Capitalism:
;j :smack: 
:eek: ;j :mad:
Communism:
how many people are employed by the advertising industry?
who gives a damn?
i bought my 1st VCR when Star Trek:The Next Generation came on the air. i didn’t have a television at the time. i hooked up the VCR at a friends house. after the show aired i went to her apartment and we watched it, of course i fast scanned thru the stupid television commercials. i’ve used VCRs to do that ever since. in 8 hours of commercial TV there are 2 hours of commercials. if you rate your time at $5/hr that is $500 per year. more than enough to pay for a good VCR. even a stupid CAPITALIST should be able to understand that. LOL!
i don’t waste my time to keep someone else employed. what kind of stupid capitalist do you think i am? the commercials almost never give you any LOGICAL information on which to base a purchsing decision. they just try to psychologically manipulate you.
DRIVE = LOVE
what horsesh!t!!!
see: HIDDEN PERSUADERS by Vance Packard (c)1957
showing my age again. damn!
Dal Timgar
Uh…yeah. You do realize that television networks are not in the TV show broadcasting business, right? They don’t earn a single dollar from you watching a single show. They are in the commercial broadcasting business. Advertisers pay them to run those stupid little mini-movies so you know what products are out there. The TV shows are only there to convince advertisers that there will be people watching at a given time. It is the business model that allows you to watch 200 chanels for free (not counting the transmition costs you pay the cable company). The alternatives are PBS with its endless array of British sitcom re-runs, home repair shows, pleas for money and other crap no one wants to see; state run TV; or you paying extra for EVERY channel.
Thanks for letting us know you don’t like commercials though. I guess you could always read a book or get TiVo or something.
It’s not that simple obviously. Yet our economy experiences many advantages by being able to employ workers at rates that would be impossible here. Also being able to buy raw materials harvested at a lower cost helps as well.
Also many of said third world countries are capitalist too. Rich and poor capitalist countries just like rich and poor capitalist citizens.
This is always the biggest flaw I see in your arguments: the use of words like “democratic” with no seeming understanding of what they mean. So let’s say the manager is democratically responsible to the workers, which means he must obey majority votes on key issues. The majority votes that Worker Goofus is not pulling his weight and must be expelled. Does the manager then reassign all of Goofus’s chores and stop issuing Goofus’s meal tickets, and cut off the heat to Goofus’s quarters? Does he then orcibly escort Goofus to the edge of the commune’s land and kick him off? And since personal property rights doen’t exist, does Goofus get to take anything with him?
Of course, so as not to be sexist, I’m equally prepared to admit that Goofus might be a woman. With children, possibly. Yes, a woman with children kicked out into the snow by popular whim, with no life savings, years of work belonging to someone else…
Must be a worker’s paradise.
Wait a sec, did you mean to say that while the manager is democratically responsible to the workers, he (she?) is also responsible for their well-being? Hmm, tough call. Now if Goofus really is a slacker, he/she can’t be expelled. And if others follow G’s example, I can see mass economic collapse in store.
Sounds good to me. All those in favor of a raise? Yea!! All those in favor of a 2 day work week? Yea!!! All those in favor of sleeping in late? Yea!!!
Good use of smileys, by the way, msm.
So you have one person in charge of everything from utilities in the workers homes to work assignment, and possibly with police powers too.
If Doofus isn’t doing well at a factory, it’s possible that he/she could try to find work at a different factory or a restaurant wherever. There’s more than one place to work. A manager would be responsible for keeping things running in a particular work place, that’s it. I don’t see any reason why they should be head honchos in charge of everybody’s lives.
By democratically responsible I meant that the manager would be held accountable and would be subject to being demoted by a significant vote if they did a bad job.
Interestingly, I find people who promote communism see themselves in this “in charge” position, complete with police powers, rather than as a happy serf.
What if the manager is doing a good job because his commune is producing the most, but is unpopular with the workers because he makes them work 9 hours a day? If it’s the manager’s job to assign taskings, doesn’t that encourage corruption as workers angle and scheme for the more comfortable positions? Failing to promote a popular worker can be a manager’s downfall, as the worker’s buddies vote the manager out.
As for a worker moving to a different factory, imagine this: a worker is particularly skilled. A manager at another commune says “come work for us and we’ll give you access to better equipment and shorter hours”. Can the original commune vote to hold onto the worker? Can they prevent the worker from leaving?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by msmith537 *
**Capitalism:
;j :smack: :eek: ;j :mad:
Uh huh. = Nike
:D = Gap
:( = Microsoft
;j = Starbucks
:smack: = Enron
:p = MacDonalds
:cool: = Sunglass Hut
:eek: = Pepsi
:mad: = Coca Cola
Freedom = a lot more than just what capitalism in itself has to offer us.
Capitalism + Democracy = Freedom
Functional democracy doesn’t come from sticking your head in the sand and repeating, mantra-like, “Thank God I’m not a commie; thank god I’m not a commie; thank god I’m not a commie.”
That’s not freedom; that’s ideology.
Capitalism + Empowered Citizens + Responsive Government = Freedom.
That’s Starbucks, not Steinbucks.
Oy!
What if he doesn’t want to? What if he likes his cushy job, but none of the people who have to work with him like having him there? How do you resolve that conflict?
On to advertising… Man, the level of ignorance about capitalism in this thread continues to grow. Advertising is not useless. It provides a very valuable service, in that it acts as a direct connection between buyers and sellers.
It allows the producers of goods go inform purchasers of their products, thus allowing purchasers to make better decisions. But just as importantly, it provides feedback to the advertiser as to what consumers desire. If Nike puts out solid-gold aglets for their running shoes, they’ll find out soon enough if the marketplace favors them, by judging response to their ads. This two-way mass communication system allows producers to fine-tune their products.
Allowing the sellers of products to compete in front of you and try to sell you their products is a good thing. It’s also the right of the sellers to engage in speech to try to sway the marketplace.
As if capitalism was immune to political and personality issues. I’ve seen plenty of bad politics going on to the detriment of a company. Crappy CEO is successful only in conning investors out of cash, company meanwhile does nothing. Employees that lie along with CEO and suck up to him and pretend everything is going fine get rewarded, employees that try to do their jobs get met with criticism because once somebody tries to do something it’s apparent that nobody else is doing their jobs.
I’d rather see the politics come from the bottom up than from the top down.
No, they can’t prevent them from leaving. The worker can dissociate themselves at any point from a particular cooperative. Unless of course said worker has made an agreement to stick it out through a certain time period and gives up that right.
Pointing out similar failings in capitalism doesn’t explain away the problems of communism. In capitalism, at least, there are objective standards that can be applied: profitability and efficiency. What better standards are applied from “bottom up”? Maybe the manager who makes the employees happiest can stay in, even as the commune falls apart around them.
Doesn’t this sort of thing promote commune-poaching as the managers compete among themselves to grab each others’ skilled workers? Hey, maybe it’s capitalism after all!
The advantage of capitalism is that it has these self correcting mechanisms. As the Internet Bubble and Enron proved, you can fool the system for a little while with some fancy accounting. In the end though, if a company is not profitable it will go out of business. Under communism, there would still be buggy whip manufacturers and planners would be praising themselves for increasing production by 5% this year.
I don’t feel obligated to explain away problems, simply point out that they are managable. I imagine it working much like any democracy. Sometimes people get elected just because they’re popular, but if they do a bad job, their popularity won’t be sustained. People whine and complain when taxes are raised, but if the roads fall apart, people will complain about that as well. A good manager will balance between productivity and popularity and make sure the resources are allocated well.
Like I’ve said, if the income difference is small enough to keep folks from having to much personal influence on society, then call it what you will.
You do realize that one of the reasons capitalism is efficient is because the people who are the best at managing and creating wealth tend to rise to the top and have that undue influence, right?
If you level the playing field, the net effect is to prevent the best people from leveraging their abilities. Now you’ve introduced yet another inefficiency into the economy.
I think the better managers would still be given more responsibility eventually. There’s no active prevention so far as responsibility is concerned. The main difference is that it will be worker owned.
Even if you forcibly levelled all pay rates (and boy, wouldn’t that be fun?), some communes will have more to offer than others. Better weather, for one. Bigger or better food rations. Sexual favours (don’t laugh, a commune that went out of its way to acquire attractive young female workers can offer considerable incentive to skilled male workers, and vice-versa). Shorter working hours. Use of better equipment and access to better information. There are so many potential non-monetary incentives that eliminating the money issue makes a trivial difference.
Now I’m curious about the “personal influence” issue. Wealth isn’t the only means by which an individual can influence society. What if Worker Pablo has some artistic talent and wants to paint a mural? Does he have to apply to a committee? What if the other workers object to this waste of time and resources? Can they vote to block the mural?
If an economy existed here where several communes sprouted up across the country, I wouldn’t see a problem with people relocating to other communes, etc. as they see fit and as is necessary. Communes, of course, would have to be built with a maximum carrying capacity, but different communes would have different sources of income, so that is also a factor in which one might seek another commune.
Lets say Joe B lives at a commune in Indiana, that makes most of its money selling funny stickers and shirts over the internet. But Joe B is a very outdoorsy type- he loves camping, hiking, etc. There is a commune in Portland, OR that makes most of its money off of guiding tour groups in backpack expeditions. This is perfect for Joe B, and as he has the necessary skills to be a help in this, and as the Portland commune has room, Joe B. goes there.
About the personal influence issue- if Pablo wanted to paint a mural, I would guess that it would go up to vote- as a fully representative democracy. No committee, etc. Just everybody in the whole place casting a vote.
My guess would be that Pablo could paint the mural, unless there were extenuating circumstances that troubled a majority of the people. (content, environmental friendliness, etc.)
Also, about this in-charge thing- in a commune-style setting, I wouldn’t see one person in charge. Maybe Buck is a great farmer, so he is kind of the guy that everybody looks to when they have questions about farming. Maybe Steve is great with computers, and they ask him questions when they need help. When Buck realizes that the commune may need something for better farming that they don’t have, Buck would go up in front of everyone and petition them. Everybody would have say in the matter.
colin