Are You Leaning Far Enough to the Right to be Considered a Fascist? - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 03-07-2008, 09:00 PM

It almost seems as if we can't bear to do this....to get things back on track, here is a definition of "fascism":

Quote:

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Fascis.../dp/1400033918
The Anatomy of Fascism

Robert o. Paxton

"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

Do these anecdotal examples exhibit "symptoms" in line with the above definition, or are they "all talK', and if they are.....how does that matter? I don't see that it has changed for the better, and all of those described below are still hard at it today, and somebody is providing enough support for them to keep them "on the air", and or publishing.

Or do you disagree with the definition? How so?

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A963958260
TERROR IN OKLAHOMA: THE PRESIDENT; Shifting Debate to the Political Climate, Clinton Condemns 'Promoters of Paranoia'

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: April 25, 1995
President Clinton today denounced "promoters of paranoia" for spreading hate on the public airwaves and promptly found himself in a confrontation with conservative radio talk show hosts, <h3>whom he had not named but who interpreted his remarks as attacks on themselves.... </h3>

..."We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other," Mr. Clinton said in a speech to the American Association of Community Colleges in Minneapolis before flying to Iowa for a conference on rural America. "They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable.

"You ought to see," Mr. Clinton continued, "I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences, and that freedom has endured in this country for more than two centuries because it was coupled with an enormous sense of responsibility."...

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A963958260
THE NATION; Way More Than 2 Cents' Worth

JOHN TIERNEY
Published: April 30, 1995

....The President . . believes we incite, ignite and encourage an easily swayed audience of fringe fanatics to do terrible things to the establishment. Ironically, this is the same man who ran away from the establishment and exercised his free speech to organize protests against the United States -- angry demonstrations, flag-burning demonstrations, hateful demonstrations.

-- Blanquita Cullum, host of a syndicated show based in Washington, D.C.

<h3>It's bizarre that every right-wing talk-show host from Limbaugh, Liddy, and North on down is jumping up and down yelling, "It's me! I'm the hatemonger that Clinton is targeting!" How strange, how very strange. </h3>

-- Victoria Jones, host of a show on WWRC in Washington, D.C.
....

....The President has no right infringing on the free speech of talk-show hosts, but don't you think it's irresponsible for a talk-show host to go on the air and tell people to shoot an A.T.F. officer in the head?

-- Al Mahlmsberg, host of a syndicated program on the Business Radio Network.

I take back what I said about shooting the agent in the head. You should aim for the chest and the groin.

-- G. Gordon Liddy, on his syndicated show.

Two columnists tried to bash me today. . . . I for one am not going to be chilled . . . To both of them I'd like to point out: More of the rescue workers in Oklahoma City listen to me than read your columns. More of the heroic firemen who came from all over America listen to me than read your columns. . . . Why don't you do a column on how not as many newspapers are printed today, not as many newspapers are read today, not as many columnists have their opinions read today, because there's this new media out there which is cutting in? Do a column on that.

-- Rush Limbaugh, addressing Carl Rowan and David Broder.

Quote:

http://www.fair.org/extra/9507/ok-talk-radio.html
Extra!, July/August 1995
Talk Radio on Oklahoma City:
Don't Look at Us
By Jim Naureckas

.......Talkshow hosts strenuously rejected the idea that they might bear some responsibility when members of their audience take such inflammatory rhetoric seriously. Limbaugh wrote a full-page column on the Oklahoma City bombing for Newsweek (5/8/95) headlined, "Why I'm Not to Blame." "Those who make excuses for rioters and looters in Los Angeles now seek to blame people who played no role whatsoever in this tragedy," Limbaugh wrote--<h3>a strange complaint from someone who devoted a chapter in his book See, I Told You So to arguing that "Dan Quayle Was Right" to blame the L.A. riots on Murphy Brown. </h3>

It wasn't just Limbaugh that rallied to the defense of violence-preaching talkshow hosts--less than a month after the bombing, the national board of NARTSH voted to give its "Freedom of Speech" award to Liddy. The award, which is supposed to go to "the individual who best embodies and boldly defends those freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment," has previously gone to Salman Rushdie, CNN's Peter Arnett and columnist Jack Anderson.

Ironically, Liddy has admitted that, as an aide to President Richard Nixon, he started to plan an assassination of Jack Anderson, who had written columns critical of Nixon. "The rationale was to come up with a method of silencing you through killing you," Liddy told Anderson on the CNBC program The Real Story (6/13/91). Liddy's efforts were aborted by higher-ups at the White House.

<h3>Normally, someone who plots to kill those he disagrees with is not regarded as a defender of the First Amendment.</h3> But the publicity given to Liddy's bizarre remarks spells high ratings for talkshows--and for NARTSH, that's always worth defending

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A961958260
The Emotional Politics of a Political Trial

By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK
Published: April 27, 1997

....In early 1995, there was talk of revolution in the air. '<h3>'The second violent American revolution is just about -- I got my fingers about a fourth of an inch apart -- is just about that far away,'' Rush Limbaugh told his talk-radio flock.</h3> G. Gordon Liddy, on his program, discussed how to kill Federal agents. On Capitol Hill, the Republicans who had swept to power promised radical change. And by early April, Speaker Newt Gingrich, a self-described ''genuine revolutionary,'' was celebrating the First 100 Days, the beginning of a historic campaign to slash the size and power of the Federal Government.....

Quote:

http://web.archive.org/web/200109142...er091301.shtml
This Is War
We should invade their countries.

Ms. Coulter is also a syndicated columnist
September 13, 2001 9:05 a.m.

...This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson.

We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don't need an "international coalition." We don't need a study on "terrorism." We certainly didn't need a congressional resolution condemning the attack this week.

The nation has been invaded by a fanatical, murderous cult. And we welcome them. <h3>We are so good and so pure we would never engage in discriminatory racial or "religious" profiling. </h3>

People who want our country destroyed live here, work for our airlines, and are submitted to the exact same airport shakedown as a lumberman from Idaho. This would be like having the Wehrmacht immigrate to America and work for our airlines during World War II. Except the Wehrmacht was not so bloodthirsty.

"All of our lives" don't need to change, as they keep prattling on TV. Every single time there is a terrorist attack — or a plane crashes because of pilot error — Americans allow their rights to be contracted for no purpose whatsoever
...

.....Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Quote:

http://www.observer.com/node/37827
Coultergeist
by George Gurley | August 25, 2002 |

...She’d called Today co-host Katie Couric “the affable Eva Braun of morning TV”....

...“I loved Kansas City!” she said. “It’s like my favorite place in the world. Oh, I think it is so great out there. Well, that’s America. <h3>It’s the opposite of this town. They’re Americans, they’re so great, they’re rooting for America.</h3> I mean, there’s so much common sense!....

...Then she said: <h3>“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”</h3>

I told her to be careful.....

Timothy McVeigh was complicit in the bombing of a building with a day care center populated with small children who were killed and wounded in the bombing of the Murrow Federal building in Oklahoma City in April, 1995.

powerclown · 03-07-2008, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Social insects are closer to genetically motivated slaves. Its stable for social insects because of how the genetics work, and would be inherently unstable in humans for the same reasons.

"Genetically motivated slaves"....hmm, never thought of it like that. So are you saying that when insects are acting in a "social" manner, its a different kind of social than that attributed to humans or even, say, chimps?

I would ask the board communists and the curious alike a question: if communism - any classless society - is the answer to mankinds ills, why hasn't it spread across the world at anytime in recorded history?

Baraka_Guru · 03-08-2008, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so human nature is both parochial and smug.

...not to mention comparable to insect nature.

Ustwo · 03-08-2008, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i like little logic exercises.

so you oppose what you imagine socialism to be.
because of the way you choose to oppose what you imagine socialism to be, it follows that you are yourself therefore a full manifestation of human nature.
because human nature and you coincide in your mutual opposition to what you imagine socialism to be.
so human nature is both parochial and smug.

well played.

Ah word games.

Socialism in genetic terms is group selection. Group selection does not exist in nature, human or otherwise, it is unstable as cheaters will make the system unstable.

I oppose socialism because its fundamentally flawed. If it were not than you would see like minded socialists creating thriving socialist communities, you need not tanks and the IRS to be a socialist, and almost all have failed completely.

It doesn't even work on a small scale on a voluntary basis, yet people like you want to see it enforced under penalty of law.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so disgusting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

"Genetically motivated slaves"....hmm, never thought of it like that. So are you saying that when insects are acting in a "social" manner, its a different kind of social than that attributed to humans or even, say, chimps?

Worker social insects do not reproduce, only the queens/drones. The workers sacrifice their own reproduction, selves, for the good of their mother. This is a mathematically stable relationship in genetic terms (your mother is as related to you as your own children would be). Its completely alien to all but one mammal species, the naked mole rat, which has evolved a lifestyle very much like a social insect.

When chimps band together it is for protection, defeating rival males, and mating. Three weaker male chimps can beat one stronger male, and then all three get to mate. Its not socialism, but closer to capitalism. A contract between the males of a group that they will work together and share the food and mating, but they are not equal in the group. Sex and food are the currencies of their societies.

host · 03-08-2008, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

.....I oppose socialism because its fundamentally flawed. If it were not than you would see like minded socialists creating thriving socialist communities, you need not tanks and the IRS to be a socialist, and almost all have failed completely.

It doesn't even work on a small scale on a voluntary basis, yet people like you want to see it enforced under penalty of law.

It would be laughable if it wasn't so disgusting......

.

Here is the tenth attempt to shift the discussion to f-a-s-c-i-s-m, on a thread titled:
"Are You Leaning Far Enough to the Right to be Considered a Fascist? "

I found this comparison extremely distrubing. Doesn't it seem to reinforce the argument about creeping and creepy fascism in the US these last several years?

I always thought that the necessary trade off of limiting the power of government via the US Constitution was an accepted inevitable increased risk to safety and security. President Bush has acted and communicated as if that premise is no longer valid, that security trumps the long held principle of the priority limiting government power:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0061017-1.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 17, 2006

President Bush Signs Military Commissions Act of 2006

THE PRESIDENT: Welcome to the White House on an historic day. It is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save American lives. I have that privilege this morning.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the war on terror....

....Over the past few months the debate over this bill has been heated, and the questions raised can seem complex. <h3>Yet, with the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?</h3> Every member of Congress who voted for this bill has helped our nation rise to the task that history has given us.....\

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/28/op...70&oref=slogin
January 28, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Finding a Place for 9/11 in American History
By JOSEPH J. ELLIS
Amherst, Mass.

IN recent weeks, President Bush and his administration have mounted a spirited defense of his Iraq policy, the Patriot Act and, especially, a program to wiretap civilians, often reaching back into American history for precedents to justify these actions. It is clear that the president believes that he is acting to protect the security of the American people. It is equally clear that both his belief and the executive authority he claims to justify its use derive from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A myriad of contested questions are obviously at issue here — foreign policy questions about the danger posed by Iraq, constitutional questions about the proper limits on executive authority, even political questions about the president's motives in attacking Iraq. But all of those debates are playing out under the shadow of Sept. 11 and the tremendous changes that it prompted in both foreign and domestic policy.

Whether or not we can regard Sept. 11 as history, I would like to raise two historical questions about the terrorist attacks of that horrific day. My goal is not to offer definitive answers but rather to invite a serious debate about whether Sept. 11 deserves the historical significance it has achieved.

My first question: where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.

Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.

Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.

My second question is this: What does history tell us about our earlier responses to traumatic events?

My list of precedents for the Patriot Act and government wiretapping of American citizens would include the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which allowed the federal government to close newspapers and deport foreigners during the "quasi-war" with France; the denial of habeas corpus during the Civil War, which permitted the pre-emptive arrest of suspected Southern sympathizers; the Red Scare of 1919, which emboldened the attorney general to round up leftist critics in the wake of the Russian Revolution; the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which was justified on the grounds that their ancestry made them potential threats to national security; the McCarthy scare of the early 1950's, which used cold war anxieties to pursue a witch hunt against putative Communists in government, universities and the film industry.

In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. Some very distinguished American presidents, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, succumbed to quite genuine and widespread popular fears. No historian or biographer has argued that these were their finest hours.

What Patrick Henry once called "the lamp of experience" needs to be brought into the shadowy space in which we have all been living since Sept. 11. My tentative conclusion is that the light it sheds exposes the ghosts and goblins of our traumatized imaginations. It is completely understandable that those who lost loved ones on that date will carry emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.

Joseph J. Ellis is a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College and the author, most recently, of "His Excellency: George Washington."

Quote:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...6/ED125108.DTL
EDITORIALS
On the Public's Right to Know
The day Ashcroft censored Freedom of Information

Sunday, January 6, 2002
THE PRESIDENT DIDN't ask the networks for television time. The attorney general didn't hold a press conference. The media didn't report any dramatic change in governmental policy. As a result, most Americans had no idea that one of their most precious freedoms disappeared on Oct. 12.

Yet it happened. In a memo that slipped beneath the political radar, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft vigorously urged federal agencies to resist most Freedom of Information Act requests made by American citizens.

Passed in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Freedom of Information Act has been hailed as one of our greatest democratic reforms. It allows ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting and scrutinizing public documents and records. Without it, journalists, newspapers,

historians and watchdog groups would never be able to keep the government honest. It was our post-Watergate reward, the act that allows us to know what our elected officials do, rather than what they say. It is our national sunshine law, legislation that forces agencies to disclose their public records and documents.

Yet without fanfare, the attorney general simply quashed the FOIA. The Department of Justice did not respond to numerous calls from The Chronicle to comment on the memo

. click to show

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0051006-3.html

The President:...Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, <h3>Islamo-fascism</h3>. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. ....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060807.html

The President:....We must deal with this movement with strong security measures, we must bring justice to those who would attack us, and at the same time, defeat their ideology by the spread of liberty.

And it takes a lot of work. This is the beginning of a long struggle against an ideology that is real and profound. It's <h3>Islamo-fascism</h3>. It comes in different forms.....

...And part of the challenge in the 21st century is to remind people about the stakes, and remind people that in moments of quiet, there's still an <h3>Islamic fascist</h3> group plotting, planning and trying to spread their ideology. .....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060810-3.html
THE PRESIDENT: The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with <h3>Islamic fascists</h3> who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation. .....

.....But obviously, we're still not completely safe, because there are people that still plot and people who want to harm us for what we believe in. It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.....

Is it just a coincidence that Mr. Bush sings the same lyrics as his "Islamofascist" nemesis:

Quote:

<h3>Bush:</h3> "We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now."

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2751019.stm"><h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3></a> In the end, I advise myself and you to fear God covertly and openly and to be patient in the jihad. Victory will be achieved with patience.

I also advise myself and you to say more prayers.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy," "Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> God Almighty says: "Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil."

<h3>Bush:</h3> "There is power -- wonder-working power -- in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> Verily, Allah guideth not a people unjust.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "The American people have deep and diverse religious beliefs, truly one of the great strengths of our country. And the faith of our citizens is seeing us through some demanding times. We're being challenged. We're meeting those challenges because of our faith."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> God Almighty says: "Oh ye who believe! If ye will help the cause of Allah, He will help you and plant your feet firmly."

<h3>Bush:</h3> "After we were attacked on September the 11th, we carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> Obey Him, be thankful to Him, and remember Him always, and die not except in a state of Islam with complete submission to Allah.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "The role of government is limited, because government cannot put hope in people's hearts, or a sense of purpose in people's lives. That happens when someone puts an arm around a neighbor and says, God loves you, I love you, and you can count on us both."

The jurisdiction of the socialists and those rulers has fallen a long time ago. Socialists are infidels wherever they are, whether they are in Baghdad or Aden

<h3>Bush:</h3> "I ask you to challenge your listeners to encourage your congregations to work together for the good of this nation, to work hard to break down the barriers that have divided the children of God for too long. There is no question that we can rid this nation of hopelessness and despair, because the greatest of America is the character of the American people."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> Before concluding, we reiterate the importance of high morale and caution against false rumors, defeatism, uncertainty, and discouragement.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "What I'm saying is, the days of discriminating against religious groups just because they're religious are coming to an end. I have issued an executive order banning discrimination against faith-based charities and social service grants by federal agencies."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> Allah is sufficient for us and He is the best disposer of affairs.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "And we are a courageous country, ready when necessary to defend the peace. And today, the peace is threatened. We face a continuing threat of terrorist networks that hate the very thought of people being able to live in freedom."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> We also stress to honest Muslims that they should move, incite, and mobilize the [Islamic] nation, amid such grave events and hot atmosphere so as to liberate themselves from those unjust and renegade ruling regimes, which are enslaved by the United States.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "They hate the thought of the fact that in this great country, we can worship the Almighty God the way we see fit. And what probably makes him even angrier is we're not going to change."

Muslims' doctrine and banner should be clear in fighting for the sake of God. He who fights to raise the word of God will fight for God's sake. So fight ye against the friends of Satan: feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan

<h3>Bush:</h3> "We face an outlaw regime in Iraq that hates our country."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> Needless to say, this crusade war is primarily targeted against the people of Islam.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "A regime that aids and harbors terrorists and is armed with weapons of mass murder. Chemical agents, lethal viruses, and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He's a threat to the United States of America. He's a threat to some of our closest friends and allies. We don't accept this threat."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> We are following up with great interest and extreme concern the crusaders' preparations for war to occupy a former capital of Islam, loot Muslims' wealth, and install an agent government, which would be a satellite for its masters in Washington and Tel Aviv, just like all the other treasonous and agent Arab governments.
This would be in preparation for establishing the Greater Israel.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "My attitude is that we owe it to future generations of Americans and citizens in freedom-loving countries to see to it that Mr. Saddam Hussein is disarmed."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> This is a prescribed duty. God says: "[And let them pray with thee] taking all precautions and bearing arms: the unbelievers wish if ye were negligent of your arms and your baggage, to assault you in a single rush."

<h3>Bush:</h3> "It's his choice to make as to how he will be disarmed. He can either do so -- which it doesn't look like he's going to -- for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition of willing countries and disarm Saddam Hussein."

Regardless of the removal or the survival of the socialist party or Saddam, Muslims in general and the Iraqis in particular must brace themselves for jihad against this unjust campaign and acquire ammunition and weapons.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "But should we need to use troops, for the sake of future generations of Americans, American troops will act in the honorable traditions of our military and in the highest moral traditions of our country."

Amid this unjust war, the war of infidels and debauchees led by America along with its allies and agents, we would like to stress a number of important values

<h3>Bush:</h3> "In violation of the Geneva Conventions, Saddam Hussein is positioning his military forces within civilian populations in order to shield his military and blame coalition forces for civilian casualties that he has caused. Saddam Hussein regards the Iraqi people as human shields, entirely expendable when their suffering serves his purposes."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> ...we realized from our defense and fighting against the American enemy that, in combat, they mainly depend on psychological warfare. This is in light of the huge media machine they have. They also depend on massive air strikes so as to conceal their most prominent point of weakness, which is the fear, cowardliness, and the absence of combat spirit among US soldiers.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "America views the Iraqi people as human beings who have suffered long enough under this tyrant. And the Iraqi people can be certain of this: the United States is committed to helping them build a better future. If conflict occurs, we'll bring Iraq food and medicine and supplies and, most importantly, freedom."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. A message to our Muslim brothers in Iraq, may God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "We're called to defend our nation and to lead the world to peace, and we will meet both challenges with courage and with confidence."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> If all the world forces of evil could not achieve their goals on a one square mile of area against a small number of mujahideen with very limited capabilities, how can these evil forces triumph over the Muslim world?

<h3>Bush:</h3> "Liberty is not America's gift to the world. Liberty is God's gift to every human being in the world."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> God, who sent the book unto the prophet, who drives the clouds, and who defeated the enemy parties, defeat them and make us victorious over them.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "There's an old saying, 'Let us not pray for tasks equal to our strength. Let us pray for strength equal to our tasks.' And that is our prayer today, for the strength in every task we face."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> ...we remind that victory comes only from God and all we have to do is prepare and motivate for jihad.

<h3>Bush:</h3> "I want to thank each of you for your prayers. I want to thank you for your faithfulness. I want to thank you for your good work. And I want to thank you for loving your country. May God bless you all, and may God bless America."

<h3>Islamofascist Bin Laden:</h3> O ye who believe. When ye meet a force, be firm, and call Allah in remembrance much (and often); That ye may prosper. Our Lord. Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter and save us from the torment of the Fire. May God's peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad and his household.

roachboy · 03-08-2008, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Socialism in genetic terms is group selection. Group selection does not exist in nature, human or otherwise, it is unstable as cheaters will make the system unstable.

that, ustwo, is idiotic.

how about this game, then.

you seem to imagine that genetics determines the contents of human capabilities, not merely the capacities to acquire capabilities---which is functionally the claim that genetics determines how you will use language--what you will say---and not just your capacity to acquire language and something of the boundary conditions that may limit that acquisition.

that means that you understand human beings as a type of thing and their genetic makeup as a type of essence.
human beings perform their essence.
that means that human beings are not free in any meaningful way--they are repetition machines whose primary function is the performance of system characteristics given in advance by their genetic makeup--a kind of zip file, i take it.
so you oppose socialism, which you do not understand at all, in the name of a conception of "freedom" based on an "understanding" of genetics that functionally erases all possibility of freedom.

way to go.

but it gets better: you also have made it clear that you understand this essence as unevenly distributed--you understand human beings to be naturally hierarchical and you understand capitalist hierarchies as an expression of these natural hierarchies--presumably because you like to imagine yourself as atop them.

so communities are groups which array themselves along natural hierarchies.
communities themselves are "natural" or "organic"--you know, pure, with a clear inside and outside. like human beings, they are closed systems the primary function of which is the performance of their own characteristics, the implications of their "essence" deployed across time.
if communities are closed, self referential systems, then they are amenable to contamination.
contamination would disrupt the orderly repetition of natural hierarchies in the context of organic communities, and so would be threats to the organic nature of the community.
contaminants would have to be eliminated.
they are disease.

welcome to fascism. in this case, your "genetic theory" is a kinda of corporatism, so you probably would have been a perfectly content italian fascist and maybe would have objected to the bluntness of german fascism--unless you felt that the body politic was under threat from some disease from within or without, in which case you'd maybe have been ok with a little bluntness. or not, it's hard to say: but at the ideological core of things, there is little distinction between your "genetic" views and those of some of the corporatist theorists that appealed to mussolini and which drew the catholic church into supporting him through the 1920s and early 30s.

you too would have no problem with jailing the entire political left as disease carriers. it follows.

powerclown · 03-08-2008, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Worker social insects do not reproduce, only the queens/drones. The workers sacrifice their own reproduction, selves, for the good of their mother. This is a mathematically stable relationship in genetic terms (your mother is as related to you as your own children would be). Its completely alien to all but one mammal species, the naked mole rat, which has evolved a lifestyle very much like a social insect.

Makes sense. Insects as genetically programmed for the survival and care of the colony, as opposed to the survival and care of their own offspring. The ramifications are interesting. Did you know that worker ants are females who are fanatically devoted to the other female ants, but not so much devoted the male ants? And that it is the elder female ants (as opposed to young males) which are sent out to fight and protect the colony? This came as a surprise to me; they're amazonian femi-nazis, kinda like Hilary.

But roachboy, why hasn't communism ever worked out in the real world, you know, like outside of books?

roachboy · 03-08-2008, 02:03 PM

Quote:

But roachboy, why hasn't communism ever worked out in the real world, you know, like outside of books?

so you expect me to take you seriously after you agree with ustwo that there is some unproblematic analogy between human social groups and those of insects?

and this after the post directly above you, which you obviously did not read.

you must be dreaming.

Baraka_Guru · 03-08-2008, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so you expect me to take you seriously after you agree with ustwo that there is some unproblematic analogy between human social groups and those of insects?

and this after the post directly above you, which you obviously did not read.

you must be dreaming.

My thoughts exactly. I don't think Darwin would have made such a leap, and he was a pioneer. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong. At any rate, contemporary evolutionary theorists would scoff at such a thought. Then again, evolutionary theory isn't that interesting to the general reader. Most have only an elementary concept of Darwinism--hence the constant misquoting of "survival of the fittest"--let alone any understanding of those who have followed him. Though I will add that I've seen some disturbing evidence of social Darwinism on this board, though it does not seem overt in its use.)

powerclown · 03-08-2008, 02:30 PM

What does what I commented to ustwo have anything to do about the existence of communism in the real world?

Can you, or anyone here, answer the question: why hasn't communism caught on as a major political ideology in the world, at anytime in history? I really am curious to know.

Willravel · 03-08-2008, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerclown

Can you, or anyone here, answer the question: why hasn't communism caught on as a major political ideology in the world, at anytime in history? I really am curious to know.

Communism has never been accurately developed and implemented. Unfortunately, several leaders throughout history have use the name "communism" in order to attain great power, which has given the term a considerably negative connotation.

It was developed by Marx only relatively recently and since then it's few incarnations have been artificial; not genuine. Marxism was replaced quickly by Leninism, which is actually a form of fascism (to tie this back into the thread).

Baraka_Guru · 03-08-2008, 02:48 PM

And it should be noted that predominantly capitalist systems aren't exactly working either.

roachboy · 03-08-2008, 06:08 PM

in deference to host, who is trying to steer the thread in the direction that he set it into motion to go in, please start another thread for this, powerclown.

but if you do, could you try to be clear about what you're asking about?
communism as the determinate negation of capitalism?
communism as a synonym for direct democracy?
communism as a meme thrown about by conservatives to designate anything they dont like?

it isn't obvious.

powerclown · 03-08-2008, 07:59 PM

I think will gave a pretty decent overview actually.

tisonlyi · 03-17-2008, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Communism has never been accurately developed and implemented. Unfortunately, several leaders throughout history have use the name "communism" in order to attain great power, which has given the term a considerably negative connotation.

It was developed by Marx only relatively recently and since then it's few incarnations have been artificial; not genuine. Marxism was replaced quickly by Leninism, which is actually a form of fascism (to tie this back into the thread).

Leninism and Stalism, both of which can be better described as Authoritarian State Capitalism than Communism, as they were autocratic regimes who used extreme force and 'owned' the total labour of the people.

If I take a dump in a box of Kellog's finest, seal it up and put it on the shelf - you may pick up a box that says "Corn Flakes", but I doubt you'll get to the crunchy bits before realising something is amiss in the nomenclature.

Ustwo · 03-17-2008, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Communism has never been accurately developed and implemented. Unfortunately, several leaders throughout history have use the name "communism" in order to attain great power, which has given the term a considerably negative connotation.

It was developed by Marx only relatively recently and since then it's few incarnations have been artificial; not genuine. Marxism was replaced quickly by Leninism, which is actually a form of fascism (to tie this back into the thread).

Then why are not people like you all banding together to do it 'right'.

You don't need me.

You and roachboy and host and whoever else can do it all on your own. You don't need the power of government even, go set up that communist society right here in the US and show us how its done. As your success grows so will your membership, more and more will want to join your system which is better than the unmitigated disaster of neo-liberalism.

It only takes the right people after all!

Charlatan · 03-17-2008, 10:39 PM

I am not sure why anyone wouldn't want pure communism *or* pure capitalism... BOTH sound great on paper.

The problem is that both are utopian in their pure forms. Utopian ideals are (so far) impossible to implement.

To my mind, the ideal is, as always, a balance between the two.

ottopilot · 03-18-2008, 06:19 AM

If we are sitting in a chair while leaning just a little to the right, say reaching for a napkin,
and the chair leg broke causing one to fall completely to the right,
sprawled out on the floor ... possibly injured,
would one immediately become a fascist?

Would the 5 second rule apply?

Ustwo · 03-18-2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

I am not sure why anyone wouldn't want pure communism *or* pure capitalism... BOTH sound great on paper.

The problem is that both are utopian in their pure forms. Utopian ideals are (so far) impossible to implement.

To my mind, the ideal is, as always, a balance between the two.

Capitalism works with human nature.

Communism works against it. It doesn't work small scale for long, its a police state large scale, prone to genocide.

The two don't even belong together in a conversation. Evolution is to creationism as capitalism is to communism. They get brought up together because they are polar opposites but that doesn't make communism more valid.

A pure capitalism society would be harsh, but it could function as one.
A pure communism society would simply collapse into a totalitarian police state. I don't know how many examples of this are needed before the trend becomes clear to the armchair communists.

Regulated and unregulated capitalism is something worth looking into and I in general favor regulated, thats where the yin and yang is here.

If you want to argue that state funded schools or even roads are 'communist' I'd counter they are an investment.

If you want to bring up welfare and the like as communist I'd agree with you and ask how well thats all been working out, is the war on poverty 'winnable' and when can we pull out. The programs themselves create far more poverty then they cure.

host · 03-18-2008, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Capitalism works with human nature.

Communism works against it. It doesn't work small scale for long, its a police state large scale, prone to genocide.

The two don't even belong together in a conversation....

Did you even read post <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=2410908&postcount=86">#86</a> ?

What the hell are you talking about.....just spouting on here, over coffee, between patient appointments?

We're the ones who have posted arguments displayed alongside your own on this thread. The "human nature" references you post, trigger affirmative nods from people who will agree with anything that you post here.

But, what about the rest of us? Can you clue us in, at all? Is there any acceptance by you that the idea of "human nature", is too broadly contested to be the basis of any coherent argument? That is the status of that phrase. Look it up....it's meaningless....why use it, except to provoke, or to have your own "coded" conversation here with others who nod in the affirmative everytime you post anything?

tisonlyi · 03-18-2008, 07:59 AM

'Human Nature' is different depending on the society that a person happens to have been raised in together with the intensity and type of indoctrination that person happens to have been conditioned for.

Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, for example, when faced with questions of how to respond to crime, drug abuse, economic well-being for the person and the nation, interpersonal relations, international relations, healthcare, personal ambition, meaning of life, etc, etc, etc... come up with different reactions and solutions to people from England, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Cuba, India, Africa, Venezuela, Australia, The US Personal Libertarians, US Social Libertarians, US 'Jesusland'ers, etc, etc, etc...

I've lived with, talked to, drank with, argued with and debated ex pats from around the world, from Arkansas to Tokyo, Harare to Caracas. By instinct they are very different people.

There is no one 'human nature'. The instinct of one person is likely to be very different from the instinct of the next and extremely different to someone of a different tribe, nation, race, social class or religion.

We all need to breathe the same air, aside from that every aspect of 'humanity' is controlled by our genetics, our experiences, our education and our conditioning. There are large overlaps in many areas of human experience between peoples but we are all different, thankfully... Otherwise everyone would have the same set of instincts and there would never be an evolution of ideas.

Oh, and this should be interesting to anyone interested in Fascism.

Italian Fascism

roachboy · 03-18-2008, 08:55 AM

tisonlyi:

let me spare you a bit of ustwo's gloss on his own positions and give you a little summary of how they go. you can find this by scrolling up in this thread, or by looking in any number of other threads:

human nature-->capitalism-->what exists because it exists as it exists-->my position within what exists demonstrates the legitimacy of what exists-->because that order exists now, it must always have existed--->my position is therefore part of a natural order--->a natural order is an expression of human nature--->human nature-->capitalism-->what exists because it exists as it exists-->my position within what exists demonstrates the legitimacy of what exists etc etc etc

sometimes this gets supplemented with assertions about genetics, which function as essence so human beings are objects the primary function of which is to repeat the characteristics imposed on them by their essence, which basically results in a claim about human nature, at which point the circle repeats again.

it's classic petit-bourgeois reactionary stuff.
you'll see, if you haven't already.

tisonlyi · 03-18-2008, 09:04 AM

I was posting here a long, long time ago and have come back a time or two over the years...

Mostly for the smut...

And like the smut, some things never change.

loquitur · 03-18-2008, 02:00 PM

Actually, Roachboy, I would refine that a bit. It's probably beyond cavil that communism does not comport with human nature. It does not follow, however, that capitalism does comport with human nature. It only follows in certain cultures with certain premises, and even then less than completely. Getting "rule of law" straight is a really really big prerequisite to capitalism (probably the most important one), and it's quite difficult to get it right.

roachboy · 03-18-2008, 02:10 PM

well, loquitor, i'd be happy to debate that with you--i think your argument about this fiction "human nature" is circular---the other about the rule of law is different, and would probably find us converging on social democracy---
but it'd definitely be a threadjack.

if i can figure out a way to frame another thread (or two, since the questions are quite different one from the other), i'll put one up--feel free to do the same.

loquitur · 03-18-2008, 07:04 PM

a threadjack?

You know what, RB? I'm so sick of looking at that perpetually misused and overused F word that I'd almost welcome a threadjack.......

Ustwo · 03-18-2008, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

Actually, Roachboy, I would refine that a bit. It's probably beyond cavil that communism does not comport with human nature. It does not follow, however, that capitalism does comport with human nature. It only follows in certain cultures with certain premises, and even then less than completely. Getting "rule of law" straight is a really really big prerequisite to capitalism (probably the most important one), and it's quite difficult to get it right.

Actually I look at it a bit more basically.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

This popular communist slogan really has no place in nature genetically. There isn't a single species of anything I can think of that works on this premise, and I'm talking from any kingdom of animal or plant. Even our own genes are in competition with one another for the ultimate goal of reproduction. In social animals that goal is achieved by social status, power, and whatever 'wealth' they use, normally shelter and access to food.

As I pointed out earlier the only mathematically stable system close to this would be social insect colonies or an individual body. Much like a worker bee, your body cells sacrifice their own immortality in order to produce a 1/2 related offspring.

Human nature isn't truly 'capitalistic', but capitalism itself can fit with our natures, even at the genetic level. It allows for the natural competition for greater rewards/reproductive success while at the same time, at least with democracy, creating such a large power group that the natural tendency to exploit our fellows is curbed. The rule of law as you say.

But as I say the communists don't have to take my word for it, please, go do it, and see how that shakes down

tisonlyi · 03-19-2008, 03:28 AM

Genetics are a tenuous base on which to base capitalist dogma.

I suggest that you read the works of Richard Dawkins, starting with "The Selfish Gene" - should your personally selected divine revealer of Truth with a direct connection up to the bearded guy in the clouds allow you. HUMOUR ALERT.

Also, just to make it perfectly clear, the term "selfish" is used in a very specific, non-usual manner in "The Selfish Gene". Greed-is-good, free market, laisez faire capitalism is not backed up by Biology as nature's way.

Free markets are not a corollary of genetics. (no economic, philosophical, religious or political theories are)

Specifically, Ch. 12

Nice Guys Finish First

loquitur · 03-19-2008, 06:10 AM

Well, the competitive principle doesn't always prevail and doesn't always yield optimal results - that was the main insight of John Forbes Nash and the central premise of game theory. But the basic idea that competition will usually, through the invisible hand, provide greater material good at lower cost has been proven true over and over again - subject to what I said earlier about everyone signing on to the rule of law, property rights, peaceful dispute resolution and minimum levels of trust in institutions (including but not necessarily governmental institutions - also banks, utilities, etc).

roachboy · 03-19-2008, 06:22 AM

i take it that "the invisible hand" ends up being god.
there are so many problems in going from the level of metaphysical statements about the "eternal principles" that capitalism is supposed to embody to the discontinuous and problematic historical reality of capitalism as a mode of production in the actually existing world that it is hard to know where to start a transposition game. or even if its worth doing.

it simply is not the case that actually existing capitalism can be mapped onto the fantasy markets you find in adam smith--any more than actually existing america can be usefully understood as a community of yeoman farmers.
you can't get started.
it's a waste of time.

competition does not mean a single thing---read some nietzsche. if you want to fetishize an abstract notion of competition, it seems to me that you have to necessarily extend that into notions of hierarchy--so following nietzsche, there are formal/bureaucratic hierarchies that exempt agents from competition in any meaningful sense---there are economic and social hierarchies which are arbitrary relative to this idea of competition uber alles--even if actors from a seriously advantaged economic position and ones from a seriously disadvantaged one "compete" in the giant wrestling match of some "market" the folk without the arbitrary advantages--say material resources--will loose. that is about attrition and resources more often than it is about abilities or "fit"----you can go on and on with this sort of thing.

and the claim that more and cheaper goods is necessarily an index of anything beyond the availability of more and cheaper goods is a strange one. again, it takes nothing about the historical world into account. think about, say, the effects of systematic american dumping of agricultural overproduction in dairy or corn onto southern hemisphere countries in the context of structural adjustment programs---more and cheaper goods has generally meant the destruction of food self-sufficiency to the exclusive advantage of american corporate agricultural interests--if you can figure a way to equate dependency with an improvement in the quality of life, go for it: i could use a laugh.

and this is not even really STARTING to contrast the metaphysics of markets with the actually existing historical world---this is all still inside the distant world of religious faith---which are aspects of the historical world in the way that any other fiction is.

generally, the way these arguments go is the accumulation of a vast heap of "exceptions"---well this is an exception, that a distortion, that a mitigating circumstance---if only "pure competition" if only "pure" markets, everything would be hunky dory--if only these distortions would stop always everywhere happening. but you'd think this would eventually pose a problem of the argument itself, particularly when the pile of distortions and unfortunate mitigating factors is exponentially bigger than the examples of "pure" competition/markets, once the world is expanded beyond the front and back covers of "the wealth of nations"...

Ustwo · 03-19-2008, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Genetics are a tenuous base on which to base capitalist dogma.

I suggest that you read the works of Richard Dawkins, starting with "The Selfish Gene" - should your personally selected divine revealer of Truth with a direct connection up to the bearded guy in the clouds allow you. HUMOUR ALERT.

Also, just to make it perfectly clear, the term "selfish" is used in a very specific, non-usual manner in "The Selfish Gene". Greed-is-good, free market, laisez faire capitalism is not backed up by Biology as nature's way.

Free markets are not a corollary of genetics. (no economic, philosophical, religious or political theories are)

Specifically, Ch. 12

Nice Guys Finish First

I already read it/them. I read the God delusion, the ancestors tail and the selfish gene, I didn't read the blind watchmaker but we are getting into redundant territory. Dawkins is funny.

He basically states what I state while trying to be a good liberal and claim we don't need to BE this way. I equate it with people trying to 'cure' homosexuality, you can't fight your genes and win in the long run.

I'd recommend the Red Queen by Matt Riddley, he puts human behavior into a genetic reproductive context quite well, something Dawkins does not want to do.

host · 03-19-2008, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

.....even if actors from a seriously advantaged economic position and ones from a seriously disadvantaged one "compete" in the giant wrestling match of some "market" the folk without the arbitrary advantages--say material resources--will loose. that is about attrition and resources more often than it is about abilities or "fit"----you can go on and on with this sort of thing.....

Quote:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html

......A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."

Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement.

Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S. manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.......

.....Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.......

.....Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."......

......Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing.".....

.....And so Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles went into every Wal-Mart, some 3,000 stores, at $2.97, a price so low that Vlasic and Wal-Mart were making only a penny or two on a jar, if that. It was showcased on big pallets near the front of stores. It was an abundance of abundance. "It was selling 80 jars a week, on average, in every store," says Young. Doesn't sound like much, until you do the math: That's 240,000 gallons of pickles, just in gallon jars, just at Wal-Mart, every week. Whole fields of cucumbers were heading out the door.

For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough."

The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers, strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young says--millions of dollars.

The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.

Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.

<h3>Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back off.'</h3> " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of pickles, for $2.79. Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy--although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

By now, it is accepted wisdom that Wal-Mart makes the companies it does business with more efficient and focused, leaner and faster. Wal-Mart itself is known for continuous improvement in its ability to handle, move, and track merchandise. It expects the same of its suppliers. But the ability to operate at peak efficiency only gets you in the door at Wal-Mart. Then the real demands start. The public image Wal-Mart projects may be as cheery as its yellow smiley-face mascot, but there is nothing genial about the process by which Wal-Mart gets its suppliers to provide tires and contact lenses, guns and underarm deodorant at every day low prices. Wal-Mart is legendary for forcing its suppliers to redesign everything from their packaging to their computer systems. It is also legendary for quite straightforwardly telling them what it will pay for their goods......

Two things, loquitur....

Consider that if, Walmart is the poster child for what "capitalism" (It's actually corporatism....look at the way Walmart enlists the state to use it's eminent domain power to help Walmart acquire store site properties when Walmart balks at prices demanded by property owners or at the stubbornness of "holdouts"....and the influence of Walmart's lobbying clout, etc....) the eventuall effect of Walmart "efficiency demands", on it's "associates" and suppliers, is that neither Walmart nor it's suppliers can "work the Walmart economic model", and compensate workers enough to enable them to shop in Walmart's stores!

Isn't that the exact opposite dynamic than the 1950's "balance" of unionism and capitalism that enabled the workers at Ford and GM who built the cars, to be able to afford to buy the cars that they built?

Didn't Henry Ford, in 1914, pay the then unheard of wage of $5.00 per day to Ford auto plant workers, calculating that this was the wage level that would permit auto assembly workers to buy the cars that they built?

....and, in your own industry, Loquitur, what percentage of the public can afford to pay for an adequate (superior to indigent legal aid criminal defense services...) criminal defense, these days? Do you think even all of the top five percent of income earners could pay the criminal defense billings from a competent attorney of a private law firm, complete with the costs of investigation, expert witnesses, etc.... these days? The OJ Simpson case is still a good example....would OJ have avoided conviction if he enjoyed the financial resources of an average income and net worth defendant in the circumstances that OJ found himself in, arrested for murdering his ex-wife, et al?

Do you suppose that lack of affordability of private criminal defense "resources' is a factor appreciably contributing to the much higher conviction rates of poorer, vs. wealthier criminal defendants?

Ustwo · 03-19-2008, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

Well, the competitive principle doesn't always prevail and doesn't always yield optimal results - that was the main insight of John Forbes Nash and the central premise of game theory. But the basic idea that competition will usually, through the invisible hand, provide greater material good at lower cost has been proven true over and over again - subject to what I said earlier about everyone signing on to the rule of law, property rights, peaceful dispute resolution and minimum levels of trust in institutions (including but not necessarily governmental institutions - also banks, utilities, etc).

I agree with this. Its not 100% competitiveness, that is not the best solution normally either. If that were true I should try to kill every male I come across but the genetic cost of such behavior is higher than some live and let live or cooperation. There are varying levels of this competition in the animal kingdom, all mathematically stable.

loquitur · 03-19-2008, 07:21 AM

Host, people who make bad business decisions should be permitted to fail. And I'm not a big fan of corporate welfare, either - if a company can't succeed without government help, tough luck. No eminent domain, no bailouts. Don't confuse being pro-free market (which is what I am) with "pro anything a business wants."

I've litigated against Wal-Mart in the past. I won. And no, they weren't pleasant.

On your last question, Host, let me flip this around on you: I don't do criminal defense law, but consider this - I took on a lot of debt to get through law school, worked for the government at low pay after I graduated, and have 24 years of experience in a very demanding, very stressful job with very long hours, in which I have gained a fair amount of expertise and a reputation for creativity and practical problem-solving. I'm on the hook for my firm's lease and for all of the firm's employees' salaries and the firm's expenses. I get paid only if there is money left over after all the vendors and employees get paid. Is there any particular reason I should be giving my services to people who aren't willing to pay market price for them, merely because they are poor? Why aren't I entitled to the fruits of my investment, effort and creativity - and risk?

If someone gets into a criminal problem and needs a lawyer, they can have one appointed for them if they can't afford one. That's a pretty enlightened step for a society, you know, especially in light of history. But I can think of no reason that Joe Schmoe on the street should have a right to the criminal defense equivalent of me. A lawyer, yes. A top-notch lawyer? Why? We don't give poor people fancy clothes or steaks - they have to get by on basic clothes and food stamps. A lawyer should be no different. I might decide to do nice things pro bono, and occasionally I do, but that's my choice - no one has the right to my labor except me and the people who pay me. We got rid of slavery in 1863 and I don't think we should re-institute it for lawyers.

Henry Ford, by the way, was a business genius. His decision to pay good wages was the perfect example of enlightened self-interest. Most really successful business people have the insights to do things like that.

I have maintained consistently that only a foolish boss doesn't treat employees well.

Ustwo · 03-19-2008, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

I have maintained consistently that only a foolish boss doesn't treat employees well.

As a boss I have to say Amen to that. I just gained two new employees from a local competitor, and could take his whole staff if I wanted.

You have to grease the wheel the grinds the grit.

roachboy · 03-19-2008, 07:47 AM

so what you're saying, loquitor, is that because you took on debt to go to law school that therefore the american class system and all its ramifications are hunky dory? so poorer folk who find themselves in a legal conflict *deserve* lower-quality representation because you took on debt to go to law school?

and do you really think that legal representation is like meat or shoes?
i dont get it.

your argument could be turned another way: the debt accumulated to get through the american university system is coercive and one of the indices of that coercion is your acquiescence to the structure of inequality the system produces...because that debt forced you to make choices and those choices have shaped your view and so in that sense your outlook is basically a consequence of having endured the coercion that educational debt exerts on all who take it on after the fun of university is over. at the same time, because your experience is your experience, you naturalize the elements that forced your hand at critical moments--and so now you see the class structure as neutral, have a moralizing interpretation of your own trajectory (which is symmetrical with the neutralization of the class structure as political question)--with the result that you see your own services as a consumer option. like meat. or shoes.

so someone who is not you could read off from your narrative a set of reasons why the way educational debt produces consent for the existing political order--in which case, the political issue might end up being the system that relies on that debt...

host · 03-19-2008, 07:55 AM

loquitur, the point I am trying to persuade you to consider is that, to a greater extent even than in the area of medical treatment, the state has become the provider of criminal defense services because the "free market model", for a myriad of reasons, has priced itself out of the market of affordability of even the lower income earners in the top five percent of all American income earners.

This is fact, say....in defending against a murder charge in a criminal trial by jury. On a lower rung, I know from personal experience living in the State of NY, that even a couple both earning significantly above average cannot afford (justify?) the cost of legal representation in a complex, drawn out, divorce.

In civil law practice, especially in mundane areas like a concentration in real estate closings, even heavy reliance on the services of paralegals do not result in such services being "cheap", because, as you described, the cost of education and fixed costs of doing business are so high, especially in the pricier NY metro area.

So, can we agree that in the sectors of medical care, legal services, and in the asking price for the average home, the average income earner, unless provided by an employer subsidized benefit in addition to average income earned, cannot afford to purchase those services or that average priced house?

Isn't the consequence of the fundamentals related to the price of the average house, the core reason for the failure of Bear Stearns, the emergency FED "rate cuts", the rapid devaluation of the dollar, the killing of rate of return on middle class savings deposits?

What would have to happen to convince any promoter of capitalism that the system, going forward, is not definitely the best economic system for the majority of Americans?

Is there less "corporatism" evident today, than before this past sunday's news about the Fed's role in the nationalization of Bear Stearns? With a $30 billion loss risk mitigation guarantee extended by the Fed to JPM in exchange for it's agreeing to buy BSC for less than $250 million, didn't the Fed actually nationalize BSC?

Isn't doing something like that, a corporatist activity? Who does it benefit? Doesn't it benefit the elite at the expense of seniors seeking modest 5 percent return on savings deposits? Does it benefit the taxpayer?

<h3>Wasn't Italian fascism described by Mussolini, as "corporatism"? Why did the Fed guarantee any BSC "loss risk"? Isn't our entire system, if gains are permitted to rise to unlimited levels, but losses are stopped dead in their descent by Fed "bailout guarantees", at taxpayers' expense, closer to corporatism than they are to capitalism?</h3>

Hasn't the strength of US currency, with short term interest rates lowered by the Fed from 5.5 percent last september, to 2.25 percent, as of yesterday, been compromised in favor of shoring up the portfolios of speculators in real estate and traded securities?

<h3>Haven't the interests of less than 40 million specualtors subordinated the interests and the wealth and purchasing power of the dollar, of the other 160 million American adults, via all of the Fed's decisions since last september?</h3> What kind of a system, especially one that actually backed off on the rate of taxation on the gains of these same speculators, so blatantly puts their interests above the interests of the vast majority of us?

Not a free market, a capitalist, or a democratic system.....yet no protest that I can find......

tisonlyi · 03-19-2008, 08:04 AM

Matt Ridley.

The son and heir of a Viscount, adulterer of science to justify and glorify much of the destruction that Thatcher wrought upon my country and a member of the board for 14 years of a company that has just been nationalised, SOCIALISM! *gasp!*, because it's management was so ludicrously inept that the contagion of runs on UK banks that his mismanagement caused (he was singled out by a parliamentary committee) could well have brought down the entire financial apparatus of the country should the strangely absent "invisible hand" have been allowed to do it's work unchecked.

Matt @ Northern Rock
The Northern Rock Debacle (bail-outs of US$60-80bn according to the Bank of England chairman, roughly a US$6000 bill for every British family)

What he knows of genetics is debatable, but what he knows of economics and morality certainly aren't.

The work of that man should be utilized to it's fullest potential in the lavatories across every nation that it is now available.

Ustwo · 03-19-2008, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so what you're saying, loquitor, is that because you took on debt to go to law school that therefore the american class system and all its ramifications are hunky dory? so poorer folk who find themselves in a legal conflict *deserve* lower-quality representation because you took on debt to go to law school?

and do you really think that legal representation is like meat or shoes?
i dont get it.

your argument could be turned another way: the debt accumulated to get through the american university system is coercive and one of the indices of that coercion is your acquiescence to the structure of inequality the system produces...because that debt forced you to make choices and those choices have shaped your view and so in that sense your outlook is basically a consequence of having endured the coercion that educational debt exerts on all who take it on after the fun of university is over. at the same time, because your experience is your experience, you naturalize the elements that forced your hand at critical moments--and so now you see the class structure as neutral, have a moralizing interpretation of your own trajectory (which is symmetrical with the neutralization of the class structure as political question)--with the result that you see your own services as a consumer option. like meat. or shoes.

so someone who is not you could read off from your narrative a set of reasons why the way educational debt produces consent for the existing political order--in which case, the political issue might end up being the system that relies on that debt...

Take out the reward and 99% of the people who are 'top' will not work as hard as they do and be no longer 'top', of course the top would have to be redefined.

There is a reason soviet era doctors sucked so badly.

Debt is not the prime motivator, debt is just a function of starting from scratch. I personally am 800 thousand dollars in debt, but thats a good thing its available. Banks took a risk with me being successful, I took a risk taking the loans, the system built a new office and let me hire new people. Jobs are created, a service to the community is rendered and all works out provided I can deliver what I said I could.

I really love my job over all, I enjoy it, I don't mind going to work, its a great thing. If I had to do it all over again, and you told me from your socialist chair that I would no longer be well compensated, could not have been my own boss, and would be working 'for the people' I would not have spent 7 extra years of my life working my ass off, putting off having a family, stressing myself out, and pushing myself to be the best of the best in my field.

I have a very good friend in lawschool right now, last time I saw him it looked like he dropped 15 lbs (and he was too thin to start with) and had acne induced from stress (common side effect of stress, I got it myself in school). Hes pushing himself and putting up with a lot of crap to be a good lawyer when hes done, you have no right to his labor when hes done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Matt Ridley.

The son and heir of a Viscount, adulterer of science to justify and glorify much of the destruction that Thatcher wrought upon my country and a member of the board for 14 years of a company that has just been nationalised, SOCIALISM! *gasp!*, because it's management was so ludicrously inept that the contagion of runs on UK banks that his mismanagement caused (he was singled out by a parliamentary committee) could well have brought down the entire financial apparatus of the country should the strangely absent "invisible hand" have been allowed to do it's work unchecked.

Matt @ Northern Rock
The Northern Rock Debacle (bail-outs of US$60-80bn according to the Bank of England chairman, roughly a US$6000 bill for every British family)

What he knows of genetics is debatable, but what he knows of economics and morality certainly aren't.

The work of that man should be utilized to it's fullest potential in the lavatories across every nation that it is now available.

He doesn't agree with you so hes an idiot.

Thats great, you sir are a true scholar and have much to teach us.

I don't agree with Richard Dawkins (and if you read his work you would know that he does reference Ridley a number of times and not in a negative way, the worst he said is he thinks Ridley stresses the disease fighting angle of 'why sex' too strongly) politically but only on his conclusions of the data not the data itself.

Please, you are obliviously out of your depth here scientifically and are trying to play politics with science. This is more about how science affects our politics

loquitur · 03-19-2008, 08:19 AM

Guys, other people do not have a right to my labor other than on the terms I'm willing to provide it, period. We abolished involuntary servitude in the Thirteenth Amendment, and all the sob stories out there don't entitle anyone to force me to work for them if I don't want to.

And I'll tell you something else: I will NOT work 14 hour days and take on risks if people other than myself get to decide how I run my life. If other people want a claim on me, I'll quit this rat race and get a nice civil service job with benefits, where I won't have to make decisions, won't have responsibility, won't have stress and will have a lovely rubber stamp to mark on documents to my heart's content. I'll put my creative energies into something else.

That's structural equity, guys. You don't have a right to my brain.

03-08-2008, 02:48 PM	#92 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	And it should be noted that predominantly capitalist systems aren't exactly working either. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

03-08-2008, 06:08 PM	#93 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	in deference to host, who is trying to steer the thread in the direction that he set it into motion to go in, please start another thread for this, powerclown. but if you do, could you try to be clear about what you're asking about? communism as the determinate negation of capitalism? communism as a synonym for direct democracy? communism as a meme thrown about by conservatives to designate anything they dont like? it isn't obvious. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-08-2008 at 06:10 PM..

03-17-2008, 10:39 PM	#97 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	I am not sure why anyone wouldn't want pure communism or pure capitalism... BOTH sound great on paper. The problem is that both are utopian in their pure forms. Utopian ideals are (so far) impossible to implement. To my mind, the ideal is, as always, a balance between the two. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

03-18-2008, 06:19 AM	#98 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	If we are sitting in a chair while leaning just a little to the right, say reaching for a napkin, and the chair leg broke causing one to fall completely to the right, sprawled out on the floor ... possibly injured, would one immediately become a fascist? Would the 5 second rule apply? __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

03-18-2008, 07:59 AM	#101 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	'Human Nature' is different depending on the society that a person happens to have been raised in together with the intensity and type of indoctrination that person happens to have been conditioned for. Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, for example, when faced with questions of how to respond to crime, drug abuse, economic well-being for the person and the nation, interpersonal relations, international relations, healthcare, personal ambition, meaning of life, etc, etc, etc... come up with different reactions and solutions to people from England, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Cuba, India, Africa, Venezuela, Australia, The US Personal Libertarians, US Social Libertarians, US 'Jesusland'ers, etc, etc, etc... I've lived with, talked to, drank with, argued with and debated ex pats from around the world, from Arkansas to Tokyo, Harare to Caracas. By instinct they are very different people. There is no one 'human nature'. The instinct of one person is likely to be very different from the instinct of the next and extremely different to someone of a different tribe, nation, race, social class or religion. We all need to breathe the same air, aside from that every aspect of 'humanity' is controlled by our genetics, our experiences, our education and our conditioning. There are large overlaps in many areas of human experience between peoples but we are all different, thankfully... Otherwise everyone would have the same set of instincts and there would never be an evolution of ideas. Oh, and this should be interesting to anyone interested in Fascism. Italian Fascism __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}-- Last edited by tisonlyi; 03-18-2008 at 08:55 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

03-08-2008, 02:30 PM	#90 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	What does what I commented to ustwo have anything to do about the existence of communism in the real world? Can you, or anyone here, answer the question: why hasn't communism caught on as a major political ideology in the world, at anytime in history? I really am curious to know.

03-08-2008, 07:59 PM	#94 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	I think will gave a pretty decent overview actually.

03-18-2008, 08:55 AM	#102 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	tisonlyi: let me spare you a bit of ustwo's gloss on his own positions and give you a little summary of how they go. you can find this by scrolling up in this thread, or by looking in any number of other threads: human nature-->capitalism-->what exists because it exists as it exists-->my position within what exists demonstrates the legitimacy of what exists-->because that order exists now, it must always have existed--->my position is therefore part of a natural order--->a natural order is an expression of human nature--->human nature-->capitalism-->what exists because it exists as it exists-->my position within what exists demonstrates the legitimacy of what exists etc etc etc sometimes this gets supplemented with assertions about genetics, which function as essence so human beings are objects the primary function of which is to repeat the characteristics imposed on them by their essence, which basically results in a claim about human nature, at which point the circle repeats again. it's classic petit-bourgeois reactionary stuff. you'll see, if you haven't already. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-18-2008, 09:04 AM	#103 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	I was posting here a long, long time ago and have come back a time or two over the years... Mostly for the smut... And like the smut, some things never change. __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

03-18-2008, 02:00 PM	#104 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Actually, Roachboy, I would refine that a bit. It's probably beyond cavil that communism does not comport with human nature. It does not follow, however, that capitalism does comport with human nature. It only follows in certain cultures with certain premises, and even then less than completely. Getting "rule of law" straight is a really really big prerequisite to capitalism (probably the most important one), and it's quite difficult to get it right.

03-18-2008, 02:10 PM	#105 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, loquitor, i'd be happy to debate that with you--i think your argument about this fiction "human nature" is circular---the other about the rule of law is different, and would probably find us converging on social democracy--- but it'd definitely be a threadjack. if i can figure out a way to frame another thread (or two, since the questions are quite different one from the other), i'll put one up--feel free to do the same. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-18-2008, 07:04 PM	#106 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	a threadjack? You know what, RB? I'm so sick of looking at that perpetually misused and overused F word that I'd almost welcome a threadjack.......

03-19-2008, 06:10 AM	#109 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Well, the competitive principle doesn't always prevail and doesn't always yield optimal results - that was the main insight of John Forbes Nash and the central premise of game theory. But the basic idea that competition will usually, through the invisible hand, provide greater material good at lower cost has been proven true over and over again - subject to what I said earlier about everyone signing on to the rule of law, property rights, peaceful dispute resolution and minimum levels of trust in institutions (including but not necessarily governmental institutions - also banks, utilities, etc).

03-19-2008, 06:22 AM	#110 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i take it that "the invisible hand" ends up being god. there are so many problems in going from the level of metaphysical statements about the "eternal principles" that capitalism is supposed to embody to the discontinuous and problematic historical reality of capitalism as a mode of production in the actually existing world that it is hard to know where to start a transposition game. or even if its worth doing. it simply is not the case that actually existing capitalism can be mapped onto the fantasy markets you find in adam smith--any more than actually existing america can be usefully understood as a community of yeoman farmers. you can't get started. it's a waste of time. competition does not mean a single thing---read some nietzsche. if you want to fetishize an abstract notion of competition, it seems to me that you have to necessarily extend that into notions of hierarchy--so following nietzsche, there are formal/bureaucratic hierarchies that exempt agents from competition in any meaningful sense---there are economic and social hierarchies which are arbitrary relative to this idea of competition uber alles--even if actors from a seriously advantaged economic position and ones from a seriously disadvantaged one "compete" in the giant wrestling match of some "market" the folk without the arbitrary advantages--say material resources--will loose. that is about attrition and resources more often than it is about abilities or "fit"----you can go on and on with this sort of thing. and the claim that more and cheaper goods is necessarily an index of anything beyond the availability of more and cheaper goods is a strange one. again, it takes nothing about the historical world into account. think about, say, the effects of systematic american dumping of agricultural overproduction in dairy or corn onto southern hemisphere countries in the context of structural adjustment programs---more and cheaper goods has generally meant the destruction of food self-sufficiency to the exclusive advantage of american corporate agricultural interests--if you can figure a way to equate dependency with an improvement in the quality of life, go for it: i could use a laugh. and this is not even really STARTING to contrast the metaphysics of markets with the actually existing historical world---this is all still inside the distant world of religious faith---which are aspects of the historical world in the way that any other fiction is. generally, the way these arguments go is the accumulation of a vast heap of "exceptions"---well this is an exception, that a distortion, that a mitigating circumstance---if only "pure competition" if only "pure" markets, everything would be hunky dory--if only these distortions would stop always everywhere happening. but you'd think this would eventually pose a problem of the argument itself, particularly when the pile of distortions and unfortunate mitigating factors is exponentially bigger than the examples of "pure" competition/markets, once the world is expanded beyond the front and back covers of "the wealth of nations"... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 03-19-2008 at 06:27 AM..

03-19-2008, 07:21 AM	#114 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Host, people who make bad business decisions should be permitted to fail. And I'm not a big fan of corporate welfare, either - if a company can't succeed without government help, tough luck. No eminent domain, no bailouts. Don't confuse being pro-free market (which is what I am) with "pro anything a business wants." I've litigated against Wal-Mart in the past. I won. And no, they weren't pleasant. On your last question, Host, let me flip this around on you: I don't do criminal defense law, but consider this - I took on a lot of debt to get through law school, worked for the government at low pay after I graduated, and have 24 years of experience in a very demanding, very stressful job with very long hours, in which I have gained a fair amount of expertise and a reputation for creativity and practical problem-solving. I'm on the hook for my firm's lease and for all of the firm's employees' salaries and the firm's expenses. I get paid only if there is money left over after all the vendors and employees get paid. Is there any particular reason I should be giving my services to people who aren't willing to pay market price for them, merely because they are poor? Why aren't I entitled to the fruits of my investment, effort and creativity - and risk? If someone gets into a criminal problem and needs a lawyer, they can have one appointed for them if they can't afford one. That's a pretty enlightened step for a society, you know, especially in light of history. But I can think of no reason that Joe Schmoe on the street should have a right to the criminal defense equivalent of me. A lawyer, yes. A top-notch lawyer? Why? We don't give poor people fancy clothes or steaks - they have to get by on basic clothes and food stamps. A lawyer should be no different. I might decide to do nice things pro bono, and occasionally I do, but that's my choice - no one has the right to my labor except me and the people who pay me. We got rid of slavery in 1863 and I don't think we should re-institute it for lawyers. Henry Ford, by the way, was a business genius. His decision to pay good wages was the perfect example of enlightened self-interest. Most really successful business people have the insights to do things like that. I have maintained consistently that only a foolish boss doesn't treat employees well. Last edited by loquitur; 03-19-2008 at 07:23 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

03-19-2008, 07:47 AM	#116 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so what you're saying, loquitor, is that because you took on debt to go to law school that therefore the american class system and all its ramifications are hunky dory? so poorer folk who find themselves in a legal conflict deserve lower-quality representation because you took on debt to go to law school? and do you really think that legal representation is like meat or shoes? i dont get it. your argument could be turned another way: the debt accumulated to get through the american university system is coercive and one of the indices of that coercion is your acquiescence to the structure of inequality the system produces...because that debt forced you to make choices and those choices have shaped your view and so in that sense your outlook is basically a consequence of having endured the coercion that educational debt exerts on all who take it on after the fun of university is over. at the same time, because your experience is your experience, you naturalize the elements that forced your hand at critical moments--and so now you see the class structure as neutral, have a moralizing interpretation of your own trajectory (which is symmetrical with the neutralization of the class structure as political question)--with the result that you see your own services as a consumer option. like meat. or shoes. so someone who is not you could read off from your narrative a set of reasons why the way educational debt produces consent for the existing political order--in which case, the political issue might end up being the system that relies on that debt... __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-19-2008, 07:55 AM	#117 (permalink)
host Banned	loquitur, the point I am trying to persuade you to consider is that, to a greater extent even than in the area of medical treatment, the state has become the provider of criminal defense services because the "free market model", for a myriad of reasons, has priced itself out of the market of affordability of even the lower income earners in the top five percent of all American income earners. This is fact, say....in defending against a murder charge in a criminal trial by jury. On a lower rung, I know from personal experience living in the State of NY, that even a couple both earning significantly above average cannot afford (justify?) the cost of legal representation in a complex, drawn out, divorce. In civil law practice, especially in mundane areas like a concentration in real estate closings, even heavy reliance on the services of paralegals do not result in such services being "cheap", because, as you described, the cost of education and fixed costs of doing business are so high, especially in the pricier NY metro area. So, can we agree that in the sectors of medical care, legal services, and in the asking price for the average home, the average income earner, unless provided by an employer subsidized benefit in addition to average income earned, cannot afford to purchase those services or that average priced house? Isn't the consequence of the fundamentals related to the price of the average house, the core reason for the failure of Bear Stearns, the emergency FED "rate cuts", the rapid devaluation of the dollar, the killing of rate of return on middle class savings deposits? What would have to happen to convince any promoter of capitalism that the system, going forward, is not definitely the best economic system for the majority of Americans? Is there less "corporatism" evident today, than before this past sunday's news about the Fed's role in the nationalization of Bear Stearns? With a $30 billion loss risk mitigation guarantee extended by the Fed to JPM in exchange for it's agreeing to buy BSC for less than $250 million, didn't the Fed actually nationalize BSC? Isn't doing something like that, a corporatist activity? Who does it benefit? Doesn't it benefit the elite at the expense of seniors seeking modest 5 percent return on savings deposits? Does it benefit the taxpayer? <h3>Wasn't Italian fascism described by Mussolini, as "corporatism"? Why did the Fed guarantee any BSC "loss risk"? Isn't our entire system, if gains are permitted to rise to unlimited levels, but losses are stopped dead in their descent by Fed "bailout guarantees", at taxpayers' expense, closer to corporatism than they are to capitalism?</h3> Hasn't the strength of US currency, with short term interest rates lowered by the Fed from 5.5 percent last september, to 2.25 percent, as of yesterday, been compromised in favor of shoring up the portfolios of speculators in real estate and traded securities? <h3>Haven't the interests of less than 40 million specualtors subordinated the interests and the wealth and purchasing power of the dollar, of the other 160 million American adults, via all of the Fed's decisions since last september?</h3> What kind of a system, especially one that actually backed off on the rate of taxation on the gains of these same speculators, so blatantly puts their interests above the interests of the vast majority of us? Not a free market, a capitalist, or a democratic system.....yet no protest that I can find...... Last edited by host; 03-19-2008 at 08:00 AM..

03-19-2008, 08:04 AM	#118 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	Matt Ridley. The son and heir of a Viscount, adulterer of science to justify and glorify much of the destruction that Thatcher wrought upon my country and a member of the board for 14 years of a company that has just been nationalised, SOCIALISM! gasp!, because it's management was so ludicrously inept that the contagion of runs on UK banks that his mismanagement caused (he was singled out by a parliamentary committee) could well have brought down the entire financial apparatus of the country should the strangely absent "invisible hand" have been allowed to do it's work unchecked. Matt @ Northern Rock The Northern Rock Debacle (bail-outs of US$60-80bn according to the Bank of England chairman, roughly a US$6000 bill for every British family) What he knows of genetics is debatable, but what he knows of economics and morality certainly aren't. The work of that man should be utilized to it's fullest potential in the lavatories across every nation that it is now available. __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

03-19-2008, 08:19 AM	#120 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Guys, other people do not have a right to my labor other than on the terms I'm willing to provide it, period. We abolished involuntary servitude in the Thirteenth Amendment, and all the sob stories out there don't entitle anyone to force me to work for them if I don't want to. And I'll tell you something else: I will NOT work 14 hour days and take on risks if people other than myself get to decide how I run my life. If other people want a claim on me, I'll quit this rat race and get a nice civil service job with benefits, where I won't have to make decisions, won't have responsibility, won't have stress and will have a lovely rubber stamp to mark on documents to my heart's content. I'll put my creative energies into something else. That's structural equity, guys. You don't have a right to my brain.