unemployed. The only difference between this and my point of view is that for some irrational reason, you believe that if there isn't enough work for people in private companies, then the state should create work for them out of our taxes. This makes no sense for many reasons, the main one being that socialists governments are already pouring huge amounts of money into "job creation" and failing dismally. So, if the government wanted to go with your idea, it would have to essentially create millions of economically unproductive jobs (since it's already failed at creating economically productive ones). This is sheer folly - in order to rationalise the unemployment system, you would end up making it hundreds of times more expensive, and get absolutely nothing out of it, except a tax increase (the costs of the new system have to be covered) that would destroy even more jobs!

Unfortunately that is also an idealized view on capitalism. There are many people that work 45+hours a week and are barely able to survive on that.

Yeah, of course there are... like I mentioned before, the costs of social security, whether paid by the employer or the employee, are horrendous, and result in much lower wages for employees.

Or I am just a cheapshot that says as long as it doesn't completely brake down I won't invest any money in it. Instead I'll milk any money I can from anyone using it and when it is broken I'll maybe even sue that one who finally broke it. That's the downside of private anything.

A strange view - every day, you make dozens of decisions as a consumer, basing these decisions on the quality and price of the products and services you're interested in, and yet you still think that capitalists earn money by offering substandard services at excessive prices. Think about it - would you travel on a road like that? No, you wouldn't. So the road owner, in search of profit, would have no choice but to offer you a higher quality road - especially after his neighbour sets up a competing road.

Of course this would produce getto like effects. You'd have the millionaire cities and the 'homeless' cities (ok, that one is an oxymoron) and so on.

Of course not. In a rich city, everyone demands higher wages, so employers would set up businesses in the poor cities. Furthermore, life in the poor cities would be a lot cheaper, so people would get richer. Next thing you know, the poor cities are the rich cities. Consider that in the 13th century, Holland was the end of the world. It was a bad place where nobody wanted to live - the agriculture was extremely work-intensive, floods occured several times every year, and natural resources were virtually non-existent. By the time Holland became independent in the 16th century, it was one of the wealthiest parts of Europe. Why? Because they didn't have socialism dragging them down.

* Ok, let me see. So we got less money spent on employees. [...] * Low payed workers cannot get the goods anymore.

Eh, this is a work of fiction . As I said, employee buying power RISES while their wages drop. Why? Because the prices must always drop more than wages do. Why? Because I might produce the best car in the world, but if nobody can buy it, I make no money. This is the force that moderates capitalism - nobody will offer prices below production costs, but simultaneously, nobody will offer wages lower than what workers can afford to live on. Furthermore, competition works not just in terms of prices, but in terms of wages as well. If Factory A offers me $500 per month, and Factory B offers me $1000 per month, then I go to Factory B - and so does everybody else. At this point, it doesn't matter if, thanks to its low wages, Factory A is able to sell their product at $1 instead of Factory B's $2. It simply won't have a workforce, so it will not sell anything. And if it does find people willing to work for it, these people will indeed be less motivated, and so Factory A will become known for shoddy worksmanship. Less people will buy it, and eventually Factory A will become unprofitable. Meanwhile, the increasingly-profitable Factory B (people who don't buy Factory A's product buy from Factory B instead) eventually expands in order to make more money. If there's anybody still working in Factory A at this point, they happily jump ship.

Competition always has a positive effect for the society as a whole. That's why it appears in almost every aspect of our life - sports, education, leisure, even family (women usually don't agree to marry you on the first date - they want to keep their options open). Logically, the claim that what works everywhere else would have a disasterous effect in economy is entirely baseless.

 

[Quarto]

Part 2/2

Let's talk about art now. Where did the Renaissance begin? Italy. City-states ran by capitalist merchants. Where did the Renaissance begin in northern Europe? Present-day Belgium (back then, an economic powerhouse, with virtually no central government), gradually spreading into the increasingly-wealthy Holland. Who begun the film industry? Not socialist governments, but individual entrepreneurs. The tragedy of the German film industry is very telling in this aspect. During WWI, the government set up a monopolistic conglomerate (UFA). The UFA's output was widely considered to be among the best in the world (as is France's healthcare, of course). Amazingly, in spite of its successes, the UFA only took about eight years to go under, and most of Germany's film talent ran off to the unashamedly capitalist (and extraordinarily successful) Hollywood. Today, it is not the government-backed German film industry that dominates the world.

Capitalism is about wealth generation. Socialism is about wealth redistribution. Capitalists understand where money comes from, and they don't worry about spending it - they know they can earn more. To socialists, meanwhile, earning money is absolute black magic. This is best illustrated by the socialist obsession with insurance and social security - the idea that "maybe some day I'll have no money, and what then!?" Where a capitalist response to that question is to invest this money so that it earns more money in the future, socialists insist that a part of your money must be handed over to the government for safekeeping. Now, from a purely utilitarian point of view, art *is* absolutely useless (except perhaps film, which is a great propaganda tool - that's why even the Soviets financed it). You cannot eat money... or art. So who's more likely to spend money on art - the guy who knows he can always earn more, or the guy who worries constantly about the one-in-a-million possibility of losing everything tomorrow?

It's even worse in communism, where money, presumably, wouldn't exist at all (what need for it? Everyone gives what they can and gets what they need, so commercial exchanges are obsolete). Logically, communism *must* be even more obsessed with the utilitarian value of things than socialism is. After all, just what do you do with a painting in communism? Really, nobody *needs* it. In the utilitarian "I give what I can, I get what I need" exchange, a painting cannot possibly have even half the value of a piece of meat... especially since the fabric on which it was painted could have been used to create clothes. Even if we assume that communism doesn't completely abandon art, there is no doubt that it would not support art until everyone's real needs were taken care of.

It works remarkably well for a time, but what are you going to do once every market is reached? This is the core system failure I talk about when talking about capitalism. Its the same mindset that tells us that a shrinking in economics is bad. It really isn't.

That's right, it really isn't! That's why governments should NOT intervene to save jobs (why are the jobs at risk? Because the employer's unprofitable - he is Factory A). But what you fail to consider is that the economy doesn't just grow and shrink - it CHANGES. Who on earth could have predicted two hundred years ago that one day, wood would be not the cheapest, but one of the most expensive sources of energy? And who could have predicted a hundred and fifty years ago the impact planes would have on our lives? The situation you talk about, where every market is reached and saturated, will never exist. People keep inventing new things. The need for some things gradually drops (so why are the socialists spending MY money keeping unprofitable coal mines alive? If there's any profit still to be had, sell them to some capitalist, and if there isn't, for God's sake, close them down!), but the need for other things dramatically rises as they become easier to get (e.g. computers). What you also fail to consider is that the economy does indeed grow constantly - if you look at the worldwide average. This is not a myth, it's common sense - the same thing happens with population growth (Europe may be declining now, but hey, look elsewhere). Logically, if the number of feet worldwide continues to increase, then the number of shoes produced worldwide will also increase.

Constant grow is the myth of capitalism. It is the religion of capitalism. But it isn't more then a myth. The only advantage that capitalism has is that the limit is still quite far away so it isn't noticed yet. Thats why I said 150-200 years.

Well, speaking of myths, what exactly is this 150-200 years claim based on? Have you any evidence of this whatsoever? Because looking back through history, I fail to see any evidence of this. I mean, unless you can display a specific example where a capitalist society ran itself into the ground (meanwhile, I can provide many examples of socialist societies doing so - sadly, I live in one such example), then it's pointless to even make this claim.

This is very I strongly have to disagree. Of course it is unfair to the rich, but this is a price I'd be very willing to pay.

Uh, do you mean that as a rich person, you're very willing to sacrifice the wealth of the other rich people for the common good, or do you mean that as the spokesman for all rich people in your country, you're expressing their willingness to give up their wealth? If it's the former (and it is) - it's theft, and theft makes thieves (who have no right to claim they're building a better society). There is no way - absolutely none - that you can justify this "sacrifice" (which it isn't - a sacrifice is when you give something up willingly; when something is taken from you by force, that's robbery). You may be doing this for some higher ideal, but this ideal is tarnished by the unlawful, discriminatory manner in which you try to achieve it. Equality cannot be attained by discrimination.

Well you forget one thing: Earnings that aren't spent. What about a one man company that gets $1000000 a year, but the person owning it only takes $10000 for himself. What about the $990000 that remain. Some sort of tax would have to be applied to them as well.

Would have to be? Certainly not. The fact that money exists doesn't entitle the government to taking it.

IE market share: 98%. Now tell me again how was the monopoly broken?

This figure is an overestimate. Most computers are sold with Windows pre-installed and that includes IE. So, the 98% is actually the number of copies of IE delivered. Meanwhile, what happens afterwards is another story - I'd say that 60-70% would be a more reasonable estimate. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that all those copies of Windows with IE are still sold to people even if they have no intention of using them, but that's just a matter of time. Remember what happened when Intel started threatening motherboard producers about the consequences if they produced AMD-compatible motherboards? Nothing at all, Intel backed down. When Linux reaches its critical mass (and, even though I've never used it, the indication seems to be that it's getting there), the same thing will happen with PC distributors.

Hmm I'll give you the victory on that one. But if you look around present time and look who introduced stuff like TIA, biometric passports,... you'll see nearly all of those are right wing.

Not really. The parties that are in power right now for the most part barely even qualify as centrist, let alone rightist. The parties that are referred to as right-wing these days are actually even more left-wing than the government - the confusion arises because they are authoritarian, and for some reason that's associated with the right-wing (for no reason at all - Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and others were all leftists).

Let me ask you something else to get the discussion into another related direction: As you country will be member soon, what is your stance versus the EU? For it or against it and why?

Personally, I find it quite appropriate that in Polish, the EU is actually called UE. "Unknown Enemy" would indeed be a good way of describing it . Seriously... I am against the EU, and increasingly so. I find its bureacracy frightening - maybe France and Germany can afford such waste, but Poland is a much poorer country. I think our economy could develop much better without the EU. Furthermore, I am greatly alarmed by the indications that the EU, once it gets a constitution in place, will prevent us from reducing socialism here beyond what the EU permits. Then there's things like CAP which forces us to keep our agriculture unprofitable (even if our government could stop giving farmers money, they'd still be entitled to EU money).

Finally, I think it was simply a step in the wrong direction, geographically-speaking. Poland should have tried harder to build up its relations with the east. Given how quickly Russia's re-built its economic strength in the past few years, there was a huge opportunity there. EU membership restricts our ability to act there - we've had to tighten visa regulations for everyone from the east, and we'll never be able to bring down these restrictions. In short, a real lost opportunity. Maybe, rather than immediately asking for EU membership, Poland should have first talked to its neighbours (both from the east, and from the south) about setting up some kind of Central European free trade agreement - more economic links, and less independence-losing would have been nice.

 

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Trying to cut down considerably, still 1/2 posts...

You mentioned car insurance. If the guy that crashes into you is broke and uninsured, you sue him and take his house. Tough luck, should've driven carefully.

Guess what - he doesn't have a house. He has only 2 rented rooms. And he is broke. Actually he has debts by his bank, his credit card company, several shops,...
Tough luck - you won't see a dime and have to pay your damage yourself.
Been there (no not on car insurance, but with other stuff.) You simply cannot take when there isn't anthing to take.

On the other hand, when I'm insured... well, it's an interesting thing. Now I have less reason to be cautious, because I feel that I've already paid for any potential accident, so to speak.

I dunno, but I am reall not all that eager to break a leg just because I am health insured.

Health: the problem of people not visiting the doctor for preventive routine checks is an interesting one. The dentist I go to offers free check-ups. She knows this brings in customers. But she wouldn't be offering free check-ups if such check-ups were covered by public healthcare - in such a situation, she would really have no choice in the matter - the government would insist that she must be adequately compensated for those extra hours she spent checking public healthcare customers. So, what comes at a price in socialism, happens for free in capitalism - and, unlike public healthcare doctors, she earns a great living.

Ah, but that simply isn't true. No doctor is forced to accept puplic healthcare, nor is he forced to demand a payment for his work. At least one of my doctors only accepts private paying simply because he doesn't like this assembly-line like work that public healthcare would impose on him. Of course you can then try to get some of the payment back from the public heathcare.

And if I'm not happy to work for someone, I can set up my own business. Not an easy thing to do, of course - but since the costs are minimal, it's possible.

Tell that my government. Each year they claim it gets easier. But lets just say I had enough 'fun' creating a company.

You're thinking that, in order to rationalise unemployment benefit expenditures without eliminating the "safety net" that they provide, the unemployed should be forced to work. At the same time, you're saying that this is not slavery - which presumably means that people would be able to choose not to work for you, and not get any benefits. This means that in fact, you are trying to eliminate the unemployment safety net, because the people working for the state will not in fact be unemployed, and the people remaining unemployed will not have any unemployment benefits.

Not quite. I'd not force a surgeon to work on a pneumatic hammer. A forced job should have a relation to what you learned. Of course detemining the degree of relation is another beast and not rivial at all.

The only difference between this and my point of view is that for some irrational reason, you believe that if there isn't enough work for people in private companies, then the state should create work for them out of our taxes.

Not quite. The state should do two things here:
a) if there are other jobs just not in your field help you to switch to your field.
b) if there indeed aren't any jobs take care that your very basic needs are covered.

What would you suggest? Kill everyone that is unemployed for more then a year?

>>>Or I am just a cheapshot that says as long as it doesn't completely brake down I won't invest any money in it.<<<
A strange view - every day, you make dozens of decisions as a consumer, basing these decisions on the quality and price of the products and services you're interested in, and yet you still think that capitalists earn money by offering substandard services at excessive prices. Think about it - would you travel on a road like that? No, you wouldn't. So the road owner, in search of profit, would have no choice but to offer you a higher quality road - especially after his neighbour sets up a competing road.

Ah, but you assume that you got alternatives. Which doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Also look at rented flats. It is extremely well known practice that some landlords almost terrorize their tenants with horrendous fees in substandard rooms. Of course you could say if the people are stupid enough to accept that it is their own problem. But it really isn't that easy when we talk about basic needs like room to life, electricity, water,...

Of course not. In a rich city, everyone demands higher wages, so employers would set up businesses in the poor cities. Furthermore, life in the poor cities would be a lot cheaper, so people would get richer. Next thing you know, the poor cities are the rich cities.

Ah, so that is why Africa is so much richer then Europe now I suppose...
You are right, business would be set up in the poor cities. And all profits would run into the rich ones. Some poor ones would get the jump into rich city. More rich ones would end in poor city. But you would end in even more polarisation not less. Our world proves that.

As I said, employee buying power RISES while their wages drop. Why? Because the prices must always drop more than wages do. Why? Because I might produce the best car in the world, but if nobody can buy it, I make no money. This is the force that moderates capitalism - nobody will offer prices below production costs, but simultaneously, nobody will offer wages lower than what workers can afford to live on.

Nah, instead I'll just fire all my workers and put my company somewhere like China where I pay them $0.1 / hour.
Sure that will raise local wages...

Furthermore, competition works not just in terms of prices, but in terms of wages as well. If Factory A offers me $500 per month, and Factory B offers me $1000 per month, then I go to Factory B - and so does everybody else. At this point, it doesn't matter if, thanks to its low wages, Factory A is able to sell their product at $1 instead of Factory B's $2. It simply won't have a workforce, so it will not sell anything.

Assuming there is a huge surplus of jobs. Of course when I look at a more realistic picture (as the numbers of people withouht jobs in all western countries show) then people are glad to get any job, no matter how badly payed it is. And between cheap work in developing countries and automatisation that situation will only get worse.

The situation you talk about, where every market is reached and saturated, will never exist. People keep inventing new things. What you also fail to consider is that the economy does indeed grow constantly - if you look at the worldwide average. This is not a myth, it's common sense - the same thing happens with population growth (Europe may be declining now, but hey, look elsewhere). Logically, if the number of feet worldwide continues to increase, then the number of shoes produced worldwide will also increase.

You know when mentioning world population you actually strenghten my point. Indeed it grows. BUT and that is the important point - earth can only support a certain ammount of people. We are back to my arguments about the short sighteness of capitalism and my guestimate of 150-200 years. There are natural limits. What use do I have for 10 communication devices? 20 transportation devices? The actual tech changes, but I still don't see people having 50 bikes just becaus they are are cheaper now. One should also note that our views are heavily biased by the current rush in technique. Our society has risen natural sciences into a godly rank. We are in a phase that has a huge pool of discoveries lying around that beg to be implemented. OTOH less and less actual new core discoveries are made as they are unprofitable. We've seen that in the past. The pool will slowly deplete until the economy crashes and natural sciences will be condemned.
You can see a bit of what I am talking about in the "DOT-COM" hype and its fall.

 

[cff]

part 2/2 - damn if we don't watch out we'll need 3 posts next time. Too bad ther isn't a line statistic here on the boards

Well, speaking of myths, what exactly is this 150-200 years claim based on? Have you any evidence of this whatsoever? Because looking back through history, I fail to see any evidence of this. I mean, unless you can display a specific example where a capitalist society ran itself into the ground (meanwhile, I can provide many examples of socialist societies doing so - sadly, I live in one such example), then it's pointless to even make this claim.

This would be a very long explanation. Do you know what Kontradiev-Cycles are? Such curves don't only exist for the phases of economic development (why the heck are we still blaming them on politics is above me) but for pretty much every aspect of our live. Such cycles of course can only extrapolate from the past, but they are surprisingly accurate. That is if there isn't some major change it the world that could not be foreseen. Now if we take the early cultures like ancient aegypt and greek and we take stuff like the middle age one can extrapolate when the next shift from science towards religion will happen. You can also look at chart that show the degree of new explorations versus the degree of explorations put into actual use. Again you can see an oscillating graph. Don't nail me on 150 years - maybe it is 300, but the path is clearly visible.

Uh, do you mean that as a rich person, you're very willing to sacrifice the wealth of the other rich people for the common good, or do you mean that as the spokesman for all rich people in your country, you're expressing their willingness to give up their wealth?

Obviously I can only speak for myself.
I'd be willing to. I'd also vote for a law that does.

As is however I'd rather vote for a law that reduces the social spending as the current level is too high (generally speaking).

On a semi funny sidenote:
I took a test similar to this political compass yesterday. We got local elections soon and all 4 parties had been asked their stance to certain topics (36 IIRC). Now you could fill out a questionaire and have a look who you closest relate to. You know what came up for me?
FPOe with about 80% (versus about 20% for each others). You know that is that extreme right party under Haider we got here. That one that had half Europe and some others yelling at us , causing sanctions, ... when it joined forces with the conservatives to get the sozialists out of the government some years ago.

Obviosly if you were defending Communism I'd take a far more capitalist stance here, but I found it funny nonetheless.

>>>Well you forget one thing: Earnings that aren't spent. What about a one man company that gets $1000000 a year, but the person owning it only takes $10000 for himself. What about the $990000 that remain. Some sort of tax would have to be applied to them as well.<<<

Would have to be? Certainly not. The fact that money exists doesn't entitle the government to taking it.

Yes it has to be, as long as there is a procentural tax. Quite simply because otherwise anyone would make sure that no personal profit would be made. I'd have a company car, a company flat, a company computer,... all without paying taxes as I don't 'earn' a dime.
I'd rather argue to do it the other way around - only tax the company and don't tax the employees at all. They alredy get their 'share' of the tax deducted from the company (kinda like VAT works, but in reverse)

This figure is an overestimate. Most computers are sold with Windows pre-installed and that includes IE. So, the 98% is actually the number of copies of IE delivered. Meanwhile, what happens afterwards is another story - I'd say that 60-70% would be a more reasonable estimate.
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that all those copies of Windows with IE are still sold to people even if they have no intention of using them, but that's just a matter of time.

Nope. You migth be right and it is 97% and I was misremembering. The number I was talking about was from a recent survey that measured the website HITS. So we are talking about USED browers here. I am not sure how they filtered out Opera and such browsers for they often fake their identity, but as Opera was on the chart as well ranking #3 after Mozilla they probably did.
And to be honest I was shocked as well. As you do, I estimated a good monopoly of IE, but not that numbers.

Not really. The parties that are in power right now for the most part barely even qualify as centrist, let alone rightist. The parties that are referred to as right-wing these days are actually even more left-wing than the government - the confusion arises because they are authoritarian, and for some reason that's associated with the right-wing (for no reason at all - Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and others were all leftists).

Ah, we are actually turning back to a very much earlier point in this topic where someone asked what the difference between right wing and economic right is. And you know I actually probably really have more problems with the auhoritarian scale. I can imagine to life in a extreme left and in an extreme right country. I cannot imagine to life in a surveilance state.
I'd not call Hitler and Mussolini as leftists however. But you are right in as far as they aren't economically extreme right.

Personally, I find it quite appropriate that in Polish, the EU is actually called UE. "Unknown Enemy" would indeed be a good way of describing it . Seriously... I am against the EU, and increasingly so.

Hugs Quarto - finally one thing we can completely and wholeheartly agree. Where we probably differ is that I indeed see that a theoretical union of European states is a good thing. So I kinda like the basic idea of the EU. However the perverted bloated enrichment scheme for politicians it is today is quite simply indiscutable. The only question remaining is if it is more useful to repair or to scrap it. But in the end it really boils down to the same as Communism for me. "It could work, ..."
You kow what I find funny? I have a friend who is quite extreme left and one that is quite extreme right. Neither likes the EU either LOL. In fact I know one single person at all that was pro EU. Our ex-geography teacher. Which makes one wonder - which political mindset is needed to be pro EU (except greediness that is)?

But you know one wonderful thing about our democracy? Not a single party that is in parliament is against the EU here. Who the fuck am I supposed to vote to get OUT?!

I find its bureacracy frightening - maybe France and Germany can afford such waste, but Poland is a much poorer country. I think our economy could develop much better without the EU. Furthermore, I am greatly alarmed by the indications that the EU, once it gets a constitution in place, will prevent us from reducing socialism here beyond what the EU permits. Then there's things like CAP which forces us to keep our agriculture unprofitable (even if our government could stop giving farmers money, they'd still be entitled to EU money).

That doesn't lack a certain comic...
You know that basically the EU is frightened that you keep your agriculture unprofitable and thus ruining us all however? And that your government did and does it best to even further increase that funding?

Getting a bit furter away from topic - hmm - how to say it without being insulting. Please don't take this as personal attack on you.
I think you have developed a certain paranoia regarding communism. The wound is too fresh so to speak. But I also think you are a bit too biased because of that. No matter if it is good or bad as long as it is only remotely connected to it it has to be evil.
We have the same here when it comes to rigth wing I'd say. There is really a paranoia going on if anything can even remotely be sympathizing with Hitler,... Try to remover a part of the social network and you are called facist in no matter of time.
So I won't negate that I am to a certain degree similar biased, albeit I try my best not to be.

Maybe, rather than immediately asking for EU membership, Poland should have first talked to its neighbours (both from the east, and from the south) about setting up some kind of Central European free trade agreement - more economic links, and less independence-losing would have been nice.

[sarcasm]No, really?[/sarcasm]
Could you explain that to my government which had these agreements before joining the EU, but decided it would rather pay more to be overvoted by all others

 

[Sylvester]

Economic -4.62
Other one -2.10

I'm like Mandella

 

[Mystery muppet]

... Hey... That's a lot of text...

Quarto: Um, I suppose I should have added that I was being a bit sarcastic towards the end of my post. (Oops!) You see, the Socialdemocrats spread those kind of "ghost-stories" about the right-wing parties (in upset newsitems referred to as 'the right-wing-ghost'). Well, to say they spread ghost-stories is a pretty huge exaggeration, but it's... IMPLIED. (That the right-wing parties want to cut taxes so they can privatise all the schools and whatnot and butcher the public music-education and so on. Which the Socialdemocrats themselves seem to carry out...) And, as I voted leftish, well... Sheesh, nobody understands me.

About publicly-financed welfare-things, I see such institutions as somewhat guaranteed, while the privatised kinds, driven by profit, can be closed down all of a sudden because of a lack of profit (and it seems to me that hospitals and schools are typically non-profit initiatives) - making private welfare-initiatives not guaranteed in my eyes. Have I made it clear enough where I stand and why? It's getting pretty late as I type this...
And I'm also strongly opposed to this "Unknown enemy" the EU signifies. Fascinating coincidence.

As for 'welfare-leeches', it's a real minefield. I'm not well-versed enough in that issue to make a good contribution in a debate about it. Instances of leeching has been up in the news occasionally, as has tax-evasion. FYI: I get the impression the fat men on top are discussing this matter since the eastern Europe (Estonia and its neighbours, specifically) are joining EU and they expect a stream of workers and others to exploit the system... Sound debate, stupid reason? Bah, politics totally STINK no matter how you look at it.

 

[Antman]

Economic Left/Right: -4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23

See? I am well on my way towards creating a fascist, socialist state.

 

[Quarto]

Part 1/2: reduction is helping, but still not enough for a single post .

(Mystery Muppet - I won't argue with you, as I would be repeating myself; if you want to know my views, just read my previous posts here)

Guess what - he doesn't have a house. He has only 2 rented rooms. And he is broke. Actually he has debts by his bank, his credit card company, several shops,...[...]Been there (no not on car insurance, but with other stuff.) You simply cannot take when there isn't anthing to take.

Well, that's certainly possible - but it doesn't matter in the least. To punish me for somebody else's poor driving (and that is what you're doing by forcing me to pay insurance that I don't want) is to apply collective punishment, which is certainly an immoral thing. I mean, a murderer may not have any money to pay compensation to the family of his victim either, but we won't expect the rest of the society to pay for him.

I dunno, but I am reall not all that eager to break a leg just because I am health insured.

Right, and I'm definitely not saying people want to crash and die just because they're insured against that. However, in the same way that people with health insurance are more likely to visit a doctor for insignificant problems, people with insurance against civil liability are less likely to worry about small things - scratching your car while parking, or ramming the back of someone's car out of frustration in a traffic jam.

Public healthcare: It all depends on the system, of course. Ironically, I can't even debate this point by telling you how things work in our system, because frankly, I have no idea how they work. Partially this is because I have not had the "pleasure" of dealing with it, but mostly it is because the system is so confusing that most people don't really understand it. On top of that, our equivalent of the supreme court recently issued a verdict that the current system is unconstitutional, and the government has been given until the end of the year to change it. Either way, there's a lot of confusion, wasted money, and striking healthcare workers going around. Again, given how it's all financed by the taxpayer in the first place, I cannot help thinking that letting the taxpayer spend his money directly would save everyone a whole lot of trouble and money...

Tell that my government. Each year they claim it gets easier. But lets just say I had enough 'fun' creating a company.

Well now, that's something you should be saying to them, not me. I've just told you how 'fun' it is to create a business here in Poland - and the common trait between Poland and Austria is socialism. Under capitalism, you would have had it much easier - certainly it still would have been a risk (business always is a risk - that's why most people are actually content to work for someone else), but you wouldn't have had to deal with all the additional barriers imposed by your government.

Not quite. I'd not force a surgeon to work on a pneumatic hammer. A forced job should have a relation to what you learned.

But consider the effects this would have on the job market. The surgeon in question is unemployed because there's not enough jobs around. If you want to hire him as a surgeon, you will have to create this position for him (or subsidise a private clinic to hire an additional surgeon they didn't need). Of course, you will not be able to pay him the appropriate wages - after all, if you could, there would be no need for a private sector at all (since everyone would just get the right jobs and the right pay from the government). So, you end up paying him less - just enough to encourage him to keep looking for a job, perhaps. Meanwhile, an employer - a public or private hospital - has benefitted greatly from this, because they've got a surgeon that the government subsidises.

This probably wouldn't have a noticeable impact on the job market. But what if there are five other surgeons like him? Or, more likely, five thousand? In such a case, you end up with a large number of subsidised surgeons. Hospitals accept this source of cheap labour, and adapt their policies appropriately, in precisely the same way that any company would adjust - by lowering the wages of their other staff, or dismissing them outright. Thus, by creating jobs for unemployed surgeons, you're putting other surgeons out of work, and lowering the wages for all the remaining surgeons. This might sound to you a bit like the effects of capitalism that I described previously - but it's not, because it's not triggered by natural competition, but rather by a monopoly (essentially, the government has turned itself into a monopolistic job-finding agency).

What would I suggest? Certainly nothing as senseless as killing the unemployed. Rather, I simply wouldn't help them at all. We've been through this before - removing their benefits would reduce the burden of taxation on everyone else, and consequently would result in more jobs. What at first might sound like a cruel and inhumane move (depriving the unemployed of all support) is actually the best thing for everyone (because it soon eliminates unemployment, and the unemployed are employed).

Ah, but you assume that you got alternatives. Which doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Capitalists want to make a profit. This means that they are constantly searching for opportunities. Let's suppose this lousy old road is the only one that leads to an isolated village in the middle of nowhere. Along comes someone - a capitalist. He looks at the broken-down road, he looks at the prices the owner charges on it, and he sees an opportunity. He buys or rents some land and builds another road. So, the villagers may indeed have had no alternatives for a few months, but now they do. The two road-providers are now in direct competition, and so they must improve their services and reduce their prices to attract the villagers. And if they decide to instead make a deal so that the two roads offer the same services at the same price? Along will come another capitalist.

Ah, so that is why Africa is so much richer then Europe now I suppose...

Africa is an interesting case. Under colonial rule, it prospered. Most of their money went overseas, and they still prospered. What happened? Well, if you look at the African independence movements, you'll notice that every single one of them was socialist. Of course, the new governments started off with no money at all, so for them, socialism was even more destructive than elsewhere.

As for polarisation, this is another strange argument. Consider it in the context of history - there may indeed be a larger gap between today's millionaires and today's poor, but the latter, for the most part, have a better life than nobility did one or two centuries ago. I mean, if the poor keep getting poorer, as socialists claim, then how is it that people today do not have to subsist on bark every spring? And why is it that millions of impoverished immigrants from semi-socialist Europe went to fully-capitalist America in the 19th century, and today are far richer than those who stayed behind in Europe? Considering that, since the 19th century, Europe has only gotten MORE socialist, it seems that either Europe still isn't sufficiently socialist (God, spare us!), or that in fact socialism doesn't help at all. If it did, then the poor obviously wouldn't want to leave socialist countries - which they always do.

Nah, instead I'll just fire all my workers and put my company somewhere like China where I pay them $0.1 / hour. Sure that will raise local wages...

Sure will, because a bunch of other employers will do the same, and pretty soon you'll have to pay $0.2 in order to keep your employees. And note that there's nothing unethical about this transaction - the Chinese actually pray that more evil capitalists come to oppress them. You are, after all, reducing unemployment there.

Assuming there is a huge surplus of jobs. Of course when I look at a more realistic picture (as the numbers of people withouht jobs in all western countries show) then people are glad to get any job, no matter how badly payed it is.

Now, this doesn't make sense at all - you're trying to disprove the benefits of capitalism based on the problems of socialism. I've already told you, socialism makes labour so expensive that employers simply cannot hire more people, and unemployment rises. That's also why they prefer to set up factories in developing countries - because there, socialism isn't as well-developed (ironic, given China's claims of being communist). "MADE IN CHINA" is the ultimate proof of socialism's failure.

 

[Quarto]

Part 2/2

Earth, bikes, technology, and other reasons why capitalism will not fall: a thousand years ago, Earth could only support a tiny fraction of the population it now supports. If we approach the limit again, good for capitalism - faced with increasingly expensive food (which, presumably will happen as Earth approaches its population limit), capitalists will start looking for ways to produce cheaper food, because there is demand for it.

A hundred years ago, bikes were expensive, and only the upper classes could afford such a luxury. Today, just about anyone can afford a bike, which means that 10, perhaps even 50-100 times more bikes are produced and sold. And meanwhile, there are now plenty of things that didn't exist at all a hundred years ago, and right now are so expensive that only the upper classes can afford them.

Our current rush in technology isn't at all unusual. Think about it... can the effects of computers really rival the effects of metallurgy, or the wheel? Or even something as prosaic as writing? For sure, our views are definitely heavily biased by the times we live in - we take the things invented before us for granted, so we think that the inventions of our time are revolutionary. And yeah, I guess they truly are, but are they any more revolutionary than those other things? And above all, the progress of technology is always unpredictable. Somebody makes one small invention and sets a chain reaction in motion, leading to astounding new discoveries. Imagine the effect that cold fusion (if it turns out to be achievable, of course) will have - fusion-powered spacecraft will allow people to exploit the resources not just of Earth but of the entire solar system. And who can predict what inventions that will spark off?

Keep in mind, things like the DOT.COM crash are also hardly unusual in human history. Consider, for example, the crossbow. When it was first developed, people thought it would destroy the whole society - the RCC even wanted to outlaw it. Yet, already in the Hundred Years' War, the English proved conclusively that the traditional longbow was more effective. So, all in all, the times we live in are not at all unusual, and it's very presumptuous to predict a global economy crash .

As for these cycles, never heard of them. Consider that history is far, far too complex to be plotted in any graph. The Roman Empire didn't fall just because a cycle came to an end. In fact, its downfall sounds a lot like chaos theory's proverbial butterfly that flaps its wings in China and causes a tornado in New York - in Asia, the Chinese defeated the Huns, who consequently started moving westwards, causing a huge wave of displaced populations in the process, initiating the barbarian invasions...

In short, I would very much doubt any cyclical interpretations of history. Such interpretations often seem to work, but only until subjected to closer analysis (without such analysis, even Marx' interpretation of history as a constant fight between two classes seems perfectly reasonable). Furthermore, even if we were to assume that these cycles you talk about are accurate, then consider that, since the cycles oscillate, you really cannot use them to claim that capitalism only works for a while - logically, after the downswing (which, if the cycles are accurate, comes regardless of whether the society is socialist or capitalist) must come the upswing.

Freedom Party: I don't know if Haider's party is really right-wing (of course, I really don't know much about them at all - the media wasn't the least bit informative ), given that many of these new "evil" right-wing parties in Europe are actually even more left-wing than the ruling parties. However, it's worth noting that Europe's behaviour was rather disgraceful when it came to Haider's party. Democratic governments refusing to accept a democratically-elected government? Goes against what they stand for.

Company taxes and company cars: Well, you know, the income tax is precisely why company cars and such do exist - it is cheaper, both for the company and for the employee, to give the employee a car than enough money to buy a car. You're right, of course - if companies weren't taxed, and their employees were still subject to income tax (which, keep in mind, I'm altogether against - as I mentioned before, a flat tax would be more just), then people would simply not get any income at all from companies, just goods.

Would taxing the company as a whole, and not taxing the employees work any better, though? Not much, I think - the income tax would still be there, and the temptation to cheat on the income tax would still be there as well. You would also get a strange new kind of tax fraud - self-employed people (who, presumably, must pay the tax for themselves) would bribe companies to get a job which involves no work and no pay, but which results in the company paying the tax for them (which, presumably, makes no difference to the company, whose income and therefore income tax is not affected by this transaction). Clean, simple solutions are usually most effective, and also most corruption-proof. A simple, flat tax for every adult and no income tax for people or companies would certainly reduce government incomes, but it would also reduce government expenses - no need to maintain that huge auditing department.

The EU: well, I go back and forth on whether the EU might be good in theory. I mean, you certainly don't hear Americans complaining about their union, but that may be because last time they did, there was four years of civil war.

I do actually know many people who are pro-EU out of sheer idealism... but none of them are actually Europeans, or have even lived in Europe. Makes sense, I guess . And in answer to your question, there's no one you can vote for. If a party came along proposing a withdrawal from the EU, it would be destroyed by the media. And even if, by some miracle of divine proportions, it managed to win... well, why didn't Haider's government survive?

You know that basically the EU is frightened that you keep your agriculture unprofitable and thus ruining us all however? And that your government did and does it best to even further increase that funding?

Oh, sure, that's absolutely true as well. And this is another reason to be very afraid - if we add European corruption and ineptitude on top of Polish corruption and ineptitude...

I think you have developed a certain paranoia regarding communism. The wound is too fresh so to speak. But I also think you are a bit too biased because of that. No matter if it is good or bad as long as it is only remotely connected to it it has to be evil.

Hmm, well, I can see why you might think that, but it's actually rather different with me. To be honest, I don't remember much of communism - sure, I lived in it for the first ten years of my life, but I wasn't exactly politically conscious then, and it was the dying version of communism anyway, where the government had to make constant concessions every year just to stay in power a bit longer.

Actualy, until about a year ago, I even considered myself to be left-wing - while I was willing to make various concessions as far as capitalism goes, I still believed, like you, that certain basic rights must be preserved (and, like you, I even thought that if the price of keeping unemployment benefits would be forced labour, then so be it). Two things gradually changed my views - firstly, the fact that whenever I debated this with any right-wingers, I found that my opinions were backed up by nothing more than a vague idea of how things 'ought to be', while their views were always backed up by an inexorable logic that showed not only that their idea was more reasonable and moral, but also that in the long run, it was more beneficial than left-wing ideas are. And secondly, the fact that I'm living in Poland now, after a fairly long period overseas; it was easy to consider the benefits of socialism while living in a rich country like Australia, but it's a different story when you face the truth about socialism every day.

In short, if you think that I'm being excessively hard on socialism because I lived so long under communism, that's not the case. Maybe, to use a religious analogy (always a dangerous thing to do, admittedly), I'm just especially zealous as new converts usually are. But mostly, it's because of the way in which my views changed - every time I discussed this stuff, the conversation usually went along the way of "ok, so you guys are right about that, but definitely not about..." – only to be followed by an explanation showing that yes, about that too. In short, a process whereby I was gradually forced to accept that every single element of socialism not only fails its purpose, but is also immoral as well. And once you run out of things to defend about a system, it's time to accept that the system is wrong as a whole.

 

[cff]

part 1/2 - darn its getting longer again thanks to the cycle debate

However, in the same way that people with health insurance are more likely to visit a doctor for insignificant problems, people with insurance against civil liability are less likely to worry about small things - scratching your car while parking, or ramming the back of someone's car out of frustration in a traffic jam.

Right. And that is why about any insurance (that includes governmental ones) either has a certain percentage value you have to pay yourself or a certain ammount that you'll always have to pay yourself.

Well now, that's something you should be saying to them, not me. I've just told you how 'fun' it is to create a business here in Poland - and the common trait between Poland and Austria is socialism. Under capitalism, you would have had it much easier - certainly it still would have been a risk (business always is a risk - that's why most people are actually content to work for someone else), but you wouldn't have had to deal with all the additional barriers imposed by your government.

They are making it easier. Just that easier doesn't equal easy. And IMHO it is good that it isn't trivial because it would open room for big abuse. Already many companies are founded just to build as much debt as possible (shifting profits somewhere else) and then declare bancrupticy.

But consider the effects this would have on the job market. The surgeon in question is unemployed because there's not enough jobs around. If you want to hire him as a surgeon, you will have to create this position for him (or subsidise a private clinic to hire an additional surgeon they didn't need). Of course, you will not be able to pay him the appropriate wages - so, you end up paying him less - just enough to encourage him to keep looking for a job, perhaps.

Or he is unemployed because right now there aren't enough jobs around. What about in a month? In two? Would you rather ruin his ability for his desired job then wait? I'd rather suggest to wait and/or teach him to become an internist or somesuch.
BTW: the lower payment wouldn't happen - couldn't happen as there are defined minimum wages. You cannot go below them.

Or, more likely, five thousand? In such a case, you end up with a large number of subsidised surgeons.
Hospitals accept this source of cheap labour, and adapt their policies appropriately, in precisely the same way that any company would adjust - by lowering the wages of their other staff, or dismissing them outright. Thus, by creating jobs for unemployed surgeons, you're putting other surgeons out of work, and lowering the wages for all the remaining surgeons.

I don't know where you are taking your stance for subsidised work from. I really only remember hearing that with regards to people aged 15-18 and 55+. And in neither case the effects would be that high as to warrant firing others. You always assume a black white stance. Either don't subsidice at all or gibe 50% or more. How about 5%, maximum 10%. Thus providing a steering effect, but not an overriding.
Besides again you cannot lower wages as you like to.
The only source of cheap labor that hospitals greatly appreciate is the one that comes from the social year (if you are male you either have to do 8 months military or 12 months social work here).

Rather, I simply wouldn't help them at all. We've been through this before - removing their benefits would reduce the burden of taxation on everyone else, and consequently would result in more jobs.

And as I said before this simply isn't true. It would only result in more profits. Which would ultimatively lead to monopols instead of more wealth for anyone.

As for polarisation, this is another strange argument. Consider it in the context of history - there may indeed be a larger gap between today's millionaires and today's poor, but the latter, for the most part, have a better life than nobility did one or two centuries ago.

Ah, but that has nothing to do with either capitalism or communism. It is rather related to the technical evolution. Obviously what is considered poor has changed.
The really objective measurement is if you look at what percentage of people possesses what percentage of wealth. And we reached something like 90% of wealth in the hands of 10% of people today. Not good at all.

And why is it that millions of impoverished immigrants from semi-socialist Europe went to fully-capitalist America in the 19th century, and today are far richer than those who stayed behind in Europe?

May it have to do with the fact that Europe saw two world wars?

Sure will, because a bunch of other employers will do the same, and pretty soon you'll have to pay $0.2 in order to keep your employees. And note that there's nothing unethical about this transaction - the Chinese actually pray that more evil capitalists come to oppress them. You are, after all, reducing unemployment there.

Yeah similar as your home country will have record numbers on people without job. And you cannot compete with that wages.

Now, this doesn't make sense at all - you're trying to disprove the benefits of capitalism based on the problems of socialism. I've already told you, socialism makes labour so expensive that employers simply cannot hire more people, and unemployment rises. That's also why they prefer to set up factories in developing countries - because there, socialism isn't as well-developed (ironic, given China's claims of being communist). "MADE IN CHINA" is the ultimate proof of socialism's failure.

And I've already told you that capitalism lowers wages until they aren't sufficient to make a living.
It hasn't anything to do with socialism. The richer a country the more people have to pay for to keep their life standard. The higher the wages. So every bigger concern will leave the country for the main part of their production. Unavoidably raising the unemployment. Which in return lowers the wealth for most parts of the people. Polarisation.

Earth, bikes, technology, and other reasons why capitalism will not fall: a thousand years ago, Earth could only support a tiny fraction of the population it now supports. If we approach the limit again, good for capitalism - faced with increasingly expensive food (which, presumably will happen as Earth approaches its population limit), capitalists will
start looking for ways to produce cheaper food, because there is demand for it.

So you negate that there is any limit? Earth could support 1000 times as many people as it does now? All with homes, jobs,...?

A hundred years ago, bikes were expensive, and only the upper classes could afford such a luxury. Today, just about anyone can afford a bike, which means that 10, perhaps even 50-100 times more bikes are produced and sold.

You know how a sigmoid curve looks like? First you basically have exponential growth. Then you have a basically logarthmic one. Then you hit the barrier taht it will converge to, but never reach. This is what the selling numbers of every product do.
Also you shouldn't forget about negative effects. Lets look at cars for example. They followed said curve. But lets also look at horse draw carriages. The went bancrupt.
Interestingly if you look at the sum of both you'll see that the over all number stayed fairly constant (relative to population). You aren't inventing new wealth here, just shifting it.

 

[cff]

And here comes 2/2

Our current rush in technology isn't at all unusual.

It isn't. But it follows a pattern. And unless someone invents something that completely destroys that pattern we thus can foresay a bit of the future.
For example - the last century had us generate more new wisdom then the whole history of mankind. Do you thing this will continue? Dream on. This really is only a temporary effect that was started with writing and was perfected with the internet. And soon we'll see it enter the 'logarithmic phase'.

We take the things invented before us for granted, so we think that the inventions of our time are revolutionary. And yeah, I guess they truly are, but are they any more revolutionary than those other things? And above all, the progress of technology is always unpredictable.

It really isn't all that unpredictable at all. Sure I cannot foresay if we'll all have hovercars or teleporters or whatelse to transport people faster around the globe. BUT you can foresay that unless mankind eradicates itself we'll find a way to completely control all and every resource of our planet. Which forces the development of a very fast individual transportation system.
When I tell about foresay I talk about very very general directions. You are completely right that there are individual revolutions. But they don't disturb the whole as much as you'd imagine. For example the 'invention' of atomic power was very much expected by the foresays. It didn't tell us of course if it would be by the chain reactions of today or by cold fusion, or by something we haven't even thought of by now.
We already had this discussion on this board when I claimed that "all intelligent alien life that comes to earth would have to be peaceful in nature" - so I don't want to expand much further on it.

As for these cycles, never heard of them.

Look them up. They are probably the most widely accepted circle.

Consider that history is far, far too complex to be plotted in any graph. The Roman Empire didn't fall just because a cycle came to an end.
In fact, its downfall sounds a lot like chaos theory's proverbial butterfly that flaps its wings in China and causes a tornado in New York - in Asia, the Chinese defeated the Huns, who consequently started moving westwards, causing a huge wave of displaced populations in the process, initiating the barbarian invasions...

Actually and remarkably it DID!
The same cycle is expected to repeat in 2600-2800 which should be two centuries of more or less constant war. The two world wars also had been predicted albeit as one big war. Next war persiod is 2150-2225 BTW.
And your analogy is very much true. Indeed it is an chaotic event. And indeed it is a lot like chaos theory and the butterfly thing. BUT and that is the catch - it might be very very unprobable that this single butterfly causes a tonado, yet we see tornados all the time. A single person often causes an even that seems chaotic. BUT the time also has to be ready for that idea. The cycles predict when the times are ready an are waiting for the chaotic event to happen so to speak. Sometimes there even isn't a chaotic event, but a smoother transition. We cannot talk years here. We are talking at least decades.
Also note that you cannot predict exact event not actions of an individual. This is indeed far too chaotic. However predicting a whole nation to a degree of +/- 100 years is doable to a certain degree.

If you have the time have a look at the scifi novels "The Foundation", "Foundation and Empire" and "Second Foundation" all by Isaac Asimov. It plays around with this idea.

In short, I would very much doubt any cyclical interpretations of history. Such interpretations often seem to work, but only until subjected to closer analysis (without such analysis, even Marx' interpretation of history as a constant fight between two classes seems perfectly reasonable). Furthermore, even if we were to assume that these cycles you talk about are accurate, then consider that, since the cycles oscillate, you really cannot use them to claim that capitalism only works for a while - logically, after the downswing (which, if the cycles are accurate, comes regardless of whether the society is socialist or capitalist) must come the upswing.

I am not sure what you mean by closer analysis. As I will admit this isn't an exact science in as far as you can 100% rely on it. And it most certainly isn't what the Nostradamus believers do. We aren't talking about mysticism here. More of social patterns. Lets take your view on capitalism. I open the markets totally. Wages get lower. Gains of the company raise,... You see I don't have to name this capitalism. I don't have to say what was prior to it. Always if the markets are opened there will be a causal chain it initiates. These cycles really only show the chains in a bigger pattern. This is also why they will ultimately fail someday as soon as the very patterns of society change.
Your reasoning regarding as to having the system always crash independent of the political philosophy is only half true. You are right as to that I claim it will crash. Similary however I'd claim that prior to the crash a sufficiently decadent system has to be established to cause the crash. So far so good - now I could claim (and here purely starts my own opinion) that some sort of capitalism is needed for that degree of decadence.
In other words society needs to have brought forth capitalism in the past because of the cycle. We simply cannot have Communism when the crash occurs.
As such and here comes the big catch I predict that capitalism will crash. I don't predict how this will happen. And funny as it might be to you, the reason why it crashes migth indeed be that it suddenly shifts to communism! This might actually be the crash. The only thing I personally am quite sure is that it will be some sort of fundamentalistic thing, but that also could already be the 2150ish war.

Freedom Party: I don't know if Haider's party is really right-wing (of course, I really don't know much about them at all - the media wasn't the least bit informative ), given that many of these new "evil" right-wing parties in Europe are actually even more left-wing than the ruling parties. However, it's worth noting that Europe's behaviour was rather disgraceful when it came to Haider's party. Democratic governments refusing to accept a democratically-elected government? Goes against what they stand for.

Indeed. I might be happy about it or not, but it was a honest demographic election.
As for Haider I'd say it is a bit harder to classify. Without doubt he is a populist. The opinions of his party change fairly regulary depending on public opinion.
Facts are that the party did emerge from the Nazi party or to say it the other way around many Nazy sympatisants had been founding members. Today it definitely walks in the direction of nationalism (as in lets send all that bad immigrants home, they take our work). Which is why he is called extreme right. Also stuff like flat tax,... are in the program. Which would put it into authoritan right. However similar the party demands more subventions for the own people so that would be more leftish, wouldn't it?
So probably it is more authoritan then it is economic right.

Would taxing the company as a whole, and not taxing the employees work any better, though? Not much, I think - the income tax would still be there, and the temptation to cheat on the income tax would still be there as well. You would also get a strange new kind of tax fraud - self-employed people (who, presumably, must pay the tax for themselves)

Yup. A self employed person would have to count as a one man company.

would bribe companies to get a job which involves no work and no pay, but which results in the company paying the tax for them (which, presumably, makes no difference to the company, whose income and therefore income tax is not affected by this transaction).

I am not at all sure where you imply here, so I'll do an example.

Company A has 3 workers and a boss. Company makes 1000 and has to pay a tax of 10%. So what remains is 900. The boss can pay whatever he wants to te workers, lets say 100. Again 10% are subtracted as their share of the company tax from that ammount as well however. The boss already payed that 10% up front to the government and now gets that part back from his workers that was for their part of their income. So in the end each of the 3 workers has 90, and the boss has 900 - 300 + 30 = 630 which is the same as substracting 10% of his 700 share. What he does with that already taxed 630 is his decision. He can take as much as he wants from it for personal expenses or keep it in the company.

Now comes worker B which is self employed. He makes 100. He also pays that 10% tax and has 90 remaining. I am not sure how you'd make money by bribing the first company now?

The whole really boils down to the inverse of VAT like tax which is a proved concept, isn't it?

And in answer to your question, there's no one you can vote for. If a party came along proposing a withdrawal from the EU, it would be destroyed by the media.

By the extreme left elements in the media to be more precise.

And even if, by some miracle of divine proportions, it managed to win... well, why didn't Haider's government survive?

Own stupidity. Really. I mean how clever is it to fire half your ministers - the half that actually had the most sympathies? Surely the party was loosing before that but what did you expect? When all you did before was to criticise and now you suddenly had to do work. Of course that is a harder task and needs some compromises. And of course your popularity willd decrease because of that. But fire those who did the best job (at least in the eyes of about 85% or so of Austrians) is surely a clever move. In the end it probably was more related to Haider himself fearing to loose power in his own party then anything else.

Oh, sure, that's absolutely true as well. And this is another reason to be very afraid - if we add European corruption and ineptitude on top of Polish corruption and ineptitude...

LOL. Lets bet which corruption kills the other one ;-)
More seriously - I red today that the EU menaged to indirectly sponsor the Al-Axa for several yars now. Talking about a good use of our taxes...

Two things gradually changed my views - firstly, the fact that whenever I debated this with any right-wingers, I found that my opinions were backed up by nothing more than a vague idea of how things 'ought to be', while their views were always backed up by an inexorable logic that showed not only that their idea was more reasonable and moral, but also that in the long run, it was more beneficial than left-wing ideas are.

Ah, but are feelings always inferior to logic. Also something to consider is when you talk about morality and capitalism you rather talk about fairness then moral values in my eye. And I won't deny that fairness is a good thing. But show me the ethic values of capitalism.

 

[cff]

Economic Left/Right: -4.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23
See? I am well on my way towards creating a fascist, socialist state.

Not really. For fascist you'd need a massive positive value in Authoritarian, wouldn't you?

 

[Antman]

Very true. I've always prefered authority over anarchy... so for some reason i think that compass is off...

 

[cff]

As I said much much earlier - I know NOONE in a German speaking country who wasnt a left anarchist according to that test.

 

[Lynx]

Economic Left/Right: -5.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.18

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

As I said much much earlier - I know NOONE in a German speaking country who wasnt a left anarchist according to that test.

Here I am

Economic Left/Right: -0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.62

I forgot my exact results from the first time so I had to redo it but it wasn't that much more different. I think I was a bit more to Eco left (~ -1) and a bit less libertarian (~ - 1.5)

 

[Mystery muppet]

Quarto: I won't launch myself into any deep debate - cff carries my flag better than I would - but I feel the need to point out a few things...
1: Food is finite. We only have so much food on this planet. I'm not saying I know how much exactly there's left, but food isn't something you can just shake out of your sleeve. Biochemistry is, well, a science. In any case, I think it's safe to say that 10'000'000'000 people are a bunch too many.
Brining GMO into the picture is a bit of a gamble, even if it would work (initially).
2: The whole idea of a good debater (sp?) and a politician is convincing people that their view is right. I won't be a fool and say you're dead wrong now, but chances are you weren't dead wrong before, either. I can understand that you're eager about this, but take care so you don't lose your objectivity.

 

[Quarto]

Part 1/2 - but getting shorter now. Hopefully, you'll be able to bring us down to one post in your reply .

They are making it easier. Just that easier doesn't equal easy. And IMHO it is good that it isn't trivial because it would open room for big abuse.

Not necessarily. If you set up a small business, you are the sole owner - all the money in the business is yours, and if you go bankrupt, the responsibility for the debts is yours alone (and if this isn't the case, at least it should be). Limited liability companies are a different story, of course, and they will always require more paperwork, precisely to limit such abuse.

Work for the unemployed: Again if there aren't enough jobs around, then the economy will adapt to any jobs created by the government by reducing the wages on existing jobs or removing existing jobs altogether. It's elementary business management - if you can get a worker that the government partially or fully pays for, you're not going to create completely new work for him (how do you create work? If you need to do five surgeries per day, and you have enough surgeons for six, then someone's got nothing to do), you'll simply remove one of your existing employees or switch him to part-time. And the more subsidised workers there are in the economy, the more desperate the non-subsidised guys are (or they simply accept the situation, get fired, and then get their job back, now as a subsidised 'unemployed' worker), and they start offering to work for lower payment. Minimum wages? Right - if someone has a choice between no work and work below minimum wages, he'll choose the latter, even if he and his employer must break the law to do so. Illegal employment is a huge problem (people earning a living, a problem?!) here in Poland, precisely because it's cheaper to hire someone at lower wages and without social security. Further proof of what I said before about the elimination of social security creating jobs - thousands of jobs would be created overnight, simply because they already exist.
The thing you mention about obligatory social service work is a good case in point - just imagine how many people cannot find work because the government believes obligatory social work and obligatory military service are a good idea (hey, how about obligatory police service? That would surely improve public security!).

Monopolies: We're going round in circles here - I've already said that I am not in favour of eliminating anti-monopoly laws, and neither are other right-wingers. If anything, the right-wing is actually MORE anti-monopoly than the left-wing. Socialists always talk about how harmful monopolies are, but then for some reason insist that if the government is the monopoly owner, then everything's all right, when in fact, government monopolies are even WORSE than private monopolies, regardless of the type of service they offer.

So, if you want to prove that eliminating social security wouldn't decrease unemployment, you're going to have to come up with a point that I haven't already addressed .

And we reached something like 90% of wealth in the hands of 10% of people today. Not good at all.

But that's absolutely irrelevant! If, by 15th century standards, I am a king, by 19th century standards I am a wealthy noble, and by today's standards I am poor, why the heck would I care that I am in the 90% of the population that owns 10% of all wealth? And if, fifty years from now it turns out that, by 20th century standards, I'm wealthy, then again, I'm not gonna give a damn if I'm in the 95% that owns 5% of all wealth, because I'm STILL better off.

(well, that's a lie - I will give a damn. I will loudly complain about it, and if I was a left-winger, I'd also demand that the government do something about this. A right-wing government, of course, would ignore such demands and simply ensure that there's nothing preventing me from getting rich if I so desire. Envy is a natural thing, of course - but do we really need to live in a system where the government claims that to discriminate against the object of our envy is the morally-correct thing to do?)

May it have to do with the fact that Europe saw two world wars?

No, it may not. In the middle ages, the plague killed 1/3rd of Europe's population, destroyed socialism (well, feudalism - but it's the same thing by a different name), and next thing you know... renaissance!

And I've already told you that capitalism lowers wages until they aren't sufficient to make a living.

Except that I've explained that this isn't true, because capitalists are rational, and know they must offer their employees reasonable wages, if only to ensure that their employees, aka consumers, can buy their products. Of course, setting up a company in China is a neat alternative... there, I can pay people less, right? Well, hang on... who's gonna buy my products? Not the Chinese, that's for sure - I don't pay them enough. Well, people in my own country, then. So, I export my products (which increases their pricetag) back to my country. What now, though? The market is constantly shrinking - everyone's moving their companies to China, so the percentage of the population with enough money to buy my goods is falling rapidly. My profits plummet. What do I do? Move my factory to, say, Azerbeijan, and pay the workers there even less, so that I can export my products to China at prices that the Chinese can afford? Great, but everyone will do the same, right? It's an endless downward spiral.

Zoom back to the point when I was thinking about moving my factory to China. What if try to pay local workers instead? Provided that these workers don't have an exorbitant pricetag (which they do, right now - again, socialism is the cause of the great industrial shift to China!), I can still make a profit. And I get an added bonus - the people working for me are wealthier and probably better educated than the Chinese (no offence to the Chinese - but that's why they're cheaper, after all). It's easier to fill managerial positions, because I can promote my own people - thus boosting everyone's productivity, employee loyalty, and morale in general. Consequently, the quality of my products goes up. And I still have a market. Heh, better - because the owners of those other companies that moved to China now prefer to buy my high quality products than to use their own shoddy "Made in China" stuff.

This is how capitalists think. The only reason why they do move their factories to China is because they have no choice.

So you negate that there is any limit? Earth could support 1000 times as many people as it does now? All with homes, jobs,...?

I do not presume to know how many people Earth could support. Maybe there is no definite limit, and it's just a matter of constantly finding new methods to boost our production. Or maybe there is indeed a limit, and we'll reach it a hundred years from now. No point worrying about that in advance - by then, things will have dramatically changed, and the question may well be how many people Earth and Mars can support. Bottom line, food production limits are a problem that humanity has dealt with many times before, and always solved, so there is no need to worry.

Also you shouldn't forget about negative effects. Lets look at cars for example. They followed said curve. But lets also look at horse draw carriages. The went bancrupt.

A dreadful thing, that. Don't you wish the governments at the end of the 19th century were more socialist, so that they could have spent millions of taxpayer dollars protecting horse-drawn carriage manufacturers from bankruptcy? Sure, we wouldn't have cars now, and their incredible contribution to economic growth would never have appeared, but at least the poor workers in the horse-drawn carriage factories would be better off. Consequently, the gap between the rich and the poor would be smaller; because of this, according to socialist logic, we would all be better off. Neat, eh?

You aren't inventing new wealth here, just shifting it.

Not true at all. If I have a gram of gold, and I extract another gram of gold from the ground, I now have two grams of gold. Technically, I am just shifting the wealth from the ground to my own hands, but that's a technicality I'm more than happy to ignore.

This really is only a temporary effect that was started with writing and was perfected with the internet.

Started with writing and perfected with the internet? So, your definition of 'temporary' is anything that lasts for 6000 years? If it's lasted this long, how do we know it's coming to an end now? Maybe we're only halfway along a curve that goes on for another 6000 years. Or maybe there is no curve at all.

...Which forces the development of a very fast individual transportation system.

What makes you think we need a very fast individual transportation system? Why not some kind of machine that allows us to build and modify objects at a sub-atomic level, so that we can make bread out of steel?
And that's just the first thing that came into my mind. Of course, what really is going to be invented, I cannot even imagine - just like someone who doesn't know what writing is cannot imagine a library.

 

[Quarto]

Part 2/2

Actually and remarkably it DID!

No, it didn't. Cycles don't MAKE history, they merely try to interpret it, and even that, only in a simplistic manner. For predicting the future, they are worse than useless - as the saying goes, history repeats itself. But we do not study history just because we want to know what to expect - we study history to PREVENT it from repeating.
Look - a thousand years ago, Poland converted to Catholicism in order to put an end to German attacks from the west. A short time before Catholicism, most of Poland was under indirect control of an empire from the south-east, which followed Orthodox Christianity. Converting to Catholicism helped with this - not only did the Germans run out of excuses to attack Poland, but they even became an ally against the Orthodox Christians.
Now, Poland has joined NATO and is joining the European Union, among other things, to ensure that something like WWII will not happen again - because if Germany's our ally, it cannot attack us. And, just recently, we were under indirect control of an empire from the east.
So, by some extraordinary coincidence, Poland has gone full-circle. Now, if I say that Polish foreign policy goes through a cycle that repeats itself every thousand years, that's absolutely true. Based on this, I can now extrapolate that, around 3000 AD, we'll go through this again. I can also re-examine our history for 0 AD (but do I look at the history of the Polish people, or the history of the land we now live in?), and try to understand how it fits this cycle. And it will fit it - there's no doubt about it, because it's just a question of how I interpret things. However - because it's just an interpretation - all it takes is someone's alternative interpretation to disprove this. And that's what I mean by closer analysis.

Of course, my predictions of how capitalism would do this and that are also very limited in their applicability. After all, it IS possible that we would switch to capitalism and get rich, only to be invaded a hundred years from now by the People's Socialist Republic of Africa (who, facing financial troubles brought about by their morally-correct socialist policies, decides that international wealth redistribution is the right thing to do). In such a situation, it would turn out that your predictions about the downfall of capitalism were in fact correct. However, your diagnosis of the causes (i.e., that capitalism eventually destroys itself) definitely wouldn't be correct, so the fact that your predictions came true would be mere coincidence.

Now comes worker B which is self employed. He makes 100. He also pays that 10% tax and has 90 remaining. I am not sure how you'd make money by bribing the first company now?

1. The workers in Company A still get 100. They don't give a damn about the employer's expenses - they know very well that the tax is the employer's concern, and so they won't let him take it from their salary. And of course, if the employer took the tax money out of their salary, then your system where only the company pays tax is a fraud, because in fact everyone pays taxes. This is irrelevant to the rest of this example, but I thought it's worth pointing out.
2. As usual with income taxes, hundreds of rules allowing this and that to be subtracted from the income tax exist.
3. Along comes worker B, who only gets 90 out of his 100. He gives 5 to company A, in return for getting onto its payroll.
4. Company A now earns 1100, and pays 95 to this additional worker. Theoretically, it should be paying 110 taxes (in which case, it would turn worker B away, because it wouldn't get anything out of it). However, their lawyer finds some loophole that reduces their taxable income back to 1000. So, Company A has gained 5, Worker B has gained 5, and the treasury has lost 10.
5. The treasury eventually realises this. It hires five more people and starts investigating the tax evaders. These people must be paid, of course. Assuming that, like the others, they're paid 100, it turns out that now the treasury's losses amount to 510. The price of taxation is eternal vigilance...

Again, why corrupt people? If you give people a simple system where cheating is not required, they won't cheat. Maybe such a system is impossible, but the closer we get to it, the better.

The whole really boils down to the inverse of VAT like tax which is a proved concept, isn't it?

A proven concept of what exactly? That you can tax people without them noticing they’re being taxed? Well, sure, but why is that a good thing?

Ah, but are feelings always inferior to logic. Also something to consider is when you talk about morality and capitalism you rather talk about fairness then moral values in my eye. And I won't deny that fairness is a good thing. But show me the ethic values of capitalism.

Firstly, what difference is there between justice and moral values? If I work hard all day long to earn a thousand dollars, and you rob me on my way home, talking eight hundred dollars and explaining that this money should be shared between the poor unemployed masses, YOU are the immoral criminal. Of course, if I actually stole this money from someone (ie., the eternal excuse of the socialists - that capitalists are greedy, corrupt, and invariably associated with the criminal underworld, so they deserve to be robbed), that's a different story. But I didn't. I worked for this money, and what I do with it is entirely my business.

Capitalism is a system that encourages people to earn money. It doesn't try to be moral or immoral - it ignores morality entirely, and leaves it to the individual (within limits imposed by a just law).

Let's consider socialism now. So, socialism is a system that encourages people to be moral. It doesn't try to encourage or discourage people from earning money - it ignores money entirely and leaves it to the individual (within limits imposed by a just law).


...Or at least, that's the kind of socialism I'd support. Sadly, that's not the case at all. In fact, socialism does discourage people from earning money - it robs money from the rich and gives it to the poor in the name of morality, and the laws are not just, discriminating against the rich (which is why the rich have to buy justice, for example by hiring lawyers to help them evade taxes).

We are thus left with the fact that in capitalism, you can have money and morals, while in socialism, you can only have morals - and indeed you don't even have those, since your pursuit of morals violates your own moral rules. I've said this before, and I'll say it again - any system that discriminates against a part of the population cannot claim to be operating in the name of justice for all.

(which is why, of course, socialists never use the term 'justice', instead calling upon 'social justice'... whatever that may be)