Did Bush lie? It doesn't matter any more.
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 18:35
VIEWED: 11007
PAGE 9 of 11
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Originally posted by SignyM:
My Cliff Note responses! (more this weekend I hope!)
"If there ever could be a "pure" capitalism, this would probably be true, but pure capitalism in a democratic system is as unlikely to exist as pure marxist socialism. Laws against some of the worse elements of capitalism (monoply, environmental damage, minimum wage, right of labor to organize, etc.) are forced by the voting populace."
What you are saying is that democracies offer political feedback into the system, and that societies with feedback can't go too far astray from the welfare of the voting population.
In theory I agree, but in practice I think there are too many OTHER forms of control, each one requires a feedback loop. In addition, the interference of money in the voting process has virtually negated democracy's effectiveness.
Now this is what I'm talkin' about!! Discourse! Sharing Ideas! Woopee!
Yes. Fine-tuning a capitalist system to hit the right balance is going to be complicated, and probably more art than science. I couldn't agree more about the interference of money in the voting process, but limiting money and allowing free speech at the same time is going to be difficult.
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"I can't go back in time and resolve the brutality of industrialization, but conditions have improved remarkably for the workers in the industrialized countries you mention. Efforts are underway to improve conditions in countries we export jobs to, but admittedly more could be done."
However, at the expense of jobs in the USA. The problem is that capitalism inevitably creates unemployment and economic polarization- it is an irreducible feature of the way the system works.
We are losing manufacturing jobs overseas, due in part to the unregulated conditions of employment there. If governments work together to improve those conditions, and consumers pressure businesses to treat offshore workers fairly, some of the cheap labor appeal will be reduced.
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"And I tend to believe that the capitalist system supports this better than any other. It provides the incentive (profit)to invest capital in developing advances."
Do you mean "discovering/ inventing" advances or "building/ implementing" advances? The first I would disagree with totally, the second I would disagree with partially.
Most of the major discoveries that I can think of- starting with language, fire, pottery/ weaving, agriculture, alphabet on through the printing press, microbes and the internet were made without the profit motive. The intnert, for example, started with a military project (DARPA)... but you're an IT person so you know this.
I was thinking more of Whitney, Bell, Edison, Ford, the Wright Brothers, etc. These guys were in it to make money, and actively sought investment. I'd suspect that Gutenberg was out to make a buck with the printing press too.
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If you mean that capitalism is good at IMPLEMENTING discoveries, I agree- but only where there is a significant potential profit involved. Schooling (the implementation of math, language, printing and science), roadways, sewage systems, public health, affordable housing are all significant implementations that have been shunned by capitalism. These services are typically good in socialist nations (or sub-regions, like Kerala) and poor in capitalist countries.
We both might ought'a check out Sweden again. they seem to handle both the capitalist economy and the social services pretty well.
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"I'd say profit is the excess of payment received for goods over the total cost of producing them but we're on the same page. I see profit as money that's either re-invested in the business to improve it, invested in some other enterprise, banked, in which case the bank invests it, or spent, giving someone else a profit."
This is where "yes-but" comes in. Profit in capitalism is essentially directed three ways- (1) either reinvested to "improve" business which generally means to reduce labor costs. In the face of reduced demanNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm going to insert myself into this conversation.
As far as I can tell colonialism worked hand in glove with capitalism. In the case of modern colonial history, it was the extension of capitalism though military and poltical means. So I don't think you can exclude Africa... or India, Latin America, the Phillipines, the Mideast etc. for that matter- as special cases. They ARE part of the capitalist system, just the part that gets the shitty end of the stick.
I think I could say with equal correctness that colonialism worked hand in hand with monarchy. Most colonial empires were created during periods of monarchal rule; Spain and Portugal in Central and South America, France in Canada, Indochina, and, with Belgium, chunks of Africa, England just about everywhere else.
Not too many instances of Capitalist Democracies taking and holding previously free countries as colonies. I'll have to check on which, if any.
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As part of that, I would look at the USA's 800+ military installations around the world as part of our empire. Our "fight against Communism" was not to make to world safe for democracy (we crushed a number of ths along the way) but to make the world safe for capitalism.
Not sure if the English, Germans, South Koreans, Japanese, Turks, Italians, etc. would agree about being part of our "empire". Afganistan and Iraq might feel that way, but I doubt we'll see much benefit from being there.
Parts of the cold war weren't our best moments. but remember that the other side had already collected Eastern Europe and chunks of the Far East by less than savory means. I do tend to think that by making the world safe for democracy, you do make it safe for capitalism, but that democracy (or at least the Western form) was the main thing being "saved".
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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”If you can get everyone to agree with this, that would be fine.”
People sign on to various religions. It can be done, though not necessarily by me.
How did this go? You said capitalism was a way for people to put food on the table and improve their lives. That with enough money floating around, anybody should be able to find/make a service job to get some of it. That the miner in Africa was starving b/c the government nationalized the mine and enforced poverty wages. That without capitalists, everyone would be on the dole. That people outside of a capitalist system (subsistence farming) didn't get 100% of the benefits of their labor b/c they had to buy stuff. That the sheer population pressure required massive infrastructure investment that you couldn't imagine coming from anywhere else than capitalism. Also, that capitalist democracies currently provide a higher standard of living for more of their population than any other system. That opting out is an alternative. That even the most economically remote point (subsistence farming) is not under control (I think you mean personal control). And that authoritarian models only work for the authorities, but if they do happen to work for 'the masses' you wouldn't want to live in one.
What I get is: capitalism is essential for human survival in a crowded world, except for the people who manage without; that if not strictly necessary for survival it creates a better standard of living, except in those countries where it doesn't, and that authoritarian models don't work for the masses, except for the times when they do.
One small part of the thread was this:
Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.
“I'm not sure what your response has to do with my point that every society has strictures on it.”
And this does reduce the discussion to meaningless drivel. So, lets plow forward:
There are obvious physical strictures on all societies – potable water, weather, agricultural diseases and pests etc. But they don't make the cage. Even in societies that you (you personally, not the generic ‘you’) would think of as marginal, the physical strictures DON’T drive economic forms. ( http://www.starbuilders.org/fft/articles/fairshare.html) “Initial results come from 15 small-scale societies located in 12 countries that span the globe. Participating groups consist of three hunting-and-foraging societies, six communities that rely primarily on slash-and-burn agriculture, four nomadic-herding groups, and two farm villages. Traditional economic theory assumes that basic human self-interest lies at the heart of commerce. However, a chief discovery of the project, Henrich says, is that nowhere do individuals behave out of pure self-interest. In economic games, members of societies that feature lots of bargaining and bartering gravitate toward dividing available goods equally. Communities in which families are isolated come closest to exhibiting the traditional economic model. 1) Each forest-dwelling Machiguenga family lives in near-isolation and subsists on slash-and-burn farming, hunting, foraging, and fishing. Machiguenga proposers displayed a greater streak of self-interest. Rules for fair behavior with nonfamily members have little chance to flourish among the Machiguenga, according to Henrich. 2) The Hadza hunter-gatherers treat meat and other food as public property if it's brought back to camp and others see it. The Hadza enforce extensive sharing through gossip and outright punishment of cheaters. Hadza proposers made offers almost as low as those of the Machiguenga. In turn, Hadza responders usually turned up their noses at offers. 3) Paraguay's Aché foragers provide an interesting contrast to the Hadza. Aché hunters often leave their killed prey outside of camp to be discovered by others, so a
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“I'm aware of the history of western arms and conquest, mostly done by monarchies, as I recall.”
I realize you want to leave Africa out of the equation. I don’t. It provides a stellar example of colonialism within the last ~150 years, by countries whose governments varied but whose economies were capitalist. It's strange to me that most African countries are younger than I am.
Ethiopia
Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule, one exception being the Italian occupation of 1936-41.
Algeria
In 1815 the United States (democracy) sent a naval squadron against the city (Algiers). The following year an Anglo-Dutch (constitutional monarchies) fleet nearly destroyed its defenses, and in 1830 Algiers was captured by a French (monarchy) army. France annexed Algiers and the surrounding territory in 1834 and began occupying other coastal and inland areas. The settlers developed Algerian agriculture, gearing it to support the French economy. The displaced and deprived Muslim population remained a disadvantaged majority, subject to many restrictions. After a century of rule by France, and in the wake of 1948 elections rigged by French colonists to reverse the sweeping victory of a Muslim political party in 1947, Algerians fought through the 1950s to achieve independence in 1962.
Angola
Angola is one of the few African countries to have been colonized by the Portuguese empire in the 1400's. Angola became independent from Portugal in 1975.
Benin
The territory became a French Colony in 1872. In 1899 Dahomey (present day Benin) was incorporated into French West Africa, with its exact boundaries defined through accords with Britain and Germany, colonizers of the neighboring areas to the east and west, respectively. It achieved independence on 1 August 1960, as the Republic of Benin.
Botswana
The territory was taken under British protection in 1885, after all the principal chiefs complained that Boers, or Afrikaners, from the Transvaal region in what is now northern South Africa, were invading their territories. (The contention between the British and Boers was one part of 'the great game.') Botswana adopted its new name upon independence in 1966. Prospectors discovered diamonds in northern Botswana in the late 1960s. In 2002, 21 million carats of gem-quality diamonds were extracted.
Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta)
In 1896 the French set up a protectorate over the kingdom of Ouagadougou, and in 1904 the area became part of the colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger. In 1919 it was made into a separate constituent territory of French West Africa, only to be divided up in 1932 between the French Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire. It was reconstituted as the separate territory of Upper Volta in 1947. Burkina Faso achieved independence from France in 1960.
Burundi
Austrian explorer Oskar Baumann and German Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen arrived in the 1890s. Later Burundi and Rwanda were incorporated into German East Africa. The indigenous Tutsi rulers maintained good relations with the Germans and later with the Belgians, who occupied the country during World War I (1914-1918). After the war, the area was mandated to Belgium by the League of Nations and became known as the Territory of Ruanda-Urundi. Following World War II (1939-1945), it became a United Nations (UN) trust territory. Burundi independence came in 1962.
Cameroon
British traders and missionaries were especially active in the area after 1845. The Germans and British began to explore inland after 1860, and in 1884 the former established a protectorate over the Douala area; the British, taken by surprise, offered no resistance to their claim. In 1919 one-fifth of the territory, which was contiguous with eastern Nigeria, was assigned to Britain, and the remaining four-fifths were assigned to France as mandates under the League of Nations. Neither area, however, experienced much social or economic progress. It became in
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
”If you can get everyone to agree with this, that would be fine.”
People sign on to various religions. It can be done, though not necessarily by me.
But they all don't sign on to the same one, even within one country. the only cases of unanimity in religion are where it is imposed by the government.
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What I get is: capitalism is essential for human survival in a crowded world, except for the people who manage without; that if not strictly necessary for survival it creates a better standard of living, except in those countries where it doesn't, and that authoritarian models don't work for the masses, except for the times when they do.
Not quite what I said. More like this. Capitalist Democracies, especially the ones that have been stable for a while, generally provide a better standard of living for more of their populations than other economic/governmental systems.
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One small part of the thread was this:
Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.
“I'm not sure what your response has to do with my point that every society has strictures on it.”
And this does reduce the discussion to meaningless drivel. So, lets plow forward:
There are obvious physical strictures on all societies – potable water, weather, agricultural diseases and pests etc. But they don't make the cage. Even in societies that you (you personally, not the generic ‘you’) would think of as marginal, the physical strictures DON’T drive economic forms.
I picked up "Guns, Germs, and Steel" at the library last night, and am just 1/4 through it, but I thought that Mr. Diamond's premise was that physical strictures, (geography, climate, etc.) DID drive economic forms, among other things. Guess I'll hold off on this one until I finish the book.
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( http://www.starbuilders.org/fft/articles/fairshare.html) “Initial results come from 15 small-scale societies located in 12 countries that span the globe. Participating groups consist of three hunting-and-foraging societies, six communities that rely primarily on slash-and-burn agriculture, four nomadic-herding groups, and two farm villages. Traditional economic theory assumes that basic human self-interest lies at the heart of commerce. However, a chief discovery of the project, Henrich says, is that nowhere do individuals behave out of pure self-interest. In economic games, members of societies that feature lots of bargaining and bartering gravitate toward dividing available goods equally. Communities in which families are isolated come closest to exhibiting the traditional economic model. 1) Each forest-dwelling Machiguenga family lives in near-isolation and subsists on slash-and-burn farming, hunting, foraging, and fishing. Machiguenga proposers displayed a greater streak of self-interest. Rules for fair behavior with nonfamily members have little chance to flourish among the Machiguenga, according to Henrich. 2) The Hadza hunter-gatherers treat meat and other food as public property if it's brought back to camp and others see it. The Hadza enforce extensive sharing through gossip and outright punishment of cheaters. Hadza proposers made offers almost as low as those of the Machiguenga. In turn, Hadza responders usually turned up their noses at offers. 3) Paraguay's Aché foragers provide an interesting contrast to the Hadza. Aché hunters often leave their killed prey outside of camp to be discovered by others, so as to avoid looking boastful. Game then gets distributed equally among all households. In ultimatum games, Aché proposers usually offered either 40 percent or 50 percent of a sizable sum. Many others offered as much as 70 percent. There were no rejected offers. 4) The whale-hunting Lamalera of Indonesia made the most generousNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
“I'm aware of the history of western arms and conquest, mostly done by monarchies, as I recall.”
I realize you want to leave Africa out of the equation. I don’t. It provides a stellar example of colonialism within the last ~150 years, by countries whose governments varied but whose economies were capitalist. It's strange to me that most African countries are younger than I am.
Capitalist Democracies. Stable Capitalist Democracies. Actual Democracies, not just where the wealthy landowners got to vote. I have no brief for monarchies, oligarcies, or other forms of authoritarian government. If you're going to attack my ideas (Sorry, impressions. Can't quite get those ideas formed yet), at least know what they are.
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Algeria
In 1815 the United States (democracy) sent a naval squadron against the city (Algiers).
Yes. To end 30 years of extortion by the Barbary pirates.
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Angola is one of the few African countries to have been colonized by the Portuguese empire
Empire
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Benin...became a French Colony in 1872.
Just two years after the fall of the Second Empire. Hardly time for the Third republic to become stable.
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Botswana...was taken under British protection in 1885, after all the principal chiefs complained that Boers, or Afrikaners, from the Transvaal region in what is now northern South Africa, were invading their territories.
Empire
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Burkina Faso
In 1896 the French set up a protectorate over the kingdom of Ouagadougou, and in 1904 the area became part of the colony of Haut-Sénégal-Niger.
I'll grant you this one.
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Burundi
Austrian explorer Oskar Baumann and German Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen arrived in the 1890s.
Empire
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Cameroon
British traders and missionaries were especially active in the area after 1845. The Germans and British began to explore inland after 1860, and in 1884 the former established a protectorate over the Douala area; the British, taken by surprise, offered no resistance to their claim.
Empires all
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Geezer,
That was exactly my point. Physical conditions don't drive economies, social strictures and structures *created by people* do.
Hmmm, maybe that's what I need to do so that you will agree with me instead of throwing chaff... Present my case as if it's a weakness, so you step right in.
My next posting on this topic will take a little devious planning.
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Empires all
1688 is considered the date Britain became a constitutional monarchy.
Now according to you:
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Capitalism, by Webster's definition, tends to exist in countries where it is allowed to function with a lesser level of state control. Such a country is usually either a Democratic Republic, or a Democratic Constitutional Monarchy.
So, are we or are we not counting constitutional monarchies? If we are then Britain, as a capitalist economy and constitutional monarchy was a colonizer extraordinaire.
But you may on the other hand be engaged in a circular definition: stable capitalist democracies don't colonize, therefore a country which has colonies - is an empire - can't be a stable capitalist democracy.
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Not being a history buff, I looked up Germany and Austria at about that time (1860s). Both were constitutional monarchies, each with a Parliament.
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Not sure if the English, Germans, South Koreans, Japanese, Turks, Italians, etc. would agree about being part of our "empire". Afganistan and Iraq might feel that way, but I doubt we'll see much benefit from being there.
Parts of the cold war weren't our best moments. but remember that the other side had already collected Eastern Europe and chunks of the Far East by less than savory means. I do tend to think that by making the world safe for democracy, you do make it safe for capitalism, but that democracy (or at least the Western form) was the main thing being "saved".
You should read "Blowback by Chalmers Johnson. You would find that the Koreans and Okinawans really want USA gone. And of course the Philippines already successfully kicked out out.
South Korea hardly serves as a model for either capitalism OR democracy. Labor unions were forbidden, martial law was frequently applied, South Korean economic development was directed by the government at the behest of a group of oligarchs called chaebols.
www.paulnoll.com/Korea/History/
South-Korean-past-part2.html
Japan is similarly non-capitalistic in the sense that like Korea, its development was directed from the top with heavy government intervention.
You also neglected to mention the most obvious parts of our very own empire, starting with the US Protectorates (there are seven) which are not covered by US labor law but do not pay import duties to the USA and serve as sources of very cheap labor,
most of Latin America where we intervened time and time again to destroy popularly-elected governments,
our friends in the Mideast past and present including Iran (Shah), Iraq (Saddam), Saudi Arabia (House of Saud), and Uzbekistan (Karimov)
Indonesia, where Kissinger personally gave Suharto the green light to massacre East Timorese with American-supplied weapons, and last but not least
The Congo (Mobutu) armed and supported by the USA.
Our support of non-democratic (authoritarian) governments has been the exception rather than the rule... and yes, "the people" would really like to see us go away.
BTW- there are two nations in Latin American that score rather well in terms of human development. One of them is Cuba, which manages to provide health care, education, and a modest standard of living for everyone DESPITE being embargoed by the largest and most militarily aggressive nation in the world. The other is Costa Rica, and it is the ONLY nation in Latin America where we have never intervened.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:Quote:
Empires all
1688 is considered the date Britain became a constitutional monarchy.
But hardly democratic. It wasn't until the Great Reform Act of 1832 that as many as 1 in 5 men had the right to vote. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist2.html
and Universal suffrage wasn't until 1928.
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Originally posted by SignyM:
Germany and Austria at about that time (1860s). Both were constitutional monarchies, each with a Parliament.
Again, hardly democracies.
"The German Empire--often called the Second Reich to distinguish it from the First Reich, established by Charlemagne in 800--was based on two compromises. The first was between the king of Prussia and the rulers of the other German states, who agreed to accept him as the Kaiser (emperor) of a united Germany, provided they could continue to rule their states largely as they had in the past. The second was the agreement among many segments of German society to accept a unified Germany based on a constitution that combined a powerful authoritarian monarchy with a weak representative body, the Reichstag, elected by universal male suffrage. No one was completely satisfied with the bargain. The Kaiser had to contend with a parliament elected by the people in a secret vote. The people were represented in a parliament having limited control over the Kaiser.
As had been the tradition in Prussia, the Kaiser controlled foreign policy and the army through his handpicked ministers, who formed the government and prepared legislation. The government was headed by a chancellor, also selected by the Kaiser, who served in this post at the Kaiser's pleasure and could be dismissed by him at any time. The Bundesrat (Federal Council) represented Germany's princes. About one-third of its seats were held by Prussians. Conceived as an upper house to the Reichstag, the Bundesrat, like the Reichstag, was required to vote on legislation drawn up by the government before it became law. The Reichstag had no power to draft legislation. In addition, the government's actions were not subject to the Reichstag's approval, and the government was not drawn from the Reichstag, as is ordinarily the case in parliamentary democracies."
http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/history/bl_imperial_germany.ht
m
"Dissatisfaction erupted during the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848, forcing Metternich to resign and the emperor to agree to the election of a constituent assembly, and power was restored to the emperor, now FRANCIS JOSEPH (r. 1848-1916). Austria once more set its course in the direction of centralized, absolutist government, modernized and reformed just enough to make it palatable. "
http://www.dreihacken.asn-graz.ac.at/projekte/usa/history.htm
But I'll admit that this does help me refine my premise. We now have:
A stable capitalist representative democracy with at least universal male suffrage, and preferably universal suffrage, provides the best standard of living for the greatest number of its citizens.
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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