Willravel

Politics is social and economics is monetary. Sure, thy cross paths, but that does not make the the same. Science and philosophy cross paths often, too, but I dare you to say they're one and the same.

roachboy

economic questions are entirely political.
thus spake my inward marxist.
don't rile him. i have to feed him effigies of capitalists for hours to get him back to dreaming sleep.

__________________
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it make you sick.

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Baraka_Guru

Politics is social; economics is monetary. The social depends on the monetary; the monetary influences the social.

I didn't say they were the same thing. I'm suggesting that it's hard to remove economics from political discussions as was suggested here.

Oh, science crosses paths with both economics and politics as well.

But, seriously, Titled Politics wouldn't work without including economics. Removing economics would make it too narrow in scope. But, yes, I can see how being too focused on pure economics can be distracting, but it is up to us to put things back on track if it is, indeed, too far off.

A discussion of CEO compensation can be relevant to a discussion of minimum wage.

Why wasn't the minimum wage thread put in Tilted Knowledge? Why wasn't this thread?

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Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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roachboy

science and philosophy can be understood as "the same" if you subsume them under poetics, which you can do.


this is almost in yellow--->

this is a goofball quibble.
if you want to open a thread about economic questions and decide for whatever reason that so far as you are concerned, there's some distinction between economics and politics, then you're free to do it.

no genre policing is going to happen on these lines.


this is not in yellow---->

there is no such thing as the economy separate from other aspects of social being.
there is no aspect of social being that is not political.
the political can mean many things, by the way---reducing it to legislative actions is amongst the most reductive possible views of it--doesn't mean that it's wrong either--but it's reductive.
why bother with a reductive interpretation when you don't have to?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

loquitur

Sadly, much of politics consists of the effort to defeat economics by bending it to the will of people whose horizon consists of the next election.

guyy

I didn't miss your sentence. I object to the linkage of welfare systems with socialism, something the American right does every minute of every day. It's inaccurate as far as socialism goes, and it also obscures the history and workings of actually existing capitalism.

I do agree with the idea in your post that one must effectively believe in capitalism whether one wants to or not. It's here. One recognises the situation and develops an appropriate response or starves. At the very least, capitalism has to be worked around.

loquitur

well, sure, if you don't like economic development and you prefer tyranny.

filtherton

Here's a story:

My landlords are self-proclaimed hardcore libertarians. They probably tell their home-schooled children scary stories about the jack-booted government bureaucrats who lay patiently under their beds just waiting for an excuse to seize their whole bedrooms and give them to the lazy poor people.

Now, I don't have a problem with that type of thing (the hardcore libertarianism). I don't agree, and think that it's kind of an overreaction, but whatever, to each their own.

Anyways, they are really bad at being landlords. Maybe they used to be good, but times are tough they own at least 4 properties, and it's really just two people. They can't handle the responsibility. That, and they insist on making all the repairs themselves, but don't seem competent enough to actually do the repairs properly.

At some point, we find lead in our windowsills, which is fairly normal. We call a local nonprofit who inspects lead problems, they come and find a mostly safe house, except for one windowsill, which contains 10x the amount of lead considered safe by the EPA. Obviously, that is a problem, because the only difference between the leady windowsill and the rest of them is a thin layer of cheap paint (the landlords repainted all the other windowsills when we told them about the lead).

The nonprofit would like to do more extensive testing, but, of course, must first get the permission of the landlords. Did I mention that the landlords don't actually believe in lead poisoning? At all. They seem to think it's some sort of conspiracy, like ZOG or some shit.

So we (my roommates, including two children under the age of 3) are in a position of wishing to accommodate our landlord's well founded sheepishness about city inspectors (they'd probably have a few costly repairs to do, but nothing life threatening that we've seen) and our collective desire as a household not to raise retarded children (no offense, it's a perfectly germane desire). If they don't allow the nonprofit to do more extensive testing, we have to call the city on their asses, which would for them violate the spirit of sacred agreement that is our lease and also result in us having to move.

Caveat emptor, I guess.

Capitalism is why people like my landlords are landlords. I can't really a fathom wanting to live in a society where we would need to rely on market forces to keep them in line, especially when getting out of a lease is very expensive if the landlord doesn't want you to get out.

I'm pretty solidly convinced that there are certain regulatory activities that are necessary for capitalism to function, and that anyone who disagrees with that notion is a zealot.

It's easy to go from there. Once you admit that some government oversight is necessary, then the extent of that oversight is a matter of preference. One person's smoking ban is another person's public health initiative.

I believe in capitalism like I believe in fire breathing dragons, which is to say that if I ever saw either in action I would brace myself for the worst. Regulated capitalism seems to do okay, though it could be better.

Willravel

TY, filtherton. That was borderline brilliant and I totally agree.

Charlatan

Good to see you around filth... nicely put.

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ASU2003

I think stockholder interference does more damage than government interference. Take the failed Yahoo-Microsoft deal for example. The stockholders wanted it because they are greedy and only want to make money. The problem is that had this happened, MS would have killed Yahoo and there would be less competition.

Capitalism works great on a small scale. But, the big multi-national corps, extremely large banks, drive to become monopolies, market manipulation (intentional or unintentional), and the fact that they can make additional laws when on their property (and enforce them) are some problems with the current free market capitalist system we have now.

Sun Tzu

Filtherton, I may have misunderstood but something isn’t adding up. Have you read your lease? Have you read your state laws pertaining to what you are experiencing? Your third statement kind of contradicts your first two. Not only do you obviously not agree with libertarians, but from your assumption it sounds like you definitely do have a problem with them.

I don’t know the full scope of your story or the laws of where you are at, but as a landlord myself, I know there are laws set in place to protect both parties. Personally, even though I have had renters thrash my property far beyond what their deposit was, it has never stopped me from doing the right thing as far as customer service. I know that if my professional endeavors where shady and uncaring, I would eventually end up with empty houses. That would in turn eventually sink me. It’s pretty straightforward. If haven’t fulfilled my end of the agreement, then they have legal recourse. There is also thousands of other renter properties out there, not everyone is a slumlord.

I don’t understand why an atmosphere that makes people accountable and responsible about consequences they have created is deemed as evil.

There are assholes in every social, economic, and political arena; just far fewer victims.

So what is your opinion of an ideal situation? Socialism? Communism? Or are you stating you don’t want to see the present market progress any further towards libertarian? In which case, do you really see that happening? While there are people with legitimate needs for aid, there are plenty of able people who will continue to live on hand outs that we all flip the bill for whose only disability is laziness. That doesn’t appear as if it is going to change, in fact- it looks like it about to get far worse. So fear not, the society of uncaring Ron Paul’s and the dragons that come with it is only a fairy tale, or nightmare in your case.

Caveat venditor.

Here's something to lighten things up:

__________________
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filtherton

Thanks will, charlatan.

I have consulted with a couple lawyers, and you might be surprised to know that having a lead-filled house and having landlords who fail to disclose this fact are not in and of themselves grounds for terminating a lease.

I stated quite plainly that I don't agree with the libertarian world view. That doesn't mean I have a problem with people who subscribe to it. I don't have a problem with my landlords because they're libertarians. In fact, I would prefer it if they were better at being libertarians, like as in holding up the "personal responsibility" aspect of being a libertarian.

Well, on lead specifically, there are laws in place at local, state, and national levels. The City of Minneapolis, being decidedly unlibertarian, has a whole lot of resources available for homeowners and landlords to help them refurbish and remediate lead problems.

And even though we could probably get out of the lease, if our landlords decided they didn't want us to, we would end up spending a lot of money and time going to court to force their hand.

Also, while I respect your opinion as a landlord, I don't think it necessarily reflects reality. At least not as I have seen it. Slumlords exist everywhere. They exist precisely because leases can be so tricky to get out of. And because moving is expensive and a pain in the ass. And because if you happen to be in a bad way, or lack resources, it is easy to find yourself stuck in a year long lease with someone who doesn't give a fuck about your well being and has no reason to.

The market is working to make this slumlord rich.

Because it doesn't really make people accountable and responsible. Libertarianism and communism are very similar in that they both rely on hopelessly unrealistic notions of human behavior. There is nothing inherent in actual markets that can make everyone accountable and responsible. There will always be people who aspire to and succeed at gaming the system and getting things they don't haven't really earned, whether its welfare or windfalls (which is not at all to say that I don't think that welfare or profit are inherently bad things, sometimes people need things that they can't earn).

A rising tide can raise all the ships, but that might not matter so much if you're in a dinghy and a cruise ship happens to bowl you over.

I want fewer people to suffer, I want basic human dignity for everyone, even if they've done everything imaginable to show that they don't deserve it (probably an exception or two in there), I want quality of life indexes that take into account things that aren't quantifiable with dollar signs. If I thought regressive notions of constitutional law would do the trick I'd be wearing a Ron Paul sticker right now. But I don't and I'm not.

loquitur

um, no. Libertarianism rests on the rule of law. If the landlord is keeping an unsafe premises, you have legal remedies. And there is market accountability, just as the other commenter said, which is, that bad landlords end up either with unrentable premises or tenants who trash it. Yes, tehre are bad landlords just as there are bad tenants. Slumlords tend to be on the receiving end of law enforcement. If they're not, it's usually because of political connections - once again the government getting in the way.

Your complaint is that the remedies aren't immediate and that all suffering isn't averted. Sorry, this is the real world.

filtherton

I think you mean the rule of the market. Isn't that the problem with our current system with respect to libertarianism? That those pesky laws get in the way of the market?

Yes, there are legal remedies and they all involve government intrusion on the workings of the free market. That's my point. In a libertarian system my power would only exist in direct proportion to the money in my wallet, which is stupid.

And really, you're a lawyer. Don't tell me about "legal remedies" as if it's a simple matter of going down to city hall and checking a box. Do you know what happens in Minneapolis when shitty landlords owe tenants money? Nothing. Not only do you have to go to court to make them accountable, but once the court has decided that they are, you have to go to court again to make them pay the fines the court levied against them the first time.

Clearly the system is fucked. But it's not fucked in a way that would be improved by regulating it less.

And even then, fighting to get out of our lease would essentially have the same net effect of spending hours and hours meticulously tearing a stack of $20 dollar bills up into unrecognizable little pieces with the reward of being homeless when we finish.

The only saving grace would be that it would cost our landlords just as much time and money. They would then be forced to fix the lead problem, but only because we live in a society that lets the government tell landlords to fix lead problems. In libertarian system, they would be free to re-rent the place to the next set of unsuspecting rubes to come along because in libertarian systems the government doesn't tell business people how to run their businesses.

I know you believe this, and I know it's true sometimes, but if you'll read my link you'd see that it is quite possible for a shitty landlord to get by just fine, profit even, with minimal government intrusion, the same kind of minimal government intrusion that one would expect under a libertarian system.

The market can't provide equity. It can't even approximate it, because all the market is, when you distill it down to its purest form, is an economic system of natural selection. Those who can amass the most resources dominate those who can't.

The accountability of the market is inversely related to the wealth of a person participating in the market. The slum lord in the story I linked to can afford paying the fines the city has levied against him-- they're more of a "slumlord tax" than a deterrent. Meanwhile, unsuspecting and/or desperate folk still find themselves stuck in leases with him. Clearly, the fact that this guy is a notoriously bad landlord hasn't effected his vacancy rates. How does that fit in with your concept of market based accountability?

No, I don't expect remedies to be immediate, exactly because we live in the real world. My complaint is that the remedies would be a great deal worse or nonexistent under an unregulated system.

Of course suffering isn't averted, and of course remedies aren't immediate. I don't think a system exists that is capable of providing immediate remedies and ending suffering. This is what libertarians fail to see (or perhaps see to well, depending on the size of their pocketbooks). At least the system we have now contains in it some sort of consideration of human value beyond "human capital".

Cynthetiq

actually the fact that you have the ability to go to a court system is in itself a remedy. Just like you can sit and do nothing about it. These are called choices. You have choices, unlike in some countries where you don't have any remedy to cure the situation.

You're calling a system broken wherein you actually have to take action and be responsible for taking that action. You basically are saying that the system is broken because you have to use it.

I'd agree with you if the system was broken where in you had no ability to take the landlord to court. That is a broken system, but here you've outlined a system that compels some sort of relief. It may not be immediate, it may not be instant, it may not be simple. But you do have recourse.

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Willravel

He already addressed this. You have to take action in any system, but the reality is that in a libertarian system the action would be to take your money elsewhere. That's it. The slumlord would find another tenant and they would be exposed to the lead. That's not recourse, that's running away.

Cynthetiq

I'm sorry, I'm not addressing libertarianism, I'm addressing the OP and capitalism filtered through his situation.

And you're now adding that the current landlords have now somehow morphed into slumlords. While I agree that some slumlords exist they are the anomoly and not the norm. I'd also state that I agree that there are good landlords and bad ones, just like there are good tenants and bad ones.

__________________
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filtherton

Nope. That's not what I'm saying at all. You're not in a position to lecture me about choices. I'm glad that I have choices, and I am willing to exercise them strategically to achieve the outcomes that I find the least unacceptable.

What I'm saying is that the existence of those choices is directly attributable to living in a country whose government is willing and able to tell private businesses what they can and can't do. If I lived in a "free market" I wouldn't necessarily have those choices and that would be a shame.

Or the short version: unregulated capitalism is bad idea.

The system is broken because all systems are inherently broken. Systems are broken because they actually exist.

What I am saying is that a broken system which at least attempts to account for the well being of people is better than a broken system whose only concern is the production of capital.

I know I have recourse. The fact that I have recourse is a good thing. If our system was a pure free market system I wouldn't have a recourse. That's the whole point of what I have been saying. Regulation is necessary and good in moderation.

Willravel

Free market capitalism is at the center of American libertarianism, and many self described libertarians are posting their opinions in this thread.

Cynthetiq

That is not what I got out of reading your statements about the landlord/window and the non-profit, for that situation I'm at a loss to understand how it applies with the conflicts I understand and read in this last post.

I'm not understanding the idea of a broken system is because the system exists. It's a bit too philosophical to me, but I'll take it to understand that because it cannot remedy all situations 100%, it is broken for someone.

I would believe that the regulations in place are not necessarily for the well being of the tenant, but are also for the well being of the capital. The capital is taxed at some point on it's gains, so there is an interest in the state to increase it in some fashion, hence assessments based on criteria that changes each year.

In turn that capital care, does create some well being for me as a landlord. I'm given incentives to purchase property, rent out at reasonable rental rates, care for the property, etc. at some point my investment will become profitable and allow me to care for myself with my own dollars and pay some taxes instead of having some sort of state welfare or expediture for my well being.

I'm more willing to swallow that it's not a binary situation, but more a compromise in some fashion.

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Willravel

Well hold on, are we talking about pure capitalism? If we're talking about pure capitalism, then there isn't compromise. It's all free market. Pure capitalism is when the government only performs functions that cannot be performed by any private entity. There could easily be a company that can come and test paint for lead. Shoot, there are companies that handle a lot of the functions the government performs, everything from delivering packages and mail (FedEx, UPS, etc.) to military (Blackwater).

Or are we talking about realistic, pragmatic capitalism? Filtherton brings up very strong cases for why there should be government oversight, and I can throw out a dozen more examples (albeit not as eloquently, the Latin was a very nice touch). Real world capitalism does require sharing of some power with the government because there are things that the market doesn't do well, in addition to the things it does well.

Nimetic

My key belief is in the value of skepticism.

I believe that capitalism exists I suppose. If you are asking whether I have "faith" in it, well no.

robot_parade

Well, that's the thing. A certain mentality of people will adopt a position or ideology (capitalism, libertarianism, etc), and then take an absolutist, no-compromises stance. No matter what, the principles of libertarianism are the way to go. I remember a radio interview at one point, where the interviewer asked the Crazy Libertarian about public parks - his answer was that they should all be sold, and if a company wants to set aside some land as a park and charge for admission, then great. How could this possibly be good for society? I can't imagine. But it followed logically from his absolutist stance. It's similar to the thought process that causes the infant death by vegenism discussed in another thread. "Veganism is good, it is morally superior, it is healthy. Therefore, a vegan diet must be perfect for my child. Ignore what the doctor says, he's just spouting anti-vegan propaganda."

I consider myself to be fairly libertarian - specifically with regards to civil liberties. I also consider myself a capitalist (Well, I'm not rich enough to be a capitalist, but one day, maybe. :-)). I believe in small government - *but* I believe that some of the few useful things a government can do are to provide a regulatory framework for commerce and industry, provide the basic necessities for those who cannot provide for themselves, and provide for the common defence. I don't see these as inconsistent with my views - because my main goal is to help maximize happiness in society - libertarianism and capitalism are just tools, not the goal.

filtherton

My whole point is that capitalism needs to be regulated to work out in acceptable ways. I believe in the effectiveness of regulation, and also that system where the government took less regulatory initiative would be worse than the one we have now. It was a direct response to folks in this thread who seemed to pooh-pooh the idea that regulation is necessary.

When something isn't performing like it's supposed to it is broken. Capitalism as it exists in reality doesn't perform like capitalism as a theory, because the theory, like all economic theories, is just an approximation of reality.

It is important to acknowledge the shortcomings of any idealized model when using that model to describe reality. When viewed from the angle of idealized models of capitalism, the system doesn't work how it's supposed to (or maybe it does, and that's the problem).

I don't dispute this at all.

This is irrelevant. Your thought experiments about the nature of landlordship are nothing more than thought experiments. Perhaps this is how things ought to work, but clearly things do not necessarily always work like this. This is a microcosm of why academic economic pontification is generally useless. Such pontification is however, if this thread is any evidence, a rather convenient means of dismissing things that interfere with one's rigidly held perspective (not necessarily talking about you here, cynthetiq).

"Clearly the laws of supply and-" No. It's not that simple.

flstf

A system that allows one to profit from their talent and abilities is a good thing. Unfortunately under our current system too many seem to be using that talent and ability to gain preferential treatment and enrich themselves via corruption and insider status.

I guess from a pure laissez-faire point of view those who do not have the connections to game the system deserve what they get. After all they know the rules of the game and it is not the fault of the winners that they didn't set themselves up to profit from the rampant corruption.

I'm not writing about the way a capitalistic system should be but about the way it is now. So to answer the OP, I believe capitalism could be a good system but in the U.S. it is broken. We give our polititians the power to set the rules to try and control corrupt human greed and they wind up taking care of themselves, their families and friends at our expense. I don't think more but better government oversight is the answer.

Why we can't or won't unelect them is a subject for a different thread.

guyy

This comment makes no sense at all in the context of a discussion about individual responses to the capitalist system.

Ignoring that detail for the moment and considering the assertion that capitalism = non-tyranny & economic development (whatever that is), what are we to make of the all too frequent overlap of capitalism, tyranny, and/or economic under-development? How does one account for the history of colonialism? As far as i can tell, your general strategy is to ignore the real world operations of capitalism and the modern state, which is its Siamese twin. Instead we get moralising about Individual Responsibility and how things Ought to Be. Guantanamo is your reality. Detroit is your reality. Deal.

RB wrote somewhere that neoliberal ideology was becoming increasingly incoherent. He was spot on.

Sun Tzu

Filtherton, I’m a little clearer on what your point is. Its why I asked if you were talking about the present system getting worse, or displeased with the present system, or both. Regulation is necessary for quality control measures. Would privatizing many of the federal services be bad? It remains only speculative, but I have a general distrust these days as its hard for me to see any that are untainted by corruption. I see private enterprises falling if the services being provided were not to the level of their competitors. An example would be a private company that did residential inspections during rental transitions.

If a person is seeking to rent a residential property why is it unreasonable to request records of inspection? Talk to other tenants of the landlord? Make modifications that are fair and create a win/win atmosphere BEFORE initiating a legal contract? If the potential landlord is against these types of actions, then the person has the freedom to find one who will. At what point in any avenue of person’s economic behavior do you feel there is accountability on the part of the consumer?

At the end I still see it (with respects to a free enterprise) it comes down to personal responsibility. Again I’m not referring to developmentally disabled, mentally ill, or permanently injured- legal citizens. The link you provided shows a true dirt bag in its purest form that has and continues to slither through the system. The flip side of the story will probably elude many reading it. Doesn’t it make you wonder why it took an outside entity to organize and motivate the individuals (I can’t call them victims)?

I think Wal-Mart has shady business practices. It is a good example of a business plan, ethics aside that is successful. I utilize my right of purchasing freedom to never shop there.

. . . . . . . . . . edit . . . . . . . . .

You think constitutional laws are regressive?

__________________
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.- Stephen Hawking