Do you believe in capitalism?
 

Capitalism generally produces more overall wealth in a society, since person are free to buy, sell and make profits.

but would you say that capitalism hurts the poor or makes the poor poorer? does capitalism make consumerism worse?

i think the argument against the poor presumes that capitalism is a zero sum game. kind of like if brazil beat argentina at football or soccer, one team has won and one has lost.

i do think though that in the future, we might move beyond capitalism.

Capitalism, imho, works so long as it's tempered with pragmatism and ethics. I'm more socialist than most people in the US, but I still feel that capitalism can work when we hold the rich responsible. A lot of very, very rich people get away with a lot of very illegal and unethical behavior in the US, and the fact of the matter is that many of them cannot be stopped without violating the ideals behind capitalism. In a capitalist system, those who behaved illegally or unethically would have to be punished by the market reacting to their behavior. Take Haliburton, for example. They get no bid contracts, which means that the market really can't punish them. It falls to the legal system, which is a bit torn on Hal. The solution to Haliburton seems to be somewhere outside of capitalism.

That's not true at all. You are very mistaken in that Haliburton quote.

HAL - Halliburton Company - Google Finance

Haliburton is a publically traded stock. The market sure can punish them. It has happened before just like any publically traded stock.

If they were a privately held company maybe you'd have a little something there, since privately held companies can basically do as they please as long as it falls within the legal framework.

I'm all for capitalism. I believe that it has produced better selection and quality of goods. It also allows for poor quality goods as you get what you pay for and what the market will bear. People know this and buy cheap products because that's how much value it has to them.

My issue is not with capitalism per se... as envisioned by Adam Smith, it isn't all that bad of proposition. Unfortunately, like most systems on paper (Marx and Engle's vision of Communism, for example) is a Utopian thing that is, at its essence unachievable.

Capitalism left to its own devices typically ends up with monopolies, exploited workers, etc.

What is required is a set of laws and regulations to temper the negative aspects.

I think will isn't so much referring to the stock market so much as the common market where services are traded for money, and prices are set according to rules of supply and demand. I think you'd agree, when a supplier can set any price they want without any question from the customer, and the customer pays it as a matter of law, policy, or crony preference, that market is broken.

Quite correct. Such a situation is a market distortion, ie a system in which such things are practiced is not Capitalist, rather Mercantilist.

Capitalism left to its' own devices proved a myriad of means by which such issues can be addressed. Lawsuit, boycotts, strikes, etc etc. Mercantilism, in which Corporations are supported by the Government, removes these means by lessening or eliminating their impact.

Or a -lack- of those laws and regulations which -cause- such negative aspects.

Quite correct. So why not remove the laws (Corporate Personhood and welfare, just to start) which prevent this from happening? Fujifilm, Smith & Wesson, and the Montgomery Transit Authority can all relate how effective such means can be when the Gov't gets out of the way.

That's not a market in any definition of the word.

That is a problem with the mechanics of that CLOSED system. The customer is free to choose something different and by matter of law, policy, or preference (cronyism notwithstanding) it is the SYSTEM that is broken, not the market.

As a firm believer in capitalism I actually agree with you for the most part. You can call it capitalism, crony capitalism, communism, fascism, or whatever, but when governments get involved in markets and don't follow through with policing them it's not good for consumers at all.

I for one think governments should be involved in fewer markets, whereas you might think they should be involved in more.

However, I hope we both agree on the problem of governments entering markets and not following through with it's job to police these corporations (like a no bid to Haliburton and then allowing them to get away with murder, literally). That is a bigger problem than the socialsim vs. capitalism debate.

The problems with capitalism usually arise from government interference. Beyond providing basic infrastructure (such as courts, law enforcement, defense and a money supply), most govt'l interference is, with the best of intentions and with a desire to help, deleterious. There are a number of reasons why this is so, starting with inability to get complete information from a remove; inflexibility of structure once implemented; free-riding by political constituencies; lack of market or other consequential discipline for the decisionmakers; disregard of moral hazard; agency costs; failure to prioritize outside crisis; one-size-fits-all decisions, etc etc etc etc. The bottom line is that govt is just not well-equipped to make economic decisions or forecasts. That doesn't mean the govt is incapable of doing some good things, but as a general rule the less involved the govt is in the economy, the less distortion there is. And that applies to everything from health care to real estate.

Haliburton gets no bid contracts. It doesn't fulfill it's contracts and is ripping off Iraq and the US government. The stockholders won't do anything to stop Haliburton until their stocks are effected negatively. This is a no brainer.

Is this clear? Assuming the shareholders behave in a capitalist manner, Haliburton can continue to behave unethically so long as they keep showing growth and the the shareholders keep making money.

Yep no different than people continuing to invest in companies that pollute the environment via vehicles and oil spills. The investor gets to have a choice, they can either also be ethical and sell their stocks and lose potential gains or invest and make gains.

It again is very simple. It's clear that you don't understand.

Stockholders aren't about ethics or morality. They are about making returns on their investment.

You'd like them to be, that's a different world that you would like us to live in. The reality is that CalPERS and other major pension fund holders want to give good returns to their funds and thus their pensioners. They aren't in it for the morality, they are in it to be able to give people the pension that they were promised over time.

But in your world, you'd rather them not have that ability and rather that they be moral and just.

They have heavy interest and investment dollars at stake. It's not about being moral and just, it's about being able to pay all those that paid into the system. This isn't just America, but many other countries too.

WORLD'S LARGEST PENSION FUNDS: $10 trillion strong - Pensions & Investments

To make this statement more clear: an investor can choose to be ethical or unethical.

Those who choose to be unethical are favoring their investment over ethics, and that is a failure. Did you read my first post?
So we're in agreement: capitalism isn't always ethical. I see that as a failure. If you don't, that's your opinion and you're welcome to it. I believe more strongly in ethics than I believe in financial stability. I'm pretty sure that's been consistent for the past 4 years I've been on TFP.
You never need to condescend to someone to get your point across.

It is clear that you don't understand how businesses and investors operate, you don't want to understand because you stop at ETHICS and don't want to hear more than that. I don't care that it's not ethical, in fact the next time you get that itchy feeling that you don't want some of that cash in your wallet or bank account, you just feel free to send it this way.

See there are ethical companies, just like there are ethical people. There are companies that do the right things and there are companies that do the wrong things, but because some do wrong you seem to rather toss out the baby with the bathwater.

You'd rather there be nothing because you can't live with any duality. That's great! Everything in your life must equal failure at some point then... :thumbsup: good onya!

According to you, that's my choice:
This seems clear, though you seem certain that selling stocks in an unethical company automatically means an opportunity cost. That's really not necessarily the case. When and if there is a serious shift in government, Haliburton could find itself not just in financial trouble, but legal trouble as well. At that point, the stocks will sell low and all of those people who chose your supposed gains over ethics will be SOL.
It's not tossing out the baby with the bathwater, though. It's tossing out theoretical gains with the bathwater (or blackwater, nyuk nyuk), and it's doing so in order to make the world a better place. For some people, myself included, that's a different kind of investment. It's just as theoretical, but it's something I'm happy with.
This is a strawman. I never said anything about "nothing". All I said was that one should bear ethics in mind and not just be profit-centric in their economic decision making. I stand by that.

I disagree. I think government interference (code for regulation) is required to keep a capatalistic society healthy. Capitalism is great for maximizing profits. Pure, unfettered capitalism is great if you want a society that looks great on the quarterly basis - profits are up! But I think it's safe to say that money isn't everything. Profit should not be the end goal of society. There are other things that people want. Clean air. Social mobility. Safe working conditions. To have these things, capitalism must be tempered with common sense, and, yes, regulation.

Clear, simple, efficient regulation, to be sure. But without limits, capitalism would tear our society apart.

More then any other system.

The board and top executives will get a nice big golden parachute. It's unlikely that they will even be fined. If you make the right political contributions and play golf with the right people you can kill a plane load of people and get away with a slap on the wrist. Haliburton might be a special case but I'll believe it when I see it.

Only the small investors who get the news last will really get hurt.

The shift doesn't happen in a vaccum, it doesn't just happen in a 24 hour period. Hey, maybe in the revolution right? If it did, then you'd see a sharp cliff in the link that I posted for their trading value.

But see, that's the best part about this captialism, if any investor is smart, they pay attention to the news, they pay attention to what happens in the world. And that's when they divest their holdings and move onto a better opportunity.

Simply you don't like the fact that there's winners and losers. Winners and losers. In order for there to be some profit, someone has to have a loss.

Maybe the stock market can be just like the rest of the pussification and we just give increases because then no one's feelings gets hurt. You know, like particiapatory sports where everyone gets a trophy and no one is a loser.

I am not so sure that that is accurate. Capitalism is about the exchange of one thing for another... Who is the loser if I give you money in exchange for services or goods?

If there are others selling the same goods and services for different prices, and I pay more than you did for the same goods and services, I lose something don't I? I've lost potential savings or ability to spend the difference on another good or services.

In the investment side of this, which is where we've pushed the discussion, the goods and services is performance of a stock. If I buy today and the stock is high, versus if you bought several weeks ago when the stock was lower. I've lost potential profits.

Competition. On the bright side there is innovation, a hopeful devotion to providing quality service or producing high grade products. The dark side (if you consider it dark) giants like Walmarts can sink the smaller scale operations with convenience and lower prices. Personally, I won’t shop at Walmart because I don’t like their ethics and have a willingness to pay 2% more for a higher grade product.

As a whole I don’t think America’s application to capitalism would be successful, if opportunity didn’t exist. Anyone from any walk of life can achieve their financial goals- if they have 100% intention. There are not many situations that provide an atmosphere where someone can be born in poverty, work hard, and become as financially successful as they choose to be. The thought that the more successful a person is the more they should pay seems backwards. Perhaps if all I had known was learned from experience living in a socialist or communist society, then my mindset would differ. It’s too late to take the blue pill.

Denmark was found to be the happiest country on Earth. A majority of the population agreed that this was due to their expectations being low. IMO having the government completely pay for a college education, provide medical coverage, and even give males maternity leave is not worth the price of being taxed 50-70% of earnings.

We are all taking a test in the morning. The group is informed everyone taking the test is going to get the same grade of 75% (C). So regardless of how long or little time is devoted to preparing for the exam every will receive the same grade. Why study at all? That just seems like a dismal existence.

where does this idea come from that left to itself, capitalist market relations are rational, are ethical (on utilitarian grounds)?
it certainly doesn't come from the history of actually existing capitalism *anywhere.*
it has no relation to a description of present reality--certain not of the world that neoliberalism (the premises of which are simply being repeated in this bizarre little profession of faith thread) has made in the southern hemisphere---certainly not of the united states' socio-economic system, which is in fact a pretty intricate system of intertwined state and market functions---any market is an intertwining of state and non-state if you think about it, at least in the modern context--capitalism and the modern state are twins, they developed as an ensemble, they are of a piece one with the other.

most of the folk above seem to imagine capitalism as natural phenomenon which exists in some pure state in principle outside the pages of 18th century political economy books and which has been progressively sullied by the influene of the state---that is a delusion,

a type of platonic delusion no less--because you have the noun "capitalism" there must be some eternal form "capitalism" and because the world as we know it is subordinated to the world of forms, "capitalism" must exist---well, folks, this "pure capitalism" you speak of is a fantasy. it does not, has not and will never exist. it is far more utopian than whatever you imagine marx's vision of communism because whatever you imagine that to be at least it was defined as something human beings actually would make, so as something that would arise through a particular history---"pure capitalism" has no material history apart from the material histories of the books that elaborate it, a genre of fiction writing.

more hilarious still, folk use this fiction "pure capitalism" to rationalize many of the uglier effects of the existing order: so there are "winners and losers" and so those who benefit from the system deserve to and so those who are excluded deserve it and so no-one has to think too much about anything. what is is natural and is normal, whatever it is.

this is the reactionary american gospel according to neoliberalism.
bless me capitalism for i have sinned. i have wondered whether the consequences of the system are necessary. please forgive me.
in the reactionary little world of the united states, it seems that a socio-economic order that created indoor plumbing and mass electrification cannot and should not be able to address its more complicated social irrationalities. so this fiction "capitalism" is on the one hand the natural order of things, and on the other is too weak to adjust itself;
it is a system which has generated some lovely things, but it is too narrow to be made to address its human and environmental side effects.
it disempowers all but the holders of capitalism, but is so fragile that it is not permissable to even wonder if that disempowerment is a LIMITATION and not a natural outcome, the result of a natural hierarchy. so in the reactionary little world of america, the prevailing move is to imagine yourself amongst the holders of capital regardless of your actual system.
perhaps this is the political consequence of a consumer culture--this is the dominant fantasy that mediates relations to the world--focus on the dance of objects within the system, don't worry a whole lot about how they're made, how they got into this dance of objects, who owns the means of production, who controls the theater in which the dancing of commodities occurs---just sit in your fucking chair and think "the world would be just dandy if i could own all these things" and to own all these things you need capital and so and so and so.

in the reactionary little world of america, we are apparently told to see capitalism as the image of america itself" extremely powerful in principle, shot through with irrationalities in fact, dynamic in principle, afraid to look at itself in fact; all-powerful and abject in the way fading empires are.

capitalism hasn't existed because the government can't resist meddling, and because a fair number of people would prefer getting the playing field tilted for them by the govt rather than compete on the merits. The REAL reactionaries, Roachboy, are the ones who think that if only they and their acolytes had power, they could fix the ills of society. That scam has been going on since long before capitalism was a figment of anyone's imagination, and still lives today.

Yeah, isn't that odd? Sort of nails the prevailing situation, though.

Capitalism is like Tinkerbell--she can pull through if we all believe hard enough.

Believe, friends! Believe!

Yeah, my first thought upon reading the title was, "Believe?" That's like asking, "Do you believe in evolution?"--I mean, personally, I live capitalism. I have to. Even though I am currently residing in a socialist (welfare) state, there is no lack of capitalism here, I can guarantee you that. There is no escape from it. It doesn't matter whether I "believe" in it or not, it exists and perpetuates with or without me.

Complete nonsense.

Capitalism cannot exist without the modern state. Without "meddling" (e.g., enforcement of contracts, legal standards, guarantees of value through currency & central banking) capitalism could not last one minute. Without state prodding and subsidy of infrastructure (roads, railways, airports, communications) it would be a bigger mess than it is today. "Just in time" and all that crap is unthinkable without massive government participation in the economy. Without the New Deal (=complete Evil, according to you) there would be no consumerism, no Ford, no GM no P&G, no Starbux, no Amazon.com...

It is well known fact of internet life that people tend to be ruder on-line. I wonder if the illusion of unmediated communication also makes them more prone to believe in these Robinsonades/Kindergeschichten.

loquitor:

guyy's right.
plus he used robinsonade, which is a favorite old chestnut.

anyway, once the topic gets turned to actually existing capitalism and to it's history, you cannot win this argument.
the only way you can do it is to work against reference to actually exisiting capitalism and it's history.

so the thread is a religious question: do you believe in capitalism has the same sense as do you believe in the intercession of the saints or do you believe that dousing rods locate water or do you believe that there is a geometer god who made a geometrical world and ordered everything in it. do you believe that there are eternal forms that dance about the mind of this god, do you believe that meanings happen when reflections of these forms drop onto our mortal coil.

because "do you believe in capitalism" asks about a religious committment, you can believe anything you want. but it's nothing more than a religious question.

No, you don't. Show me how Icelandic workers are in control and i'll believe you.

I hafta say, considering the rhetoric here, Joe McCarthy and the Juan Birch Society won. What y'all are saying is essentially the same thing, i.e., New Deal = "socialism".

The US had and continues to have an active & powerful anti-capitalist Nazi-Commie-Pinko 5th column or ZOG, depending on whether it's more expedient for individual bearers of ideological structure to pose as embattled freedom fighters or defenders of civilisation.

This is essentially why I've stayed out of the thread until now. I'm not sure what the intent is.

That and I figured it was only a matter of time before someone brought up Ayn Rand.

Oh, crap. The cat's out of the bag. :paranoid:

As long as we can agree that capitalism is amoral as opposed to immoral, I don't see any real reason for me to continue here.

I should also state that I think it is improbable that we can "move beyond" capitalism. I think the alternatives are either utopian and therefore impossible or a regression and therefore totalitarian.

Either way, I think we should work within the capitalist system.

There will be no revolution. It isn't coming. But if it were, it wouldn't be televised. At least not for long.

Perhaps you missed the sentence after the one you quoted, where I said that there was plenty of capitalism to go around in Iceland. What I meant by it being "socialist" was the emphasis on a welfare state, as I put in parentheses--we all pay a goodly part of our taxes into a nationalized system of education and health care. Also, I don't know if this applies to your question or not, but all workers in Iceland are required to be members of their respective unions. This applies even to higher-skilled workers. They are not "in control," but the unions have more power and representation here than I have ever seen in the US.

Yes, Canada is the same way. A good proportion of the House of Commons is made up of socialist representatives. These are mostly social democrats and democratic socialists (yes, there's a difference). What this means is that there are a number of socialists with influence in Canadian politics who don't want a Marxist revolution nor want to take down the capitalist system. They want sensible socialist change within what's currently at play, and they want to reinforce the socialist elements that have already been implemented (national healthcare, workers' rights, etc.).

actually, guys, I believe that I said elsewhere that the state provides infrastructure for capitalism, such as a legal system, law enforcement and defense. My issue isnt with that sort of thing. My issue is with attempts to pick winners and losers, to second guess economic outcomes, to prefer certain groups at the expense of others, and other such things. Contrary to your contentions, history amply demonstrates the folly of such activity. Friedman demonstrated, for instance, that the federal govt turned a manageable business downturn into a Depression. Japan just had a 15 year recession because it was unwilling to have a market shakeout.

And almost invariably the governmental schemes become instruments of corruption of one sort or another - corruption that is much harder to root out than in a business and, because it's at the governmental level, much more dangerous and insidious because it affects more people and requires years -- several elections plus legislation plus enforcement - to get rid of. "Corruption" as used here refers to invocation of public machinery for private purposes, usually cloaked under hifalutin' rhetoric about the public good.

"Friedman demonstrated, for instance, that the federal govt turned a manageable business downturn into a Depression."

No he didn't. He *argued* that the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve failed to stop the Great Depression. This interpretation is still up for debate, but he certainly wasn't arguing against regulation - he was in favor of the Federal Reserve, he just thought they made the wrong call. A lot of economists these days agree with that assessment, but it's not exactly like you can test these things. :-)

Absolutely, this happens quite a lot. That's why regulation should be clear, simple, and transparent.

Consider the bailout of Bear Sterns, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac. Letting them crumble would be absolutely devestating to the economy. But, by bailing them out, the guys who made the irresponsible decisions at the top get off mostly scott free (not all of them, but I'm sure the big guys are doing fine). So how is there any incentive against them doing the same thing all over again?

I wonder if Jus' Stuff is still in business?

RP, you should read the Larry Summers article that I linked and quoted over in the minimum wage thread. He dealt with exactly this issue re FNMA etc.

This pretty much sums it up for me.

Beyond that......wake me when the discussions in TFP Politics return to politics and not economic theories (and/or the value of CEO salaries, which strayed beyond recognition from the political issue of a minimum wage that was the focus of the OP in an adjoining thread.)

The minimum wage isn't an economic issue?

Economics fits into Tilted Politics better than any other area of The Academy.

Economics isn't politics, but politics deals with economics.

Actually, it's probably better in knowledge.

I respectfully disagree. That would imply that economics is more of a theory or body of study than a real-world entity that is influenced by and influences people with and without power.

Suddenly, it sounds a bit more like politics.

How much of public policy is directly and indirectly related to economics? How much of an influence does economics have on public policy, both nationally and internationally?

You could also post a political thread instead of waiting for someone else to do it... just a thought.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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:

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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You think constitutional laws are regressive?