This is a big problem with democracies. The people demand money and welfare from the government, economic consequences be damned.
Yes. It's a big problem of democracies that when you give control of the government to the people they ask for it to benefit the people instead of a small cabal. </snark>
"Economic consequences" is codeword for "the rich might lose some privileges".
Yes. It's a big problem of democracies that when you give control of the government to the people they ask for it to benefit the people instead of a small cabal. </snark>
"Economic consequences" is codeword for "the rich might lose some privileges".
Herein lies the true definition of the word troll.
Thanks for the armchair modding, but I didn't think that giving one's political opinion was considered trolling...
It seems nobody is really thinking through what they're saying here. The problem of democracies is that when you give people power they shockingly go ahead and try to use that power to their benefit? That's the whole *purpose* of taking power from the elites and redistributing it equally amongst all. This nostalgia for feudalism makes me sick and I'm not going to be shy about saying it.
Yes, the unwashed masses are coming to take your stuff. And I'm *glad* about it.
My first instinct whenever I hear this tripe is to respond "Speak for yourself." It's funny how the "except me" part is always only implied, rather than stated out loud.
As for sloths coming and taking the stuff you worked hard for, no need to fear. Those who work the most are those who own the least, and those who own the most are the idle rich. The world's richest individuals are more Paris Hilton than John Galt... (Note that the first is an actual person while the second is the fictional figment of the imagination of an hack writer.)
I didn't think that giving one's political opinion was considered trolling
It's trolling because it isn't accompanied by any refutation of the earlier points we've brought up in the thread.
You've simply thrown something out that was struck down a long time ago, forcing the other side to recycle arguments and waste a lot of time doing so. All with one snide comment. Next time, you are likely to be ignored.
Have you ever stopped to consider why the current system works as well as it does? And why collective socieities always lead to corruption, graft, and sloth? Answer those questions when you propose your cure-all socialist solutions.
Have you ever stopped to consider why the current system works as well as it does?
I don't think it works particularly well in the first place. And I'd think the people who have to go hungry in the most advanced techno-industrial power in the world might agree.
But we don't get to define what "doing well" means, the elites do. That's the way the world works, right?
That's a poor argument. Many current systems work and are socialist influenced. And about all societies lead to corruption, graft and sloth. That's obvious, since anyone who finds himself capable of those things will do so, and in a bureaucracy they will occur. And even free market capitalism will end up going bureaucratic.
I used corruption, graft, and sloth because those are the only words one can use to describe a socialist regime.
There really are no redeeming qualities. You cannot just explain away economics with a flick of the pen and a twist of wit.
If by "struck down" you mean "someone said something contrary to that statement without any argument in support".
You know, this statement really riles me, because the proof is there. The proof is being taught in every college economics class in the country. The proof is being solidified and expanded upon by institutions in this country every single day.
The proof is STAGGERING.
Some have just willed themselves blind to it.
For every socialist rant you can pull from 50 years ago, I can give you 10 academically peer-reviewed articles from the past 5 years.
I don't think it works particularly well in the first place. And I'd think the people who have to go hungry in the most advanced techno-industrial power in the world might agree.
But we don't get to define what "doing well" means, the elites do. That's the way the world works, right?
Who do you mean by the elites? The top 95% of the country?
You know, this statement really riles me, because the proof is there. The proof is being taught in every college economics class in the country.
I'll make you a deal. I'll take your college economics classes seriously when your crowd starts taking seriously college classes in women's studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and the rest of the human sciences. Because my major is Maths and Comp. Sci., and that's where your economics curriculum belongs. The human sciences. No matter what the pretensions of some economists of trying to dress themselves up as part of the hard sciences.
Who do you mean by the elites? The top 95% of the country?
What planet do you live on?
The planet where 30% of African-American kids under 18 live in poverty at any given time, and where 40% of the general United States population will have been living under the poverty line at some point over a period of 10 years. You know, the real world.
A more naive, destructive and pathetic political view can barely be found this side of fascism. Personally, if I have worked hard for my 'stuff' I'd prefer not to have a group of sloth-like layabouts wrenching it from my grasp? What have they done to earn it?
Myth of Capitalism # 1: Those who seek welfare are lazy.
Racial, gender, birthplace. All these influence a person's ability to get paid well. All of these have nothing to do with a person's worth to society.
Myth of Capitalism # 2: Hard work is rewarded.
Anyone who's worked a day in their life knows this is not true. Again, race, gender, birthplace, etc etc all influence how you are percieved by others.
Myth of Capitalism # 3: Greed is good.
Capitalism is prone to economic recesion and collapse. Example: The current housing market problem is not new. Abuse of the subprime mortgages has been a major factor in The Great Depression, the economic recession in the 1970's, etc. Gread causes a company to glut for as much as it can in the short term and screw everyone else in the long term. Greed is not good. Greed is simply what works at the moment.
Myth of Capitalism #4: This is as good as humanity can get.
They thought this of Fuedalism. They thought this of Mercantilism. They thought this of Imperialism. Guess what? They're systems that are all gone now. Capitalism is very likely not the end of history.
These myths are perpetuated because of a few reasons.
1. The wealthy actively seek to perpetuate these myths. This is especially true with welfare and hard work. People who have never had to support a family of 5 on a minimum wage job will do anything to justify their own position in life, whether they deserve that position or no.
2. They are perpetuated by the poor who are motivated by the desire to become rich. If they become rich it's because they deserve it. Basically, it exists to justify the few people who do manage to make it.
3. The nature of capitalism encourages these myths as a left-over of fuedalism and earlier systems. Barons and Lords deserved their position since they were chosen by God. Replace god with hard work and you get the same level of mystification.
Now, do I believe communism as it has been implemented is a workable system? No. Never. Capitalism as it exists now is the fairest system in the world and I personally believe that it will exist for awhile. But please, do not say that Capitalism is flawless, perfect, or the end. Because it is highly unlikely that it is the end.
True. For instance, while the right-wing will rail about how 'our' working poor have phones, for instance, where the Third World poor don't, the Third World workers can get work without having a phone whereas a poor person in America who gets his phone access cut off is pretty much cut off from any possibility of going back on the job market, and thus likely to fall further down the rabbit hole.
3. A lot of these problems can be partially cured by the 'free market'. Ever hear of that term?
Yep. It seems to be an idiosyncratic right-wing term which means "a market where a small oligarchy holds ownership of the means of production thanks to state coercion, reducing the rest of us to wage slavery".
Myth of Capitalism # 1: Those who seek welfare are lazy.
Was never crucial to a capitalist's arguments. Welfare is simply an inefficient use of resources, as dictated by the principles of economics.
Myth of Capitalism # 2: Hard work is rewarded.
This isn't even acknowledged in the capitalist's arguments. Hard work isn't supposed to be rewarded. Serving your fellow man is.
Myth of Capitalism # 3: Greed is good.
To understand the subprime crisis is to admit that government policies screw up the market all the time.
Don't pretend to know what you're talking about with real issues. Stick to the propaganda, mate.
Myth of Capitalism #4: This is as good as humanity can get.
Right; let's not trust gravity, because they believed something else before it, and something else will inevitably emerge later.
1. The wealthy actively seek to perpetuate these myths. This is especially true with welfare and hard work. People who have never had to support a family of 5 on a minimum wage job will do anything to justify their own position in life, whether they deserve that position or no.
It's funny how you toss around terms like "justify" and "deserve" while saying nothing of the framework on which your own system rests. In my book, the wealthy are completely justified in their own way of life, and they certainly deserve anything they have earned.
2. They are perpetuated by the poor who are motivated by the desire to become rich. If they become rich it's because they deserve it. Basically, it exists to justify the few people who do manage to make it.
This doesn't even make sense.
Why does the poor person that worked his ass off 15 hours a day deserve his money any more than Paris Hilton? Why does the universe care, in all its infinite justice and mercy, how hard you work? Why should it care?
3. The nature of capitalism encourages these myths as a left-over of fuedalism and earlier systems. Barons and Lords deserved their position since they were chosen by God. Replace god with hard work and you get the same level of mystification.
Stop flinging this BS around; it's as if you're still listening to the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. Seriously! Get a grip!
Capitalism has thoroughly refuted feudalism, mercantilism, etc.
Now, do I believe communism as it has been implemented is a workable system? No. Never. Capitalism as it exists now is the fairest system in the world and I personally believe that it will exist for awhile. But please, do not say that Capitalism is flawless, perfect, or the end. Because it is highly unlikely that it is the end.
If you're going to take that route, you will have to argue that our human rights are somehow innately flawed.
Because, at this point, economics is like maths: with our current axioms, we've theorized to the point where the basic principles are set in stone.
DARK ANGEL:
You need to stop trolling. You obviously have no idea what the concept of a "free market" even means.
A free market is a market where prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual non-coerced consent of sellers and buyers, determined generally by the supply and demand law with no government interference in the regulation of costs, supply and demand.
You're arguing against the status quo; define your terms or else no one can understand your arguments.
You need to stop trolling. You obviously have no idea what the concept of a "free market" even means.
You're arguing against the status quo; define your terms or else no one can understand your arguments.
I've never argued against the free market. I've argued against *capitalism* (a society under which capital is owned by a minority) which is not a synonym of the free market. I have no qualms with mutualists and other free market anticapitalists like Benjamin Tucker even though I disagree with what is the ideal society. I would be quite content living under mutualism. I just prefer anarchocommunism, and further I think anarchocommunism has a more consistent *praxis*, which in itself is a pretty important point in favor IMO (a perfect theory for how the world should be organized is useless without a way to get to it in practice, thus the need for praxis: the merging of theory and practice).
I refuse, however, to recognize libertarian ideals as a 'free market'. I believe the term 'free market' is used mostly in bad faith by right-wing libertarians, since there is nothing free in the social organisation they promote. The proof is that you believe that arguing against the free market is arguing against the *status quo*, when any libertarian worth his salt would point out all the instances of state interventionism which directly contradicts the idea that the free market is the status quo.
A free market is a market where prices of goods and services are arranged completely by the mutual non-coerced consent of sellers and buyers,
Labor is coerced. It is not free to form associations, because the state intervenes in that regard to limit the right of free association of labor. The job market is a buyer's market because of state interference. So it is not a free market.
I will say this:
I support capitalism because capitalism is the embodiment of freedom, stemming from the rights I mentioned on the other thread. Capitalism naturally arises from these rights. Capitalism is the most efficient system; here, some of you will undoubtedly proclaim that "there are higher values than economic efficiency", despite what I have said on the topic before, so I will say it again:
There are no "economic values". Efficiency means getting the most valuable outputs from the given inputs. This requires value decisions, and the only question is, whose values will be used? Who gets to make what decisions? The answer: whoever is the owner. (I know what you're thinking now, but hold that thought till the end.)
Capitalism is the most efficient system because it fits with reality. People are individuals, and they are self-interested (which does not mean they are not concerned with others, so don't even think it). Freedom allows for the pursuit of all values, values which vary from person to person. I am myself, I am an individual, I am self-interested, and so is everybody else in the world. I am myself and you are yourself; we are autonomous, we have our own goals and desires, and capitalism recognizes this. You never spend the money of others as carefully as you spend your own. Collective ownership cannot fit individualism, as I stated on the other thread, nor can any system which involves claims on the property of others.
And yet, that we are self-interested does not entail that we are looking to screw over other people for our benefit. What it does mean is that we look out for ourselves, which only makes sense. It does not preclude our looking out for others (like helping *gasp* homeless people or targets of racism). I, for instance, value friendship, and freedom allows me to try and find friends to the best of my abilities. I can't force another person to associate with me because they have their own freedom, but if he would like to, then we're both better off for it. I don't have a "right to friendship"; I do have freedom to seek it.
But even if we do not really care about others beyond respecting their rights, we still end up benefiting them because cooperation is win-win. Given what we have, we try and induce the other person to give up something of theirs for something of ours. And if we trade, we're better off - if we've consented to it. And even if somebody does not care about our values, we appeal to something they do want: money, because it helps them to pursue their own values. Prices reflect values, providing a more accurate answer than if you simply asked people; talk is cheap, after all. If enough people care enough about an issue, they may bid up the price.
Oughtn't he help you even if you don't have enough to persuade him, and he doesn't want to help? To force him to do so would be to subjugate him, to make him a slave. Or, you might think that he should care about others. But this would be imposing your values on him, and since he's the owner, he chooses.
This time, I will talk about that nagging thought mentioned earlier, which will have surely resurfaced. You are thinking, "he does not have the right of ownership! It is illegitimate!" This is the crux of the matter, and, oddly enough, the point of this post. If you wish to attack capitalism, attack its roots: the conception of rights. Justify your own beliefs about "basic needs", or social organization. Natural rights are where the ultimate and important distinctions lie. Don't mess around the issue.
I am myself, I am an individual, I am self-interested, and so is everybody else in the world. I am myself and you are yourself; we are autonomous, we have our own goals and desires
It is true. It is also true that we are socially conditionned and that most of our individual choices are in fact the result of social pressures. Individualism and collectivism are not opposed, they are complementary.
"I am not free unless everyone is free."
- Mikhail Bakunin
"Freedom without Socialism is Privilege. Socialism without Freedom is Tyranny."
- Mikhail Bakunin
DarkAngel: I have no problem with you decrying our current political-economic system, but to throw everything out the window and say "it should be like this instead"
1) Ignores the fact that today's world IS the real world. You can't simply rewrite culture, balance the ownership of everything and suddenly make everyone moral and generous.
2) Makes basic assumptions about humanity that are untested and leave no room for error. One bad apple is all that's needed to wreck anarchy or communism or whatever the hell you believe in. And you're going to have bad apples unless you have thought police. People aren't always logical.
3) Ignores the virtues of our current system. Do you think people would work as hard as they do now, knowing that the reward is smaller? Do you think people would work as hard as they do now, knowing that even if they don't a massive welfare system will keep them afloat?
"I am not free unless everyone is free."
- Mikhail Bakunin
"Freedom without Socialism is Privilege. Socialism without Freedom is Tyranny."
- Mikhail Bakunin
Again:
"But those who ask what I think about the matter myself do so with more curiosity than is necessary; for in disputation the weight of reason ought to be sought over that of authority."
- M. Tullius Cicero
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Yes. It's a big problem of democracies that when you give control of the government to the people they ask for it to benefit the people instead of a small cabal. </snark>
"Economic consequences" is codeword for "the rich might lose some privileges".
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
Herein lies the true definition of the word troll.
It seems nobody is really thinking through what they're saying here. The problem of democracies is that when you give people power they shockingly go ahead and try to use that power to their benefit? That's the whole *purpose* of taking power from the elites and redistributing it equally amongst all. This nostalgia for feudalism makes me sick and I'm not going to be shy about saying it.
Yes, the unwashed masses are coming to take your stuff. And I'm *glad* about it.
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
My first instinct whenever I hear this tripe is to respond "Speak for yourself." It's funny how the "except me" part is always only implied, rather than stated out loud.
As for sloths coming and taking the stuff you worked hard for, no need to fear. Those who work the most are those who own the least, and those who own the most are the idle rich. The world's richest individuals are more Paris Hilton than John Galt... (Note that the first is an actual person while the second is the fictional figment of the imagination of an hack writer.)
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
It's trolling because it isn't accompanied by any refutation of the earlier points we've brought up in the thread.
You've simply thrown something out that was struck down a long time ago, forcing the other side to recycle arguments and waste a lot of time doing so. All with one snide comment. Next time, you are likely to be ignored.
Have you ever stopped to consider why the current system works as well as it does? And why collective socieities always lead to corruption, graft, and sloth? Answer those questions when you propose your cure-all socialist solutions.
If by "struck down" you mean "someone said something contrary to that statement without any argument in support".
I don't think it works particularly well in the first place. And I'd think the people who have to go hungry in the most advanced techno-industrial power in the world might agree.
But we don't get to define what "doing well" means, the elites do. That's the way the world works, right?
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
I used corruption, graft, and sloth because those are the only words one can use to describe a socialist regime.
There really are no redeeming qualities. You cannot just explain away economics with a flick of the pen and a twist of wit.
You know, this statement really riles me, because the proof is there. The proof is being taught in every college economics class in the country. The proof is being solidified and expanded upon by institutions in this country every single day.
The proof is STAGGERING.
Some have just willed themselves blind to it.
For every socialist rant you can pull from 50 years ago, I can give you 10 academically peer-reviewed articles from the past 5 years.
Who do you mean by the elites? The top 95% of the country?
What planet do you live on?
Hah! Oh wait, you're serious.
Next thing you know you'll be praising Dan Brown's contributions to theology.
Merged double posts.
I'll make you a deal. I'll take your college economics classes seriously when your crowd starts taking seriously college classes in women's studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and the rest of the human sciences. Because my major is Maths and Comp. Sci., and that's where your economics curriculum belongs. The human sciences. No matter what the pretensions of some economists of trying to dress themselves up as part of the hard sciences.
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
The planet where 30% of African-American kids under 18 live in poverty at any given time, and where 40% of the general United States population will have been living under the poverty line at some point over a period of 10 years. You know, the real world.
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
Myth of Capitalism # 1: Those who seek welfare are lazy.
Racial, gender, birthplace. All these influence a person's ability to get paid well. All of these have nothing to do with a person's worth to society.
Myth of Capitalism # 2: Hard work is rewarded.
Anyone who's worked a day in their life knows this is not true. Again, race, gender, birthplace, etc etc all influence how you are percieved by others.
Myth of Capitalism # 3: Greed is good.
Capitalism is prone to economic recesion and collapse. Example: The current housing market problem is not new. Abuse of the subprime mortgages has been a major factor in The Great Depression, the economic recession in the 1970's, etc. Gread causes a company to glut for as much as it can in the short term and screw everyone else in the long term. Greed is not good. Greed is simply what works at the moment.
Myth of Capitalism #4: This is as good as humanity can get.
They thought this of Fuedalism. They thought this of Mercantilism. They thought this of Imperialism. Guess what? They're systems that are all gone now. Capitalism is very likely not the end of history.
These myths are perpetuated because of a few reasons.
1. The wealthy actively seek to perpetuate these myths. This is especially true with welfare and hard work. People who have never had to support a family of 5 on a minimum wage job will do anything to justify their own position in life, whether they deserve that position or no.
2. They are perpetuated by the poor who are motivated by the desire to become rich. If they become rich it's because they deserve it. Basically, it exists to justify the few people who do manage to make it.
3. The nature of capitalism encourages these myths as a left-over of fuedalism and earlier systems. Barons and Lords deserved their position since they were chosen by God. Replace god with hard work and you get the same level of mystification.
Now, do I believe communism as it has been implemented is a workable system? No. Never. Capitalism as it exists now is the fairest system in the world and I personally believe that it will exist for awhile. But please, do not say that Capitalism is flawless, perfect, or the end. Because it is highly unlikely that it is the end.
Your loss.
True. For instance, while the right-wing will rail about how 'our' working poor have phones, for instance, where the Third World poor don't, the Third World workers can get work without having a phone whereas a poor person in America who gets his phone access cut off is pretty much cut off from any possibility of going back on the job market, and thus likely to fall further down the rabbit hole.
Yep. It seems to be an idiosyncratic right-wing term which means "a market where a small oligarchy holds ownership of the means of production thanks to state coercion, reducing the rest of us to wage slavery".
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
Was never crucial to a capitalist's arguments. Welfare is simply an inefficient use of resources, as dictated by the principles of economics.
This isn't even acknowledged in the capitalist's arguments. Hard work isn't supposed to be rewarded. Serving your fellow man is.
To understand the subprime crisis is to admit that government policies screw up the market all the time.
Don't pretend to know what you're talking about with real issues. Stick to the propaganda, mate.
Right; let's not trust gravity, because they believed something else before it, and something else will inevitably emerge later.
It's funny how you toss around terms like "justify" and "deserve" while saying nothing of the framework on which your own system rests. In my book, the wealthy are completely justified in their own way of life, and they certainly deserve anything they have earned.
This doesn't even make sense.
Why does the poor person that worked his ass off 15 hours a day deserve his money any more than Paris Hilton? Why does the universe care, in all its infinite justice and mercy, how hard you work? Why should it care?
Stop flinging this BS around; it's as if you're still listening to the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. Seriously! Get a grip!
Capitalism has thoroughly refuted feudalism, mercantilism, etc.
If you're going to take that route, you will have to argue that our human rights are somehow innately flawed.
Because, at this point, economics is like maths: with our current axioms, we've theorized to the point where the basic principles are set in stone.
DARK ANGEL:
You need to stop trolling. You obviously have no idea what the concept of a "free market" even means.
You're arguing against the status quo; define your terms or else no one can understand your arguments.
I've never argued against the free market. I've argued against *capitalism* (a society under which capital is owned by a minority) which is not a synonym of the free market. I have no qualms with mutualists and other free market anticapitalists like Benjamin Tucker even though I disagree with what is the ideal society. I would be quite content living under mutualism. I just prefer anarchocommunism, and further I think anarchocommunism has a more consistent *praxis*, which in itself is a pretty important point in favor IMO (a perfect theory for how the world should be organized is useless without a way to get to it in practice, thus the need for praxis: the merging of theory and practice).
I refuse, however, to recognize libertarian ideals as a 'free market'. I believe the term 'free market' is used mostly in bad faith by right-wing libertarians, since there is nothing free in the social organisation they promote. The proof is that you believe that arguing against the free market is arguing against the *status quo*, when any libertarian worth his salt would point out all the instances of state interventionism which directly contradicts the idea that the free market is the status quo.
Labor is coerced. It is not free to form associations, because the state intervenes in that regard to limit the right of free association of labor. The job market is a buyer's market because of state interference. So it is not a free market.
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
I support capitalism because capitalism is the embodiment of freedom, stemming from the rights I mentioned on the other thread. Capitalism naturally arises from these rights. Capitalism is the most efficient system; here, some of you will undoubtedly proclaim that "there are higher values than economic efficiency", despite what I have said on the topic before, so I will say it again:
There are no "economic values". Efficiency means getting the most valuable outputs from the given inputs. This requires value decisions, and the only question is, whose values will be used? Who gets to make what decisions? The answer: whoever is the owner. (I know what you're thinking now, but hold that thought till the end.)
Capitalism is the most efficient system because it fits with reality. People are individuals, and they are self-interested (which does not mean they are not concerned with others, so don't even think it). Freedom allows for the pursuit of all values, values which vary from person to person. I am myself, I am an individual, I am self-interested, and so is everybody else in the world. I am myself and you are yourself; we are autonomous, we have our own goals and desires, and capitalism recognizes this. You never spend the money of others as carefully as you spend your own. Collective ownership cannot fit individualism, as I stated on the other thread, nor can any system which involves claims on the property of others.
And yet, that we are self-interested does not entail that we are looking to screw over other people for our benefit. What it does mean is that we look out for ourselves, which only makes sense. It does not preclude our looking out for others (like helping *gasp* homeless people or targets of racism). I, for instance, value friendship, and freedom allows me to try and find friends to the best of my abilities. I can't force another person to associate with me because they have their own freedom, but if he would like to, then we're both better off for it. I don't have a "right to friendship"; I do have freedom to seek it.
But even if we do not really care about others beyond respecting their rights, we still end up benefiting them because cooperation is win-win. Given what we have, we try and induce the other person to give up something of theirs for something of ours. And if we trade, we're better off - if we've consented to it. And even if somebody does not care about our values, we appeal to something they do want: money, because it helps them to pursue their own values. Prices reflect values, providing a more accurate answer than if you simply asked people; talk is cheap, after all. If enough people care enough about an issue, they may bid up the price.
Oughtn't he help you even if you don't have enough to persuade him, and he doesn't want to help? To force him to do so would be to subjugate him, to make him a slave. Or, you might think that he should care about others. But this would be imposing your values on him, and since he's the owner, he chooses.
This time, I will talk about that nagging thought mentioned earlier, which will have surely resurfaced. You are thinking, "he does not have the right of ownership! It is illegitimate!" This is the crux of the matter, and, oddly enough, the point of this post. If you wish to attack capitalism, attack its roots: the conception of rights. Justify your own beliefs about "basic needs", or social organization. Natural rights are where the ultimate and important distinctions lie. Don't mess around the issue.
It is true. It is also true that we are socially conditionned and that most of our individual choices are in fact the result of social pressures. Individualism and collectivism are not opposed, they are complementary.
"I am not free unless everyone is free."
- Mikhail Bakunin
"Freedom without Socialism is Privilege. Socialism without Freedom is Tyranny."
- Mikhail Bakunin
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
Why stop there? Every action you do has been influenced by factors outside of your control.
I don't follow, unless you mean simply "association", by "collectivism".
It has never been done by a socialist, to my knowledge. You could even point such a doctrine out to me, so I could do some of my own research.
1) Ignores the fact that today's world IS the real world. You can't simply rewrite culture, balance the ownership of everything and suddenly make everyone moral and generous.
2) Makes basic assumptions about humanity that are untested and leave no room for error. One bad apple is all that's needed to wreck anarchy or communism or whatever the hell you believe in. And you're going to have bad apples unless you have thought police. People aren't always logical.
3) Ignores the virtues of our current system. Do you think people would work as hard as they do now, knowing that the reward is smaller? Do you think people would work as hard as they do now, knowing that even if they don't a massive welfare system will keep them afloat?
4th place at CCC&G Pro Tour
Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
Again:
"But those who ask what I think about the matter myself do so with more curiosity than is necessary; for in disputation the weight of reason ought to be sought over that of authority."
- M. Tullius Cicero
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
There are no natural rights (ask the gazelle about her right to life when faced with a lion). All rights are derived through political struggle.
Netdecking is Rightdecking
My latest data-driven Magic the Gathering strategy article
(TLDR: Analysis of the Valakut matchups. UB rising in the rankings. Aggro correspondingly taking a dive.)
That means that no human being may do anything. You are morally wrong even in breathing the air for sustenance.
You must put forth a political philosophy that the others on this thread can understand.