Are collective efforts necessary?
POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Tuesday, November 8, 2005 21:59
VIEWED: 5226
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Health care. Roads. Defense. Environmental protection. Education. Research. Some people deeply mistrust ALL government collective efforts. In their opinion the government should only be in the business of national defense."Rights" are what you cna carve out for yourself. Everything else should be a matter of personal responsibility or market forces. Others view health care, environmental protection, and education as societal rights, to be governmentally provided.
This brings up the fundamental question whether certain programs/ services can ONLY be provided governmentally, which ones should be left to individual effort/ market forces, and which ones can be provided either way (and which path is more advantageous).
Your thoughts?
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
This brings up the fundamental question whether certain programs/ services can ONLY be provided governmentally, which ones should be left to individual effort/ market forces, and which ones can be provided either way (and which path is more advantageous).
How bout the mail? No, UPS and e-mail and all.
How bout national defense? Yeah, thats one.
Border Control? Well, we've got the Minutemen dropping illegal immigration in their patrol zone by something like 85%.
Ok, here's some. The patent office, the courts, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the FBI, international relations, coining of common currency, banking regulation, Food and Drug safety, traffic control, sidewalk repair...
Yeah, some things we need a government for. But keep you Commie-lovin pinko hands outa my Doctor's office and away from anything resembling a real business. No offense.
H
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None taken. The concern many of we "commie-lovin' pinkos" have with extensive privatization is the lack of accountability. Public-owned or government-run institutions may not be perfect, but at least their officials are elected, and therefore answerable to we the people. Private corporations are only answerable to their major stockholders, which I'm pretty sure does not include you or me. Sure, we can vote with our dollars. Until huge, unchecked monopolies eliminate market competition. There's a balance to be struck between total government control and total anarchy. If we keep talking, maybe we'll find it.
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I think everyone knows where I stand on this issue by now :)
Govt. should defend america, but let us make it.
I totally want govt. out of everything else, if possible. The post office is fine. Just make it an independent corporation. Maybe then the workers would be friendlier. I'd pay a slight postage increase for that. But also, let's have competition for letter service, etc.
Get the govt. out of regulating healthcare. There was an article on yahoo this morning that suggest that american did not only have the most expensive healthcare system in world, but also the worst, in terms of accuracy of diagnosis and treatment. Apparantly, according to the article, you chances of getting the correct treatment, the one properly prescribed for your problem, when you go to the hospital in America is now less than 2/3.
I know the socialist leaning crowd will say "that's corporations for you. Let the govt. step it." Not our govt. Please. They bungle everything up. But this is the problem. Govt. has stepped in too much. A lot of healthcare is monopolistic, and state supported. If we had serious competition, no one would go to these sucky hospitals.
Well I suppose they would have to be educated for that to work. But why are americans so poorly educated? Oh yeah, public schools. Can we privitize schools now? please? At least let private schools compete openly. Right now the modified vouchers program I like to call couches for the rich gives $1500/child/year. But only to families who have already put up $1500/child/year. Aka, the rich. Education in manhattan is $15000/child/year. And the state and the city pay that. Since they got that money from us, actually, we pay that. I don't mind the redistribution via taxes that much, it's a good way to help the poor, but it should be done to help the poor buy competitive goods and services. Not to give mandated badness to the poor, and let the rich select from competitive goodness.
This sort of thing, just to let the left know, is where poor republicans are coming from. We're not stupid. :) well some of us.
I wouldn't be too unhappy with the military being at least partially privatized, or maybe fully, but backwards from how it is. I would privatize the funding, if at all.
Think of it this way. The main point of this war in Iraq is probably objectively oil. The secondary point is a keystone strategy of a bunch of global revolutionaries who have the reins at the moment. Or at least they see themselves as global revolutionaries.
But the main backing has to come from oil companies. And we foot the bill. If the oil companies had to pay for this war themselves, there would be no way that it would be worth doing. Some site suggested that the cost of getting oil by war was $6000 a barrel. I haven't challenged that math yet, but I get the point, this is never going to be profitable, if the people who reap the rewards are also paying the cost.
Part of the problem is no one is relly estimating the true cost, they're only counting dollars that go to Iraq, not all the auxilliary costs, which someone in the senate said over a trillion. but even at $200B, we've gotten way under 1B barrels, and even if it's pure profit, there's no more than $50B max that we've gotten from Iraq, probably closer to $10B. But the thing is that the American taxpayer pays the bill, and Chevron/Texaco collects the dividend. So it's win/win for them.
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Quote:
Originally posted by oddness2her:
None taken. The concern many of we "commie-lovin' pinkos" have with extensive privatization is the lack of accountability. Public-owned or government-run institutions may not be perfect, but at least their officials are elected, and therefore answerable to we the people. Private corporations are only answerable to their major stockholders, which I'm pretty sure does not include you or me. Sure, we can vote with our dollars. Until huge, unchecked monopolies eliminate market competition. There's a balance to be struck between total government control and total anarchy. If we keep talking, maybe we'll find it.
Why, your the most sensible Commie I've spoken to in years. Good for you. Out of respect I'll refrain from derogatory characterizations for your chosen philosophy.
I suggest that accountability can be found in sensible regulation, strict criminal enforcement, and the unscrupulous practice of civil litigation (forcing manufacturers to be safe by suing them for millions over the slightest safety defect).
H
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Dare I ask what your definition of "sensible regulation" entails?
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Okay let me try again. More succinctly, hopefully.
Socialism, as defined by wikipedia:
Focus on general welfare rather than individuality, cooperation rather than competition.
I posted on another thread a long thing about how this cooperative governance led the nazis and commies to kill hunrded million plus people, that wouldn't have been possible if the same a**holes had been in our competitive individualistic society.
So, My take:
Socialism bad.
Ergo, no cooperative efforts. Groups of people should cooperate with eachother, and then compete with one another. When everyone cooperates, dissent is lost, badness ensures.
So to answer item points:
"The patent office,"
Nah. Patent office is horridly corrupt. It needs some sort of reform, not sure what yet.
"The courts,"
Maybe. I hate our legal system though. I can see a problem with private courts, but our current system is bogus. Much prison, not a lot of reason, nothing productive being done by prisoners, virtually no successful rehabilitation, and a lot of error. There can be improvement, I'm not sure how it should go.
"the Interstate Commerce Commission,"
Another one I haven't thought about. I think this also isn't perfect though.
"the FBI,"
This is one of our govts. good points. That and the CIA. Let's do away with Dept. of Homeland Security though. But if these were privatized it could be really interesting. FBI Inc. CIA Inc. all making their separate cases for guilt or innocence, and then the courts deciding.
"international relations,"
Because we're doing so well at it.
J/k. But seriously, sure maybe, maybe not. Corporations do seem to be getting on much better with other nations than govt.
"coining of common currency,"
This is interesting. If everyone made their own money...
"banking regulation,"
And a whole lot of other regulation. But then there was the whole S+L, whitewater and all reagon bush clinton bush been ripping people off so I guess this is flawed.
"Food and Drug safety,"
Food I agree, the govts. been doing well. It would suck much worse without that. The FDA drug section is horridly corrupt though. I mean without it, sure there would be Miracle Cure eat-your-liver-azine on the market.
"traffic control,"
Air traffic control? Hmm. Another good point.
"sidewalk repair..."
Or you mean local? I thought we were on federal govt.
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In a democracy, what is government but the collective will of the people? Should not people be free to determine the society in which they must live?
To say that 'government' should stay out of the running of society is to say that people should not be allowed to govern themselves as a group.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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I think accountability is a natural side effect of open competition, and an independent media informing the educated consumer with an honest appraisal of business. I think all of those things will also be the basis of open fair competition in the media and education.
The govts. job therefore becomes to ensure that that fair competition take place in an unfettered manner. Unfortunately what we have is govt. trying to undermine that fair competition. Ergo, we need new govt.
Rue,
Govt. never pretended to be the collective will of the people. Govt. is a ruling elite which at best helps to ensure the rights of the people in a noble selfless yet talented manner. We elect a very small number of the people in govt. and we have very limited options in doing so. We use what little information we have about these people to make an informed judgement about whether or not they will be competent to help form the rest of our vast govt. Unfortunately, as always, there are flaws. The people are stupid, yet equal, and so if the best educated think long and hard about this, their voice carries no more wait than the average couch potato's random pulling of a lever. In addition, some people are completely marginalized and will never get a serious say in their govt. Under our system, it will be very hard for African Americans do ever be able to determine the nature of their federal govt, or quite likely their state govt. As a result, they will get less funding for their schools, etc. This is not news of course, they figured this out a long time ago, but with no real say in govt. what can they do about it?
So clearly, govt. in practice is very far from the will of the people.
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Govt. never pretended to be the collective will of the people. Never pretended? That's an extreme statement. What about the document that starts out "We the people ..."? Surely that's a brazen pretense if I ever saw one.
But seriously, do you see no difference between the governments of Idi Amin and Bill Clinton? Or between Somalia and Canada?
I'm just wondering how you can make a statement that lumps all governments into a single category.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/03/AR2005
110301143.html
Yep. It's that free market system doing what it does best.
"Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other Western nations and get more confused, error-prone treatment, according to the largest survey to compare U.S. health care with other nations.
The survey of nearly 7,000 sick adults in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and Germany found Americans were the most likely to pay at least $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses. More than half went without needed care because of cost and more than one-third endured mistakes and disorganized care when they did get treated.
Although patients in every nation sometimes run into obstacles to getting care and deficiencies when they do get treated, the United States stood out for having the highest error rates, most disorganized care and highest costs, the survey found."
Oh yes, and those horrid communist pinko governments exploiting their downtrodden people.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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At best and at worst.
The Govt. of Bill Clinton had problems. The foreign policy of Bill Clinton was worse.
Somalia, for the record, is widely viewed to not really have a govt. It's perpetually ranked the worlds closest state to anarchy by some UN group that does such things. The closest competitor I think is Afghanistan, and this was BEFORE we invaded. Soon Iraq will get to compete for the dubious title.
I'm sorry, but I cannot take the healthcare industry as an argument against the free market. Not only is it not a free market, but it is by far the most restricted and regulated market there is. This is not an argument for socialism, it's an argument against it. An actual free market would greatly improve things. I said it will be a dangerous world, when we cut medical care loose from it's current straight jacket, but soon it will be a world of wonder if only we have the guts to take the first step.
Commie healthcare cannot move forward, so commie healthcare did not come up with genetic engineering, antiviral drugs or stem cell reasearch, just to name a few. But high prices are also a product of overregulation. I know this for a fact because there is a flakey alternative to professional medicine which is herbal treatments. Herbals are a free market, and I easily replaced my $120/month pills with my $7/month unregulated herbal, and I would say not only was it cheaper, but it was easily 15 times as effective. Please, by all means bring on the free market.
As a foot note, I would welcome Gorby's suggestion, if you don't feel comfortable with free market medicine. I'll try to restate it here as best I can, it was in the pre-internet days he gave a radio interview and said something like this:
What america should do is have two healthcare systems, one completely open and free market, and the other govt. run. You could simply take the VA system you've set up for veterans and expand it. This system would provide basic low cost healthcare for the poor, or whoever wanted it, and the other could be more innovative. The public system would keep the prices of the freemarket system in check just by its existance as competition, and the free market system could keep the quality of the public health in check by compeition.
This was from Mikhail Gorbachev, premier of the soviet union, and definitely a commie. But I like him, and it was a good idea. Just soes y'all know, not biased against all the commies in the world, as individuals, some are fine statemen. Just object to the idea, as a govt. system.
Gorby's duel system would work, and I'd support it if someone on the left can come up with a way to pay for it that's not too deadly. Anyone interested?
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Quote:Yikes have you every tried to fly in to KJFK or KLAX or another major airport. The system needs an overhaul in terms of equipment and funding. And I'm not just talking about the ATC, the 'Ground' (the guy who directs aircraft on the taxyway) needs work to- just the other day one jetliner taxied across an active runway where another jet was taking off!
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
"traffic control,"
Air traffic control? Hmm. Another good point.
Quote:If it was on federal land I guess...
[B}"sidewalk repair..."
Or you mean local? I thought we were on federal govt.
EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
"sidewalk repair..."
Or you mean local? I thought we were on federal govt.
The original post did not limit the discussion to Federal govt. Sidewalks are a great example.
Having worked with the local Equalization Board and Streets Dept I can tell you that sidewalks are VERY expensive. Here's how it works. A street is identified by various criteria (such as interest by the residents or traffic and such) as being a candidate for sidewalks. Once approved the City picks up 50% of the tab. The other 50% is assessed to the individual property owners. Often this amounts to thousands of dollars and weeks or months of street work.
Naturally people are not always happy. Most often this includes landlords who have no idea their tenants petitioned us for sidewalks that they have to pay for. Also common are people without the means to pay a sudden large assessment. So the Equalization Board hears claims of people who can't or don't want to pay. We then reduce their burden based upon their circumstances (square frontage, property value, ability to pay, etc). The City then makes up the difference.
Now I'm as anti-big govt as you can get, but I don't see how we get sidewalks and street repairs on a large scale without govt administration(cause I can fill in a pothole my own self, but I can't fill them all in...hmmm, not even my City can do that either).
H
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I think certain things should be made a right, such as Health care, protection (police and the army), and perhaps even public transport (I base this on the disastrous privatisation of the railways over here).
As for business, it should be regulated, if you don't businesses WILL pollute the environment, they WILL move toward monopolies and the customer WILL eventually end up with less choices, and paying more for them.
Should government and Business be kept separate though?
Yep, I think so. Otherwise you end up with situations like the East India Company and the British Government in the 1800's.
Business and Government should be kept physically separate, much like Government and Religion.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Dreamtrove, maybe the problem I'm having is with the idea of treating every aspect of society as a business. Making money is fine, but sometimes the focus on profit runs counter to what an institution's true purpose should be. Like healthcare. The driving force behind healthcare should be providing healthcare. If doctors have to worry too much about keeping HMOs profitable, they and the patients suffer. Same with education. I'm just asking: Does everything need to be run as though it were a business?
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Sidewalk maintenance could be done by Sidewalk Inc. A company I just invented. If you want special sidewalk things, benches, driveways, ramps, all sort of other things, better pay your dues. That would more than pay for regular maintenance.
Sidewalk Inc. makes out like a bandit. Every home owner and buisiness is paying for upkeep and shelling out for bonus extras and Sidewalk becomes like port authority. Then it uses this money to build World Trade Centers.
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Sidewalk maintenance could be done by Sidewalk Inc. A company I just invented. If you want special sidewalk things, benches, driveways, ramps, all sort of other things, better pay your dues. That would more than pay for regular maintenance.
Sidewalk Inc. makes out like a bandit. Every home owner and buisiness is paying for upkeep and shelling out for bonus extras and Sidewalk becomes like port authority. Then it uses this money to build World Trade Centers.
Assuming no state and local govt involvement means that the price is outside the reach of property owners. Our city can't actually pay for the improvements. We supplement our own funding from State and Federal Grants in aid. That still leaves the average property owner on any given street with an assessment usually in the $5,000-$20,000 range. That means the average actual cost is between $10,000 and $20,000 per.
So your company, which actually exists because many smaller communities outsource this to independent contractors, would flounder with sidewalks being limited to the richest neighborhoods. You could offset by offering lower quality sidewalks, since in your no govt world their would be no liabilty for substandard work.
I suspect that were this the case the poor would become so abused by people like Sidewalks, Inc. that they would revolt and demand a govt to protect their class interests. Almost a reverse Communist Revolution.
H
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Quote:Yes, but... The fallacy is that everyone WILL pay. Some people may not want to pay for sidewalk upkeep. Perhaps they always use their car. Perhaps they would rather buy a plasma TV. Perhaps they simply can't afford it. Then the problem becomes that the sidewalk becomes less useful because some segments are cracked or even non-existant. As it becomes less useful, it becomes less used, and therefore other become less interested in upkeep. Eventually, the whole system falls down. That is what is called "the problem of the commons".
Sidewalk maintenance could be done by Sidewalk Inc. A company I just invented. If you want special sidewalk things, benches, driveways, ramps, all sort of other things, better pay your dues. That would more than pay for regular maintenance. Sidewalk Inc. makes out like a bandit. Every home owner and buisiness is paying for upkeep and shelling out for bonus extras and Sidewalk becomes like port authority.
I think that some efforts can ONLY be done in a large, collective, tax- coercive fashion: roadways, sewage systems and sewage treatment plants, communicable disease control, garbage disposal, etc. Let's take sewage as an example. In a city, you can't opt out of sending your sewage into the sewage line (health hazard/ nuisance/ water quality issue)- just look at what happened after Katrina kocked out the sanitary sewage system. You can't build sewage treatment plants on homeowner's pocketbooks because it is a benefit for FUTURE consumers and downstream consumers as well. In order to meet everyone's requirements for clean water, odor-and fly-free neighborhoods, etc no-one can "opt out". Savvy? If someone can think of a way to "provide" "necessary" services through the "free market", I'd be happy to hear about them. Also, I'm sure the list can be parsed out more intelligently. Maybe certain "services" really aren't "necessary".
In addition, if you privatize everything (and leave consumption up to individuals) you not only have to pay for the service, you also get hit on the profit. Just about every effort I have ever seen to privatize government functions (from hospital cafeteria service to corrections officers) wind up with higher prices and lower quality.
BTW- A colleague's mom used to live in one of those tax-free-pay-as-you-go states. And she was all happy about it- unitl she got billed $5000 for maintaining the piece of road in front of her house.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Oddness2Her,
Yes :)
Everything should run as a business. With maybe some slight adjustment to preventthe exploitation of things that may be profitable but not beneficial to society. Like govt. can be there to shut down the hit man business.
But ultimately, if healthcare was based on caring, as you suggest, it would be full of well intentioned people trying to do what's right, which in my experience has always been a recipe for disaster, if not the road to hell.
What we need is open competition of ideas. If there's something that needs to be done that isn't profitable, the govt. can step in with a balancing incentive program.
Take a fictional example
Morloch's disease is an infection which afflicts 100 people a year, but it kills them within a matter of weeks to months.
It can be stopped theoretically by the Simonson process, which is still under development.
Everyone drops the project when it is clear that Morloch's will always be exceedingly rare and that the Simonson process will be very expensive.
So here's where the feds could step in and offer an incentive of big $ for every case cured.
Now, Simonson does get developed, but it only works 50% of the time. Big bucks are still there for the other 50 cases, so eventually someone develops the NDabi process, which cures people 80% of the time...
And so it goes. The reason capitalism works so well at so many things is that it echoes nature. It's a process of natural selection.
Proper governance in such a system is like gardening. Minor modifications can make all the plants thrive, and only known pests really need removing.
By contrast, the socialized system is intelligent design. You set it up and it works, but no natural force presses it to evolve. 100 years later, the socialist version is probably still using the Simonson process even long after its capitalist counterpart has discarded NDabi as obsolete.
It is obvious that if the socialist syster has to copy NDabi from the capitalist one, it has admitted it's inferiority. But the most basic fact is, if God came down and created the Moku worm, it later was wiped out by rapidly evolving annelids.
The flaw with our healthcare system is not that it is capitalist, it's that it is not capitalist enough. It's the least capitalist and most state controlled of all of our private sector industries. It's probably fair to say conventional medicine in the US a solid hundred years behind the other technology industries, evolutionarily. But fortunately biotech has come to change all that. In mice. With a little deregulation it can change it in humans to.
Fortunately,
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Quote:
Assuming no state and local govt involvement means that the price is outside the reach of property owners. Our city can't actually pay for the improvements. We supplement our own funding from State and Federal Grants in aid. That still leaves the average property owner on any given street with an assessment usually in the $5,000-$20,000 range. That means the average actual cost is between $10,000 and $20,000 per.
So your company, which actually exists because many smaller communities outsource this to independent contractors, would flounder with sidewalks being limited to the richest neighborhoods. You could offset by offering lower quality sidewalks, since in your no govt world their would be no liabilty for substandard work.
I suspect that were this the case the poor would become so abused by people like Sidewalks, Inc. that they would revolt and demand a govt to protect their class interests. Almost a reverse Communist Revolution.
Hero,
This is because govt. is doing it, and govt. is inherrently inefficient.
Port Authority has a lot of infrastructure to maintain which it does at tremendous profit, and yet toll prices are not out of control.
If the figures you quote are actual, then it is govt. which is out of control. Something is seriously amiss. We maintain sidewalks here, too. We do so at an annual cost of zero, and maybe an every 20 years cost of $200. Anyone can eyeball the situation and see that this is more realistic.
Building owners who house the poor would of course be responsible for the sidewalks as well. If they don't want to deal with Sidewalk Inc. then they can contract with Walkways of America LLC to take over their sidewalks.
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Quote:
Yes, but... The fallacy is that everyone WILL pay. Some people may not want to pay for sidewalk upkeep. Perhaps they always use their car. Perhaps they would rather buy a plasma TV. Perhaps they simply can't afford it. Then the problem becomes that the sidewalk becomes less useful because some segments are cracked or even non-existant. As it becomes less useful, it becomes less used, and therefore other become less interested in upkeep. Eventually, the whole system falls down. That is what is called "the problem of the commons".
I am extremely dubious of this scenario. Given how much care absolutely everyone pays to the look of their houses and lawns, I don't think that anyone would have a rubbleheap at the end of their driveway. And remember, I'm very poor and live in a poor area.
Still I can see my measure is not going to pass here. It was a neat idea though.
Most of the other services you describe are actually provided by for profit businesses here in upstate new york. We have garbage collection, recycling, etc. We pay for everything. So does everybody else, since they all pay taxes. The thing is, paying directly for these services, which if essential, everyone will pay for, but paying directly will help lower the cost. With taxes, costs grow, fat grows, and red tape grows, and soon you have the numbers Hero quoted.
I remember a little annecdote I'll pass along. A bridge collapsed here maybe 10 years ago. The state came in, because in NY the bridges are all under the state highway dept. They looked it over and said: "Nope, not worth it, there are only like three houses on that road."
But there was no other road access for those three houses. So the families said, fine, what does it cost, we'll pay it.
The state said "okay"
Then they sent down some people, they made a plan, and they said okay, here's our estimate: $15 million. we know your town can't pay that, but we'll work with you, let's set up a time payment.
So the families said, screw that, and they hired some contractors, a local mason and a bunch of farmers. They built a bridge according to a plan for the first bridge built there in 1820 or something, and it cost them $43,000.
Private industry finds a way to make it happen. Govt. finds a way to pad the most fat into it.
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Quote:I think there are two... or maybe three... or possibly more... parts to this discussion. The first part is- Will everyone pay for an "essential" service? The answer is- Not really. For a service that "most" people think is essential, "most" people will pay. But out of a hundred people, there will always be those few who simply refuse. "Their" part of the roadway will be potholded. "Their" part of the sidewalk will be nonexistant. "Their" yards will be full of the trash that wasn't hauled away, bringing down the value of the neighborhood. What to do?
Most of the other services you describe are actually provided by for profit businesses here in upstate new york. We have garbage collection, recycling, etc. We pay for everything. So does everybody else, since they all pay taxes. The thing is, paying directly for these services, which if essential, everyone will pay for, but paying directly will help lower the cost. With taxes, costs grow, fat grows, and red tape grows, and soon you have the numbers Hero quoted
But let's assume that everyone WILL pay. Even so, there are goods and services that are impossible to apportion out in anything other than a collective way. Where is "my" part of an interstate highway? All right- let's assume that some enterprising person built a toll road interstate and intends to collect lots of money from his/her investment. So what is "my" portion of a traffic signal? "My" portion of copyright laws? "My" portion of clean air? And I haven't even gotten to national defense, laws, and disaster protection.
Then there is the whole "bloated government" assumptions. The "bridge" example isn't accurate because you compared costs for non-equivalent services. I can counter that with lots (and lots) of countervening examples of state services that are actually CHEAPER than equivalent private services.
And finally there is the whole assumption that progress is only made through capitalism. I'm not going to get into a very detailed discussion, but right off the bat I can name you a dozen critical discoveries/ technologies that were developed that had NOTHING to do with capitalism, starting with fire, agriculture and the alphabet. Clearly, something is motivating discovery BESIDES the ability to privately own an idea.
I'm not trying to make the argument that everything can or should be provided by government- just trying to parse out which ones are ESSENTIALLY collective and which ones are CONVENIENTLY collective.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Firs off let me say I only started this to be devils advocate, to say it wasn't really necessary. At the moment we live in a country where 1/2 of every dollar earned by every worker in every field that is at least middle class goes in some form or other to fund the military industrial complex which uses those funds to run a huge war machine which is killing 100,000 random people a year, which is about one every five minutes. The most logical solution is probably to cut off the tap.
I don't this "sectioning" is how it would work. Route 29 belongs to Roads Inc. or to the Local Route 29 company, or whatever. basic maintenance is their responsibility. Maintaining auxialliary services usually more than fits the bill, but if it doesn't, roads will simply become toll or subscription. You drive on these roads.
Whatever, there are many ways to do it. By itself, it doesn't necessitate large govt. or any for that matter.
Traffic Signal belong to the road.
Air would have to be regulated somehow. That's a much better argument for govt. than the sidewalks thing, which I'm sure is 100% workable under total anarchy.
The anarchist nation would become an environmental hazard, I have to agree. To stick on the 'what if we got rid of govt. idea, which is basically what this thread is about, how about some ideas re: the environment.
I'm all ears.
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Dreamtrove,
I did not respond to these arguments elsewhere b/c, frankly, there was so much wrong with them I didn't have the time to get to all of it.
So, one by one:
governments:
You ignored my other examples, and many, many more one could think of in examining governments and their differences (if any). Saddam Hussein definitely had a government going. Was his government no different than Denmark's? Just a yes or no will do, as you seem to think all governments are equally non-representative of 'the people'.
healthcare:
"An actual free market would greatly improve things."
How you can persist in this delusion in the face of data is beyond me. More socialized medicine results in: longer lifespan, better infant mortality, more care, and cheaper care (total and per capita); and the care that you do get, well, it's better too. Explain in detail what data you have to support your claim, as I have not seen any, (let me repeat this), any evidence to back this up. (Beyond your personal testimonial, which I will address later.)
"commie healthcare did not come up with genetic engineering, antiviral drugs or stem cell research."
In fact, all of the research on genetic engineering, antiviral drugs and stem cell research came from publicly supported research directly or through government grants - commie research if you will - and much of it came direcrly, or with significant assistance, from outside of the US.
"James Watson and Francis Crick publish their discovery of the three-dimensional double helix structure of DNA. This discovery will eventually lead to the ability of scientists to identify and "splice" genes from one kind of organism into the DNA of another." Let me point out that both were British and did their work at Cambridge University (UK).
"Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen combined their efforts in biotechnology to invent a method of cloning genetically engineered molecules in foreign cells. By this discovery and its applications Boyer and Cohen initiated what is now the multibillion-dollar biotechnology industry.
Their collaboration began at a conference in Hawaii in 1972, when Boyer was a biochemist and genetic engineer at the University of California at San Francisco, and Cohen was an associate professor of medicine at Stanford University." In other words, the work was done by public-grant supported academicians.
William Prusoff a professor at Yale discovered idoxuridine, the very first anti-viral medicine used to treat ocular HSV (herpes) (originally it was an anti-cancer drug).
Stem-cell research. Not quite sure how to address this. Should I start with IVF in Britain? They led the way. Or do I go on with bone marrow transplants, a form of stem cell transplantation practiced long before the understanding that stem cells made the procedure work - and pioneered by the French through government supported medical research. Or do I refer to events as recent as 1998 when Thomson (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and Gearhart (Johns Hopkins University) independently developed methods of growing stem cells in culture.
In no case do I see free market forces as private enterprise providing the research, though I do see them benefiting from public tax-supported research.
testimonial:
to be addressed later
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Rue, I never said all govts. are the same. I said "at best" and "at worst" so clearly there's a spectrum.
Denmark is clearly close to best, and Hussein is close to worst.
Healthcare.
The american system, which I consider to be essentially socialized medicine for some, that leaves some people like me out in the cold is nowhere near a freemarket system.
That research came primarily from university and private sector companies, and a few govt. labs. Nothing I've ever read on the subject indicates that this was the product of socialized medicine, and I read this stuff daily, often at length. I read that book by watson and crick, But genetic engineering really began with the whole carrot experiment and genentech.
But why does everyone like to naysay everything so much. I say this because I almost wrote snidely "a private sector company" but of course you know that.
The thing is these stories of scientific innovations that i have read in the tens of thousands almost never say "at a public facility in communist china" or "at saddam hussein's facility in" They in fact always say one of two things "at such and such labs, a publicly traded company," or "at such and such american university" and occasionally "at the national university in seoul sk." or some such.
And let's take a little moment here to address the issue of Korea. South Korea's medical industry is considered one of the best private healthcare systems in the world. In fact, South Korea an unapologetic advertisement for free market capitalism is starkly contrasted to its communist couterpart, just as east germany was to west germany, the more free market czech republic to the more socialist slovakia, or quite frankly any example you choose from anywhere in the world. North Korea's govt. healthcare is not the one doling out the punishing competition to America these days.
Anyway, I already said in my post, at some length, which you clearly didn't read, that I supported govt. grants to research as one of the few functions of research. If govts. didn't exist grant foundations would be pure charities, but they would continue to survive.
But even if govt. were to totally disappead, as long as you have just rudimentary law, you can require people to give to a charity of their choice, and this would more than solve whatever problems come up in university and corporate grant financing, should there be any.
Finally, I'm getting pretty tired of this trick. Assume you are more educated than the other poster and try to cow him with your citations. Really it's a little lame.
Most of those stem cell advances were made by Geron Inc, Stem Cells Inc, and Mr. Woo Suk Hwang, whose name has come up more than a few times over the years.
That two American free marketeers and a Korean professor. My main point was it wasn't coming from the USSR, North Korea, Vietnam, or even China which has far more resources than anyone else. Occassionally Europeans do something of note. I read more than once that Dolly wasn't really a close, but I'm not begrudging Europe by any means. The days when Europe leads the world have been waning for some time, and the American era is also drawing to a close. Soon the Chinese will catch up with Korea, as they overthrow their socialist leadership as they cling to their new free market identity, because old systems like europe, and soon sadly America, get more big govt., and thus lose their sense of free enterprise.
Eastern Europe there may be hope for. A lot of room for free market expansion there.
But I've taken my chance and placed my bet on the free market.
And I did say "yay govt. grants" quite a bit back there.
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Quote:Not to derail things from this interesting discussion of health care, but South Korea is not “an unapologetic advertisement for free market capitalism” unless you define “capitalism” as “Anything that is not North Korea.” South Korea, like Japan and Taiwan, has what is called a “Developmental Economy.” That is, an economy in which the government plays a major role, intervening and guiding the direction of the economy--not the invisible hand of the market. It’s an economic model that’s working very well in East Asia, but it’s not an American or even European free market system. It is a “guided” market, not quite planned but not quite free.
And let's take a little moment here to address the issue of Korea.
As for the environment, I think history has definitely proven that private corporations will take no steps to protect or preserve it unless forced by heavy government regulation. And even then, they’re always searching for loopholes around it. So, the government definitely needs a role in environmental protection.
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Dreamtrove
"Finally, I'm getting pretty tired of this trick. Assume you are more educated than the other poster and try to cow him with your citations. Really it's a little lame."
I suspect I am quite a bit more educated than you when it comes to medicine, one of two divergent areas where I have degrees and many, many years of experience.
I didn't have time to finish my discussion of your post(s), and probably will not have time this weekend. Later then.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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American public financing of US University research is often essential for big breakthroughs to be made. That is why things like public funding of stem cell research --- something that seems to have problems because of links to abortion --- are so important.
Private companies simply dont to "blue sky" research --- it's hard to justify on a balance sheet to shareholders -- what they are good at is taking the results of government funded research and productize it.
Nobody turned to GE or Westinghouse in 1940 and told them to build an A Bomb from their own pocket, but the research for the manhatten project latter allowed both those companies to build nuclear plants.
Pratt and Whitneys jet engine business came from designs paid for by H.M government and later supplemented by billions in Pentagon funding. The Boeing 707 that started Boeing in the jet airliner business was based of the Dash-80 which was the prototype of the KC-135 tanker for the US Airforce. No tanker, probably no 707 and Boeing would probably not have been in the jet airliner business. That's ironic because the first jet airliner --- the DeHavilland Comet WAS funded by the company and all R&D came from company funds, it failed and they went broke.
Government blue sky research makes innovation possible because it allows new areas to be explored leaving industry to pick up just those developments that succeed. If all inovation came solely from company funds then either they would suffer huge losses if ideas dont pan out or would simply choose to ignore areas that didnt appear promising --- thus perhaps missing benefitial discoveries.
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Dreamtrove:
I'm not sure I entirely understand where you're coming from on this score, so rather than replying per-se I'll make my thoughts clear.
Pure Communism doesn't work.
Pure Socialism (if anyone tried to implement it, which they haven’t) wouldn't work.
Pure Anarchy Wouldn't work.
Pure Capitalism (again if anyone implemented it, which they haven’t) wouldn't work.
Every time you see a working society (that's working as in growth/prosperity, freedoms etc) you see one that takes elements from two or more of the above.
Britain (like most of Europe) for instance, takes capitalism and socialism to produce a working society.
America takes capitalism and mixes in a little socialism and a bit of Anarchism.
Devil's Advocate aside you seem (to me) to be suggesting that a pure Capitalist society, where everything you get is directly paid for by you (rather than indirectly paid for by everyone's taxes) would be ideal. I really don't think such a society would even be sustainable, let alone 'work'.
I'm very much with Fletch2 on this.
Private companies tend to be good with taking proven ideas and making them economically viable.
Coming up with and testing the ideas, not so much.
I really think that a purely capitalist society would stall as surely as a purely socialist or communist society would.
You're assertion that capitalism is what gives people motivations to improve what we've got also seems to be missing data outside of capitalism. Consider the rocket engines designed and built by the USSR in the 60's which are STILL more efficient than those built by NASA or Western 'space corporations'.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Lurk,
I've seen SK intevention in the free market, I still think the US intervenes more, particularly in medicine. NK like all socialist states, is a disaster.
Finally, while I agree that some corporations are very environmentally unsound, until recently, random peasantry was the biggest environmental threat, followed by govts. which far outweigh corporations in general.
Now I will admit free market logging and fishing concerns are a serious threat to the planet, and need to be dealt with. I think in the absense of any law, environmentalists, who vastly outnumber them, would simply kill them.
But still, these are issues which need to be dealt with.
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Rue,
Being a doctor doesn't give you automatic mastery. I am very familliar with the field, and spend many years studying it. The criticism was just directed at you, but at everyone who posts with an assumed air of superior knowledge. I think it's really just a cheap trick. I'm pretty familiar with medical advancement. Universities, freemarket companies and random hokey traditional medicine quacks actually seem to be doing quite well in terms of medical advancement.
Also, the fact is your post did nothing to discredit my argument, which you clearly had not read. You said "but but but govt. grants and univerisities" when I had clearly said govt. grants were part of my plan, and universities are part of the free world. Obviously this is where stuff comes from, and it also comes from corporations.
Finally, I'm not putting up with the pile on dreamtrove session.
This was a theoretical argument started by someone else on whether or not things could be done privately, instead of needing public control of everything.
Well. Gee. Now it's turned into a game of squash the capitalist. What do I care what you people think? Why do I even bother. If someone's interested in exploring possible ways to reform something which is a pretty serious disaster at the moment, such as the US healthcare system or the US education system, then great. If not, then please don't bug me.
I'm personally totally convinced that socialism is an utter failure, and this comes from someone who once supported the idea. Over time, I had to weigh the overwhelming mountain of evidence and cave. Now I'm pretty much a pro-free market extremist, and I'm not giving that up to go back to something I'm absolutely certain doesn't work.
If someone has reform ideas of how to prevent the private sector from falling victim to environmental catastrophes, corrupt medical schemes and other potential pitfalls, I'm intersted in hearing them.
If someone wants to continue to argue for socialism, I'm quite frankly not interested. This is a what if sort of debate, and if people want to carry that what if to socialism, then don't address me with it. It's just more or less an ideological personal attack, and not an argument based on substance.
I think the recent scientific discoveries are coming in large part from R&D corporations and universities, and these days even supposed state universities are really free market entities.
Many come from govt. grants, but then didn't I say govt. grants are good from the very beginning? The fact is that govt. grants are better than just having the govt. develop things, because though govt. labs do come up with some great things, my dad worked in a govt. lab over at argon, and he said the govt. would always take a look at whatever was developed and say, "yeah. but what's it's military application?"
Corporations make life conveniences and cure diseases, Govts. kill people and take their stuff.
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Whoa there. First of all, I'm not a doctor.
Have some patience. I had only begun to respond to your post, there were many issues that I had not yet addressed.
I have been extraordinarily busy the last 6 months and can't say anything about it for now. But I have some reason to hope I will have more time in a few weeks. So until then this conversation will have to progress slowly.
For now, I'd like your input on these questions -
1) is it fair to say you think government should spend tax money (money that comes from you and me) on basic research so that business can privately profit from those tax-funded discoveries?
2) is it fair to say you do NOT think government shold spend our money directly on us, the people, for our direct benefit?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Rue,
Yes, 1 and 2 are basically my position. Yes.
It's a rather involved and complicated position, but I want to start dealing with these sorts of things really succinctly because as of tomorrow I will be exceedingly busy as well.
If the govt. invests in business it creates progress and wealth. If the govt. invests in welfare and hand outs it does neither.
What govt. CAN do in this setting is select wisely the private projects that are worth investing in, and if it is more or less free of corruption, it can decide those objectively on what will be most helpful to society.
Well I loathe to see the poor suffer, since I am the poor, and I was raised on nothing. I believe we had 210/month for the 5 of us, so that often meant in the winter because bills were so high, there was no actual food. I recall scrounging around for dimes and pennies to buy a package of rammen noodles, so I do know what poverty is, and no, this isn't a I did it, so so can they argument. It's just not a wise long term investment for society.
I would prefer to see some program of maybe federal debit cards that allow the poor to buy basic necessities, but not, say, drugs. There is a friend staying with me right now, who showed up at my door while we were arguing about all this on the forums earlier, broke. Now he lives off of federal assistance, and he uses that money to support his habit. I've known many such people, and it basically comes down to my local corner crack dealer is federally subsidized. This is also not a good investment for society. My debit card idea would draw on a constantly funded account, but only be usable for the purchase of goods and services the govt. would want to assist. This would turn the poor into paying customers of normal goods an services at a fairly low cost. But still, it would be a last resort. I think it is far more important to create a functonal economy, so that there are no, or as few as possible, jobless poor that the system would have to support.
Society should invest in private sector for profit businesses that do what the society values. It should support more than one of these. If two people should be doing the same thing, it should support both of them, as long as they both seem honest and competent. If one has a record of pocketing the cash and creating no progress wealth or jobs, than the govt. can give up on it until such a time as it puts its act together.
As for regular services for the people such as public transportation and other services, it's been pretty solidly proven a very large number of times that because of the non-competitive nature of such govt. services, the govt spends more and more money providing them, as witness, the sidewalk figures easlier quoted. Private enterprise would not only provide these cheaper, but with competing services and ever evolving progress of those services.
Quote:
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
I know this is a signature line, but I wanted to comment on it. I agree entirely. Most people who flame me on these forums think that I'm some old windbag who never got out of the tomato patch long enough to see the world and realize my right wing vision wasn't the only way of looking at thing.
Actually virtually all of my wisdom has come from arguments I have lost over the years, and times I've been wrong. I was once a liberal, actually. Not to say "liberalism is wrong" there are certain ideas like socialism I think are unworkable, but mostly I've just come to think that the problem with society is that the main causitive problems are not being address. So it's no longer the philosophy I subscribe to, which I could explain in detail, but that would turn this into a left/right debate which is not my point.
Every time I lost an argument, about politics or science, I was angry. I never thought, okay, I lost that one, either. I was always sure I'd either one, or it was a draw. I'd never think, oh, that guy was right. Not until months later, as it ate away at me, whatever someone had said, and then I
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Quote:Sorry I had to leave the thread for such a long time. Real life gets in the way.
If someone has reform ideas of how to prevent the private sector from falling victim to environmental catastrophes, corrupt medical schemes and other potential pitfalls, I'm intersted in hearing them. If someone wants to continue to argue for socialism, I'm quite frankly not interested. This is a what if sort of debate, and if people want to carry that what if to socialism, then don't address me with it. It's just more or less an ideological personal attack, and not an argument based on substance.
Dreamtrove: As you quite rightly perceived, this is a theoretical discussion. Unfortunately (for you) you're the only representative of free-market capitalism in this thread and so the arguments tend to take on a "pile on Dreamtrove" feeling, altho I don't think that is the intent. The argument as you frame it (reform capitalism v advocate socialism) IMHO are just different areas of the same spectrum.... I'm not sure where the boundaries are. So if it seem to you that my argument falls into the "advocate socialism" end of the spectrum, let me know, as I am really only interested in exploring ALL the possibilities with someone who has obviously spent a lot of time thinking about economic systems. ---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.
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So, to the discussion at hand:
Dreatmrove, I want to make sure I understand your viewpoint. I've picked out three points that seem to be essential.
The first has to do with the nature of people. In your view, people work best for reward, and since "government handouts" are disconnected from effort, they foster dependency and laziness.
The second has to do with the the necessity of competition. Since government represents a monopoly, it is inevitably less efficient and more costly.
The third point is that competition drives progress. Without competition, newer/ better products never get implemented or distributed.
Am I correct? Did I miss anything important? Thanks in advance.
---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:
Unfortunately (for you) you're the only representative of free-market capitalism in this thread and so the arguments tend to take on a "pile on Dreamtrove" feeling, altho I don't think that is the intent.
I agree. Being the only republican in a room will lead to this effect. Unfortunately, though I hate to admit it, I suspect being the only Democrat in the room probably leads to the same effect.
I think there were a couple of socialists who really went off when I posted my socialism is evil rant. I believe I compromised on socialist states are facilitators of evil. This is one of the real problems I have with Chavez btw, he advocates spreading socialism around the region, and some random latin american coutry is going to end up with an evil dictator if this comes to pass. Oddly, threads being what they are, the Chavez thread, I ended up defending him because everyone else was from the angle "let's invade venezuela right away." I don't think it's THAT bad.
Quote:
The first has to do with the nature of people. In your view, people work best for reward, and since "government handouts" are disconnected from effort, they foster dependency and laziness.
The second has to do with the the necessity of competition. Since government represents a monopoly, it is inevitably less efficient and more costly.
The third point is that competition drives progress. Without competition, newer/ better products never get implemented or distributed.
Essentially yes. I'm not sure specifically that handouts foster laziness, I think laziness is already there, but they fail to foster any sort of work ethic. In the ultimate equality society, the majority of the population will not work if the reward for not working is the same as the reward for working. People value their free time as they should. If I built on that, I might say if a decent free market society were in operation, there would always be some people left out in the cold, and anyone who can should be enrolled in some sort of education program until they can be useful. I recognize there may be people who need handouts in order to survive, but this is not the best incentive mechanism for society, and so it's impact needs to be minimized however possible without leaving people out in the cold.
One more note. I think this applies to a general labor situation. There is an exception which is if someone have a decent plan to start a new business, there should be a good program in place to support that. I've known many businesses to fail and been in a couple myself, where the reason for failure was less a flaw in the viability of the idea, and more simply running out of money before the idea came to market. This is where grants would come in. But any such process would require some review of the idea. I think this is one reason for govt. But it could be some sort of "angel" corporation.
Logically following this thought:
Take two people have two ideas with what to do with this money, in case you were thinking "what's the difference between a handout and a grant?"
1. Bob has an idea to snort coke up his nose.
2. Sam has an idea to make solar powered semiconductors.
If Angel Inc. reviews the situation, it will see possible potential profit coming from investing in Sam, and none from investing in Bob. Sure, Sam may fail anyway, but that's the risk Angel Inc. takes every time it signs someone on.
In a way I kind of like this better than just govt. grant, since Angel Inc. would have competitors. But that's the basic idea.
True, Angel might decide to invest in Guido's Organized Crime LTD, and make a profit. This I think though would really drift outside of the question of commerce without govt. and into the question of law enforcement without govt.
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Let me jump in here, starting with the trivial and parenthetical, going on to the general, and then the specific:
Parenthetically - "tomato patch'? It's an image I'm not familiar with that I think is meant to imply a stereotype ... which is ... ?
Generally - I've found that people adopt worldviews that reflect an image they want to have of themselves.
As a personal example I could see myself as a self-made success. Got my degrees by sweat and sacrifice, advancing in a meritocracy ... It would be natural for me to subscribe to the vision of society as a ruthless competition that I 'won' by work and talent. And I think most people with a similar history end up with that composite view of self-in-society.
Fortunately, I feel, I get reminded from time to time of the advantages I had that others were denied. ie Coming from a family that had better than average education, having good nutrition and adequate care, having a good basic (public) education, being English-speaking and white, and having a scholarship that paid tuition. Also, having friends who drove me to jobs and gave me a place to stay when I had none. I heard these impersonal factors addressed humourously one day - a co-worker was going for a higher position and asked another what qualifications did he have that were special. The other person answered - "you're male, white, and tall".
I will guess - and I freely admit I could be wrong - that you have a substantial 'bootstrap' self-image. In support of this you view society as a competition which is won by personal effort.
Obviously I disagree.
This is not to say that personal efforts don't count - they sometimes do and then again they sometimes fail. But without exception, some get rewarded far more than others for the same amount of work. This society is not a reliable meritocracy, there are other social factors driving the results.
Another general idea most people keep in the back of their heads is that society is like evolution. Even people who deny evolution per-se assume social Darwinism is the basic social machine. By that is meant ruthless individual competition for survival.
It would take far too long for me to explore all the ways this is wrong, but I will try to briefly generalize some basic points:
1) there is individual survival. Within a group (or species), where competition sometimes occurs for the exact same resources, you will occasionally get individual competition (often on the basis of some token trait like size, song, or color.) Usually it's not lethal b/c of the reason below.
2) group (or species) survival. Deadly individual competition is not advantageous to long-term group survival. It reduces numbers and population variablity. For long-term survival, different equations take hold with a different optimum solution. And it is long-term mass survivability that drives outcomes.
3) there are many paths to survival. Each species gives up (invests) something to ensure the next generation. Bacteria give up lifespan, complexity and genetic stability to generate many and varied progeny. Squid give up body mass - and their lives - to generate many eggs, and therefore ensure survival of enough offspring. Humans invest massive social resources into their offspring, which are few. In fact, the demands of raising children are such that there are very few societies made of individual families surviving in isolation.
The point is to address the notion that capitalism is a natural extention of Darwinism. It simply isn't. It is frankly, a perverse notion of the real mechnisms of survival.
And there is the general notion that human advancement is made through competition. Not only is that not supported long-term (did competition drive the discovery of langauge, fire, writing?), it fails to account for the fact that most societies survive through group effort (cooperation) and investment.
So to specifically respond to your post, I see far too many black/white false dilemnas. As examples - either society is competitive or it is a hand
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Quote:
tomato patch
Oh, I farm tomatoes. I was stereotyping myself. I don't really think before I post. I believe I started out here by saying I'm kind of abrasive and Jayne is my favorite character so I have issues ;)
Quote:
Generally - I've found that people adopt worldviews that reflect an image they want to have of themselves.
I basically agree. I guess I was figuring these to be part of the non-thinking 40%. There are also 'economic ME voters' who fall into this. These would be people who are republicans because they want a tax break, or people who are democrats because they want a social benefit program of some sort. These people are also not politically thinking, they are just voting from pragmatic self interest.
I think I kind of have already said it's not a bootstrap image. I support an equal opportunity, that's very different from equality.
I am, for instance, appalled that in my home state of New York, on a per student/per year basis, predominantly white public schools get twice the funding that predominantly black schools get. This is a disgrace. Furthermore, I am also appalled that public schools as a whole get ten times the state funding that private schools do. Paying for education is about the only major the govt. does here, and this is what makes private education a benefit of the extremely rich. It's not right. Private education options are often superior, as my free market philosophy would predict, particularly in specialty areas.
In the city, thing are better, particularly Bloomberg has instituted some new reforms which may help straighten some of that out, but I'm specifically talking about the state here. Our black population is very poor upstate, and the education funding may be worse locally than the 2:1 statewide figures I just quoted.
I don't think you're application of darwin is on target here.
It IS darwinian, but not in a kill or be killed way. Businesses which can function effectively survive, those which cannot don't, thus evolution ensues. This is the way in which it is darwinian. Individual humans are obviously all going to survive. Social and economic evolution have parallels in biological evolution, that is very different from saying that they ARE biological evolution.
Let me take an example.
In the case of state education, all schools will survive because they have budgets, and the citizens have essentially no choice over their choice of school. If you want to sent you children out of the school district here in new york, you'll end up paying a couple thousand per child per year in mandatory tuition fees, plus you will have to provide your own daily transportation for each child, and distances are quite far. The poor can't afford either. So the schools stay in existance more or less regardless of performance, provided they meet some abominably low statewide standard.
In a pseudo-free market situation, like the one which was proposed back in the late 80s, multiple schools would compete openly for students. Those that provided the highest quality of education and the lowest level of drugged out criminal dropouts would get the most positive attention, and would get the most students. Since the school would be paid equally for each student it took, it would not be a matter of catering to the rich, but every school would gain financial advantage for every student. Schools that could not demonstrate that they were a good educational environment would be pushed out by the more successful educators, and thus the quality of education would evolve.
Special schools would clearly evolve as well, as a niche evolution, to handle those students that other classes didn't want because they were discipline problems, developmentally delayed, mentally unstable or whatever. These schools would evolve because these students too would be worth money. Even in this evolutionary niche, evolution would take place. Parents would preferentially send their problem children to the schools with a proven track record of turning such children into productive m
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Seems that there is some blurring between Occam's Razor and Darwinism. The universe is not "evolving" in a Darwinian sense (selection of the fittest).
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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I'm told by friends that speak Hindi that English isn't a great language and that it lacks subtlety. It won out not because it was perfect or because people voted on which was nicer. It won as latin did because it was the first language of a global empire.
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Dreamtrove,
I come from near Buffalo. I don't know if you're willing to say, but OOC, where abouts are you?
In the very general sense, we agree on the concept 'it either works or it doesn't'. Destructive wave forms cancel each other out, constructive ones add. Universal constants either lead to stable phenomena and existance, or they don't. Certain biological variations are advantageous, or they are not. Projecting that forward to a philosophy of society, however, is where we part.
The first difference I see is calling the process 'competition'. Competition implies striving against another for dominance. Other more general, neutral terms work better to describe the process.
The second is the emphasis on internal characteristics of specific entities, either individuals or groups, rather than the varied processes that can be employed individually or in combination. A biological example - it's not always the better hunter that survives, it may be the one that hunts but is also the more cosmopolitan feeder, or the more prolific breeder, or with the more efficient metabolism.
The third is the value judgement that anything that has any kind of survival advantage is necessarily better (in human society). There are new studies which elucidate human responses and show how they are adaptive to humans living in cooperative groups - an essential evolutionary condition for human survival. A sense of fairness is one, rewarding neurochemicals for cooperation is another, profound hormonal drives for caregiving (oxytocin) is a third. There are others.
By your logic, a monopoly, which works well enough to amass complete control over a market, is a great thing simply b/c it works well enough to continue near indefinitely. By the measure of human values, though, it is not nearly so good.
Anyway, I really, really have to go for now.
Later, then.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Sygnim,
Actually it is. This is a very long and involved discussion though. But I did mean this litterally. It's not strict kill or be killed evolution, but signals which reproduce effectively do dominate the subatomic world, and so one up the line, it forms a sort of scalar evolution. But evolution, as a branch of statistical mathematics is a major force in the underpinnings of our universe. I guess the point here is that the idea is far broader than just its application to biology.
English could have been abandoned by people but wasn't. Latin was not accepted with the same level of adherance. I think that the large number of words, the speed of learning for children and the large amount of material composed in english are certainly contributing factors towards its success, but it is certainly, in whatever fashion, in competition with other languages. Words too, may individually fight for their place in a language by some means of evolution. But this wasn't my main point. My main point was society with a decent language has a superior form of communication, making it more efficient, and increasing that societies chances of defeating its competition. Thus a general expected rule would be that better communication languages would foster greater empires, but there are other societal factors which may be simultaneously having an impact on a societies survival.
But it was simply a study of the effectiveness of the language as a brute competing force, not a measure of quality. The Franch would also undoubtedly argue for the particular merits of their language. I of course am a fan of competition, so the more the merrier, by all means. Just trying to say, yes, in many ways, language is involved in evolution.
Rue,
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In the very general sense, we agree on the concept 'it either works or it doesn't'. Destructive wave forms cancel each other out, constructive ones add. Universal constants either lead to stable phenomena and existance, or they don't. Certain biological variations are advantageous, or they are not.
I'm from the middle of nowhere north of binghamton. I'm 6 hours from Buffalo. We get almost as much snow as you do, I think we're second highest in the state, but you do have us beat :)
Anyway, this stuff about waveforms etc. is what I was eluding to. It's very long and involved and I could carry it through, and I'm sure you could too, but that would become the whole conversation for a very long time.
About social phenomenon, here's my short scenario.
2 peoples live in a forest. They never see the sun, and their eyes have evolved to be very sensitive to light. Suddenly, a plague strikes, destroying the complete cover trees, and the niche is quickly replaced by a less covering foliage. The increase of light is blinding to both peoples. People A evolve a resistance by an alteration of the genetic structure of the eye. People B invent sunglasses. Who survives? The answer is most certainly people B. People A requires 20 generations to make the physical alteration, whereas people B completes its modification in a matter of weeks.
This sort of thing echoes all through history. Many things may effect social evolution. By no means is it simple kill or be killed. The society of perpetual AIDS may turn out to reproduce at such a young age that it reproduces faster and then replaces the other societies even if it has a maximum life span of 15. There can be many many possibilities. The same applies to organizations which compete on a level of their own. IBM competes with SUN whether either company has workers or not. Robocorp may someday rule the world without even a human CEO.
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The third is the value judgement that anything that has any kind of survival advantage is necessarily better (in human society).
This isn't what I meant. I make no value judgement. More likely to survive and reproduce effectively is just that. In many ways it may not be superior. The only value judgement I make is that I am sure, over the long haul course of time, an evolutionary mechanism
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The problem with this world view is that it's too simplistic.
First, you assume that the "advanced" feature of society A is what makes it triumph over society B. That isn't always the case. For example, democracy is a better system than Nazism, but the things that won world war two was the untouchable production capacity of the US, targeting of German production by allied airforces and the almost unlimited man power of the Soviet Union.
Had Germany had the manufacturing resources of the US it would have been a close thing. You could argue that western democratic principles built the US industrial base, but the US's raw material and land advantages are purely geographic and independent of its form of government.
Superior doesnt give you an advantage UNLESS you compete directly with your opponent. A badly organised tyranny can crush a well organised democracy if luck just isnt on the democracy's side. Athens fell to Sparta because Spartans had a better army and Athens had a plague. Any advantage that Athenian democracy may have had in organization, manpower and resources were destroyed by sickness. The world didnt see another democracy like it for over 1000 years. From a long view monarchys and tyranny's are the most successfull political systems in terms of longevity. If you are saying that what works should win out America should be a dictatorship.
My other problem is that it means there is no benefit to virtue within a society. In fact the baser a society gets the more opertunities for profit there are. Why would anyone outlaw slavery? From a purely financial POV it's a fantastic system that reaps untold commercial benefits and has been in use thousands of years. Why become less competative by not employing it?
Why clamp down on drugs, prostitution or porn? These are products for which there is a ready market which people are willing to supply. What's the difference between them and tabacco or alcohol? What right do you have to stop someone making a business selling crack on your street corner?
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I posted on another thread a long thing about how this cooperative governance led the nazis and commies to kill hunrded million plus people, that wouldn't have been possible if the same a**holes had been in our competitive individualistic society.
I'm not one for political debates and such, but there are many studies that show that what happened in Nazi germany can happen ANYWHERE to ANYONE!
There was a school, which had a book written about them, but I can't remember the name, where the history teacher decided to start a little project where he had all the kids join a group and they were to shun anyone that did not join this group. It quickly ecalated and got out of hand as children were beatn up and ridiculed for not joining the group. What started as a small history lesson in class turned into frightening cliche, and then soon after into a regime of cruel children. Deciding it was enough, the teacher decided to call an assembly, and said 'It's time to meet the leader of our group.' He then put a picture of Hitler up on the big screen on stage. All the kids were shocked and when asked why they did what they did, almost all said "It's what everyone else was doing."
There was also a study done on US soldiers, where one would be brought into a room and told by an official to shock this man in another room whenever the lie detector said he'd told a lie, and to increase the voltage gradually. This man being shocked was an actor and eventually the voltage was high enough that it would have seriously hurt or killed the man. The soldier kept on shicking the man, even after the acting man started to plead for it to stop, and after that, even after the man was laying unconcious on the floor. If the man didn't answer the question the soldier was told to shock him anyways.
This study did show however that when the official left the room the soldier would quit shocking the man, but as soon as he came back he'd start again. This test hasn't been done since around the 80s if I recall correctly, since it often traumatized the patients.
I would not blame only 'cooperative socialness' for the kind of behavior that led to the Nazis. I beleive it has more to do with peer pressure and authority than anything else.
Outside of that snipet I will run from this thread forever, as I figure everyone ends up wanting something different in a government anyways, and once they get it, all they do is complain about how it's all wrong.
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::waves:: HI!!!
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Quote:
The problem with this world view is that it's too simplistic.
First, you assume that the "advanced" feature of society A is what makes it triumph over society B. That isn't always the case. For example, democracy is a better system than Nazism, but the things that won world war two was the untouchable production capacity of the US, targeting of German production by allied airforces and the almost unlimited man power of the Soviet Union.
Had Germany had the manufacturing resources of the US it would have been a close thing. You could argue that western democratic principles built the US industrial base, but the US's raw material and land advantages are purely geographic and independent of its form of governmen
I think you're still missing my point. It's the evolutionary value of the society, not the goodness of it.
Germany was very advanced, technologically speaking. What caused it to fail was not the inferiority of Germany, it was the inferiority of Naziism. It was the Nazi world view that put them at war with Russia and the United States and virtually everyone else. Clearly a society that the very nature of leads you to attack everyone is not an evolutionary winner because you might lose any one of those wars. Another similar example is Saddam Hussein, a govt. that continually attacked it's neighbors. And this is not a random characteristic of the Nazis, it's essential. Anything that is appallingly oppressive of its own people needs to be at war with an enemy in order to survive to prevent its own people from turning on it.
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Athens fell to Sparta
I think this is an oversimplification. Athens was not a well ordered democracy. It was a corrupt tyrannical democracy that was roundly hated. It funded its efforts by looting the delphic defense fund and overtaxing its allies. Sparta by contrast was a well ordered socialist state. Spartas allies were more or less willing partners rather than imperial possessions. These were very stong factors in Athen's defeat.
But in a longer view, a society must evolutinarily be able to survive and reproduce. To survive it must not collapse under its own weight, as both sparta and the soviet union did, and to reproduce it must spawn other successful states that follow the same model. There were many more Athens copies than sparta copies, and they succeeded better because of those democracies, the ones which were not corrupt, oppressive and roundly hated, tended to do better following the democratic model than their socialist spartan counterparts, all other things being equal.
And yes, there is no benefit to virtue within a society, unless that virtue is connected to human nature in some way. If the people are randomly killed by their own govt. the society will not survive because it will not have the support of its people. If the Nazis had not been genocidally anti-semitic, they would have had the atomic bomb. Whether they would have had it before being defeated is hard to say. If they had still been agressive in invading their enemies, then no, they probably wouldn't have had it in time.
But ultimately, a lot of virtue is subjective. Virtue to you and me is not the same as Virtue to the Soviets or to Osama Bin Laden.
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What right do you have to stop someone making a business selling crack on your street corner?
This issue really isn't one of virtue, it's one of survival. Crackhead society does not compete effectively with Korea. I think that it's our main problem personally. At the risk of offending everyone, I would humbly suggest that actually the main reason, though there are many, for the United States failure in competition with Korea, is marijuana abuse in this country. And BTW if anyone doesn't recognize our failure to compete with Korea as a fact they're deluding themselves, plus bear in mind that this is a country of 48M people, about the size of Indiana.
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Superduck,
I really disagree. I read these studies too in college and a great many more. But they don't prove your point. All they prove was that there was nothing particular to the German people, racially, genetically or culturally, that cause Naziism.
I never implied there was. There was something about the German governmental structure that failed to prevent Naziism. The US is really structure with far more checks and balances. It's set up in more of a competitive and less of a cooperative manner. True, Hitler made some changes to that system to make it MORE cooperative, but then Bush has attempted to make those same changes here, with less success.
The Bush administration has manipulated elections, gerrymandered districts to create an artificial republican majority. I'd like to believe that this happened naturally, but I know that we on the right don't really have this kind of dominance in the country, or we would always be in the majoirty. In reality, Bush cheated.
As a result, he's created a Republican shut-out govt. Democratic say is more or less reduced to zero. But such is the nature of our govt. that Bush is opposed at every turn by his own party, and they, because of failsafes such as separation of powers, can oppose him and win, something that dissenting Nazis could not do in Germany.
Now I'm not saying Bush is Hitler, that's nonsense. He doesn't have genocidal designs on his own people, or anyone else for that matter, but Bush is the worst president we've had since Clinton ;) I guess my point is, Bush has the will, not to be a Nazi, but to be a much worse president than he is, but checks and balances stop him, or at least slow him, and will ultimately take him down.
Finally, I think you're missing something about peer pressure. Peer pressure is a FACT of cooperative societies. Peer pressure rules our jury system for example, and many other non-competitive designs, peer pressure is not a fact of competition. Giving in to peer pressure is cooperation in action.
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I wish I had more time to this thread. I just wanted to toss in an observation: I alos used to believe in the perfectibility of society by competition between societies- until I read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. In essence, he points out a number of societies that manage to compete themselves into non-existance by ignoring fundamental environmental and technological problems. I no longer believe that competition automatically evolves the "fittest" societies, and I no longer believe in the ability of the collective to "eventually" learn from experience. Ideology has in the past trumped reality- until reality trumps the entire society. The many cases of societies running headlong into extinction was distressing.
In fact, the most durable societies are those the cooperate internally AND pay attention to reality.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Quote:
I wish I had more time to this thread. I just wanted to toss in an observation: I alos used to believe in the perfectibility of society by competition between societies- until I read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. In essence, he points out a number of societies that manage to compete themselves into non-existance by ignoring fundamental environmental and technological problems. I no longer believe that competition automatically evolves the "fittest" societies, and I no longer believe in the ability of the collective to "eventually" learn from experience. Ideology has in the past trumped reality- until reality trumps the entire society. The many cases of societies running headlong into extinction was distressing.
In fact, the most durable societies are those the cooperate internally AND pay attention to reality.Quote:
I haven't read the book, but I do have some ranting response.
1. Sure, societies without environmental conscience exinct themselve repeatedly, it's part of evolution, but it's damaging to the planet. I think we as a planet can agree that certain things are proven failures and prevent them from resurfacing. It's like if there was an eat-everything bug, and all the other bugs realized that the eat-everything bug was going to destroy the food source and then extinct everyone including itself, and so they ganged up on the eat-everything bug. But past that,
2. This "success of cooperative societies" is not the case. Cooperative societies collapse all the time. The most extensive cooperative societies, such as the Soviet Union tend to be disasters in the long run. A russian woman I knew who worked in a govt. research lab in the Soviet Union. She said that everyone some time ago had agreed on the right way to do things, and then they cooperated towards that effort, until she got very advanced in the field, which was information theory, she thought they were right. As some point she realized that they were all, cooperatively, doing it wrong. But the organization was large, and had a vested interest in the wrong way, and so became unshakeable on the point. It was much easier to simply end the conflict by pushing her out, than by changing the way of doing it. Since there was no competition, there was only one way to do it. Sometimes there is more than one way to do something, and you don't know what is best. This is why compeition is essential to survival. So, she quit, and as such, the lab lost it's most educated member, and she went to work for the only competitor that she knew, which was of course, us. Now she works for the US Navy.
From the point of view of the Soviet society, this is a clear evolutionary failing, because if there is no competition within your society, there is always competition outside of it.NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
You can't have it both ways. Athens can't be a tyranical democracy one minute and an admired and copied democracy the next. Sparta cannot be a well run socialist state and a system that collapsed under it's own weight.
Sparta was not socialist, now I know that you use that term in place of tyranny for any system you personally disagree with but I can't see how a militaristic elite supported by a enslaved underclass not of it's own racial group has any similarity to "socialism" other than you dislike it.
Sparta was good on the battlefield, but it had big problems at home. Athens too had big problems many of it's own making. It could be argued that the nature of Athenian democracy was a weakness in itself. That is subjective, which is why I didn't argue it. Instead I made one point, that any advantage a society has can be outweighed by factors outside it's direct control and so success or failure becomes hard to judge.
On the topic of crackheads not competing with Korea. The role of society isn't to compete with Korea it's to create an environment for the safe raising of children. THAT is the reason that we choose to outlaw some commercial activities and allow others. The ones we outlaw are the ones that society decides weaken our ability to create stability long enough to raise offspring. I would argue that if you get so good at competing that you don't raise your children, then you lose, irrespective of success in any other area.
We talked at length in the other thread about your fetishistic love of your mythical "1955 world." That world could exist because the economics that supported it existed at that time. America had come out of a war with excess industrial capacity recently converted from war use. There had been 5 years where people hadn't been able to replace customer items. GI's came home and started new families at about the same time. Pretty much every other industrial nation, including most of the US's international competitors were in ruins.
I would argue that that world doesnt exist today because those conditions no longer apply. It isn't because Americans got lazy, output per worker is higher now than in 1955 the size of the economy is much bigger as is the population. The conditions that made that world possible simply don't exist and will probably never exist again. So if that's what you want, tough, you lost it. That world didnt exist to "compete with Korea" and to compete with Korea you have to make the changes that destroy that world. So is that competition worth it?
You could of course move to Switzerland, or Sweden where a lot of the things you like about America in the '50's do exist but only because they put society over the needs to compete at any cost.
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Fletch, I'm not a moron.
Yes, Athens had flaws, I didn't say "Athens" was copied. "Democracy" was copied. This happens in biological evolution all the time. A say a type squirrel let's say a yellow squirrel, has some advantage, like better grabing claws. Initially, sure, those genes will perpetuate, and with them yellowness. But yellowness has no advantage, and gets lost in the shuffle, red and grey squirrel get less and less yellow squirrel blood over time, but keep the grabby claws. This is not a theory, it's a well established fact. This is in fact how evolution works, biologically.
So there's no reason to assume the same isn't true socially. Athens gets copied, and every time it is, it's copied less and less. Sure, marble columns come, but they aren't as important to America as they were. They don't get copied because they're "admired." Why is everyone being so subjective????? There is nothing subjective about evolution. Everything gets copied. Sparta was copied, Rome was copied Jerusalem was copied, everything that left a mark on history will have someone admire it and copy it. The point is that copies of democracy survive better than copies of Sparta.
Next,
No,
You say "dreamtrove really is doing this" after I consistantly prove that no I'm not some shallow flake, I really do understand this stuff. I certainly don't apply the label "Socialist" to everything I hate. I certainly don't give it to Bin Laden. I don't give it to the christian right, I give it to PNAC because the majority of its members were former socialists, and they haven't altered their philosophy from what it was when they were socialists. Nazis had socialist in the name and so did Soviets, as did Yugoslavia and Saddam Hussein's Baathist govt. This doesn't come out of nowhere.
Sparta as a socialist model appears in a lot of socialist texts which I used to read when I was a student, and a socialist. I also remember many intellectual discussions about this with my fellow intellectual socialists, back before I was completely disillusioned with the idea. We would discuss it as the flaws of Athens, and how the US had made a mistake following in Athens footsteps, and how Aristotle was right, and how the Soviets were right, and BTW, Sparta is mentioned in the Soviet consitution as the model for their society.
Now sure, in all fairness, Sparta wasn't socialist, because socialism wasn't invented yet. It would be much more fair to say "Socialism is Spartan" which in many ways it is, and it is so intentionally. Sure, there were flaws in Sparta, which aren't in some socialist states. There were some flaws in Athens that aren't in some democratic states. This is because this is how evolution works. All of the characteristics of Sparta did not lead it to victory, some of its characteristics were incedental or even detrimental. But Sparta, idealized, distilled, was the model for the modern socialist state to the same level that Athens, idealized, distilled, was the model for western democracies.
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The role of society isn't to compete with Korea it's to create an environment for the safe raising of children.
Okay, I can see we're never going to be completely on a the same page here. I so disagree with this statement. Safe society never evolves anywhere. If all a society achieves is human survival, IMHO, it has no reason to exist. The world's greatest problem is not that it needs more humans.
Raising children successfully to compete with Korean children is an essential part of competition, you cannot compete without it, so I think your argument is a pure fallacy here.
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We talked at length in the other thread about your fetishistic love of your mythical "1955 world." That world could exist because the economics that supported it existed at that time. America had come out of a war with excess industrial capacity recently converted from war use. There had been 5 years where people hadn't been able to replace customer items. GI's came home and started new families at about the same time. Pretty much every other iNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I disagree. People don't raise children as well because both partners choose to work. They do that either for economic advantage (so they can afford that flat screen TV) or out of nescessity. Other nations like Sweden compensate families economically to help raise children, the result is that
1) the kinds of social decay you are talking about doesn't happen
2) the economy is not as productive as that of the US.
They have chosen not to compete in raw economic terms but they outproduce you in terms of social stability and the quality of education. I would argue that you can't compete with China and maintain a society that holds the values you demand. You blame things on the media, but that's a business making a buck, capitalism is a force of progressive change but it moves things forwards indisciminantly without thought for any consequence but the next stock holders report.
Gangsta Rap sells so they sell it, Britney sells so they sell it. If Gregorian chants were big they would sell that. They have no interest in assessing the merit or adverse effects of what they sell --- why should they as long as the product itself is legal?
Now you could chose to interfere in the market and ban things you dislike (assuming for the moment that the constitution permits) but that would just mark you as a hypocrite, "free markets are ok as long as it benefits me" is a protectionist with looking for excuses. You want 1985 back --- take the economic hit that would intail, disolve the WTO cut back on the growth of the global economy, move back to protectionism to favor American business, and live in the Reaganesque themepark you would build for yourself.
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I disagree. People don't raise children as well because both partners choose to work. They do that either for economic advantage (so they can afford that flat screen TV) or out of nescessity. Other nations like Sweden compensate families economically to help raise children, the result is that
1) the kinds of social decay you are talking about doesn't happen
2) the economy is not as productive as that of the US.
I disagree. I used to think this was the case but I have several problems with it:
1. Houses where both parents work do not seem to have "problem" children at a higher rate.
2. Sweden is not particularly less competitive than other European countries of a similar makeup.
I don't think this is principally an issue of home economics, though it is somewhat a factor. I think it is principally one of education, and crime. Drug dealers run rampant in the US selling to minors, and drug culture convinces them that drugs are a worthwhile investment because it provides two things which conventional society is not providing them with: Money and Sex.
Many young people have said the following things to me, I must've heard each of these many times:
1. I can make some extra cash this way, it's good money.
2. I do it so I can get laid. When all the girls are high, when you're high, it's easy.
3. It's harmless. There's nothing wrong with drugs. This is an enlightening experience, man.
Problem One is clear. No available employment plus a harsh market that makes both demand and prices remain high.
Problem Two is a result of not having a normal social outlet for young people. Dances have been replaced by drug parties and dating with drinking.
Problem Three is a simple one of education. Our failure to provide the fundemental background to understand how drugs work and what they are doing to the body has left kids incapable of understanding the complexities involved, and has led them to get their information from the dealers themselves, who have a vested interest in lying.
I'm going to back up a sec and say wow do I 180 degrees disagree with you here on the basic premise.
1. The US is not MORE competitive now that it has an altered mega-decay society, it's definitely LESS.
2. The US is not moving TOWARDS free market, it has been moving AWAY from it for some time, TOWARD state socialism through govt. sponsored company monopolies.
Gregorian Chants were never made to appeal in that manner, so it's not relevant.
Gangsta Rap sells because it is on all the video channels all the time combined with sexual images. This is subliminal advertising controlled completely by the company which owns the music. Viacom has complete control over the entire video music industry which drives the record sales. If 50s rock and roll appeared with sexual images, and Rap was sung by old guys in ties, teens would buy 50s rock and roll.
Which is not to say rap is social decay, clearly it's just a different kind of music. Sometimes it does carry a message of social decay with it. Not always though.
Britney also sells because they sell it. It's not a free market in the least! Britney didn't become popular by competition! This is nothing at all like it worked even 7 or 8 years ago. This total market dominance is relatively new. Matchbox 20 and Nirvana succeed by competition, as had guns and roses, john cougar melloncamp and black sabbath before them. Sure, there have always been "canned" creations like britney, but now there is nothing else. Viacom is a total media monopoly.
I never said I wanted to interfere in the free market. I'm saying bring the completely dead and burried free market (as far as music is concerned) that once existed back to life.
Rap can continue to exist, but if it weren't a totally control sexually stimulated subliminally advertised product with no competition, it would not dominate as it does. There was, after all, rap in 1985. Kids listed to it, white kids listened to it, I listened to it. It was actually in many ways better than the viacom product now called rap.
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Sex sells. I had a friend who back in the mid 1980's collected "Hair metal" videos that depicted leather clad rocker girls gyrating to the music. I don't go out of my way to watch Rap videos but what few I've seen look no worse than that.
Is the Britney and Christina thing any different to the Madonna and Cindy Lauper "wannabee" rivalry of 1984? Miami Vice can equally be said to give the message that drug running got you money/clothes/girls. Of course this all happened in Reagan's America so perhaps you chose to ignore it?
If I went into a political chat space and suggested that America had gone downhill since 1995 I'd be savaged by Republican attack dogs for the meer suggestion that things have gotten worse since Republicans controlled Congress.
Media companies make money selling media, media by it's nature tends to push boundaries. People complained that Warner Bros. were condoning and glorifying mobsters in the 1930's, now films like the Petrified Forest and Public Enemy are seen as classics and Bogart and Cagney are Icons.
Your friend that takes crack has a character flaw, he would have that flaw no matter what. It could be his upbringing is suspect, or his biology or he may just be simple minded. I'll let his defence lawyer pick the excuse he wants to use. The government didnt give him a welfare check to buy drugs, they didn't encourage him to buy drugs, they did not hook him on drugs, they didn't provide him with drugs. If the money was stopped tomorrow, he wouldn't say "wow, I'm no longer on welfare, best kick crack and get a job" he'd be hitting on you for a loan or stealing your stereo.
Viacom did not make him an addict, nobody forced him to watch or listen to any rubbish they may put out, they at no point told him to "just say yes."
The guys that peddle drugs dont do it because they are making a social statement or aim to re-engineer society they do it for easy money. It is in that sense a perfect example of unrestricted capitalism, there is a need, there is a supplier. Supplier fills need and makes instant large profit. Supplier does not consider long term negative effects on client or society. This isn't even capitalism's fault since exactly the same thing happens with a lot of products legal or illegal. Capitalism is a force of nature, not for good or for bad it just keeps going matching supply and demand and generating wealth.
Oh and I lived in Sweden. I paid over 50% income tax, but it is very nice to live there. Of course I dont think you are suggesting doing the same in the US.
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Fletch,
No, not claiming they were worse. Sex is the advertising mechanism by which otherwise not particularly sexy or even very good gansta rap is sold. And I'm trying to be objective here, as in not very good for gangsta rap, like DMX or Ice Cube is good, and Nate Dogg or R Kelly just isn't very good. So okay, there is some subjectivity here, but truth is, there is no differential on quality with MTV et al because they OWN the entire spectrum of the content they play, and sell it all.
But what's happened here is that there is control by the corporate monopoly of the music makers and of the channels. The product is created by the station which is playing it to you and it is sexing it up to sell it to you, creating that subliminal subconscious need for music that really isn't very good. Mildly entertaining, sure, but if you check out kids who have no MTV, they just don't listen to that same sort of Viacom music. In fact, almost exclusively, the kids i know that have grown up in non-TV households think current music is junk and are heavy into 70s punk, classic rock, maybe some motown. All of which makes my point for me.
I think that the music scene is indicative. I watch some of the DLs that get posted on the blogs full of political punditry, a lot of new and interesting viewpoints, but again, as you gravitate towards the mainstream media, the viewpoints start to sound like press releases from the party heads. Either written by Dick Cheney (Bush can't read or write) or by Howard Dean (who just doesn't understand that the white house playing hide the salami was HIS party's admin :) )
But seriously, independent media is needed, but it's also coming. Internet revolution majorly still is ahead I'm sure.
Quote:
If the money was stopped tomorrow, he wouldn't say "wow, I'm no longer on welfare, best kick crack and get a job" he'd be hitting on you for a loan or stealing your stereo.
This is so true. Actually, to be honest it's heroin, but I've known quite a few addicts of different sorts, including some actual crackheads who bought crack on public assistance.
Seriously though, this means the public money isn't helping him, and it's making my more business for the drug dealer. If the money runs out, he simply doesn't buy. I think he's stolen in the past, but it's much harder to do here than in the city. Everyone you know in a place like this, you're always going to know them, and there is no one that you don't know. There's really no one to steal from or to sell to if you did. I think that's really more of a city problem.
I don't really want to argue about this, I am confident I understand it very well, and just wanted to state my position, that it might add a different perspective, as I appreciate your perspective.
I think overall Europe has some problems paying for the bills of what it's set up. That's why taxes are getting out of control. I think it's a major problem here too, and we need to roll back income tax if not abolish it. I don't really care about the rich, one way or the other. I don't believe a trickle down effect exists, and I don't think that you make more money by taxing the rich. I think they cut loopholes, and if you force them to pay, they'll just leave, and become citizens of the Cayman Islands. I don't really think it matters whether they're citizens here or not. But in the working world the tax burden is killing us, and it's killing our ability to compete internationally. It's long and involved, so I won't go into the hows and whys unless your interested. Myself, I rarely make enough money to actually owe taxes.
The main thing we have to do is reduce spending, and the main area we have to reduce it is in our military particularly overseas. It would be nice to kill some of that corporate welfare as well. It'll take a lot of work to turn this country into a competitive society again.
I'm curious about sweden. I've always heard it held up as a well running society, but I've never been. What do they do right? possibly wrong? or what might you keep? what might you c
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My situation was a little odd in that I spent a little more than six months in Stockholm every year (just enough to pay Swedish income tax in fact) but spent the rest of the time in the US and Asia. I can tell you what it was like for me at the company I worked for and what I was told by people while I was there, though it might not be universal elsewhere.
It's clean, efficiently run, has good public transport and services. Swedes tend to work very hard, long hours are common and though not always expected they do tend to be appreciated. People tend to work flexible hours around a business "core hours" which is when most meetings are scheduled and you are expected to be there.
This "core" ends relatively early -- around 3PM so that some people can leave to collect their kids from school. Usually both parents work so this is kind of essential. We were a young team so most of us didnt have kids but for example our manager would leave at 3PM get the kids, do the evening meal etc then come back to the office in the late evening to complete her work day.
Maternity and paternity leave are quite long, maternaty leave is I believe almost a year, paid paternity leave was 3 months. You don't need to spend this all at one time, so it's common for fathers to bank a little time and take that off later when their wives are starting back at work.
My company was obligated to offer a certain number of hours every year in professional skills development -- usually 2-3 weeks of paid technical courses. If a new manager is needed for an existing team a shortlist is prepared and the team interviews the applicants --- the first time I've ever given my boss a job interview!
Sweden offers free classes in Swedish to all new immigrants and tends to have a generous policy in accepting refugees. I don't know how hard they try and find these newcomers work. The few I knew outside of work were arabs and Kurds who had their own shops and businesses.
Public protest is allowed but only after approval with the police. The center of Stockholm in front of the Culture House has an area for peacefull demonstration, complete with a raised "pulpit" area for the speaker. While I was there a lot of Palestinians were protesting Israel.
Generally public officials don't seem to have lives much more different from ordinary folks. Olaf Palme then Swedish prime minister was murdered while walking in the street without security, Anna Lindh a foreign minister was stabbed in a department store. You can walk through the parliment complex as a shortcut to get to Gamla Stan -- Stockholm's old town.
Taxation is used to back up social policy. For example, winter nights are long and very dark. Back way back Swedes had a reputation of being hard drinkers to deal with what we now know to be seasonal depression. To curb this taxes on alcohol are high, both in bars and elsewhere. You can only buy strong liquor in state run shops which have very restrictive openning hours and high prices. All of this doesnt stop binge drinking, but the drunks you do find late night on the Tunnelbana tend to be well dressed -- it's hard to be a poor drunk. It's also hard to be a pan handler, there are still some beggers but they usually dont get much. Swedes pay high taxes for social programs so they feel justified in believing that they have given already.
One bizarre tax is one on living space. You are taxed on the size of your dwelling, so the more floor space you have the more you pay. This is independent of the quality or value of the building, so the run down loft will cost as much as the nice mansion down the street if they have the same floor space. Some areas -- kitchens, bathrooms, corridors and service space are not included. I had an appartment with a tiled hallway the same size as my bedroom. Why? because the hall is exempt from tax, the person I rented it from had put a desk in there and used it as a tax free home office!!
Having a car there is very expensive in taxes and fuel costs. In addition they make it very difficult to pass the test -- almost nobo
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Hmm. Sounds a little too structured for my tastes. I like the idea of freedom of work hours, I think our labor system is silly.
Here's one of the things which has struck me as distructively silly:
The 5 day work week. Short term memory is 24-48 hours, which means taking a two day break is guaranteed to wipe out anything recent short term and work-related. Studies have been done that show that for people involved in brain-labor, ie. non-manual labor, it takes until wednesday to be more or less where they were on friday. So each week we basically get three days progress from.
Cutting the work day off at three would definitely solve this problem and give parents more time with kids. I can see extended parental leave. Mostly I think we need to get into a positive economic situation where job is less of a desperation situation, and where you could conceivably take two years off from your company and go back later, provided you weren't needed for a particular project (the optical engineer shouldn't quit in the middle of a new laser project) but as long as you can take that break without damaging the company there's no reason you shouldn't be able to go back to work for the same firm. A paid year off doesn't seem economically feasible to me. We are in a global marketplace and no amount of wishing will make it go away. American car makers and stereo makers, should there be any left, will always have to compete with their foreign competitors who are operating at 90% efficiency (90% of dollars spent on hiring an employee go to that employees salary).
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Just to be clear the work day didn't finish at 3PM just that within a system of flexible hours there was a core period where everyone was expected to be there, so that you knew you could get everyone together for meetings. Some members of my team were in at 5:30AM every day and left early. Others put in an extra hour for the first 4 days and then left at 3PM on Fridays so they could take a long weekend. I worked close to 9 to 5 because that was what I was used to. Nobody clock watched, and we probably all worked some extra unpaid time. On the other hand there is no such thing as a "personal day" but if you needed time off for things like the dentist there was never a problem.
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