odds and ends by 1kiki

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Whether you meant to or not, you very much left the impression that small businesses are more affected by regulation than large ones.

Yes, small businesses are more affected by regulation than large ones. That is correct.

So get rid of all regulations, and no one has to jump through any hoops.

Imagine a small wiry guy and a big heavy body builder. Then ask them to run a race, both carrying a 10 lb backpack. Who feels the weight more? Who is more likely to be handicapped by the 10 lbs?

Now imagine you deregulate, and neither has to carry any extra weight. If they want to race, then race as they are. No handicapping of any sort for anyone.

But ask yourself, who benefits from the LOSS of weight more? The guy who is most affected by the weight gain is also most affected by the weight loss. Right? 10 lbs is probably a gnat on an elephants butt for the body builder.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
All evidence is that people, buy and large, choose cheap over local and or personal in the long run. Hence the popularity of internet shopping. You wish it were not that way, but wishes aint fishes.

All evidence where you are. All evidence that you know.

There is a world out there that doesn't always abide by the consumer culture you are familiar with.

Price is definitely a big factor in consumer decisions the world over, yes.

But it isn't the ONLY factor. Time, transportation, interaction, "brand" or seller loyalty, safety, quality of products, smells, sounds, familiarity.... all these variables affect buying decisions.

Culture matters. If economic models don't take culture into account, they're wrong.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control.

I like this one. The other two are ok, but I think the free market economy is much more than "price."

Quote:
Nothing there about the size of business, elimination of stock market, or anything else in your definition.

I don't have any of this in my definition. But stock market would be "government control," so it makes sense that the less of this there is, the freer the market will be.

Quote:
In fact, there is no way to GUARANTEE competition in an unregulated market.

FREEDOM means no guarantees. Who the hell wants to guarantee competition? Just don't prohibit or discourage it. That is all we ask.

Quote:
In an unregulated market, history seems to show that the large get larger and that businesses consolidate,...

History where markets were, in fact, regulated? You can't look at less regulated markets, call them "free markets," then say that UNregulated markets won't work. There are some things that require true UNregulation and not just less regulation for a free market to work properly.

Quote:
...what you would LIKE a free (unregulated) market to look like doesn't make it so.

We've always had govt interference, so yes, part of a true free market is wishful thinking. Wishes ain't fishes, but we would like the chance to try.

It is like communism. No one has ever tried true communism. I sympathize with communists who would like a chance to try.

Communism and free market alike have shown promising results on a small scale, in small communes and small local economices and what not. So I don't think it is illogical to ask for a chance to try it on a larger scale.

Quote:
You have not shown me, or anyone, that an unregulated market will remain competitive.

I already illustrated how the much less regulated market in Peru DOES remain competitive. But that isn't good enough for you.

I suspect nothing ever will be.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
So what mechanism is there that would prevent shareholding businesses, or lending money and charging interest, or if you can get the money, buying up all competitors in town and then closing them down.

Mechanism? It's called refusal to sell. Or demand a price high enough that you can move everyone elsewhere.

Quote:
Point of interest, in a truly deregulated economy, what would stop anyone from creating their own currency?

Nothing. So create your own currency. Why shouldn't currency be competitive as well?

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... then you can pay very, very low wages and crummy conditions and you probably will.

Yes, this has happened a lot throughout history.

It is up to workers to demand higher wages and better conditions. This is called a union. This has happened a lot throughout history as well.

Quote:
Doesn't mean that they will be able to properly educate their children, have health benefits, pay their mortgage and utilities.

This happens NOW in fully regulated economies like that of the USA. If a bad outcome occurs in both regulated and unregulated economies, then the chances are, the bad outcome is caused by something else besides regulation or lack of regulation.

Quote:
I've seen places where the street wiring was horrifically dangerous, with cables strung willy nilly all over the place. I've seen places where people's sewerage system runs past their houses, where workers on high rise building sites where no harnesses or hard hats, where glass blowers didn't have basic protective gear, where food was being sold from street vendors cooked in hideously unhigenic conditions. My personal favourite is the motorbikes in Asia, where babies are held on the handle bars, often with granny and a washing machine or a sheep hanging off the back.

LOL.

Yes to all of it. Freedom isn't utopian. We already knew that. You're a Core planet kind of gal, and the outer planets with the religious nuts, bandits, and reavers horrifies you. Sure.

1) Situations that are unacceptable to you aren't unacceptable to them. Meaning, you can choose to never live in unregulated economies yourself. But you can't choose to make them live in YOUR lifestyle, or that your lifestyle and your standards are the only right ones.

2) For people who are used to living this way, as long as the babies don't fall off the handlebars and the high-rise worker doesn't fall off the building, everything is fine. They would rather take these risks than live under a culture of regulation where someone else TELLS them they are not ALLOWED to take risks. Shouldn't they be free to decide that?

Re unacceptable risks, have you heard of risk homeostasis? It is a model of risk assessment that says people have an individual level of risk that they are comfortable with (homeostasis). If environment becomes less risky, they will engage in riskier behaviors to compensate for the extra safety and return to homeostasis. And vice versa.

So if John is comfortable riding a bike without a helmet, and you make him wear a helmet, he will ride his bike more dangerously than before to return to homeostasis.

If Ben is comfortable riding a bike with a helmet, and you force him to not wear a helmet, he will ride his bike very conservatively to return to homeostasis.

Anecdotally, this model has been very useful to me in explaining and predicting risk behaviors all over the world.

The model of risk homeostasis would say that trying to regulate risk is largely futile. People will take the risks they want to take anyway.

You'll find that despite the horror of the risk, not a lot of babies actually fall off the handlebars of motorcycles.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:36 AM

Sig,

those definitions are fine.

Quote:
Nothing there about ... elimination of stock market

No, of course not, but nothing about its inclusion either.

My definition was *my* free market. Not the one I'd create, but one I'd accept as free. If a system allows the govt. to give billions of dollars to a company which that company can use to knock out competition, then it's not exactly a free market.

It's still incomplete, but I would accept my four points as being a free market. Things that only fit the one line I would still think were free market policies, but not ideal.

Still, if they can fit my definition, they're my definition of a free market. That still doesn't mean they're a system I would set up.

Magon,

Nothing.

It's not regulation that prevents the creation of new currencies, it happens all the time. It's very hard to make a currency that's stable enough to get people to put their money in it.

Underwriting and derivatives are a zen world in which people don't just create an mint a currency, they create one with an underlying value against the existing currency. This requires the actions of large banks and backing this new currency up with the force of law. It's regulation sponsored currency that is being created, and its being created with the creation of billions of dollars in zen money which is being created by the banks.

Now if you did not have this system, and there was a limited amount of money which could not be created from thin air, then it's going to be a) far more difficult to do, and b) no one is really going to do it.

If you had to demonstrate some reasonable success before anyone would by your bonds shares or derivatives, then there would be less reason to do it. People would invest in companies, sure, but they'd invest in the most sound ones.

If a company wanted to raise money, they might issue bonds, something with some sort of guarantee, but you notice that when they set up bonds, they didn't give people a share of control over the company right at the outset, because that's not a bright thing to do.

The only reason they do it is because large banks are handing them billions of dollars out of the starting gate for doing it, and they are able to create that money by force of law.

Quote:

An example regarding wages, if you run a business where the skill level required and a labour source that is greater than available jobs, then you can pay very, very low wages and crummy conditions and you probably will.

And good for you. You've created jobs. Wages are cheap, any business looking to create jobs will come in. That will take care of your excess skilled labor, and wages will go up.

Remember about 20 years ago when Korea was a cheap labor market that people outsourced to? I remember hearing a lot of grumbling about it at the time. Labor was cheap. Everyone went there and created jobs. That's why the wages went up. I was just reading Samsung assembly workers make $20-$30 an hour, teach are making 75-$150k, looking for work? Maybe you should move to Korea. Curious how this turns around isn't it?

Quote:

People have willingly used slaves if they can get away with it and payment of wage isn't regulated.

Ah, but who is it who creates slavery? Is it a free market? Or was it done by force of law? Did the supply of blacks really so vastly exceed the available work that their labor was really worthless? Or did the situation have to be held down with threat of violence?

In comparison, the apple factories in China, which is not to make a product comparison, but a national one, because I agree corporations would probably go wherever, there is a situation of very close to slave labor.

What happened? A few things.
1) The factories have armed guards, barbed wire fences, and can keep the workers in line
2) The govt. of China will back them up if there is a problem
3) The companies have been docking the workers pay considerably, and even trucking workers into debt.

This is what happens at migrant farms also. If you want this not to happen, you need to design your currency to prevent it. This is a problem of not the free market, but crime, that has weapons backing it up, and govt. weapons behind those. This happens here in the USA, and it happens because the govt. lets it happen, not by not stepping in, but by stepping in on the wrong side.

This is what happens when you have a govt. which steps in. It steps in on the side of power, because that's where its friends are. It doesn't step in for the little guy, because the little guy isn't worth anything to big govt, in fact, he's a liability.

Quote:

Wages and conditions are not fixed, and choice for workers is only an option if there are better payed jobs available where they live, or if they have the opportunity and the capacity to upgrade their skills.

You brushed past an interesting point: How much does it cost to live where you live. Nothing, right? Oh, but maybe you pay rent. Well, you used to live somewhere and not pay rent. But you paid taxes, right?

For centuries we didn't have this problem, and neither did China. People could live where they lived without having to worry about the cost of living. This makes it much harder for someone to trick you into a bad labor situation. If you're like "oh, well, I don't have to work" then you have to lure them out with a better deal.

But you create that liability when the govt. institutes property tax. (okay, in china if you work for the govt. you don't have to pay property tax, but that only lasts while you work for the govt, so it's not a free market)

Quote:

Businesses have always thrived when there is a cheap source of labour available.

Hmm. Samsung is paying pretty high wages, and yet it appears to be thriving. Japan has been doing pretty well for a long time, without a cheap labor source.

But sure, it's good for the economy. I think that Korea's labor rates will go down with the inclusion of North Korea, which I expect to happen shortly.

Job for job, a south korean makes 12 times what their counterpart does in the state run economy across the border. Of course, in 1950 they were the same. Now NK is down with Vietnam (because we lost that war too) Which doesn't mean we should fight wars to raise wage rates, but just to demostrate the net effect of areas that ended up in the free market sphere of influence.

Quote:

That is also a mechanism of free markets, but it doesn't always go that the majority of people, at least those that work in those industries will benefit other than they will have a job. Doesn't mean that they will be able to properly educate their children, have health benefits, pay their mortgage and utilities.

That's sort of disconnected. It's largely dependent on what the govt. does with those other services. If the govt. does nothing, than of course they will, because the businesses providing those services will need the consumer to be able to consume the product. Are you starting to see this? There would be no justification for charging a patient $25,000 for a trip to the hospital if there were no govt. backing. Same for a year of educations.

Four ways govt. can interfere in a market

Prohibition
Taxation
Subsidy
Licensure

IIRC

Ban alt. medicine, tax the industry, subsidize the insurance industry and restrict licensing of medical facilities and you have a perfect storm for high prices, and that's exactly what we have here in the US.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:16 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

CTS... you are running on the belief... and it is nothing but a belief... that "no economic regulation" would mean more competition and better life for everyone.

First of all, I need to ask whether a better, more comfortable life for all IS the intent of your proposal. Is it? Because... who wants to advocate a system where nearly everyone gets to live short brutish lives of miserable wage slavery, followed by the welcome relief of death. Right? Because when you say that there are no guarantees, but that this is all in the name of "freedom", I wonder how much you are willing to sacrifice for that ideal. From your post... quite a bit, it would seem. Not making much of a case for your ideals here.

Where you also have not made a case is that you have not shown that, in the absence of regulation, businesses will be warm a fuzzy and nice. You have made a case for SMALL businesses competition (and IMHO not a very good one, but I'm pressed for time and can't list all of the deficiencies) but not for large ones like auto manufacturing or power generation or large-scale construction. You kind of wave your magic wand and say It shall be so. There is nothing in your model to say HOW that is to happen. This is really just an article of faith with you... a belief, like a lot of your other beliefs. So, in your system what prevents large economic powers from becoming even larger, and using their vast economic power to take away your freedom? Please see my reference to the Cochabamba water wars in the 2012 thread. Make your case. You have not done so yet.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:17 AM

Quote:
You're an extremist, and extremists are dangerous people.

Cockamamie. Ghandi was an extremist.

Sure, most are dangerous. But when someone is RIGHT then being an extremist is not necessarily a bad thing.

I refuse to label anyone extremist by their ideology. Only by their ACTIONS can they be determined to be dangerous, or not. And personally, I think considering the state of things, certain kinds of dangerous, such as dangerous to the establishment, are entirely WARRANTED.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:22 AM

I didn't catch this before.

Quote:
Magon to Sky:

You're an extremist, and extremists are dangerous people.

That's pretty awesome. Sky, I'm jealous. Extremists *and* dangerous. She almost just called you a BDH ;)

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Actually, CTS is a True Believer, very much like The Operative. She is willing to sacrifice all kinds of people for a belief that even she doesn't fully understand.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:28 AM

Also: damn. I lost a post about how criminal charges could fill some of the role of regulation, and that maybe there SHOULD be some sort of mass movement /paradigm shift to support local business over big business, since that is the only environment where big business will be at a disadvantage. I also like DT's idea about creating submarkets operating under the main market that don't operate on purely capitalist principles and which might then out-compete and undermine that big corporate market is not a bad idea. At least in infant markets the consumer still has some say in the size of businesses they patronize.

As an aside, you'd think the practice of business shares allowing big business to form would have gone bust by now. Here are people who can continue making money even when the businesses they're involved in are failing. Where does that makes sense? What kind of world is this where someone like Donald Trump is thought of as a good businessman?

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:31 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

BYTE: I agree with you. The stock market should be gotten rid of. But without a regulation preventing it, you cannot prevent it's formation. Magon had a very good example of how it could happen even among family members: "I need money to start my restaurant, who wants to buy a piece of it?" And once shares were created, how do you prevent a family member from selling them elsewhere? It's kind of a slippery slope.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:42 AM

Right, I'd only recommend a reduction of regulation IF we were in that environment where small businesses outcompete big businesses. One has to come before the other. Our challenge this day and age is to bring about that economic revolution. I do not believe that can be done through government intervention, I think it has to be a populous movement, since the government is made up of the same people coming from those corporations. But you are welcome to try.

I suppose the issue of shares may depend on the wealth of the person investing. Certain economic systems have less wealth disparity than others. A family offering up shares to create a family restaurant (or even a chain of them) or even seeaking out investors is perhaps not a deal-breaker for an economic system, provided none of them or the combination of them is Hilton-family level wealthy.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 5:47 AM

Quote:
Communism and free market alike have shown promising results on a small scale, in small communes and small local economices and what not. So I don't think it is illogical to ask for a chance to try it on a larger scale.

I think any economic system will show flaws when propagated to a large scale. Only on the small scale is it self-regulating.

But, there may be something to be said of a large scale composed of a lot of independent small scale efforts.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 7:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Actually, CTS is a True Believer, very much like The Operative. She is willing to sacrifice all kinds of people for a belief that even she doesn't fully understand.

Just who am I sacrificing? You? No. I have made it pretty clear that if you like living on the Core planets, please, be my guest.

Me? Isn't it my choice to move to the outer planets?

The people of Peru? I didn't design their system. Nor am I implementing it. Aren't they allowed to "sacrifice" themselves?

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:12 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Actually, CTS is a True Believer, very much like The Operative. She is willing to sacrifice all kinds of people for a belief that even she doesn't fully understand.

Quid Pro Quo there darlin, so are you.

Me, I'd rather not sacrifice anyone, I don't serve the Blind God - and the thing is, y'all get all up in arms about your pet systems or the lack thereof, but seemingly fail to understand one crucial principle.

Systems are made of PEOPLE.
Without the cooperation of the people within it, any system will fail, be it a government, corporation, or a street gang, not that I personally see much difference between them, mind you.

Also, *ANY* system run efficiently according to the principle of do-the-least-harm will work just fine, doesn't matter if it's an autocratic despotism, an oligarchy, democracy, socialist commune or what have you, so long as it gets the job done to the point where the greater bulk of those under it prefer it to possible alternatives, then it's "functional" even if broken or inefficient - cause for a fact, ENOUGH people can kill ANYBODY, and if you piss off *everyone*, or even enough of em, your head is going on a spike no matter how good your palace guard is, that's been prettymuch true since the beginning of history.

The part y'all seem to miss in your salvos against each other ain't which SYSTEM is any better or worse, but the danger of concentration of power into the hands of those who were not voluntarily given it - or from who it cannot be effectively revoked, that more than anything else is a sign of a doomed system that will inevitably fail, as Kennedy once noted.

Quote:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Which is the way these things go, sure.

But I care not for your SYSTEMS, one leash looks just as much like any other to me, and the only disagreement in these discussions I see is which leash and who gets to hold it, rather than the notion of leaving the fuck alone - only an explicit "free market" system cannot be discussed without one factor no one else ever wants to talk about, and that is the use of violence against bad actors - generally a privledge of The State, cause really all Law and Regulation come from force, backed by the barrel of a gun, and this isn't really a lot different than what would happen to a bad actor in a free market, only it'd happen sooner with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the situation, anything from wild-eyed idiots getting mowed down to the whole damn enterprise getting levelled by overwhelming force.

Me, I'd like to remove a lot of violence from human interaction, and I do put a damn lot of effort into trying for all that I happen to be a pretty violent bastard myself - but we ain't there yet, and so long as we deal with systems and paradigmns run *BY* violence, we ain't gonna be.

There's really only two ways to deal with your fellow humans, Reason, and Force.
PEOPLE are Reason.
GOVERNMENTS are Force.

Me, I'll take people any day of the week.
That's my two-pence, prolly worth about what ya paid for it, and make of it what you will.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
All evidence where you are. All evidence that you know.

There is a world out there that doesn't always abide by the consumer culture you are familiar with.

Price is definitely a big factor in consumer decisions the world over, yes.

But it isn't the ONLY factor. Time, transportation, interaction, "brand" or seller loyalty, safety, quality of products, smells, sounds, familiarity.... all these variables affect buying decisions.

Culture matters. If economic models don't take culture into account, they're wrong.

Can you please stop being such a tosser. You are not the only person on these boards to have travelled and experienced different cultures.

Can you please enlighten me on the 'non consumer cultures' in this world and where they are and how they function?

Can you please explain how if 'culture matters' and all other models are wrong, how you ensure that you have a 'right' economic model. You are not into regulation, so you have no recourse to ensure anything, only hope. So if people choose to behave without concern for culture, in your world, what do you do about it?

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
So if people choose to behave without concern for culture, in your world, what do you do about it?

If they hurt enough people, shoot 'em.

ETA: If they don't hurt enough people, then people need to exercise some collective backbone and negotiate. Hard.

ETA:

Quote:

Can you please stop being such a tosser. You are not the only person on these boards to have travelled and experienced different cultures.

You said ALL evidence. I felt I had to qualify what kind of ALL. I apologize if I spoke like a tosser.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I think any economic system will show flaws when propagated to a large scale. Only on the small scale is it self-regulating.

But, there may be something to be said of a large scale composed of a lot of independent small scale efforts.

Agreed, on both points.

To be clear, I never pretended free market or freedom or anarchy is utopian, perfect, or otherwise flawless. I have compared it frequently to the harsh life on the outer planets. It is certainly not for everyone.

That is why I quit voting and promoting libertarianism. I realized most people in the USA didn't want to live that way, and I had no right to force it on them.

And even if most people did want to live that way, I still don't think we have a right to force it on them.

I believe everyone should get the government they want. No government without consent of the governed. Individual consent.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
That's pretty awesome. Sky, I'm jealous. Extremists *and* dangerous. She almost just called you a BDH ;)

I'm not as thrilled. I grew up in countries where such labels meant torture or death, or both.

It's a little creepy for me.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
So what mechanism is there that would prevent shareholding businesses, or lending money and charging interest, or if you can get the money, buying up all competitors in town and then closing them down.
Mechanism? It's called refusal to sell. Or demand a price high enough that you can move everyone elsewhere.

That may or may not happen, but it isn't a mechanism. Therefore shareholding may happen naturally, businesses may take over others, monopolies may occur. Evidence shows that these things will and do happen.

I suppose I am arguing these points because DT has made the point that free markets and the existance of large corporations should not co-exist, and I disagree. They are not mutually exclusive.

Power concentrates without checks and balances, whether that power be government or business.

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So create your own currency. Why shouldn't currency be competitive as well?

Well I don't wish to live in your world at all, so I can't answer that. I was responding to DT who excluded the idea of competitive currencies in a free market.

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... then you can pay very, very low wages and crummy conditions and you probably will.
Yes, this has happened a lot throughout history.

It is up to workers to demand higher wages and better conditions. This is called a union. This has happened a lot throughout history as well.

And unions have fought and won a lot of battles to have laws implemented concerning occupational health and safety conditions in the workplace, minimum wages, industrial relations mechanisms, and unfair dismissal regulations et al. Laws which businesses have fought long and hard against, I might add. I doubt you'd find many union members supporting your desire for deregulation given that the whole nature of unionism is collective action.

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Doesn't mean that they will be able to properly educate their children, have health benefits, pay their mortgage and utilities.
This happens NOW in fully regulated economies like that of the USA. If a bad outcome occurs in both regulated and unregulated economies, then the chances are, the bad outcome is caused by something else besides regulation or lack of regulation.

from where I stand the USA looks like a badly regulated society. I support regulation when it ensures health and safety, ethical work practicies, fair conditions for workers but not when it artificially props up one type of business over another, or exists purely for revenue raising purposes.

Quote:
LOL.

Yes to all of it. Freedom isn't utopian. We already knew that. You're a Core planet kind of gal, and the outer planets with the religious nuts, bandits, and reavers horrifies you. Sure.

1) Situations that are unacceptable to you aren't unacceptable to them. Meaning, you can choose to never live in unregulated economies yourself. But you can't choose to make them live in YOUR lifestyle, or that your lifestyle and your standards are the only right ones.

2) For people who are used to living this way, as long as the babies don't fall off the handlebars and the high-rise worker doesn't fall off the building, everything is fine. They would rather take these risks than live under a culture of regulation where someone else TELLS them they are not ALLOWED to take risks. Shouldn't they be free to decide that?

You'll find that despite the horror of the risk, not a lot of babies actually fall off the handlebars of motorcycles.

You're a total ideologue, aren't you. Facts never get in the way.

A little risk analysis for you. We've got lots of regulations regarding road safety, including seatbelts, helmets for motorbikes, random breath testing. Also for fencing pools and spas etc etc. We probably are pretty close to the nanny state here. But the thing is, those annoying laws do reduce deaths. Road toll has quartered since the 70's. so have deaths by drowning.

regulations do have an effect, you just have to decide whether you can live without the regulations and put up with the high death rates.

Motorbikes are called 'murderbikes' in parts of Asia. Babies do fall off. People do die in large numbers.

You know most I don't believe that people in these sort of countries see themselves as being all that free or in fact have had much of a say in any of how their economy operates. If I use Thailand and Indonesia as examples, there appears to be few laws implemented regarding roads, building, work practices, businesses. yes, its all very colourful and vibrant, but I suppose that most people would prefer to live in a buildings that were structurally sound, not have to work 7 days a week at 3 jobs to make ends meet, to not risk life and limb every time they go to work. I don't think these people get up and think how free they are, they just do what they have to do to survive. They haven't chosen these ways of life, its what they have. I might add that although they appear economically deregulated, there are strict rules which govern such societies. You can operate a shonky business in Thailand, but you cannot ever criticise the Royal family.

Again, I see that there is something inbetween all or nothing. Some regulations, some laws are useful. Some are are restrictive and unnecessary. Why not concentrate on what works best, rather than blindly following an ideology to its extreme.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Right, I'd only recommend a reduction of regulation IF we were in that environment where small businesses outcompete big businesses. One has to come before the other. Our challenge this day and age is to bring about that economic revolution. I do not believe that can be done through government intervention, I think it has to be a populous movement, since the government is made up of the same people coming from those corporations. But you are welcome to try.

I suppose the issue of shares may depend on the wealth of the person investing. Certain economic systems have less wealth disparity than others. A family offering up shares to create a family restaurant (or even a chain of them) or even seeaking out investors is perhaps not a deal-breaker for an economic system, provided none of them or the combination of them is Hilton-family level wealthy.

why is small business necessarily better than big? Not everyone in the world wants to run a business, small large or otherwise. And if you choose to be an employee, frankly you are usually better off being employed by a larger company than a small one, where you have a better chance for career progression and financial reward as a worker.

some posters on this board seem to live in la la land where family owned businesses predominate. As I said earlier, the modern world just won't operate with just small businesses and everyones just a street stall vendor.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:45 PM

Quote:
I was responding to DT who excluded the idea of competitive currencies in a free market.

I would be very surprised if he did. Sig, DT and I all seem to be on the same page of using currency to undermine existing broken economic systems.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 1:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

My definition was *my* free market. Not the one I'd create, but one I'd accept as free. If a system allows the govt. to give billions of dollars to a company which that company can use to knock out competition, then it's not exactly a free market.

It's still incomplete, but I would accept my four points as being a free market. Things that only fit the one line I would still think were free market policies, but not ideal.

Still, if they can fit my definition, they're my definition of a free market. That still doesn't mean they're a system I would set up.

That's my point, DT, you don't get to set the free market rules, cause there aint no rules. The only thing you can prevent is laws interfering with its organic nature. So you can't create an ideal. The ideal behing free market is that it governs itself.

Quote:

It's not regulation that prevents the creation of new currencies, it happens all the time. It's very hard to make a currency that's stable enough to get people to put their money in it.

I don't have an argument with you here.

Quote:

If a company wanted to raise money, they might issue bonds, something with some sort of guarantee, but you notice that when they set up bonds, they didn't give people a share of control over the company right at the outset, because that's not a bright thing to do.

The only reason they do it is because large banks are handing them billions of dollars out of the starting gate for doing it, and they are able to create that money by force of law.

You know I don't see this. Are you saying that the only way banks can lend is because of laws? I'm sure you'll have lending institutions in a deregulated economy. I might also add that one of the reasons Australia survived the GFC better than other countries is that the banks were decently regulated. No sub prime lending allowed.

Quote:

And good for you. You've created jobs. Wages are cheap, any business looking to create jobs will come in. That will take care of your excess skilled labor, and wages will go up.

Remember about 20 years ago when Korea was a cheap labor market that people outsourced to? I remember hearing a lot of grumbling about it at the time. Labor was cheap. Everyone went there and created jobs. That's why the wages went up. I was just reading Samsung assembly workers make $20-$30 an hour, teach are making 75-$150k, looking for work? Maybe you should move to Korea. Curious how this turns around isn't it?

I did say that wages are low when the number of labour force is much greater than the demand for labour. That is, have a large pool of unskilled workers to choose from and you can pay crap. If the economy swings things the other way, you'll have to pay more, or as is common now, look to cheaper labour sources elsewhere in the world.

Quote:

Ah, but who is it who creates slavery? Is it a free market? Or was it done by force of law? Did the supply of blacks really so vastly exceed the available work that their labor was really worthless? Or did the situation have to be held down with threat of violence?

In comparison, the apple factories in China, which is not to make a product comparison, but a national one, because I agree corporations would probably go wherever, there is a situation of very close to slave labor.

What happened? A few things.
1) The factories have armed guards, barbed wire fences, and can keep the workers in line
2) The govt. of China will back them up if there is a problem
3) The companies have been docking the workers pay considerably, and even trucking workers into debt.

This is what happens at migrant farms also. If you want this not to happen, you need to design your currency to prevent it. This is a problem of not the free market, but crime, that has weapons backing it up, and govt. weapons behind those. This happens here in the USA, and it happens because the govt. lets it happen, not by not stepping in, but by stepping in on the wrong side.

Ah, but without regulations, the government doesn't step in at all, remember. Plenty of corporations have used violence to keep their workers subjugated, but mainly its just economics that keeps people working in crap conditions. As CTS admitted, freedom doesn't mean utopia. Freedom from regulations may mean that you live in a area that is in economic depression, or where labour is plentiful and cheap and you have to suck up whatever crap your employer dishes out to you.

Quote:

This is what happens when you have a govt. which steps in. It steps in on the side of power, because that's where its friends are. It doesn't step in for the little guy, because the little guy isn't worth anything to big govt, in fact, he's a liability.

Ah yes, the 'all government is bad' philosophy. I never understand this philosophy from free traders. Unfettered business appears to be all good, whereas any government can never be anything but bad. Black and white thinking. The truth is that power lies with both businesses and governments, and both are at their very core, collections of individuals who may behave well, may behave badly, may be altruistic or purely self interested, or a combination of all those features.

Quote:

For centuries we didn't have this problem, and neither did China. People could live where they lived without having to worry about the cost of living.

This has never ever happened. People have had to worry about the cost of living since they stopped being hunter gatherers. Once we moved into a societies, we've had to manage shortages and excesses whether due to climate, conflict or governance.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Quote:
I was responding to DT who excluded the idea of competitive currencies in a free market.

I would be very surprised if he did. Sig, DT and I all seem to be on the same page of using currency to undermine existing broken economic systems.

see his post above about why competing currencies could not occur.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:02 PM

Um. First of all, perhaps you aren't aware that your response to me has an ad hominem in it.

Second of all, I'd say that I find it contradictory to extol the virtues of big business when previously you've used monopoly in a negative sense.

Third of all, CTS has apparently been giving examples of places where such a system exists in the modern world. Your issue with it is that it is not a developed economy. To which I say, so?

Quote:
frankly you are usually better off being employed by a larger company than a small one, where you have a better chance for career progression and financial reward as a worker.

Fourth of all, you seem to not be very familiar with the demoralizing, impersonal, and depressing corporate world aka hamster wheel aka meatgrinder of the United States. Maybe you have it different in Australia? But it kinda sucks here.

Quote:
As I said earlier, the modern world just won't operate with just small businesses and everyones just a street stall vendor.

Depends on the economy. Some economic systems self-select against larger businesses. With enough technology, any manufactured product could become easily produced locally.

I don't believe the future is a continuing growth of business, business is already global, there's not much place to grow except for making up profits or finangling the system. These global businesses are affected by instability in any of the countries they are invested in, and global means the vibrations and ramifications of that are also global.

Sustainable communities are an answer to many problems, and most likely to survive any global instability that comes up.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:06 PM

Quote:
see his post above about why competing currencies could not occur.

Quote:
You don't need regulation to stop that from happening. If you don't want me just printing my own dollars, then the maker of the currency can just make it impossible to counterfeit, or at least so difficult that it would cost me more than a dollar to do for a one off.

This? This is not speaking against competing currencies. This is saying that there are ways the mint of one currency can attempt to quash another. That does not mean the quashing will always be successful.

In all my conversations with DT, he has been very enthusiastic about the idea of competing currencies. Read the paragraph just above the one I posted, about how not having a second dollar prevents the scenario you were discussing. That would suggest DT wants a second "dollar", a second currency.

I believe you misunderstood him.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Why not concentrate on what works best, rather than blindly following an ideology to its extreme.

I don't have a problem with compromising with people who are also willing to compromise.

But my dream will always be to advocate my "extremist" ideals and my "extremist" principles of using as little force and as little violence as possible. As long as my ideals aren't actually forced on anyone who doesn't like it, why not?

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:13 PM

Magon: Free trader does not mean what you think it means.

Every single one of us here would be against Free Trade, and therefore not free traders.

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

I'm really hoping that was accidental, as I would be offended to be intentionally called a free trader. Free trade has resulted in NATO, and is related to the recent wars in the Middle East.

I'm not even committed to a free market, as you might have noticed in the course of this conversation. I'm only committed to individual communities choosing their own economic system as suits them in a unanimous or at least democratic manner, or possibly through social contract.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Um. First of all, perhaps you aren't aware that your response to me has an ad hominem in it.

That wasn't my intention.

Quote:
Second of all, I'd say that I find it contradictory to extol the virtues of big business when previously you've used monopoly in a negative sense.

I see the necessity of large businesses, and I support regulations which prevent them from becoming monopolies. I support Industrial relations laws which create minimum wages and conditions and health and safety laws.

Quote:
Third of all, CTS has apparently been giving examples of places where such a system exists in the modern world. Your issue with it is that it is not a developed economy. To which I say, so?

If you have a point here, perhaps you could actually make it. I know you feel it is your duty on this board to blindly defend CTS whenever you perceive they are being attacked, but it doesn't actually add much to the discussion unless you have something to say that supports their argument.

Quote:

Fourth of all, you seem to not be very familiar with the demoralizing, impersonal, and depressing corporate world aka hamster wheel aka meatgrinder of the United States. Maybe you have it different in Australia? But it kinda sucks here.

As I said before, we have IR laws which may make it a little better for the average wage earner. I've been employed by small businesses, large businesses, government and am currently working for a quango and worked as a contractor. I've never owned my own business, but my intent is to try it one day. They all have pros and cons. Small business was fun but no future in it, large business paid well, but it was unstable, you were likely to be retrenched at smallest sign of dip in profits. Government conditions were good, wages were okay but it was very bureaucratic and kind of dull and the department got busted up with a change of government. Contracting wages were good, but no conditions and unstable. Still I enjoyed that. Currentl quango - wages fair, conditions good, business reliant on political meanderings. If I ran my own business, I'd probably have to work 7 days per week, but I'd be my own boss.

Nothing is perfect.

Quote:

Depends on the economy. Some economic systems self-select against larger businesses. With enough technology, any manufactured product could become easily produced locally.

I don't believe the future is a continuing growth of business, business is already global, there's not much place to grow except for making up profits or finangling the system. These global businesses are affected by instability in any of the countries they are invested in, and global means the vibrations and ramifications of that are also global.

Sustainable communities are an answer to many problems, and most likely to survive any global instability that comes up.

Ah yes, sustainable communities would be ideal. How to achieve, is the big question.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Magon: Free trader does not mean what you think it means.

Every single one of us here would be against Free Trade, and therefore not free traders.

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

I'm really hoping that was accidental, as I would be offended to be intentionally called a free trader. Free trade has resulted in NATO, and is related to the recent wars in the Middle East.

I'm not even committed to a free market, as you might have noticed in the course of this conversation. I'm only committed to individual communities choosing their own economic system as suits them in a unanimous or at least democratic manner, or possibly through social contract.

Apologies, I meant free market.

Most of my replies have been directed at DT and CTS. I can't actually get a handle on where you are coming from on these issues.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
The ideal behing free market is that it governs itself.

Ideally, a true free market would function like a sustainable ecology. Yes, some animals are going to be at the top of the food chain, but they never eat enough to upset the balance of the ecological system.

Quote:
Ah yes, the 'all government is bad' philosophy. I never understand this philosophy from free traders.

Let me explain, if you will hear me.

Government is force. Force is bad. Therefore government is bad. Business usually doesn't use force on its own. People, in principle, can refuse to work, refuse to sell, and refuse to buy. The line is drawn at use of force and enforcement.

Quote:
Unfettered business appears to be all good,

No, not all good. Just not bad enough to where non-violent mechanisms of competition and collective refusal can't keep it in check.

Quote:
Black and white thinking.

If there is any black and white thinking, it is not with "govt vs. business." It is with "force vs. pressure."

Quote:
The truth is that power lies with both businesses and governments, and both are at their very core, collections of individuals who may behave well, may behave badly, may be altruistic or purely self interested, or a combination of all those features.

Yes.

You asked about the benefit of small businesses over large ones.

I have concluded after a lot of observation in Peru that it is much easier to have a free market with owner-operated businesses. Owners are the only ones who can make the price adjustments to market supply and demand dynamics to make the free market work properly. Employees cannot respond to supply and demand. The quicker the response, the more organic and the more competitive the market is, and the better the competition is able to keep the big consolidators in check.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:31 PM

Quote:
If you have a point here, perhaps you could actually make it. I know you feel it is your duty on this board to blindly defend CTS whenever you perceive they are being attacked, but it doesn't actually add much to the discussion unless you have something to say that supports their argument.

That did not elucidate your own stance on whether your issue is that CTS is talking about Peru, which is a developing economy. I was getting the impression this was the case, as it's seemed to me you've been suggesting that local business can't meet the same high-tech demands or manufacturing needs as a big business, which would be an issue of development.

And also, what?

I've corrected CTS a few times in this thread, and you might have noticed that I don't really support a free market?

Quote:

Ah yes, sustainable communities would be ideal. How to achieve, is the big question.

Agreement. :)

I'll have to go through the paragraph about your personal experience working with different sizes of business. I think that this discussion is about the impact of big business, I suppose wages and opportunities of the workers factor into that, but I'm not sure that's a macroeconomics discussion.

I also have to confess myself confused, I remember a posting of a chain email encouraging people to buy local for Christmas. I certainly did... And I did have to fight a local business that tried to rip me off by giving me only a piece of my full order, but I make an effort to support local business whenever I buy, even when it means a three hour transit due to not having my own car.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Ideally, a true free market would function like a sustainable ecology. Yes, some animals are going to be at the top of the food chain, but they never eat enough to upset the balance of the ecological system.

What is a sustainable ecology???????????????????? Nature is heartless, violent and harsh. If you are unable to survive, you die. If conditions change and you don't adapt, your species dies out and will be replaced by something this is able to survive. Animals starve to death or are are eaten alive. Small chicks are thrown out of the nest by the larger ones.

Humanities quest has been to live less harshly than nature decrees, to have more than just a short, harsh, hard life.

Quote:

Government is force. Force is bad. Therefore government is bad. Business usually doesn't use force on its own. People, in principle, can refuse to work, refuse to sell, and refuse to buy. The line is drawn at use of force and enforcement.

This is your belief system, not a reality. You could also argue that governments are just a way of organising societies. That all societies have governance of one form or another. That some governments are oppressive and some are not. Some are representative of the people and some do not. You could also argue that govermments have a role in providing services, such as school, hospitals, roads. That they create laws that enable people to live safer, more comfortable lives.

You could also argue that the nature of business relies upon exploitation which is violence of another kind. Exploitation of workers, resources, countries for one purpose only, to create wealth for the owners of the business .

All about perception.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:39 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

Frem, Byte, Magon's and Signe all make good points here. I think that instead of "free market" DT should call his idea "DT market" so we know he means what he wants and not just a plain unregulated market.

I'm a mid planets kind of woman, moderation in all things, some regulations to keep things from shafting the little guy, but not too many or else no one is free to do anything they want.

And I don't like the idea of more than one currency, unless its something like gold which is already worth something in itself, if someone wants to pay me in nuggets that's fine with me.:) But no terras, credits, platenum, ... then again ...

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
I know you feel it is your duty on this board to blindly defend CTS whenever you perceive they are being attacked,...

Whoa! There is nothing "blind" about Byte at all. She chews my ass off, so to speak, when I'm wrong, and usually quite correctly too (damn you, Byte).

She has also "blindly" defended others when I have at times attacked others. What she is really defending is fair play and integrity in reasoning.

All I know is this board would not be nearly as pleasant a debate environment if it weren't for Byte's logic and compassion.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:50 PM

Quote:
And I don't like the idea of more than one currency, unless its something like gold which is already worth something in itself, if someone wants to pay me in nuggets that's fine with me.:) But no terras, credits, platenum, ... then again ...

Oh, I think any currency which has a chance against the current system would have to be a "real" currency (tied to real world assets). Gives it a stability that does not have to be created by a central bank that can issue imaginary tender. Hopefully that would also make it appealing.

Though, depending on how you were to implement this currency, it could also have a virtual basis, the thing you have to worry about is number manipulation. But it could be done.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 2:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

That did not elucidate your own stance on whether your issue is that CTS is talking about Peru, which is a developing economy. I was getting the impression this was the case, as it's seemed to me you've been suggesting that local business can't meet the same high-tech demands or manufacturing needs as a big business, which would be an issue of development.

Yes I think it probably is.

Quote:

I've corrected CTS a few times in this thread, and you might have noticed that I don't really support a free market?

My apologies.

Quote:

I'll have to go through the paragraph about your personal experience working with different sizes of business. I think that this discussion is about the impact of big business, I suppose wages and opportunities of the workers factor into that, but I'm not sure that's a macroeconomics discussion.

I also have to confess myself confused, I remember a posting of a chain email encouraging people to buy local for Christmas. I certainly did... And I did have to fight a local business that tried to rip me off by giving me only a piece of my full order, but I make an effort to support local business whenever I buy, even when it means a three hour transit due to not having my own car.

I see big business as kind of inevitable in the type of society we live in. We cannot operate via small business alone, nor do I think it is desirable.

Given that I think it is inevitable, I believe that the market should have regulation to ensure that businesses do not become too powerful. I believe that checks and balances are needed all over the place to ensure that NO entity gains too much power, and that includes governments. I've said this many, many times over on these boards.

I don't support governments and business being in a kiss arse situation where they are bolstering each others powers, but I don't think that is an inevitable outcome, but it may be a likely outcome where only extremely wealthy business people are able to be elected to positions of power within a government.

And yes, i do wish to support local business here. we are in a precarious position. Strong currency, high wages, locally produced goods are expensive. People are buying offshore, and businesses are outsourcing their workforces to developing countries or being bought up by multinationals. Our resources, even our lands, are increasinly being owned by international companies and governments (China).

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
What is a sustainable ecology????????????????????

Sorry, I meant sustainable ecosystem.

Quote:
This is your belief system, not a reality.

Governments that govern by force and violence is real in all the countries I've ever visited.

Quote:
You could also argue that governments are just a way of organising societies. That all societies have governance of one form or another.

I don't have a problem with voluntary governance. In fact, I advocate voluntary governance. But alas, voluntary governance IS a dream and not reality.

Quote:
That some governments are oppressive and some are not.

Unless there is unanimous consent for the government to govern on all laws, SOMEONE is being oppressed.

Quote:
Some are representative of the people and some do not.

Some govts are representative of SOME people. Maybe even MOST people. It uses force and violence to oppress the rest. No government is representative of ALL people and free from the use of force and violence.

-----
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:14 PM

Good grief that's a lot of posts to go through, I've also got a ton to do, so quickly.

First off, just people in general stop throwing mud, that doesn't help anything.

Magon,

1) What Byte said. Free Trade is not something we support. I think Byte and Sky and I at least are on a page, economically, or as close to RWED gets to resembling a page.

Quote:

I suppose I am arguing these points because DT has made the point that free markets and the existance of large corporations should not co-exist, and I disagree. They are not mutually exclusive.

2) I don't think I made that claim. I'm not opposed to large corporations. I'm opposed to corporatism, which is the govt. corporate merger. It spawns companies like Halliburton and Walmart. They require the govt. to subsist, without its support, they would vaporize. Walmart has the additional support of the Chinese govt, without which I suppose it would also vaporize. There are a large number of corporations that are in a corporatist danger zone that I would like to see them pull back from, like Merck.

But opposing corporatism and monopolies is not the same as opposing corporations. For the record, I do oppose mergers. I think outside of a bankruptcy auction, no one should buy a company, especially no competitor. Someone from within the company should take over.

Quote:
Quote:
Sky:

So create your own currency. Why shouldn't currency be competitive as well?

Magon:

Well I don't wish to live in your world at all, so I can't answer that. I was responding to DT who excluded the idea of competitive currencies in a free market.

Why would I be at odds with that? No, I concur with Sky. Yay to free competing currencies. This isn't a radical concept, it's Hayek.

Quote:
Magon

That's my point, DT, you don't get to set the free market rules, cause there aint no rules.

Sure there are. First rule of my currency, I can print it, you can't. How do I enforce this? Make it not worth your trouble to try. I could make other rules. I can determine how fast it evaporates, based on how much I create. I can do all sorts of things with it as to what can be created within my economic system. I can have stock options or not, I can decide how my lending will work and what the interest rates will be. I don't have to be a govt. to do those things, I only have to be a bank.

Quote:
Are you saying that the only way banks can lend is because of laws?

No.
I'm saying that the process through which new capital is created for an IPO is tricky, and involves shifting the risk burden away from the corporation, and allowing the creation of a new dollar exchangeable currency. It's a queer system, and not entirely flawed, but it does have serious flaws.

As for labor and unions, the only thing unions do is drive the price of labor out of the market, making corporations leave, and oh, they also kick perspective employees out of the profession.

Labor markets are fine without economic micromanagement, but you have to have no armed guards at the factor. People have to be free to leave. It's the same thing the world over that makes for decent policy.

No trucking either, and I don't mean driving trucks

Quote:

Ah, but without regulations, the government doesn't step in at all, remember.

That would be good.

Why would govt. be anything but bad? It's centralized power backed up by the use of force. No one good is ever going to have much purpose for such a thing, and the wicked are always going to need it, so they will fill the beast with their ranks. Yes, I think it's categorically bad.

Quote:

This has never ever happened. People have had to worry about the cost of living since they stopped being hunter gatherers. Once we moved into a societies, we've had to manage shortages and excesses whether due to climate, conflict or governance.

Oh, I would like to think of a nicer response to this than "rubbish."

I mean, I meant people do not have to work for others, to push themselves into servitude for abstract moneys to live somewhere because the house they built did not have to pay interest. Sure, it needs repairs, but repairs take hands. Rent and mortgage and property tax are vampires that suck the blood of the people living in the property like ticks and lice.

If you don't have these problems, sure, you still need to farm etc. to produce food, and no, managing shortages is not something that came with civilization, hunter gatherers had to manage shortages. Don't believe me? Look out side, check out those squirrels.

Chris posted this thing by Derrick Jensen that was an excellent send up of Civilization. He basically says "civilization is a giant consumer. It derives from the city, which by definition is something where people live beyond carrying capacity. Because of this, they must take their resources from somewhere else. Since there are people on the something else land, those people must by oppressed by the civilization so that it can get the resources. This enables the civilization to grow, but as it grows, it must oppresses more of the world. Eventually, a civilization requires the oppression of the entire planet to continue, at which point the civilization collapses."

I think that's a pretty synopsis.

Magon,

Again, i didn't disapprove of competing currencies. I said that people minting derivatives shouldn't have the backing of the US dollar. That's not an independent currency, it's a stealth dollar. The system hurts the overall economy.

Stock options started as a way for workers to become owners of the company, which was a good idea. Since then, it has gone awry.

Byte, yes, they would have gone bust by now, the megacapitalists, if they didn't have the express power to print their own money which in our current system they do.

Sig, See my thoughts above on avoiding the stock market. I think that it happens because regulation allows it. They might try it without that, but I think they would just end up with a corporate bond market.

I think what Sky is saying about ecology is that our free market model is evolution. The socialism we oppose is Intelligent Design.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

The part y'all seem to miss in your salvos against each other ain't which SYSTEM is any better or worse, but the danger of concentration of power into the hands of those who were not voluntarily given it - or from who it cannot be effectively revoked, that more than anything else is a sign of a doomed system that will inevitably fail, as Kennedy once noted.

which is what I have been saying, pretty much all along.

Quote:

and that is the use of violence against bad actors - generally a privledge of The State, cause really all Law and Regulation come from force, backed by the barrel of a gun, and this isn't really a lot different than what would happen to a bad actor in a free market, only it'd happen sooner with varying degrees of effectiveness depending on the situation, anything from wild-eyed idiots getting mowed down to the whole damn enterprise getting levelled by overwhelming force.

Or it may happen from wild-eyed idiots mowing down a whole lot of innocents.

Plenty of places in the world where the rule of law is enacted by criminals, gangs and rogue armies and the government is impotent. Not particularly pleasant places to live.

Me, I'd prefer a police force to be less aggressive, minimally armed - specialist weapons units only and limits and checks on their power as well. But like all these issues you don't do it via hope alone, but structures to limit powers, dare I say - laws.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 3:48 PM

Quote:
I mean, I meant people do not have to work for others, to push themselves into servitude for abstract moneys to live somewhere because the house they built did not have to pay interest. Sure, it needs repairs, but repairs take hands. Rent and mortgage and property tax are vampires that suck the blood of the people living in the property like ticks and lice.

Doesn't sound like you are advocating a free market society to me. Not sure what system you are suggesting, except DTworld.

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If you don't have these problems, sure, you still need to farm etc. to produce food, and no, managing shortages is not something that came with civilization, hunter gatherers had to manage shortages. Don't believe me? Look out side, check out those squirrels.

You and your squirrels. I never said hunter gatherers didn't have to manage shortages, but they are primary producers of their own food and housing. Once society grew into more complex units, specialisation occured and people became at the mercy of cost of living, usually the cost of their staple food.

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Chris posted this thing by Derrick Jensen that was an excellent send up of Civilization. He basically says "civilization is a giant consumer. It derives from the city, which by definition is something where people live beyond carrying capacity. Because of this, they must take their resources from somewhere else. Since there are people on the something else land, those people must by oppressed by the civilization so that it can get the resources. This enables the civilization to grow, but as it grows, it must oppresses more of the world. Eventually, a civilization requires the oppression of the entire planet to continue, at which point the civilization collapses."

And you agree with this? Doesn't this go against everything you have ever argued?

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012 6:56 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Quid Pro Quo there darlin, so are you. Systems are made of PEOPLE

But systems are NOT people, and they don't behave like people. Whether you want to believe it or not, large groups of human beings will form systems, just as groups of animals and plants form ecosystems and computers are more than collections of metal and plastic.

Human behavior is not just the average of its parts. The moment people start gathering in more than a monkey-sphere, non-monkey-sphere processes start. Groups stay in one place, tools aggregate, property rights become important, labor is divided, stability becomes paramount, cooperation necessary, rules are created, memes persist, power concentrates... all sorts of things happen which will not ever happen in small groups.

Frem, have you ever designed or built a circuit? Do you understand the concepts of amplification, and positive and negative feedback, underdamped systems and so forth? Human systems can be described using those terms. No matter how much you try to reduce these complex interactions to "people"... to the individual components on the board... groups of people will persist in behaving in complex ways. The American Medical Association does not act like your average doctor and corporations live, eat, grow, adapt, evolve, and die on a non-human scale over non-human lifetimes.
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CTS is proposing something called the "free market"... with all the ingredients for an economic clusterfuck... money, private property, banks, stocks, arms... creating the capacity for a small group of people to completely and utterly dominate everyone else... and no proposed mechanism for HOW this clusterfuck could be prevented or averted, other than blind faith that "government" is THE source of all power, and that once "government" is removed the sun will come out and the world will shine. I have asked her rather repeatedly to make her case, but so far not seen it. In another thread, a long time ago, TonyT once asked what kind of power a corporation could wield that could bring a population to its knees. We came up with a list so long he wound up saying "OK, OK! I get it!" Government is certainly not the only problem, and maybe not even the biggest one.

Unlike CTS, I am not proposing "a system". I am proposing that we acknowledge and understand our systems so that we have some sort of control over them, rather than them controlling us. I have spent a rather long time and many posts thinking about this problem: How to design a system which automatically prevents the concentration of power while still allowing the widescale cooperation that our modern technology... and our gargantuan population... depends on. What I am getting in return is either denial that systems even exist, or proposals of simplistic systems that don't even take into account first-order effects.

And CTS is so oppositional that she cannot abide by the thought of ANY rules whatsoever, not even the rules which prohibit exploitation of one by another. That is the driving force of all of her posts, and the real reason why she rejects much data... because it tells her something she doesn't want to know.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 2:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
CTS is proposing something called the "free market"... with all the ingredients for an economic clusterfuck... money, private property, banks, stocks, arms...

I am proposing a free market, yes. With arms, yes.

But I am not thrilled about money, private property (land), banks, and stocks. Do I want the govt to enforce prohibition of things I'm not thrilled about? No. Do I want to see people voluntarily reject things I am not thrilled about by becoming educated about their outcomes? Yes.

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And CTS is so oppositional that she cannot abide by the thought of ANY rules whatsoever, not even the rules which prohibit exploitation of one by another.

I don't oppose rules. I love rules. I oppose rules ENFORCED by a concentration/monopoly of force and violence. That monopoly inevitably gets purchased by large businesses to enforce the rules they want.

The way I see it is this: you can have big business with guns (of the govt) or you can have big business without guns. I pick without guns, thank you very much.

If you think you can have big business forcibly SEPARATED from the guns of the govt, you're hoping the sun will come out and the world will shine.

If there is a govt, SOMEONE WILL BUY IT.

ETA: Magon, I like Derrick Jensen. A lot. He creeps me out a bit for advocating violence, but his identification of the problem is brilliant.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Do I want to see people voluntarily reject things I am not thrilled about by becoming educated about their outcomes?

CTS, you can't "reject" something by "becoming educated".

I reject your pointing a gun at me by becoming educated? I reject your exploitation of me by becoming educated? I reject stocks and private ownership and monopolism and banks by becoming educated? Oh dear. Education is only the FIRST step.

Look at Occupy, or even the hippies of the 60s and 70s. ... people get educated. They dream a new dream of a better society. They reject mindless consumerism, social and environmental exploitation, inequality, violence. Then what? They still have to eat, they still have to live someplace, they'll still need medicine, they still need to communicate. Some of them formed communes... collections of people living at primitive levels which- even at THAT primitive level weren't self-sustaining because they couldn't produce everything they needed in order to survive. So they still wound up using money, computers and phone lines to communicate, cloth, etc. They still wound up part of the system.

DT said that what he wants is a society that "evolves". Do you and he think that THIS society is NOT a product of evolution?

You are both incredibly naive of history. EVERY society has evolved, and my reading of history is that nearly EVERY society gets bigger and bigger, more and more complex, with a taller and taller hierarchy, until it is decapitated by either revolution or natural disaster. Tribes becomes cities, cities become states, states become empires, catastrophe occurs, and the dice are rolled, the reset button is pushed, society is leveled, and it starts all over again... and winds up in the same place after a few hundred or a thousand years.

Pushing the "reset" button for the thousandth time isn't going to help. Imbuing "people" with an independent mindset only works for a generation, or two, or possibly three. But the fervor of revolution fades. The forces of consolidation inevitably take over because people want a more comfortable life. They want their technology, their medicine, their instant communication. You have to offer a system that is more robust than the many thousands of post-revolution, post-catastrophe situations that have ALREADY occurred throughout history, which have wound up re-creating, with depressing regularity, the same hierarchies and exploitation over and over again.

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I oppose rules ENFORCED by a concentration/monopoly of force and violence.

What if MOST people want to create a rule... say... "You shall not own slaves." But a minority continues to own slaves, insists, in fact, that slave ownership is their right. So they continue to exploit slaves in the most heinous manner possible.

And let's now assume that this slave-owning society produces something absolutely necessary for the continuing function of the rest of the world, say... tantalum. What does the majority do? How do they enforce this "no slave ownership" rule? Do they dust their hands off and say... "oh, well, we can't enforce our rules, that would be enforcing a rule by a concentration of power, and we can't have that"?

What about rules against murder? Yanno, Europe is a highly educated society. They expect a LOT more of their economies and their governments than we do. Nonetheless their societies DO create murderers... crazy people who may need to be restrained for everyone else's safety. How does a society enforce its rule against murder?

As far as I can tell, CTS, you want a fantasy. You want this great society which doesn't have or enforce rules, in which every action by every person is entirely voluntary, and yet everyone is happy and equal and prosperous. But you have yet to show HOW this is going to come about. And that is important, because yanno what? We been there, and we've done that. even as recently as just two hundred years ago, we were a relatively equal society of farmers and small businessmen. Sure, there were a few slave-owning plantations, and women had no rights, but the rulers and thinkers of the day were imbued with revolutionary zeal and the idea of equality... and look where we wound up.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:49 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But a minority continues to own slaves, insists, in fact, that slave ownership is their right.

They, in libertarian terms, have initiated force. They have used force and violence to kidnap people against their will.

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What does the majority do? How do they enforce this "no slave ownership" rule?

Assuming that negotiation and boycotts have failed, those who wish to take up arms go to the slave camps and shoot the kidnappers until the slaves go free.

The difference between a gang of individual fighters and a gang of fighters hired by the government is this: no one is going to or paying for the rescue operation against his or her will.

If you don't WANT to free slaves kidnapped by slavers, you don't have to. No one is going to force you to fund or participate in violence you don't agree with.

That is my underlying principle: No force used on people who are not using force.

If you ARE using force, then you're fair game for whoever else wants to use force on you.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
That is my underlying principle: No force used on people who are not using force.

And, those who are using force will be restrained by....? A bunch of individuals who go in willy-nilly and shoot slave-owners in a disorganized fashion? So, the slave-owners organize. They're not following YOUR rules, you see. They create an army. Knowing that the best defense is a good offense, they invade.

Then what?

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
As far as I can tell, CTS, you want a fantasy.

And what YOU want isn't fantasy?

Tell you what. Why don't you show me how your proposal for separation of business and government is NOT fantasy?

Describe a mechanism that will prevent my following prediction from happening.

"If government exists, someone will buy it."

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:59 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And, those who are using force will be restrained by....?

Force.

It ain't rocket science, Siggy. Lemme repeat in small words so you can understand.

1. If you are not using force, no force will be used on you.
2. If you are using force, force will be used on you.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012 3:59 AM