andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> A few remarks: you mention "best technological innovations" this (and 
> some of your other statements) imply that innovation is or can be good. 
> This is an assumption not shared by everybody everywhere*.

  Thanks to innovations in medicine and technology people's life expectance
and overall quality of life has increased significantly. Someone could oppose
the idea, but that someone would be wrong.

  (And for some reason when speaking about innovation and progress in
capitalist countries, many people only think about the huge gap between
rich and poor people... in the United States. There are other capitalist
countries in this world besides the United States, you know. They might
not call themselves "capitalist" because that's nowadays a curseword, but
if they are based on free commerce and private ownership, that's capitalism
by definition. They might want to play with terminology in other to avoid
the hated C-word, but that doesn't change anything.)

> OTOH pure capitalism does not work either.

  I think that with the word "pure" you are implying that there's zero
governmental control. I think that's an unfair assumption.

  No economic system (or, more generally, any form of society with a
significant amount of people) can work without governmental control (because
of the nature of humans). Governmental control can always be implied.

  Of course a capitalist society needs a strong government to regulate
what people can and cannot do, in order to stop exploitation. However,
that's true for *all* forms of economy and society. It's not something
exclusive to capitalism. Thus I think it's unfair to say that "pure"
capitalism doesn't work, as if only capitalism could be "pure" in the
sense of no-governmental-control.

> Slightly related: we have a discussion here on raising the retirement 
> age to 67.

  There has been for some time discussion about retirement ages here in
Finland as well. I find it amusing how completely differing opinions there
are.

  Some people think that retirement age should be increased. The reasoning
is that in many fields there's a labor shortage, and people who get retired
are usually the people with the most expertise and experience on that
specific field. In many fields a 65-years-old is perfectly capable of keeping
working for a couple of years more.

  Other people think the exact opposite: Retirement age should be lowered.
The reasoning is that old people should give way to younger people.

  I think that the problem is that neither view works in *all* possible
fields of labor. There are some fields where there's a huge labor shortage
(eg. jobs related to eg. programming and web development) while in other
fields there's a huge amount of unemployment (eg. construction work and
similar). Often the former would benefit from older people with years of
experience, while the latter would benefit from younger people.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 30-12-2009 2:22, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 30-12-2009 1:01, Darren New wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
>>>> What does it say about a society when there is a negative 
>>>> correlation between working hard and income?
>>>
>>>
>>> Work smarter, not harder?
>>>
>>
>> Does that apply that everybody has that choice?
> 
> I suppose only the smart people. Then we're back where we started.
> 
> As an aside, that was a joke, not a serious suggestion.
> 
Well, you never know with Americans. Some seem to religiously believe 
that everybody has at birth the same possibilities*. Which is of course 
in stark contrast to communism, where they believe that everybody has at 
birth the same possibilities.

* It is just that some take those and some don't, but that is their own 
fault.

Post a reply to this message

On 30-12-2009 9:02, Warp wrote:
> andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> A few remarks: you mention "best technological innovations" this (and 
>> some of your other statements) imply that innovation is or can be good. 
>> This is an assumption not shared by everybody everywhere*.
> 
>   Thanks to innovations in medicine and technology people's life expectance
> and overall quality of life has increased significantly. Someone could oppose
> the idea, but that someone would be wrong.

I know that almost everybody wants themselves and their loved ones to 
live longer. That does not imply that all these people also think 
everybody should pass that time wearing digital watches.
There may be a gap between what is good for you and what is good for 
society. People running a country (or church) have to think about such 
issues. And as they in general have control of the media they will be 
able to convince a group of people. They may even be right sometimes.

>   (And for some reason when speaking about innovation and progress in
> capitalist countries, many people only think about the huge gap between
> rich and poor people... in the United States. There are other capitalist
> countries in this world besides the United States, you know. 

Yes I know, why do you ask?

> 
>> OTOH pure capitalism does not work either.
> 
>   I think that with the word "pure" you are implying that there's zero
> governmental control. I think that's an unfair assumption.
> 
>   No economic system (or, more generally, any form of society with a
> significant amount of people) can work without governmental control (because
> of the nature of humans). Governmental control can always be implied.

That is what I said, yes. The reason I brought it up is that there are 
people that will refer to any government control as 'socialism'.

> Thus I think it's unfair to say that "pure"
> capitalism doesn't work, as if only capitalism could be "pure" in the
> sense of no-governmental-control.

Hmm, not sure if you would win a logical contest with that, but I 
understand what you mean. Or actually I don't. What type of economical 
system do you know that preaches absence of government control, other 
than extremist capitalism?

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> Well, you never know with Americans. Some seem to religiously believe 
> that everybody has at birth the same possibilities*.

No, it's more like everyone should get the same opportunities. But if you're 
unable to take advantage of the opportunity, you don't get to leech off 
someone else.

Everyone should be allowed to buy a house. That doesn't mean we take houses 
from people who own two and give them to people who are too poor to buy 
their own, you see.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> if they are based on free commerce and private ownership, that's capitalism
> by definition.

Technically, I think "capital" has to be included in there. You can have 
(say) nomadic hunter/gatherer tribes that have free trade and private 
ownership without capital.

>   Of course a capitalist society needs a strong government to regulate
> what people can and cannot do, in order to stop exploitation. However,
> that's true for *all* forms of economy and society. 

It's mostly minimal for capitalism, because capitalism tends to go along 
with what people want to do anyway. Contrast with communism, where Marx even 
recognised you'd have to have a brutal and repressive government to make it 
work.

And there isn't any "pure" communism, either. Even in the depths of the 
"communist" part of China's history, you still had to pay for food and pay 
to use the subway. You'd think something like the subway, where carrying an 
additional rider is practically free given you've already invested in the 
capital of building the thing, would be free under communism.  Show me a 
communism that doesn't have a currency before you tell me it's "pure 
communism". :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> I know that almost everybody wants themselves and their loved ones to 
> live longer. That does not imply that all these people also think 
> everybody should pass that time wearing digital watches.

The two go together.

> Hmm, not sure if you would win a logical contest with that, but I 
> understand what you mean. Or actually I don't. What type of economical 
> system do you know that preaches absence of government control, other 
> than extremist capitalism?

Extremist capitalism doesn't preach no government control. That would be 
anarchy. I don't know of any capitalist who thinks having the government not 
in control of enforcing contracts (for example) is a good thing.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> On 29-12-2009 20:16, m1j wrote:
> [snipped warp text]
>>

>  It is just like talking to a Scotsman 
> and don't hear a word because he has such an interesting accent.
> 



-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Sabrina Kilian wrote:

> Why do people from the USA want to shout about socialism?
> 



-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>> Why do people from the USA want to shout about socialism?
> It sounds that (in the US) “socialism” is becoming a sy
nonym of “Communism”

What do *you* think the difference is?  They sound pretty similar, except
 
one has stuff owned by "the government" and one has it owned by "the peop
le".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

Post a reply to this message

On 30-12-2009 11:54, Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> Sabrina Kilian wrote:
>>> Why do people from the USA want to shout about socialism?
>> It sounds that (in the US) “socialism” is becoming a synonym of 
>> “Communism”
> 
> What do *you* think the difference is?  They sound pretty similar, 
> except one has stuff owned by "the government" and one has it owned by 
> "the people".

In the Netherlands communism is associated with Russia and China. We had 
a communist party (now part of a larger alliance). It was closely linked 
to Moscow, very dogmatic and very surprised when it became known what 
Russian communism actually meant in practice.
Socialism is a much broader term. Our labour party (in size number 1,2 
or 3 of our political parties over the last decades) is a socialist 
party. Socialist parties are very well represented in the European 
parliament as well. The main characteristic is that they will always 
think first about what a proposal means for the working class, those 
without the money to buy political influence (or that is the theory).
In short: to Europeans the difference is huge. Americans using the term 
'socialism' are generally regarded with a friendly sort of paternalism. 
They clearly don't know what they are talking about, but that is OK, 
they are Americans.

Post a reply to this message