REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Did Bush lie? It doesn't matter any more.

POSTED BY: GEEZER
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 08:35
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Monday, August 23, 2004 5:04 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Geezer- please look up "positive feedback".

I've already proposed something better: Since the current situation is entirely created by law, change the laws that define corporations and govern trade. I have a myriad suggestions, ranging from limited to sweeping, and each one would require a discussion. Here are a few examples:

Because corporations (as synthetic persons) are treated favorably under the law, make the laws that govern corporations the same as laws that govern people. For example, equalize the laws regarding tax, theft, liability and criminality. Institute the equivalent of corporate jail time (the Board and exective officers get replaced en masse) and (if you believe in the death penalty) the corporate death penalty (forced liquidation).
Place the same liabilities on corporations that are on people and expect the same responsible "behavior". Require corporations (and all business) to protect employee consitutional rights, such as the right of privacy and the right of free speech. (Most people have the mis-impression that the consitutional ammendments guarantee their rights vis a vis business. They do not.)

Eliminate the option of "publicly traded" businesses. Stock ownership creates a special distortion in business management that is tied to the quarterly report and stock price, leading to very short-term thinkingand speculation. (Business can raise capital through bonds, loans, partnerships etc.)

Engineer trade agreements to recognize and reward responsible government. Place progressive tariffs on nations that don't (1) have universal, UN-recognised elections (2) allow the formation of national and international trade unions (3) have environmental protection laws that allow sustainable development.

Eliminate the notion of "intellectual property", which stilfes rather than enhances technological development.

Eliminate the corporate business form completely. Replace it with cooperative business forms.

Place banking and currecny exchange under national and international regulation, and remove it from speculation.


I have lots more ideas, some have more merit than others. The limit isn't "What we can do instead" but the will to engage in thinking and acting along these lines.

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Monday, August 23, 2004 7:03 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Because corporations (as synthetic persons) are treated favorably under the law, make the laws that govern corporations the same as laws that govern people. For example, equalize the laws regarding tax, theft, liability and criminality. Institute the equivalent of corporate jail time (the Board and exective officers get replaced en masse) and (if you believe in the death penalty) the corporate death penalty (forced liquidation).


Equalizing the tax rates would probably either raise prices or force mass failures or both, and would probably impact smaller businesses worse than larger. Also remember that employers already have the tax burden of having to match their employee's FICA and FUTA tax, as well as collect and forward their withholding to IRS, and can be fined or jailed for failure to do so.

I take it that the liability you mention is corporate liability for breaking laws, not product liability, and I have no problem with tougher laws relating to criminality and theft.

Firing the board just cuts them loose with their money, and liquidating the business just puts folk out of work. Making the directors criminally liable for jail time or fines (as IRS does now for failure to pay FICA, FUTA, WH) works better, IMO.

Quote:

Require corporations (and all business) to protect employee consitutional rights, such as the right of privacy and the right of free speech.


A business has the right (though not Constitutional) to expect that it's employees will be performing work when they are at work. Monitoring email or phone traffic seem to me valid ways to verify this. I'd think that a business should be required to notify it's employees if it is going to do this, and set some policy about appropriate use of systems.


Quote:
Eliminate the option of "publicly traded" businesses. Stock ownership creates a special distortion in business management that is tied to the quarterly report and stock price, leading to very short-term thinking and speculation. (Business can raise capital through bonds, loans, partnerships etc.)


Bonds are usually issued by municipal or governmental entities which can guarantee a return. A bond without such a guarantee is just stock by another name. Banks aren't going to loan money on risky ventures, thus stifling development of new ideas. I'm not sure there is enough money in banks to provide all the capital needed in any case. Engineering a transition away from the current system while protecting the money of the people who already own stock would be interesting as well.


Quote:
Engineer trade agreements to recognize and reward responsible government. Place progressive tariffs on nations that don't (1) have universal, UN-recognised elections (2) allow the formation of national and international trade unions (3) have environmental protection laws that allow sustainable development.


I would agree with this in principle, but I see difficulties in implementing it. Note the divisiveness in the UN over such obvious right and wrong (to me, anyway) situations as in Sudan. I also see fun coming up with a definition of "sustainable development" that everyone would agree with.

Quote:

Eliminate the notion of "intellectual property", which stifles rather than enhances technological development.


Eliminate copyright and patents? Then what's a person's motivation to invent, or a business' motivation to provide that person with the resources to invent? Recognition of a great idea or advance in technology is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't pay the bills for the investment it took to develop that idea or advance.


Quote:
Eliminate the corporate business form completely. Replace it with cooperative business forms.


Quoting from the National Cooperative Business Association site http://www.ncba.coop/abcoop_ab_values.cfm (emphasis mine):

"A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise."

So forcing everyone into the cooperative model doesn't really seem to fit the "voluntary" ideal. If you want to promote and develop voluntary cooperatives, that's fine with me.


Quote:
Place banking and currency exchange under national and international regulation, and remove it from speculation.


Again, this could be a good idea, but there are many hurdles to get over to make it work, just like any international laws. This is also putting a lot of everyone's economic eggs in one basket, and trusting that whoever is running the show won't drop them. Need to be very careful about how this is set up.

Quote:
I have lots more ideas, some have more merit than others. The limit isn't "What we can do instead" but the will to engage in thinking and acting along these lines.


Glad to see your ideas. Some I agree with and some not. Some I'd like to see but think implementation without either a worldwide consensus (good) or authoritarian government control(bad) would be difficult or impossible.

I think that on the whole, I probably tend to look for more incremental change, since it seems more possible to me. For example, I've always been puzzled that the guy who sticks up a Quikie-Mart with a plastic gun gets 10 years hard time, but a corporate exec who bilks thousands of investors out of millions gets 18 months at a minimum security country club. I'd like to see this fixed, and think it's doable.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, August 23, 2004 11:49 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Geezer,
The last time I tried to prove my claims TO YOU about the 'Bush and admin lied about WMD' topic, you didn't have enough time to read it, were not interested, couldn't be bothered, etc etc. A million reasons, and none.

In another discussion with a poster who demanded 'proof' and then dismissed it, he NEVER supported any of HIS claims with facts.

As you have not supported any of yours. Since you already blew me off once when I attempted to demonstrate the facts, how about you prove your claims? I'll be happy to demand, criticize, dismiss and ignore.

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Monday, August 23, 2004 3:01 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
As you have not supported any of yours. Since you already blew me off once when I attempted to demonstrate the facts, how about you prove your claims? I'll be happy to demand, criticize, dismiss and ignore.


My claim is that capitalist democracies currently provide a higher standard of living for more of their population than any other system. My claim is supported by the UN Human Development Index http://hdr.undp.org/ as noted above, which basically shows that the best places to live are democratic republics with a capitalist, or at least free-market, economy. I do not claim that they are perfect, or that they cannot be improved, just that there is currently nothing that works better.

Where I work I can hear my fellow employees speaking Spanish, and Mandarin, and Bantu, and Arabic, and other languages I have no clue about. They are employees and contractors in a IT shop and are making a good living. They came here because they realize this is the place to get ahead, the place where there is opportunity.

Would I like to see the folks who haven't made it do better? Of course. Could we do more? No doubt.For example, I think the recent change in overtime rules is pretty bogus. But I'd rather improve on the basis we have than tear down the whole thing and try to start from scratch.

SignyM was kind enough to share a few ideas, some of which I agreed with, some I didn't, and some that I wouldn't mind seeing but don't think can realistically be implemented. At least in this way we have some common ground.

And that's the goal here, to get some common ground. You and I may never agree about whether Bush lied, or about how important it may be if he did or didn't. We probably don't agree about a lot of stuff. We're individuals, not from the same mold. But there's probably stuff we do agree about. Why not work on that for a while?





"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, August 23, 2004 3:12 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Oh, and just to show that I'm not 100% happy with things, lets get rid of all this business money in politics. Whether it's Big Oil or George Soros, anyone putting tens of millions of dollars into 527s and party warchests is going to expect a lot in return. I'd drastically limit the amount of money, hard and soft, that could be spent, and probably set a time window for campaigning.

And while I'm at it, what's with this Marriage Amendment nonesense? That's just crazy talk.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 2:41 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


You can't prove it.
It doesn't matter.
I don't have time.

--------------------------

Rue (with apologies to Geezer) but the above are/ were so easily disproved that they can only be seen as avoidance. Geezer can't approach the concept "Bush lied about WMD" with equanimity; it generates enough fear to make the topic off-limits.

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 6:13 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
You can't prove it.
It doesn't matter.
I don't have time.

--------------------------

Rue (with apologies to Geezer) but the above are/ were so easily disproved that they can only be seen as avoidance. Geezer can't approach the concept "Bush lied about WMD" with equanimity; it generates enough fear to make the topic off-limits.


Guys, I expect politicians to lie, and if not lie then spin facts to their needs. Knowing that Bush "lied" instead of "spun" wouldn't be a revelation to me. That's why it doesn't matter as much to me as, say, reproductive rights(for), the "marriage amendment"(against), changes in overtime laws(against the latest one), campaign reform(for), tax reform(for, but it's tricky), gun rights(for...cold dead hands, etc.), ethnic cleansing(I'm so pissed about the waffling on Sudan. I want UN peacekeepers in there last year), etc. A politician lying is just "...so what else is new?" to me.

"Bush Lied" isn't the only issue here, for me and for a lot of other folk. The one-note thing just wears us out. Above are seven other things I'd rather discuss, plus the "Capitalist Democracies; Threat or Menace?" one we already have going.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:27 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Geezer,

My approach is this: either facts lead to opinions, or they are mere rhetorical decorations on pre-formed opinions. To be fact-based, one has to be willing to look at ALL facts.

I am willing to have a fact-based discussion, but 1) having been burned once, by you, on this very effort, I'm reluctant to spend a lot of time on it and 2) so far my facts encompass yours.

Here are some examples, at length:

Quote:
Even if they're just subsistence farming, they have to use some of the fruits of their efforts to buy new implements to farm with.
We could go around and around about this, so I’ll lay out some proposals, and ahead of time attempt to meet some objections you may raise.

Capitalism is a limited system in a very recent time-frame of human existence.

One could define capitalism so loosely that even the ancient Aztecs could be considered capitalists, but that obliterates meaningful and important distinctions. For capitalism to exist as we understand it, there has to be a formal monetary economy and ownership rules, and a government that regulates and enforces them. Another (inexplicit) aspect of capitalism is that one person (or corporation) owns the ‘means of production’ but does NOT provide the labor. The labor comes from those who don’t own the means of production and who depend on selling their labor for survival (the ‘wage slaves’). Or as the Felicia Rishad said on the Cosby show, "We work for our money, rich people have their money work for them."
Even today there are economies that don’t use (or understand) money, though they do barter. I propose they are not capitalist. Additionally, those societies where one "owns" the digging stick, bow and arrow, net, canoe etc, but also provides the labor are not capitalist. To have put in effort to get extra fish, and then to have used those extra fish to trade for cloth doesn’t make the means of survival capitalist. The person is merely exchanging some of the benefits of their labor (which they wholly own) for another thing they think will also benefit them. And finally, currently a minimum of 1 billion people do not live under systems that can be considered capitalist.
Historically there have been societies (not every society, but some) where a ruling elite claims the right to both resources and labor. The Egyptians, Aztecs, Chinese Empires, Romans, and even the recent European feudal system (serfs were specifically part of the land) did that. However, these systems were religious in authority, not economic. As people did not trade their labor for survival, no bargain was struck.
One can only speculate about very early human groups, and further back to the proto-humans. But I think you will agree that if chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas survive without capitalism, then in the vast interlude of millions of years between common ancestors and now, capitalism probably did not contribute to animal survival.
Having established, I believe, that people survived nearly all of their existence WITHOUT capitalism, and that it is a recent human construct, let's examine the question this comment opens:
Quote:
Maybe if the world population was half a billion or less. The current population requires massive investments in infrastructure to survive at all. Without capitalism, where does this come from?
You propose people need capitalism. My contention is capitalism needs people, not the other way around.
Let's casually look at 'capital' investment and infrastructure. (A definition of capital will follow later.) And let's also casually look at Africa, since it's come up already. Angola used to be self-sufficient for food - they met the 'survival' standard you propose. As happens in many African countries, small remote villages were stable. In the war (which the US fomented BTW specifically to ruin the economy and drive out the socialist government) men either joined the forces, fled or were killed. That left the old people, women and children in the remote villages vulnerable to attack. Most sought safety in the cities. Suddenly these self-sufficient people who didn't need either capitalists or government became dependent. (In England large land-holders threw tenants off the farms. These tenants ended up in cities where they became a captive labor force for industry. That was in the good old heyday of raw unregulated capitalism, work-houses and brutal poverty for most of England.)
What would it take to restore Angolan self-sufficiency? Demining and a stable potable water supply (Jimmy Carter and former Treasury Secretary O'Neill both concluded that). These two infrastructure requirements don't need large capital investments, though they do require human investment. They are both low-technology. They need to rebuild homes (huts) that they previously did build and can rebuild with their own hands and local materials; simple bridges (we're not talking multibillion dollar spans here, just small stone and wood structures) and smoothing and clearing dirt roads. Experience in other developing nations shows that small investments made to men often go to drugs, alcohol and/or prostitutes, but investments made to women improve the lives of women and children. (And improved lives for women and children lead to the 'demographic transition'.) Two investments that could be made are donkeys (in Ethiopia called "the woman's friend" since without them the woman and girls are the beasts of burden), and bicycles. Culturally, bicycles are a prestigious way for men to move goods. An investment scheme that works well is the community-based direct loan. It's a 'pay-it-forward' loan scheme where, once you set up your business (with a treadle sewing machine for example) you actually owe your repayment to the next person seeking a loan. (You know that person, that person knows you, you both know how much is owed, and if you DON'T pay the money, you answer directly to them and their family.) None of this actually requires large-scale capital investment of the type you talk about.
And what IS capital? It is human effort crystallized into money. But it is not a necessary cause of human effort. Human effort can be made without capital.

I contend capitalism is not a tool of global survival, it is a force driving the world to ruin. It is based on 'more'. Like a Ponzi scheme, it must expand ... or crash.

Finally, briefly,
Quote:
When did I say that? The Depression was more a cautionary tale about the problems with speculation than with capitalism.
The crash AND the depression were both cautionary tales about capitalism. They both showed capitalism in and of itself is not self-correcting at either extreme, boom or bust.

In any case, I don't expect to have changed your mind despite the many sound and specific arguments I have made. At best I expect a 'let's agree to disagree' response about the problems, which makes discussing solutions moot.

To specifically address your proposal about Iraq, it depends if you want Iraq to be free, or 'free'. You're going for 'free' - free to do what they want as long as it conforms to your template. Japan is not the pristine post-conquest example you propose (I'm not going to get into it, read Chalmers Johnson). I prefer free, which means free to make decisions and risk mistakes.

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 9:54 AM

SHEWOLF


Did Bush lie? That's a good question, my opinion is that he was mislead. Who hasn't been mislead. Personally to have a president lie is a big deal, you loose that trust factor. You wonder about everything they say from that point forward. So would we say that Bush's big lie is the WMD. Wonder what Kerry's could be, if elected. He has to have one, he's a politician. Is he spouting lies now. Is the whole swift boat ordeal a lie, I would like to know. If it's not why doesn't he sue those men for slander, defamation of character or something. That could possibly shut them up. This shouldn't be a big deal for his race for the White House, except that he brought up his service. So he does need to defend it. I know my father's Purple Hearts are real. But he doesn't brag about his service.



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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 10:34 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The SBVT are lying. Not only are they contradicting themsleves, they're contradicting the written record and - more importantly- they are contradicting testimony of the soldiers who were physically closest to the action. In the incident where Kerry earned the Silve Star, the third Swift Boat commander- who has kept silent about his experience all these years- came out publically two days ago saying that Kerry's version in the correct one.

But this is typical of Bush and his advisors. He smeared the records of two other Vietnam heroes- John McCain and Max Cleland- when they were running for office.

Which leads me to...

Bush's "TRUST FACTOR????"

Bush lies about everything he CAN lie about. Try matching up the titles of his programs to their actual effects: "kinder, gentler nation" "leave no child behind" "Clean Skies Initiative"
"Healthy Forests Initiative"

To give you another less well-known example of the Bush prevarication machine: A close vote on the Medicare Drug bill was expected. Some Senators vowed that they would not vote for the bill if it was over a threshold. When the Chief Actuary ran the calculations and found it would cost more than expected- and more than was politically acceptable- he was threatened with termination if he were to provide those figures to the Senate. The person who threatened the actuary was a Bush appointee. The Bill was passed, providing a bonanaza to the pharmas.

While I expect politicians to shade the truth, I have not seen this level of dishonesty over so many important issues in decades. The last time I saw so many lies was Kissinger... and for those young-uns here, that's ancient hx.


BTW- Public figures can't sue for slander. That's part of the deal when you run for office- anybody can say anything about you.


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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 10:56 AM

SUCCATASH


Quote:
Originally posted by SheWolf:
Is the whole swift boat ordeal a lie, I would like to know. If it's not why doesn't he sue those men for slander, defamation of character or something.
Kerry is taking legal action, but not for slander.

Kerry takes legal action against Vietnam critics
Friday, Aug. 20
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040820/ts_alt_afp/us_vo
te_kerry_vietnam_040820214246

Kerry's campaign announced it had "filed a legal complaint against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth before the Federal Election Commission for violating the law with inaccurate ads that are illegally coordinated with the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.

The New York Times on Friday reported that there is a "web of connections" between the Swift Boat group and the "Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove."



"Gott kann dich nicht vor mir beschuetzen, weil ich nicht boese bin."

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 2:07 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,

For capitalism to exist as we understand it, there has to be a formal monetary economy and ownership rules, and a government that regulates and enforces them. Another (inexplicit) aspect of capitalism is that one person (or corporation) owns the ‘means of production’ but does NOT provide the labor. The labor comes from those who don’t own the means of production and who depend on selling their labor for survival (the ‘wage slaves’).


Yep. Need a form of money everyone agrees on, and need a government that keeps things stable enough to make investment not too risky. I don't think that everyone 'depends' on selling their labor to the capitalist for survival. Many choose to use their own capital and labor and go into business for themselves. Others opt out entirely and go live on that subsistance farm. It's not that monolithic a system. People who don't want to work for "The Man" cand find alternatives.



Quote:

Even today there are economies that don’t use (or understand) money, though they do barter. I propose they are not capitalist. Additionally, those societies where one "owns" the digging stick, bow and arrow, net, canoe etc, but also provides the labor are not capitalist. To have put in effort to get extra fish, and then to have used those extra fish to trade for cloth doesn’t make the means of survival capitalist. The person is merely exchanging some of the benefits of their labor (which they wholly own) for another thing they think will also benefit them. And finally, currently a minimum of 1 billion people do not live under systems that can be considered capitalist.


and a large proportion of them live right at subsistance level, where a drought, or a bad hunt, or an empty net is a life-threatening event. I'll pass on that, if you please.


Quote:
Historically there have been societies (not every society, but some) where a ruling elite claims the right to both resources and labor. The Egyptians, Aztecs, Chinese Empires, Romans, and even the recent European feudal system (serfs were specifically part of the land) did that. However, these systems were religious in authority, not economic.


Authoritarian societies may co-opt religion, or marxism, or some other belief as a basis for their rule, but the sword is the authority, not the word. The authoritarian models admittedly don't work to good for anybody but the authorities. Democracies seem to provide better for more folk.


Quote:
One can only speculate about very early human groups, and further back to the proto-humans. But I think you will agree that if chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas survive without capitalism, then in the vast interlude of millions of years between common ancestors and now, capitalism probably did not contribute to animal survival.


Probably didn't, but I don't choose to live my life like a gorilla.

Quote:

...And let's also casually look at Africa, since it's come up already. Angola used to be self-sufficient for food - they met the 'survival' standard you propose. As happens in many African countries, small remote villages were stable. In the war (which the US fomented BTW specifically to ruin the economy and drive out the socialist government) men either joined the forces, fled or were killed. That left the old people, women and children in the remote villages vulnerable to attack. Most sought safety in the cities. Suddenly these self-sufficient people who didn't need either capitalists or government became dependent. (In England large land-holders threw tenants off the farms. These tenants ended up in cities where they became a captive labor force for industry. That was in the good old heyday of raw unregulated capitalism, work-houses and brutal poverty for most of England.)
What would it take to restore Angolan self-sufficiency? Demining and a stable potable water supply (Jimmy Carter and former Treasury Secretary O'Neill both concluded that). These two infrastructure requirements don't need large capital investments, though they do require human investment. They are both low-technology. They need to rebuild homes (huts) that they previously did build and can rebuild with their own hands and local materials; simple bridges (we're not talking multibillion dollar spans here, just small stone and wood structures) and smoothing and clearing dirt roads. Experience in other developing nations shows that small investments made to men often go to drugs, alcohol and/or prostitutes, but investments made to women improve the lives of women and children. (And improved lives for women and children lead to the 'demographic transition'.) Two investments that could be made are donkeys (in Ethiopia called "the woman's friend" since without them the woman and girls are the beasts of burden), and bicycles. Culturally, bicycles are a prestigious way for men to move goods. An investment scheme that works well is the community-based direct loan. It's a 'pay-it-forward' loan scheme where, once you set up your business (with a treadle sewing machine for example) you actually owe your repayment to the next person seeking a loan. (You know that person, that person knows you, you both know how much is owed, and if you DON'T pay the money, you answer directly to them and their family.) None of this actually requires large-scale capital investment of the type you talk about.
And what IS capital? It is human effort crystallized into money. But it is not a necessary cause of human effort. Human effort can be made without capital.


Regardless of how Angola bacame un-self-sufficent, I agree that with the proper circumstances Angola could go back to being self-sufficent, on a subsistance farming and barter level. I'm aware of the small loan and women's co-op programs. Angola has a population density of 8.5 people per square kilometer. Plenty of room for subsistance farming, and plenty of people who know how. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is 244 people per square kilometer, and probably not too many have the required knowledge to subsistance farm. They need the infrastructure that is best supported by a capitalist free-market system to live. Trying to return to a world of self-sufficient yeoman farmers would require a massive die-off of population.

And I don't want to settle for working sun-up to sun-down just to stay alive anyway. I'm sitting here in the air-conditioning, in my own home, sipping a cold beer and nibbling on an apple grown in New Zealand, typing on a computer I could never build myself. You are probably in similar circumstances. You don't owe that to subsistance farming. Your continued existence at the standard of living you now have depends on the capitalist, free-market system.

This is not to say that the system couldn't be better, or more socially responsible, or more stable. Maybe I'm just an optimist due to the things I've seen get better in my lifetime. I think we can make it work.

edit: oops. forgot the cite on population density http://www.wordiq.com/definition/List_of_countries_by_population_densi
ty



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:31 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Quote:
It's not that monolithic a system.
Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.
Quote:
and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level
You are either evading the point or in error. My statement
Quote:
they keep 100% of the fruits of their efforts, not merely a portion.
Your reply
Quote:
Nope. Even if they're just subsistence farming, they have to use some of the fruits of their efforts to by new implements to farm with.
The point is that people can realize the full value of their work, and don't have to be deprived of a portion of its value by their status as 'labor'. (as compared to say sneakers made for Nike at less than $1/pr, sold for $60-120.)
But to address your point which you seem to have made in error:
Quote:
and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level
you are confusing the benefits of technology with capitalism. Even the most rudimentary economic and historic models distinguish the two. (most recently Jared Diamond "Guns, Germs and Steel")
Quote:
Authoritarian societies ... or Marxism ... but the sword is the authority. The authoritarian models admittedly don't work too good for anybody but the authorities.
There is way too much scrambled together that doesn't belong. Capitalism DOES enforce its rule with the sword, the bomber, missile, machine gun etc.
As to which systems 'work' better, when the USSR broke up and countries became capitalist, male lifespan across the board dropped by a third. Infant mortality more than doubled.
Countries with highly socialist governments (even at lower, and much lower technology levels) have longer average lifespans and lower infant mortality than the US. (You'll have to take my word on this. I did the study, but with a few exceptions the urls are no longer active; and the 100+ page reports won't fit on this website.) In some simple illustrations: China's life expectancy is significantly higher than India's (69.4yrs/62.9 and 72.8/63.9) and its infant mortality roughly half that of India's (39 per thousand/68). http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/journal/1999/v14n4a2.htm
Kerala, a highly socialist state in India has an infant mortality rate of 16, literacy rates of M94/F88%, and a life expectancy of 68 years. http://www.expert-eyes.org/kerala.html
China of course is communist, while India is capitalist. Kerala as mentioned is highly socialist.
The schemes you claim don't work do seem to work well for people where it counts - which is life and death.
Quote:
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is 244 people per square kilometer. They need the infrastructure that is best supported by a capitalist free-market system to live.
This is another example of confusion between technology and economic system. The rest of the post rests on the false conflation of technology and capitalism.

Finally, the fact that YOU are personally comfortable, or that I am personally comfortable is not a valid measure of capitalism's 'success'.

Africa is the other face of capitalism. We do well because others starve.

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:58 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Shewolf,
Quote:
Did Bush lie? That's a good question, my opinion is that he was mislead.

Gosh, I thought no one was going to bring this up.
On another thread I had started on the first of what was to have been a series of postings showing Bush and his entire administration DID knowingly, intentionally - lie.
My points were, and were to have been, referenced to extended contextual quotes from credible sources: the White House website, Senate Committee Report, 9/11 report etc.
I does take a lot of time getting this up on the board. Some documents (Senate Committee) can't be manipulated with standard PDF tools. If you have an interest, I'll repost the original here, and continue posting my research at about 1/week.
Rue

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:05 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Oh what the heck, here it is anyway.
This was part of an ongoing debate, so the tone is brisk. The other postings can be more relaxed:

I'm going to make a number of assumptions to speed things up. I'm going to assume you're familiar with or have access to the text of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, comments by Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al regarding Iraq's WMD, Colin Powell's UN address, David Kay's final report (his final report, not 'the' final report), the Senate report and the 9/11 Commission report. I'm also going to assume you have sufficient memory of, or access to, news reporting from that time frame.

A 'yes' answer will also speed things up, a 'no' answer will take more of your time.
----------
1) Do you agree that the DIA, Office of Special Plans and the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group answer to Rumsfeld?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not. A 'no' explanation also requires references to ORIGINAL documents only, with links. I'm not going to spend time addressing some flack's 'interpretations'.
----------
From the Senate Armed Services Committee
Quote:
MR. KAY: Senator Warner ... I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons there..

Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: Dr. Kay, on the question of stockpiles, you have stated, I believe, that in your opinion Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in 2002. Is that correct?
MR. KAY: That's correct, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: Do you have any evidence that they had any stockpiles,
large or small, in 2002?
MR. KAY: Simply have no evidence, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: You have not uncovered any evidence of small stockpiles?
MR. KAY: We have not uncovered any small stockpiles, that's correct.

2) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no large or small biological or chemical weapons stockpiles?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

Since Iraq did not have existing nuclear weapons, the question was one of nuclear weapons programs rather than stockpiles.
Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: -- in your judgment, had Iraq reconstituted its nuclear weapon program, in the way you understand the word "reconstitute"?
MR. KAY: It was in the early stages of renovating the program,
building new buildings. It was not a reconstituted, full-blown nuclear program.

Quote:
SEN. ALLARD: Did they use the aluminum tubes at that point in time to enrich their uranium? Do we know --
MR. KAY: No, they did not. They relied on different processes.

3) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no nuclear programs?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.
----------
Quote:
On October 4,2002, the NSC (Condoleezza Rice) sent a draft of a speech they were preparing for the President to deliver in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was draft six of the speech and contained the line, “and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa -an essential ingredient in the enrichment process.”
On October 5,2002, the ADDI .. asked the analysts to bring forward any issues that they thought should be addressed with the NSC. The ADDI said an Iraq nuclear analyst raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq.
Based on the analyst’s comments, the ADDI drafted a memo for the NSC outlining the facts that the CIA believed needed to be changed, and faxed it to the Deputy National Security Advisor and the speech writers. Referring to the sentence on uranium from Africa the CIA said, “remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory.”
The NSC staff prepared draft seven of the Cincinnati speech which contained the line, “and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa.” Draft seven was sent to CIA for coordination.
The DCI testified before the SSCI that he told the Deputy National Security Advisor that the “President should not be a fact witness on this issue,” because his analysts had told him the “reporting was weak.” The NSC then removed the uranium reference from the draft of the speech.
Although the NSC had already removed the uranium reference from the speech, later on October 4,2002 the CIA sent a second fax to the White House which said, “more on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq’s nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British.”

4) Do you agree that Bush had unambiguous information from the CIA the yellowcake/Niger claims were not supported?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

IBID
5) Do you agree that Bush had unambiguous information from the CIA the yellowcake/Niger claims should not be made?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

IBID
6) Do you agree this information was transmitted to Bush before his 2003 State of the Union Address?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
Quote:
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

7) Do you agree that Bush brought up a reference to unsupported yellowcake/uranium claims in his 2003 State of the Union address by referring to BRITISH rather than US intelligence, by saying uranium rather than yellowcake, and by saying Africa rather than Niger?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

8) Do you agree that Bush was aware that facts behind these claims were unsubstantiated by US intelligence, and that he was warned by the CIA in the past not to include them in his speeches?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

9) Do you agree that Bush highlighted them as an issue in his State of the Union address, event though he knew they were unsupported?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

(I know some if this is repetitive, I just want to try and cover as many angles up front as I can, so we don't go around and around these same issues later on.)

And a brief summary of where the rest is going to go:
1) extend 'yellowcake' deception to the entire administration: show the entire admin had access to the yellowcake intelligence, show that National Security Advisor (Rice) wrote several 'yellowcake' speeches for Bush and Powell; in one case (Powell) submitted them for (CIA) intelligence review with a one hour deadline and no note of urgency; in another (Bush - State of the Union address) didn't submit it for CIA review at all. (It was the CIA who had pulled the yellowcake references from earlier speeches.)
2) show, referencing over a dozen speeches, that less than a year before invading Iraq, Bush, Powell, Cheney, Rice et al considered Hussein and WMD to be well-contained and not a threat; and that there was no additional credible intelligence information (Senate Report) to change the assessment
3) show intelligence analysts had assessed most WMD claims as coming from discredited sources, and the admin was aware of those assessments
4) show the admin did not treat its own claims as credible: by putting troops on the ground without adequate precautions, by failure to secure alleged WMD sites, by failure to search for WMD, etc.
5) with the background established, quote speeches to highlight the deliberate word-smithing used to avoid provable lies, while still misleading the American public.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 12:01 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


In other words- Bush lied. But please continue. I'm interested in where this is going. I don't have the time to do the detailed research that you do, so I'd like to hear what you have to say.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:34 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Geezer- You seem uncertain as to whether African, Latin American, Indian, etc. poverty is mainly related to socialism:

"it's because his government nationalized the mine,... or authoritarianism:

".... set his wages below a living wage, and jail or kill him if he protests."
"The authoritarian models admittedly don't work to good for anybody but the authorities. Democracies seem to provide better for more folk."
But quite confident that democracy and capitalsim create prosperity.

Using the same human develpoment index that you reference http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/indices/#1
if you look at impoverished nations, you'll see that far from being "nationalized", international corporations operate there. Out of many examples, I pick Shell in Nigeria (#151), a number of UK, USA, Chinese and other international companies extracting Congolese (#144) coltran (see UN report www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2003/1027) Unocal in Burma, Nike in Indonesia, TotalFinaElf-BP in Peru (#85) etc.

Again, citing the same UN development index there are also examples of declines in living standards when essential services and industries were privatized in Russia and Zambia. Other sources provide the basic economic history:
www.zic.org.zm/IPA_Information.asp?hdnGroupID=2&hdnLevelID=1

Now, these nations also had formal elections and contain the intersection of both "capitalism" and "democracy". Clearly, neither capitalism by itself nor a combination of capitalism and democracy is "sufficient" to guarantee prosperity.

I can also point to nations that are more properous than the USA that are socialist democracies (Sweden #1, Denmark #2) and nations that are socialist authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China) that are relatively properous when compared to their capitalist counterparts. In fact, Cuba outranks Latin America with the exceptions of Costa Rica* and Chile. So it seems that "capitalism + democracy" is neither necessary nor sufficient for prosperity.

Do you agree?

-------------------------------------

Enough for now.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 2:00 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

(I said)"It's not that monolithic a system."

(You replied)Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.


Even if you're the independent subsistance farmer, the cage isn't under your control. It's the cage of nature, of drought, of crop disease, of locusts, of injury. You can invest 100% of your labor and get all the return that's available and still starve to death if any of a dozen thing go wrong. Unfortunately, this happens all the time.


Quote:
(I said)"and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level"

(You replied)But to address your point which you seem to have made in error...you are confusing the benefits of technology with capitalism. Even the most rudimentary economic and historic models distinguish the two. (most recently Jared Diamond "Guns, Germs and Steel")


I am aware of the difference between technology and capitalism. My point is that capitalism, specifically capitalist democracies, supports the advancement of technology most effectively. Capitalist democracies are generally the most technologically advanced countries.

Quote:
Capitalism DOES enforce its rule with the sword, the bomber, missile, machine gun etc.


Can't deny that this has happened. I'd say to a lesser extent than in non-capitalist non-democracies. China and the former Soviet Union come to mind.

Quote:
As to which systems 'work' better, when the USSR broke up and countries became capitalist, male lifespan across the board dropped by a third. Infant mortality more than doubled.


I would disagree that the former USSR has become capitalist. They're still having a difficult time transitioning to true democracy. They are in a rough transition phase right now as they move from one system to another. They may not even settle on a capitalist model.


Quote:
Countries with highly socialist governments (even at lower, and much lower technology levels) have longer average lifespans and lower infant mortality than the US. China's life expectancy is significantly higher than India's (69.4yrs/62.9 and 72.8/63.9) and its infant mortality roughly half that of India's (39 per thousand/68). Kerala, a highly socialist state in India has an infant mortality rate of 16, literacy rates of M94/F88%, and a life expectancy of 68 years. China of course is communist, while India is capitalist. Kerala as mentioned is highly socialist...The schemes you claim don't work do seem to work well for people where it counts - which is life and death.


But lets look at this overall, instead of picking one country or area. Here's a link to a nice map of life expectancy by country.

http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/econrights/maps-life.html

And the overall winners are (gasp) the capitalist, or at least free market, democracies.

Quote:
This is another example of confusion between technology and economic system. The rest of the post rests on the false conflation of technology and capitalism.


I don't consider this a false conflation. I believe that capitalist democracies tend to support the development of technology better than any other system.


Quote:
Finally, the fact that YOU are personally comfortable, or that I am personally comfortable is not a valid measure of capitalism's 'success'.

Africa is the other face of capitalism. We do well because others starve.


I'd be interested in your definition of "success".

Africa's problems are generated by a combination of things. I'll agree that exploitation is one of them, along with the legacy of colonialism, tribal and factional strife, corrupt government, AIDS, etc. To blame it all on capitalism, or more specifically capitalist democracies,is a gross oversimplification.

Although you haven't come right out and said it, I'd guess from the above that you'd be more in favor of a Socialist system of some sort. I guess my problem with Socialism is that I believe it limits freedom of choice, and only works well when there is an overwhelming unanimity of thought. Not my desired world.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 3:11 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Now, these nations also had formal elections and contain the intersection of both "capitalism" and "democracy". Clearly, neither capitalism by itself nor a combination of capitalism and democracy is "sufficient" to guarantee prosperity.


Capitalism and Democracy are not a guarantee of prosperity. Note that in my previous posts I tend to use words and phrases like "generally" "more likely". My contention is that overall, capitalist democracies are more successful.

I'm also not sure that the countries of the former soviet union have yet reached either stable democracies or stable echonomic systems.


Quote:
I can also point to nations that are more properous than the USA that are socialist democracies (Sweden #1, Denmark #2) and nations that are socialist authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China) that are relatively properous when compared to their capitalist counterparts. In fact, Cuba outranks Latin America with the exceptions of Costa Rica* and Chile. So it seems that "capitalism + democracy" is neither necessary nor sufficient for prosperity.

Do you agree?

Enough for now.


The CIA factbook (no plot, just the first source I googled) calls Sweden a Constitutional Monarchy, and a "mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits." so not pure socialism by any stretch. Norway is also a Constitutional Monarchy. "The Norwegian economy is a prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention." http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

And I am aware that there are some socialist (actually more communist in the cases of Cuba and China) authoritarian regimes that are better off than some capitalist democracies, but in general this is not the case. And besides, would you really rather live under an authoritarian regime?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 5:15 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


It's a tennet of science that you can never prove a hypothesis, only disprove it. So if your hypothesis doesn't work in all cases, it must be modified.

If you look at the poorest nations, you will also see that they are generally capitalist and often have elections as well.

I propose a different hypothesis. I believe that I can show, both historically and geographically, that the introduction of capitalism invariably leads to greater disparity in wealth, which occurs both nationally and internationally. The USA, being the sole world superpower, has managed to export its poverty to other nations (like Peru, Nigeria, and Nicaragua) and therefor capitalism cannot serve as a basis for worldwide prosperity, only for localized prosperity.


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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 7:06 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
It's a tennet of science that you can never prove a hypothesis, only disprove it. So if your hypothesis doesn't work in all cases, it must be modified.

If you look at the poorest nations, you will also see that they are generally capitalist and often have elections as well.

I propose a different hypothesis. I believe that I can show, both historically and geographically, that the introduction of capitalism invariably leads to greater disparity in wealth, which occurs both nationally and internationally. The USA, being the sole world superpower, has managed to export its poverty to other nations (like Peru, Nigeria, and Nicaragua) and therefor capitalism cannot serve as a basis for worldwide prosperity, only for localized prosperity.



Pulled off the 50 bottom countries on the UN report (beginning with Botswana, #128) and started checking their governments and economies in the CIA fact book. Just have 12 so far. The seven that have a democratic form of government of some type have had that type of government for less than 30 years, following either a colonial or internal authoritarian regieme. The others are a couple of monarchies, and communist or military governments. In the few cases where stats are available, the percent of the workforce employed in industry hovers around 5%, making me wonder if the capitalist label is a good fit. I'll finish tonight and provide you with a nice spreadsheet, if you'd like.

I'll look into the "exporting poverty" in a while. Got a meeting now.

Edit: Looks like the meeting resulted in some homework. May be a bit later on the stats.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:39 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Rue and SignyM,

Sorry, but it looks like you lost one in the Socialist ranks.

Hungary Socialists Pick Businessman for PM
Updated: Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 - 3:25 PM

By KARL PETER KIRK
Associated Press Writer

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - The ruling Socialist Party chose one of Hungary's richest businessmen on Wednesday to become the new prime minister, resolving a split with a smaller party that had threatened to undo the center-left governing coalition.

Full story at:

http://wtop.com/index.php?nid=105&sid=250849



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 9:50 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


While you're taking care of business, let me toss out some thoughts as idle speculation. Each one, unfortuantely, deserves a full discussion- something neither one of us probably has the time for.

My hypothesis is that "pure" capitalism progressively concentrates money into fewer and fewer hands. The wealth disparity inevitably creates poverty and unemployment, and by reducing aggregate demand eventually leads to an economic depression (which is distinct from stock market crash and other speculative failures).

Some say that unemployment, poverty, and cyclical economy is the cost of system that is extraordinarily good at creating technological progress and raising the standard of living overall. There are several lines of observation and theory that are generally called on to support this idea.

While acknowldeging brutality during industrialization- such as the slums of London- people often point to the USA, UK, EU, Japan, and the other developed nations as the "happy ending" of the capitalist story. Given time, all nations will be similarly prosperous.

The other aspect that is often pointed to is technological development- the discovery of electronics (for example) and the implementation of labor-saving devices which make production a thousand-fold (or more) efficient than production by hand.

The third aspect that people often point to is a more theoretical one. The difference between the aggregate value of goods produced and the aggregate demand (created mainly by "labor costs") is usually called "profit". However, any time you produce more than you consume, you could also call it "savings". It may be ENFORCED saving, but it's saving nonetheless. This is the power of capitalism.




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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 12:20 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Just tossing out another point/ observation: It occurred to me that the UN Index of Human Development contains parameters that are not particularly sensitive to increases in economic polarization. For example, indexes based on averages- average life span, average per capita income, even average per capita energy consumption- fall prey to the problem of "averages: If you have ten baseball players sitting on a bench and nine of them make $50,000 a year and the tenth makes $10 million, the average income is over $1 million.

More sensitive indicators would be infant and maternal mortality (deaths per thousand), percent adult literacy, poverty rates etc.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 3:53 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Infant mortality, maternal death rates, literacy rates and average lifespan are all good indicators of overall social well-being. A very wealthy but small group can't improve those averages enough to overcome the figures of the larger group.
Part of that has to do with the ratios of how many people are in one group vs the other. Plus there are other factors that have to do with biological and logical limits, and the mathematics of averages.
With lifespan, you can't raise the lifespan of the small group enough to touch the average. A few people would have to live for thousands of years to make a difference. That is why lifespan is such a powerful metric. It takes A LOT to bring up the average even 6 months.
Infant mortality looks at a limited post-natal timeframe, which reflects months of pre-natal maternal care. It's not something you can change drastically unless you've improved pre-natal conditions enough, for enough women, long enough to be reflected in the average. Plus there is a natural limit in how good the numbers can get for a small, wealthy and healthy group. You can't have an infant mortality of less than zero, and that limits its effects on the overall average. Maternal death rates also fall under these factors.
Literacy has similar considerations. A small wealthy group can't be super-literate. Well, I guess they can be, but it isn't measured, and so rates do reflect overall conditions, rather than the extreme advantages of a small group.

Edited: So, in sum, for a small group to affect the averages of a much larger group, they have to have extreme values. Some parameters (lifespan, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and literacy rates - come to think of it vaccination rates as well) can't attain the extreme values required to skew the average.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 5:39 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Geezer,
I am against capitalism as a dead-end path that leads ultimately to planet-wide destruction. I'm not in favor of socialism per se, but I see it as an improvement over capitalism. I do favor sanity. In fact I have thought of a society which starts at the current technological level, makes use of its guarantees, but redirects economic (and social) goals. I have not seen anything like it discussed anywhere, I can't reference you to papers or other works, and I prefer not to explain it until I have researched and developed it. Rest assured it is not socialism.
"Even if you're the independent subsistence farmer, the cage isn't under your control." I take it you have not lived in another culture. This culture has conformed itself specifically to support the capitalist economic system, but the strictures go beyond economic. You can't choose certain things in the US, not because they are forbidden or too expensive, but because they don't exist.
"Capitalist democracies are generally the most technologically advanced countries." Let me refer you again to "Guns, Germs and Steel". Your impressions (they're too formless to be called ideas) are untenable. You don't take into account the military advantage of 1400's western technology, which led to advantage for western cultures in general; and to obliteration, conquest and colonization around the globe. You casually mention the history of colonization without seeming to realize that other countries were ravaged for centuries by the capitalist countries you continue to portray as benign.
"But lets look at this overall, instead of picking one country or area. Here's a link to a nice map of life expectancy by country."
This is a crock, and so obvious it's an insult. Don't stoop so low, it doesn't become you.

Sub-Saharan Africa has only recently emerged from colonialism. I hope I don't need to enumerate the instability, social destruction, poverty, and lack of development left in the wake. They suffer from many things. But mostly, they suffer not from a lack of capitalism, but from an excess of being on the wrong end.
It's no surprise the Chinese lifespan isn't as long as in western countries. But western countries have a vastly different history than the entire rest of the world (the topic of Guns, Germs and Steel). The divergence starts with the scientific and technological revolution of the Renaissance, 4 centuries before the advent of capitalism. From the Renaissance followed military conquest and colonization; later, mechanization; and finally capitalism, which begat more colonization. Having been the conquerors puts western countries at an advantage over the conquered.
So it is more meaningful (and honest) to compare two non-western countries similar to each other that differ mainly in their economic system - China and India. They both have massive populations. Until recently they were both rural, uneducated, non-industrial countries. Which has the better lifespan? But if you wonder if genetic or other unknown differences account for China's advantage, Kerala, which is a socialist state IN India far outstrips the whole of India.
Whether or not Russia has achieved capitalism, it certainly is no longer communist. And it was at the death of communism that lifespan dropped. Communism was better than whatever took its place.

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 3:09 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
While you're taking care of business, let me toss out some thoughts as idle speculation. Each one, unfortuantely, deserves a full discussion- something neither one of us probably has the time for.


I'll give my Cliff Notes opinions, though.

Quote:
My hypothesis is that "pure" capitalism progressively concentrates money into fewer and fewer hands. The wealth disparity inevitably creates poverty and unemployment, and by reducing aggregate demand eventually leads to an economic depression (which is distinct from stock market crash and other speculative failures).


If there ever could be a "pure" capitalism, this would probably be true, but pure capitalism in a democratic system is as unlikely to exist as pure marxist socialism. Laws against some of the worse elements of capitalism (monoply, environmental damage, minimum wage, right of labor to organize, etc.) are forced by the voting populace.

Quote:
Some say that unemployment, poverty, and cyclical economy is the cost of system that is extraordinarily good at creating technological progress and raising the standard of living overall. There are several lines of observation and theory that are generally called on to support this idea.


I think that there should be ways to ameliorate these problems within the capitalist system. The Swedish "Middle Way" where taxes on the fruits of a capitalist economy support universal social programs might be worth examining.

Quote:
While acknowldeging brutality during industrialization- such as the slums of London- people often point to the USA, UK, EU, Japan, and the other developed nations as the "happy ending" of the capitalist story. Given time, all nations will be similarly prosperous.


I can't go back in time and resolve the brutality of industrialization, but conditions have improved remarkably for the workers in the industrialized countries you mention. Efforts are underway to improve conditions in countries we export jobs to, but admittedly more could be done.


Quote:
The other aspect that is often pointed to is technological development- the discovery of electronics (for example) and the implementation of labor-saving devices which make production a thousand-fold (or more) efficient than production by hand.


And I tend to believe that the capitalist system supports this better than any other. It provides the incentive (profit)to invest capital in developing advances.

Quote:
The third aspect that people often point to is a more theoretical one. The difference between the aggregate value of goods produced and the aggregate demand (created mainly by "labor costs") is usually called "profit". However, any time you produce more than you consume, you could also call it "savings". It may be ENFORCED saving, but it's saving nonetheless. This is the power of capitalism.


I'd say profit is the excess of payment received for goods over the total cost of producing them but we're on the same page. I see profit as money that's either re-invested in the business to improve it, invested in some other enterprise, banked, in which case the bank invests it, or spent, giving someone else a profit.





"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 3:32 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
I am against capitalism as a dead-end path that leads ultimately to planet-wide destruction. I'm not in favor of socialism per se, but I see it as an improvement over capitalism. I do favor sanity. In fact I have thought of a society which starts at the current technological level, makes use of its guarantees, but redirects economic (and social) goals.


If you can get everyone to agree with this, that would be fine. Otherwise the only way to accomplish it would be an authoritarian regime. I'm against that.




Quote:
"Even if you're the independent subsistence farmer, the cage isn't under your control." I take it you have not lived in another culture. This culture has conformed itself specifically to support the capitalist economic system, but the strictures go beyond economic. You can't choose certain things in the US, not because they are forbidden or too expensive, but because they don't exist.


I'm not sure what your response has to do with my point that every society has strictures on it.

Quote:
"Capitalist democracies are generally the most technologically advanced countries." Let me refer you again to "Guns, Germs and Steel". Your impressions (they're too formless to be called ideas) are untenable. You don't take into account the military advantage of 1400's western technology, which led to advantage for western cultures in general; and to obliteration, conquest and colonization around the globe. You casually mention the history of colonization without seeming to realize that other countries were ravaged for centuries by the capitalist countries you continue to portray as benign.


Capitalist democracies aren't the most technologically advanced? who is, then?

I'm aware of the history of western arms and conquest, mostly done by monarchies, as I recall.

I'm aware of the evils of colonialism. I didn't think that I'd have to define it every time I used the term. Please quote where I ever pictured colonialism as benign.


Quote:
"But lets look at this overall, instead of picking one country or area. Here's a link to a nice map of life expectancy by country."
This is a crock, and so obvious it's an insult. Don't stoop so low, it doesn't become you.


Insult you? The idea never crossed my mind. Maybe that's beacuse my thoughts are "too formless to be called ideas".

The map is accurate as far as I can tell. why a crock, then? because it doesn't support what you believe?

Quote:
Sub-Saharan Africa has only recently emerged from colonialism. I hope I don't need to enumerate the instability, social destruction, poverty, and lack of development left in the wake. They suffer from many things. But mostly, they suffer not from a lack of capitalism, but from an excess of being on the wrong end.


No argument there. so lets both leave Africa out of the equation as a special case.



Quote:
So it is more meaningful (and honest) to compare two non-western countries similar to each other that differ mainly in their economic system - China and India. They both have massive populations. Until recently they were both rural, uneducated, non-industrial countries. Which has the better lifespan? But if you wonder if genetic or other unknown differences account for China's advantage, Kerala, which is a socialist state IN India far outstrips the whole of India.
Whether or not Russia has achieved capitalism, it certainly is no longer communist. And it was at the death of communism that lifespan dropped. Communism was better than whatever took its place.


OK, then, lets compare two other countries that "Until recently ... were both rural, uneducated, non-industrial countries." Also in the same location. Say South Korea and North Korea. Should I go on with this, or do you see where I'm heading?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 5:22 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


My Cliff Note responses! (more this weekend I hope!)

"If there ever could be a "pure" capitalism, this would probably be true, but pure capitalism in a democratic system is as unlikely to exist as pure marxist socialism. Laws against some of the worse elements of capitalism (monoply, environmental damage, minimum wage, right of labor to organize, etc.) are forced by the voting populace."

What you are saying is that democracies offer political feedback into the system, and that societies with feedback can't go too far astray from the welfare of the voting population.

In theory I agree, but in practice I think there are too many OTHER forms of control, each one requires a feedback loop. In addition, the interference of money in the voting process has virtually negated democracy's effectiveness.

"I think that there should be ways to ameliorate these problems within the capitalist system. The Swedish "Middle Way" where taxes on the fruits of a capitalist economy support universal social programs might be worth examining"

Yes, this is one possibility.

"I can't go back in time and resolve the brutality of industrialization, but conditions have improved remarkably for the workers in the industrialized countries you mention. Efforts are underway to improve conditions in countries we export jobs to, but admittedly more could be done."

However, at the expense of jobs in the USA. The problem is that capitalism inevitably creates unemployment and economic polarization- it is an irreducible feature of the way the system works.

"And I tend to believe that the capitalist system supports this better than any other. It provides the incentive (profit)to invest capital in developing advances."

Do you mean "discovering/ inventing" advances or "building/ implementing" advances? The first I would disagree with totally, the second I would disagree with partially.

Most of the major discoveries that I can think of- starting with language, fire, pottery/ weaving, agriculture, alphabet on through the printing press, microbes and the internet were made without the profit motive. The intnert, for example, started with a military project (DARPA)... but you're an IT person so you know this.

If you mean that capitalism is good at IMPLEMENTING discoveries, I agree- but only where there is a significant potential profit involved. Schooling (the implementation of math, language, printing and science), roadways, sewage systems, public health, affordable housing are all significant implementations that have been shunned by capitalism. These services are typically good in socialist nations (or sub-regions, like Kerala) and poor in capitalist countries.


"I'd say profit is the excess of payment received for goods over the total cost of producing them but we're on the same page. I see profit as money that's either re-invested in the business to improve it, invested in some other enterprise, banked, in which case the bank invests it, or spent, giving someone else a profit."

This is where "yes-but" comes in. Profit in capitalism is essentially directed three ways- (1) either reinvested to "improve" business which generally means to reduce labor costs. In the face of reduced demand, profit may also be used to (2) acquire other businesses, which generally leads to a net reduction in competition (monopolism) and (3) speculation, which is really based on the "bigger fool" theory. If you look at (1) and (2) you will see that they concentrate money.


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Thursday, August 26, 2004 5:39 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I'm going to insert myself into this conversation.

As far as I can tell colonialism worked hand in glove with capitalism. In the case of modern colonial history, it was the extension of capitalism though military and poltical means. So I don't think you can exclude Africa... or India, Latin America, the Phillipines, the Mideast etc. for that matter- as special cases. They ARE part of the capitalist system, just the part that gets the shitty end of the stick.

As part of that, I would look at the USA's 800+ military installations around the world as part of our empire. Our "fight against Communism" was not to make to world safe for democracy (we crushed a number of ths along the way) but to make the world safe for capitalism.

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 6:52 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
My Cliff Note responses! (more this weekend I hope!)

"If there ever could be a "pure" capitalism, this would probably be true, but pure capitalism in a democratic system is as unlikely to exist as pure marxist socialism. Laws against some of the worse elements of capitalism (monoply, environmental damage, minimum wage, right of labor to organize, etc.) are forced by the voting populace."

What you are saying is that democracies offer political feedback into the system, and that societies with feedback can't go too far astray from the welfare of the voting population.

In theory I agree, but in practice I think there are too many OTHER forms of control, each one requires a feedback loop. In addition, the interference of money in the voting process has virtually negated democracy's effectiveness.


Now this is what I'm talkin' about!! Discourse! Sharing Ideas! Woopee!

Yes. Fine-tuning a capitalist system to hit the right balance is going to be complicated, and probably more art than science. I couldn't agree more about the interference of money in the voting process, but limiting money and allowing free speech at the same time is going to be difficult.


Quote:
"I can't go back in time and resolve the brutality of industrialization, but conditions have improved remarkably for the workers in the industrialized countries you mention. Efforts are underway to improve conditions in countries we export jobs to, but admittedly more could be done."

However, at the expense of jobs in the USA. The problem is that capitalism inevitably creates unemployment and economic polarization- it is an irreducible feature of the way the system works.


We are losing manufacturing jobs overseas, due in part to the unregulated conditions of employment there. If governments work together to improve those conditions, and consumers pressure businesses to treat offshore workers fairly, some of the cheap labor appeal will be reduced.


Quote:
"And I tend to believe that the capitalist system supports this better than any other. It provides the incentive (profit)to invest capital in developing advances."

Do you mean "discovering/ inventing" advances or "building/ implementing" advances? The first I would disagree with totally, the second I would disagree with partially.

Most of the major discoveries that I can think of- starting with language, fire, pottery/ weaving, agriculture, alphabet on through the printing press, microbes and the internet were made without the profit motive. The intnert, for example, started with a military project (DARPA)... but you're an IT person so you know this.


I was thinking more of Whitney, Bell, Edison, Ford, the Wright Brothers, etc. These guys were in it to make money, and actively sought investment. I'd suspect that Gutenberg was out to make a buck with the printing press too.

Quote:
If you mean that capitalism is good at IMPLEMENTING discoveries, I agree- but only where there is a significant potential profit involved. Schooling (the implementation of math, language, printing and science), roadways, sewage systems, public health, affordable housing are all significant implementations that have been shunned by capitalism. These services are typically good in socialist nations (or sub-regions, like Kerala) and poor in capitalist countries.


We both might ought'a check out Sweden again. they seem to handle both the capitalist economy and the social services pretty well.


Quote:
"I'd say profit is the excess of payment received for goods over the total cost of producing them but we're on the same page. I see profit as money that's either re-invested in the business to improve it, invested in some other enterprise, banked, in which case the bank invests it, or spent, giving someone else a profit."

This is where "yes-but" comes in. Profit in capitalism is essentially directed three ways- (1) either reinvested to "improve" business which generally means to reduce labor costs. In the face of reduced demand, profit may also be used to (2) acquire other businesses, which generally leads to a net reduction in competition (monopolism) and (3) speculation, which is really based on the "bigger fool" theory. If you look at (1) and (2) you will see that they concentrate money.


"Improving" business sometimes means expanding production, thus creating more jobs. Might be a wash, or might go a bit either way. Monopolys are constrained from unlimited growth by government under our less than "Pure" capitalist system. Forgot to point out that part of profit is distributed to investors to do with as they will.

Hmm. I can see I'm going to have to do a bit or research on Sweden, on our (USA) particular brand of governed capitalism, and a few other things. Thanks for sharing.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 7:21 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm going to insert myself into this conversation.

As far as I can tell colonialism worked hand in glove with capitalism. In the case of modern colonial history, it was the extension of capitalism though military and poltical means. So I don't think you can exclude Africa... or India, Latin America, the Phillipines, the Mideast etc. for that matter- as special cases. They ARE part of the capitalist system, just the part that gets the shitty end of the stick.


I think I could say with equal correctness that colonialism worked hand in hand with monarchy. Most colonial empires were created during periods of monarchal rule; Spain and Portugal in Central and South America, France in Canada, Indochina, and, with Belgium, chunks of Africa, England just about everywhere else.

Not too many instances of Capitalist Democracies taking and holding previously free countries as colonies. I'll have to check on which, if any.

Quote:
As part of that, I would look at the USA's 800+ military installations around the world as part of our empire. Our "fight against Communism" was not to make to world safe for democracy (we crushed a number of ths along the way) but to make the world safe for capitalism.


Not sure if the English, Germans, South Koreans, Japanese, Turks, Italians, etc. would agree about being part of our "empire". Afganistan and Iraq might feel that way, but I doubt we'll see much benefit from being there.

Parts of the cold war weren't our best moments. but remember that the other side had already collected Eastern Europe and chunks of the Far East by less than savory means. I do tend to think that by making the world safe for democracy, you do make it safe for capitalism, but that democracy (or at least the Western form) was the main thing being "saved".

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 9:30 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


”If you can get everyone to agree with this, that would be fine.”
People sign on to various religions. It can be done, though not necessarily by me.

How did this go? You said capitalism was a way for people to put food on the table and improve their lives. That with enough money floating around, anybody should be able to find/make a service job to get some of it. That the miner in Africa was starving b/c the government nationalized the mine and enforced poverty wages. That without capitalists, everyone would be on the dole. That people outside of a capitalist system (subsistence farming) didn't get 100% of the benefits of their labor b/c they had to buy stuff. That the sheer population pressure required massive infrastructure investment that you couldn't imagine coming from anywhere else than capitalism. Also, that capitalist democracies currently provide a higher standard of living for more of their population than any other system. That opting out is an alternative. That even the most economically remote point (subsistence farming) is not under control (I think you mean personal control). And that authoritarian models only work for the authorities, but if they do happen to work for 'the masses' you wouldn't want to live in one.

What I get is: capitalism is essential for human survival in a crowded world, except for the people who manage without; that if not strictly necessary for survival it creates a better standard of living, except in those countries where it doesn't, and that authoritarian models don't work for the masses, except for the times when they do.

One small part of the thread was this:
Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.

“I'm not sure what your response has to do with my point that every society has strictures on it.”

And this does reduce the discussion to meaningless drivel. So, lets plow forward:

There are obvious physical strictures on all societies – potable water, weather, agricultural diseases and pests etc. But they don't make the cage. Even in societies that you (you personally, not the generic ‘you’) would think of as marginal, the physical strictures DON’T drive economic forms. ( http://www.starbuilders.org/fft/articles/fairshare.html) “Initial results come from 15 small-scale societies located in 12 countries that span the globe. Participating groups consist of three hunting-and-foraging societies, six communities that rely primarily on slash-and-burn agriculture, four nomadic-herding groups, and two farm villages. Traditional economic theory assumes that basic human self-interest lies at the heart of commerce. However, a chief discovery of the project, Henrich says, is that nowhere do individuals behave out of pure self-interest. In economic games, members of societies that feature lots of bargaining and bartering gravitate toward dividing available goods equally. Communities in which families are isolated come closest to exhibiting the traditional economic model. 1) Each forest-dwelling Machiguenga family lives in near-isolation and subsists on slash-and-burn farming, hunting, foraging, and fishing. Machiguenga proposers displayed a greater streak of self-interest. Rules for fair behavior with nonfamily members have little chance to flourish among the Machiguenga, according to Henrich. 2) The Hadza hunter-gatherers treat meat and other food as public property if it's brought back to camp and others see it. The Hadza enforce extensive sharing through gossip and outright punishment of cheaters. Hadza proposers made offers almost as low as those of the Machiguenga. In turn, Hadza responders usually turned up their noses at offers. 3) Paraguay's Aché foragers provide an interesting contrast to the Hadza. Aché hunters often leave their killed prey outside of camp to be discovered by others, so as to avoid looking boastful. Game then gets distributed equally among all households. In ultimatum games, Aché proposers usually offered either 40 percent or 50 percent of a sizable sum. Many others offered as much as 70 percent. There were no rejected offers. 4) The whale-hunting Lamalera of Indonesia made the most generous offers of all in the ultimatum game. A majority of Lamalera proposers, who exchanged packs of cigarettes, offered half or more of their booty. Offers lower than 50 percent were frequently rejected. Because the cigarette account in Lamalera experiments represented 10 days' wages, making an offer was like dividing up a whale, Alvard says. Again, volunteers played the game with their daily interactions in mind. 5) Ultimatum exchanges take a radically different turn when players are accustomed to giving and getting gifts that come with strings attached. Unlike any other groups, the Au and Gnau speakers of Papua New Guinea's northern coast avidly rejected both stingy and generous offers. Like the Hadza, these foraging villages relentlessly enforce food sharing. Selfish offenders face physical attacks that can result in severe injury or death. Moreover, Au and Gnau frequently give gifts of food and other items to neighbors in order to cement local alliances and to create social debts that they can later collect on. 6) Unusual findings also occurred in Mongolia with two neighboring groups of nomadic herders, Mongols and Kazakhs. Proposers in both populations offered relatively high amounts—on average, 40 percent—although responders demonstrated a willingness to accept even extremely low offers. This pattern makes sense in light of the herders' great concern for nurturing a good personal reputation with others and smoothing over interpersonal conflicts.

The cage is the social context in which you exist. Economic forms like capitalism are social arrangements. (I shouldn't have to say it, but some people think it's a universal law, like gravity.) You live in a social construct beyond 'your' (society's) control. (b/c one dollar = one vote) And it determines the context of your life, in ways that are beyond your awareness.

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Thursday, August 26, 2004 10:09 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


“I'm aware of the history of western arms and conquest, mostly done by monarchies, as I recall.”

I realize you want to leave Africa out of the equation. I don’t. It provides a stellar example of colonialism within the last ~150 years, by countries whose governments varied but whose economies were capitalist. It's strange to me that most African countries are younger than I am.

Ethiopia
Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule, one exception being the Italian occupation of 1936-41.

Algeria
In 1815 the United States (democracy) sent a naval squadron against the city (Algiers). The following year an Anglo-Dutch (constitutional monarchies) fleet nearly destroyed its defenses, and in 1830 Algiers was captured by a French (monarchy) army. France annexed Algiers and the surrounding territory in 1834 and began occupying other coastal and inland areas. The settlers developed Algerian agriculture, gearing it to support the French economy. The displaced and deprived Muslim population remained a disadvantaged majority, subject to many restrictions. After a century of rule by France, and in the wake of 1948 elections rigged by French colonists to reverse the sweeping victory of a Muslim political party in 1947, Algerians fought through the 1950s to achieve independence in 1962.
Angola
Angola is one of the few African countries to have been colonized by the Portuguese empire in the 1400's. Angola became independent from Portugal in 1975.
Benin
The territory became a French Colony in 1872. In 1899 Dahomey (present day Benin) was incorporated into French West Africa, with its exact boundaries defined through accords with Britain and Germany, colonizers of the neighboring areas to the east and west, respectively. It achieved independence on 1 August 1960, as the Republic of Benin.
Botswana
The territory was taken under British protection in 1885, after all the principal chiefs complained that Boers, or Afrikaners, from the Transvaal region in what is now northern South Africa, were invading their territories. (The contention between the British and Boers was one part of 'the great game.') Botswana adopted its new name upon independence in 1966. Prospectors discovered diamonds in northern Botswana in the late 1960s. In 2002, 21 million carats of gem-quality diamonds were extracted.
Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta)
In 1896 the French set up a protectorate over the kingdom of Ouagadougou, and in 1904 the area became part of the colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger. In 1919 it was made into a separate constituent territory of French West Africa, only to be divided up in 1932 between the French Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire. It was reconstituted as the separate territory of Upper Volta in 1947. Burkina Faso achieved independence from France in 1960.
Burundi
Austrian explorer Oskar Baumann and German Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen arrived in the 1890s. Later Burundi and Rwanda were incorporated into German East Africa. The indigenous Tutsi rulers maintained good relations with the Germans and later with the Belgians, who occupied the country during World War I (1914-1918). After the war, the area was mandated to Belgium by the League of Nations and became known as the Territory of Ruanda-Urundi. Following World War II (1939-1945), it became a United Nations (UN) trust territory. Burundi independence came in 1962.
Cameroon
British traders and missionaries were especially active in the area after 1845. The Germans and British began to explore inland after 1860, and in 1884 the former established a protectorate over the Douala area; the British, taken by surprise, offered no resistance to their claim. In 1919 one-fifth of the territory, which was contiguous with eastern Nigeria, was assigned to Britain, and the remaining four-fifths were assigned to France as mandates under the League of Nations. Neither area, however, experienced much social or economic progress. It became independent in 1960.

More later.

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Friday, August 27, 2004 2:57 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
”If you can get everyone to agree with this, that would be fine.”
People sign on to various religions. It can be done, though not necessarily by me.


But they all don't sign on to the same one, even within one country. the only cases of unanimity in religion are where it is imposed by the government.

Quote:
What I get is: capitalism is essential for human survival in a crowded world, except for the people who manage without; that if not strictly necessary for survival it creates a better standard of living, except in those countries where it doesn't, and that authoritarian models don't work for the masses, except for the times when they do.


Not quite what I said. More like this. Capitalist Democracies, especially the ones that have been stable for a while, generally provide a better standard of living for more of their populations than other economic/governmental systems.

Quote:
One small part of the thread was this:
Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.

“I'm not sure what your response has to do with my point that every society has strictures on it.”

And this does reduce the discussion to meaningless drivel. So, lets plow forward:

There are obvious physical strictures on all societies – potable water, weather, agricultural diseases and pests etc. But they don't make the cage. Even in societies that you (you personally, not the generic ‘you’) would think of as marginal, the physical strictures DON’T drive economic forms.


I picked up "Guns, Germs, and Steel" at the library last night, and am just 1/4 through it, but I thought that Mr. Diamond's premise was that physical strictures, (geography, climate, etc.) DID drive economic forms, among other things. Guess I'll hold off on this one until I finish the book.

Quote:
( http://www.starbuilders.org/fft/articles/fairshare.html) “Initial results come from 15 small-scale societies located in 12 countries that span the globe. Participating groups consist of three hunting-and-foraging societies, six communities that rely primarily on slash-and-burn agriculture, four nomadic-herding groups, and two farm villages. Traditional economic theory assumes that basic human self-interest lies at the heart of commerce. However, a chief discovery of the project, Henrich says, is that nowhere do individuals behave out of pure self-interest. In economic games, members of societies that feature lots of bargaining and bartering gravitate toward dividing available goods equally. Communities in which families are isolated come closest to exhibiting the traditional economic model. 1) Each forest-dwelling Machiguenga family lives in near-isolation and subsists on slash-and-burn farming, hunting, foraging, and fishing. Machiguenga proposers displayed a greater streak of self-interest. Rules for fair behavior with nonfamily members have little chance to flourish among the Machiguenga, according to Henrich. 2) The Hadza hunter-gatherers treat meat and other food as public property if it's brought back to camp and others see it. The Hadza enforce extensive sharing through gossip and outright punishment of cheaters. Hadza proposers made offers almost as low as those of the Machiguenga. In turn, Hadza responders usually turned up their noses at offers. 3) Paraguay's Aché foragers provide an interesting contrast to the Hadza. Aché hunters often leave their killed prey outside of camp to be discovered by others, so as to avoid looking boastful. Game then gets distributed equally among all households. In ultimatum games, Aché proposers usually offered either 40 percent or 50 percent of a sizable sum. Many others offered as much as 70 percent. There were no rejected offers. 4) The whale-hunting Lamalera of Indonesia made the most generous offers of all in the ultimatum game. A majority of Lamalera proposers, who exchanged packs of cigarettes, offered half or more of their booty. Offers lower than 50 percent were frequently rejected. Because the cigarette account in Lamalera experiments represented 10 days' wages, making an offer was like dividing up a whale, Alvard says. Again, volunteers played the game with their daily interactions in mind. 5) Ultimatum exchanges take a radically different turn when players are accustomed to giving and getting gifts that come with strings attached. Unlike any other groups, the Au and Gnau speakers of Papua New Guinea's northern coast avidly rejected both stingy and generous offers. Like the Hadza, these foraging villages relentlessly enforce food sharing. Selfish offenders face physical attacks that can result in severe injury or death. Moreover, Au and Gnau frequently give gifts of food and other items to neighbors in order to cement local alliances and to create social debts that they can later collect on. 6) Unusual findings also occurred in Mongolia with two neighboring groups of nomadic herders, Mongols and Kazakhs. Proposers in both populations offered relatively high amounts—on average, 40 percent—although responders demonstrated a willingness to accept even extremely low offers. This pattern makes sense in light of the herders' great concern for nurturing a good personal reputation with others and smoothing over interpersonal conflicts.

The cage is the social context in which you exist. Economic forms like capitalism are social arrangements. (I shouldn't have to say it, but some people think it's a universal law, like gravity.) You live in a social construct beyond 'your' (society's) control. (b/c one dollar = one vote) And it determines the context of your life, in ways that are beyond your awareness.


Social context. OK.

"The Hadza hunter-gatherers treat meat and other food as public property if it's brought back to camp and others see it. The Hadza enforce extensive sharing through gossip and outright punishment of cheaters."

"the Au and Gnau speakers of Papua New Guinea's northern coast avidly rejected both stingy and generous offers. Like the Hadza, these foraging villages relentlessly enforce food sharing. Selfish offenders face physical attacks that can result in severe injury or death."

"Moreover, Au and Gnau frequently give gifts of food and other items to neighbors in order to cement local alliances and to create social debts that they can later collect on."

Sounds to me like even these "small-scale" societies also have strictures other than physical. I would expect that larger, more complex societies would have to have more complex strictures to survive. I'm not sure that this is a bad thing.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, August 27, 2004 3:23 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
“I'm aware of the history of western arms and conquest, mostly done by monarchies, as I recall.”

I realize you want to leave Africa out of the equation. I don’t. It provides a stellar example of colonialism within the last ~150 years, by countries whose governments varied but whose economies were capitalist. It's strange to me that most African countries are younger than I am.


Capitalist Democracies. Stable Capitalist Democracies. Actual Democracies, not just where the wealthy landowners got to vote. I have no brief for monarchies, oligarcies, or other forms of authoritarian government. If you're going to attack my ideas (Sorry, impressions. Can't quite get those ideas formed yet), at least know what they are.

Quote:
Algeria
In 1815 the United States (democracy) sent a naval squadron against the city (Algiers).

Yes. To end 30 years of extortion by the Barbary pirates.
Quote:

Angola is one of the few African countries to have been colonized by the Portuguese empire

Empire
Quote:
Benin...became a French Colony in 1872.

Just two years after the fall of the Second Empire. Hardly time for the Third republic to become stable.
Quote:
Botswana...was taken under British protection in 1885, after all the principal chiefs complained that Boers, or Afrikaners, from the Transvaal region in what is now northern South Africa, were invading their territories.

Empire
Quote:
Burkina Faso
In 1896 the French set up a protectorate over the kingdom of Ouagadougou, and in 1904 the area became part of the colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger.

I'll grant you this one.
Quote:
Burundi
Austrian explorer Oskar Baumann and German Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen arrived in the 1890s.

Empire
Quote:
Cameroon
British traders and missionaries were especially active in the area after 1845. The Germans and British began to explore inland after 1860, and in 1884 the former established a protectorate over the Douala area; the British, taken by surprise, offered no resistance to their claim.

Empires all




"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Friday, August 27, 2004 5:43 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Geezer,
That was exactly my point. Physical conditions don't drive economies, social strictures and structures *created by people* do.
Hmmm, maybe that's what I need to do so that you will agree with me instead of throwing chaff... Present my case as if it's a weakness, so you step right in.
My next posting on this topic will take a little devious planning.


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Friday, August 27, 2004 6:07 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Quote:
Empires all

1688 is considered the date Britain became a constitutional monarchy.
Now according to you:
Quote:
Capitalism, by Webster's definition, tends to exist in countries where it is allowed to function with a lesser level of state control. Such a country is usually either a Democratic Republic, or a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy.

So, are we or are we not counting constitutional monarchies? If we are then Britain, as a capitalist economy and constitutional monarchy was a colonizer extraordinaire.
But you may on the other hand be engaged in a circular definition: stable capitalist democracies don't colonize, therefore a country which has colonies - is an empire - can't be a stable capitalist democracy.

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Friday, August 27, 2004 8:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Not being a history buff, I looked up Germany and Austria at about that time (1860s). Both were constitutional monarchies, each with a Parliament.

Quote:
Not sure if the English, Germans, South Koreans, Japanese, Turks, Italians, etc. would agree about being part of our "empire". Afganistan and Iraq might feel that way, but I doubt we'll see much benefit from being there.

Parts of the cold war weren't our best moments. but remember that the other side had already collected Eastern Europe and chunks of the Far East by less than savory means. I do tend to think that by making the world safe for democracy, you do make it safe for capitalism, but that democracy (or at least the Western form) was the main thing being "saved".


You should read "Blowback by Chalmers Johnson. You would find that the Koreans and Okinawans really want USA gone. And of course the Philippines already successfully kicked out out.

South Korea hardly serves as a model for either capitalism OR democracy. Labor unions were forbidden, martial law was frequently applied, South Korean economic development was directed by the government at the behest of a group of oligarchs called chaebols.

www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/
South-Korean-past-part2.html

Japan is similarly non-capitalistic in the sense that like Korea, its development was directed from the top with heavy government intervention.

You also neglected to mention the most obvious parts of our very own empire, starting with the US Protectorates (there are seven) which are not covered by US labor law but do not pay import duties to the USA and serve as sources of very cheap labor,

most of Latin America where we intervened time and time again to destroy popularly-elected governments,

our friends in the Mideast past and present including Iran (Shah), Iraq (Saddam), Saudi Arabia (House of Saud), and Uzbekistan (Karimov)

Indonesia, where Kissinger personally gave Suharto the green light to massacre East Timorese with American-supplied weapons, and last but not least

The Congo (Mobutu) armed and supported by the USA.

Our support of non-democratic (authoritarian) governments has been the exception rather than the rule... and yes, "the people" would really like to see us go away.

BTW- there are two nations in Latin American that score rather well in terms of human development. One of them is Cuba, which manages to provide health care, education, and a modest standard of living for everyone DESPITE being embargoed by the largest and most militarily aggressive nation in the world. The other is Costa Rica, and it is the ONLY nation in Latin America where we have never intervened.

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Saturday, August 28, 2004 5:39 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
Empires all

1688 is considered the date Britain became a constitutional monarchy.


But hardly democratic. It wasn't until the Great Reform Act of 1832 that as many as 1 in 5 men had the right to vote. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist2.html

and Universal suffrage wasn't until 1928.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Germany and Austria at about that time (1860s). Both were constitutional monarchies, each with a Parliament.


Again, hardly democracies.

"The German Empire--often called the Second Reich to distinguish it from the First Reich, established by Charlemagne in 800--was based on two compromises. The first was between the king of Prussia and the rulers of the other German states, who agreed to accept him as the Kaiser (emperor) of a united Germany, provided they could continue to rule their states largely as they had in the past. The second was the agreement among many segments of German society to accept a unified Germany based on a constitution that combined a powerful authoritarian monarchy with a weak representative body, the Reichstag, elected by universal male suffrage. No one was completely satisfied with the bargain. The Kaiser had to contend with a parliament elected by the people in a secret vote. The people were represented in a parliament having limited control over the Kaiser.

As had been the tradition in Prussia, the Kaiser controlled foreign policy and the army through his handpicked ministers, who formed the government and prepared legislation. The government was headed by a chancellor, also selected by the Kaiser, who served in this post at the Kaiser's pleasure and could be dismissed by him at any time. The Bundesrat (Federal Council) represented Germany's princes. About one-third of its seats were held by Prussians. Conceived as an upper house to the Reichstag, the Bundesrat, like the Reichstag, was required to vote on legislation drawn up by the government before it became law. The Reichstag had no power to draft legislation. In addition, the government's actions were not subject to the Reichstag's approval, and the government was not drawn from the Reichstag, as is ordinarily the case in parliamentary democracies."

http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/history/bl_imperial_germany.ht
m

"Dissatisfaction erupted during the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848, forcing Metternich to resign and the emperor to agree to the election of a constituent assembly, and power was restored to the emperor, now FRANCIS JOSEPH (r. 1848-1916). Austria once more set its course in the direction of centralized, absolutist government, modernized and reformed just enough to make it palatable. "

http://www.dreihacken.asn-graz.ac.at/projekte/usa/history.htm

But I'll admit that this does help me refine my premise. We now have:

A stable capitalist representative democracy with at least universal male suffrage, and preferably universal suffrage, provides the best standard of living for the greatest number of its citizens.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, August 28, 2004 7:36 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Just a quick response:
Constitutionally, the number of representatives (but not the vote) was assigned by accounting the number of free persons and 3/5 of everyone else. The president was and is still chosen by the Electoral College, not by direct popular vote. The states did and do decide the electors in 'a manner of their choosing'. (States restricted voting to free landholding males, and that gave rise to later state mischief in denying the vote.) The US had slavery until the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which took effect when the north won the Civil war and the 13th ammendment was ratified in 1865. Article 14 (1868) specifically protected the vote of MALES over the age of 21 by providing a representational penalty for states that abridged voting rights. States actively denied former slaves (and 'negroes' in general) the right to vote, so the 15th amendment was created (It reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.) So states set up poll /property tax restrictions, which effectively disenfranchised blacks for nearly 100 yrs. The US Supreme Court decided in favor of 'Separate but Equal" Plessy v Ferguson 1896, essentially establishing apartheid in the US. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920. And separate but equal state-mandated apartheid over was overturned only recently as 1954 Brown v Topeka Board. The poll/property tax restriction on black voters wasn't addressed until the 24th amendment of 1964.
In your opinion, when did the United Sates become a democracy?

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Sunday, August 29, 2004 12:34 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
In your opinion, when did the United Sates become a democracy?


Good question. When does the number or percentage of citizens eligible to vote reach that "critical mass" that makes a democracy?

Or is it more what they are able to do with the vote? If the population, through their vote, can remove the head of government or change the direction of policy, even though the franchise is limited to less than 1/2 the population, could that be considered a democracy?

Recall that in the former USSR and present day North Korea, everyone could vote, in fact were required to vote. But since their vote could not affect policy or who made it in the slightest, I'd hesitate to call them democracies.

So what's the tipping point that a system crosses that leads it to expand suffrage and the power of the voter and head toward democracy? When do they cross the line and become one?

Looks like time to do some more research, after I finish G,G,& S. Thanks for the impetus. This should be interesting.



"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, August 30, 2004 4:39 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Don't forget the electoral college thing. Not only do people not directly vote for the president and vp, they don't indirectly vote for them. They don't vote for the people who will be selecting the executive branch. The electoral college is chosen in arcane and secretive ways, it doesn't have to follow the popular vote, and it's run by rules citizens haven't directly voted on - in other words, it's not under citizen control
A weighting of the popular vote toward less populous states might be beneficial, but the electoral college goes far beyond that. It removes the real power of the vote from citizens. In other words, the popular vote is merely ceremonial. Is that democratic?

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Monday, August 30, 2004 5:25 PM

SUCCATASH



This is a very informative thread. I wish Bush and Kerry would talk and debate like this.



"Gott kann dich nicht vor mir beschuetzen, weil ich nicht boese bin."

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Tuesday, August 31, 2004 1:18 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Don't forget the electoral college thing. Not only do people not directly vote for the president and vp, they don't indirectly vote for them. They don't vote for the people who will be selecting the executive branch. The electoral college is chosen in arcane and secretive ways, it doesn't have to follow the popular vote, and it's run by rules citizens haven't directly voted on - in other words, it's not under citizen control
A weighting of the popular vote toward less populous states might be beneficial, but the electoral college goes far beyond that. It removes the real power of the vote from citizens. In other words, the popular vote is merely ceremonial. Is that democratic?


The Electoral College isn't that secretive or arcane. The Federal Election Commission has a very good paper on the origins, development, current process, and pros and cons of the Electoral College.

http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf

It is the popular vote that selects the electors pledged to a particular candidate from each state, so the vote isn't ceremonial, and "faithless" electors (7 in 200+ years) have never had an actual impact on who won.

Besides, the Electoral college is only used for the election of president. All (or at least the overwhelming majority of) other elections for senators, congressmen, state governors and legislatures, mayors, dog catchers, etc. are direct elections.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, August 31, 2004 1:37 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:
Originally posted by Succatash:

This is a very informative thread. I wish Bush and Kerry would talk and debate like this.



"Gott kann dich nicht vor mir beschuetzen, weil ich nicht boese bin."


If Bush and Kerry debated like this, 99% of viewers would change the channel to Spike TV and watch reruns of 'World's Wildest Police Videos'.

But I'm actually learning a lot just doing research about the conflicting positions. Gets the old brain working.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Saturday, September 4, 2004 9:23 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Just a general note;

I have not forgotten about the postings I said I would make about the topic "Bush and his administration purposefully lied" to attack Iraq.

I've been involved in a project from hell the last few weeks, taking roughly 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. I expect it to go thru October.

I'll be posting when I can.

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Sunday, May 14, 2006 5:46 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


In looking for something else, I found a thread started by Geezer in which he claims to be middle of the road.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!




---------------------------------
Don't piss in my face and tell me it's raining.

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Monday, May 15, 2006 5:53 AM

JMB9039


Quote:
Originally posted by CrevanReaver:
Bush didn't lie, he was mislead. He had the United Nations, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, George Tenet's CIA, and even the odd behavior of Saddam Hussein telling him that there were WMDs. After so much pressure, he had to believe that Iraq was an imminent threat.


Ah yes, everbody's fault but the president's. I don't buy it. Whatever happend to "the buck stops here." He is the CIC; he is responsible.

Also, I think it is important to determine whether or not a politician lies. If you just let them lie and let them cheat then there is no accountability and they can keep on doing it. Bush keeps calling for accountability from everyone else (even teachers in poor schools) except himself. If we don't hold politicians accountable then the problem will just perpetuate itself - we set a precident that this is all ok.

JMB9039

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Monday, May 15, 2006 6:01 AM

CHRISISALL


OOOpps, that's it! Get ready for the whiners sayin' "There Are WMD's, He couldn't have known for sure, It was the best intelligence at the time, It's a war on terrorism/Of course Iraq's not about terrorism, blagh blagh, etc."

Seen it before Chrisisall

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