Conservatism

[Sam_Stone]

Sam Stone, you appear to be thinking more of what would later become the mass middle class but there was an urban middle class of that time, bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects etc that lived quite comfortably. Call me strange but I’d rather be a Boston or London lawyer in 1903 living in a gas-lit apartment then sleeping under a bridge tonight.

That was not the middle class. The people you speak of were in the top 1% of society, or maybe even higher. You’re comparing the richest class of 100 years ago to the very poorest of today. And even then, 100 years ago there were no automatic washers, dishwashers, painless dentistry, and a whole host of other things that we take for granted today, but which even the rich didn’t have 100 years ago.

As for people sleeping in the streets - you can’t help people who don’t wish or don’t seek help. You can not blame government programs for the state of people who choose not to use those programs. Most of the people who are homeless today are homeless through choice, through ignorance, or mental incapacity.

We even have the kind of people you’re talking about in Canada, and quite a lot of them, despite the fact that our social safety net is probably twice as magnanimous as the U.S.'s. Some people blow their welfare cheques on cigarettes and drugs, and get evicted from their homes. Some just can’t get their act together enough to apply for assistance. Some don’t have enough faculties to understand what’s available to them. That may be sad, but such people have existed through history, and I’m not sure you can claim it as a failure of government or markets. They are just the poor souls who slip through the cracks.

But even so, when those people get sick, they are still given medical care that society could have never afforded 100 years ago, even if it had the knowledge.

Pantom: The fundamental difference which prevents the government from creating wealth is that everything it does, it does with taxed money. That destroys wealth creation somewhere else. By preventing capital from flowing where it ‘wants’ to go, it introduces inefficiency and stifles growth.

Certainly things like police forces and road systems are enablers of wealth creation, and even libertarians generally support those functions of government. But when government ‘creates jobs’ by taxing the people and then spending money on public works projects (or even worse, taxing people to subsidize business in politically powerful constituencies), all its doing is destroying jobs in a widespread fashion that is hard to measure, and making other jobs in concentrated areas politicians can point to and say, “Look at those jobs we made!”

[Eolbo]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
**That was not the middle class. The people you speak of were in the top 1% of society, or maybe even higher. You’re comparing the richest class of 100 years ago to the very poorest of today.
**

You made the comparison of the middle class of 100 years ago to the poorest of today not I. I rejected it. And yes I am talking of the developing middle class not very rich industrial magnates or landowners though they existed as well.

These sort of people and their American cousins:

The Rise of the Victorian Middle Class

Bottom line there are many people living in modern society who are less well off then people of 100 years ago, and I’m not referring to the ultra-rich.

Most of the people who are homeless today are homeless through choice, through ignorance, or mental incapacity.

Apparently mental incapacity increases in time of economic hardship then:

The New Homeless

[FairDink]

After reading through the thread, how can I limit my input to one post. This one’s a doozy, but I like it. Once read, I just could not sleep, so here I am at 3am translating my brain patterns into words. While I realize that 3am brain patterns may not be healthy, I would also like to point out that niether is mulling over points trying to get some sleep.

FWIW, my friends, family and collegues have always found me to be an open minded person, with the ability to rationalize fairly well (“Don’t give up your day job!” I hear you cry. Don’t worry, I wont!). And I have had no real position on the matter prior to this. My previous posting, you may wish to ignore. In the scheme of things, it seems fairly miniscule, and I fear that the point I was trying to make may be taken differently to what I had originally intended. I would still like to have a position on the matter, but perhaps not take the context I placed it in so litterally.

OK, here goes:

It seems to me that just comming into this discussion having an open mind makes you Liberal!

Please, Scylla, I am not attacking anyone here, but listen to the following (i am not asking for justification, just some sign of being able to see rationally)

1. Things are the way they are for a reason. They have evolved into theire current existence by sheer strength.
2. I would like to tear down the laws we have evolved to and place my own.

These two points sound like they are comming from two different people opposing the same point. They dont!!! Two different sides of the brain, maybe - but certainly two individuals. Granted they have no context here, but I personally think they pretty much stand on theire own. In fact I felt ashamed to even quote you (I put my own interpretation of your quotes so you can argue with me instead of yourself).
You seem like an extremely inteligent person, and I can see the beuty in your arguments for your beliefs. I really can! But unfortunately, I applly the LUC to these beliefs and I come up with, well… it aint pretty. Your ‘intentions’ for the community are not being questioned. It is what they ultimately lead to that is.

I fail to see how having regulation on an industry PLUS having the laws you speak of in place would be… well… negative. Surely by having the shareholders in some-way accountable for the companies action would lead a company to place a ‘trust-wothy’ CEO. As opposed to just telling the CEO to make them as much money as possible and if he/she fucks up… well… “I had nothing to do with it.” Pleeeeaaasssseeeee!
Ok, you are talking about protecting the workers. Hey!? I think the shareholders are smart enough to realize that it is the workers who are really ‘the company’. I beleive we have all agreed on this point.

FWIW, I think you have found something profound in ‘Conservitism’ and now you refuse to accept anything else. You must fight for it. It sounds like a modernized, political religion if you ask me!!!

[GENERALIZATION]
if you don’t like generalizations, please proceed to closig tag.
I have seen this behaviour many times. It is quite common in my line of work. It is not rational thought that drives you. Your first instinct is to argue, untill you get used to the idea. Then you embrace it, and sometimes claim it as your own. While it is good to argue consequences, I see this as a short-term solution that can be moulded - rather than dismissed. As a long-term solution, I feel your standpoint has no foundations.
[/GENERALIZATION]

Thanx for you time.

I’m with you lissener! (and no we are not dating :rolleyes: )

[blanx]

Well, may as well enter in- having slogged through the prior posts.

The problem with the conservative philosophy, as I see it, is the issue of the tragedy of the commons. Scylla’s position of personal responsibility is all well and good, but the consequences are too remote when it comes to issues implicated by the tragedy of the commons problem- e.g. pollution, necessary things like roads, power transmission lines, diminishment of non-renewable resources, etc.

Conservatives, IMHO, place too much faith in the free market’s ability to resolve those issues appropriately.

There are plenty of problems with the liberal economic philosophy, but the inability of the conservatives to acknowledge and deal with the tragedy of the commons, combined with the aforementioned social conservative fringe people (not saying that Scylla is one, as he disclaimed them earlier) keep me a liberal.

[Scylla]

Blanx:

I have specifically acknowledged the “tragedy of the commons” issue re: conservatism, and have suggested that protecting the rights of the people re: the commons is the legitimate purview of government.

So, I think your criticism is invalid in this instance.

[Gorsnak]

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
And even then, 100 years ago there were no automatic washers, dishwashers…

Of course there were. They were called “servants.”

[g8rguy]

Eolbo, you do realize that your cite refers to social class and Sam is referring to economic class, don’t you? The distinction is what one might call non-trivial.

[Sam_Stone]

Exactly. In other words, how did 80% of the population live? Not the 10% on each end of the spectrum, but the majority of humans?

Here’s a hint: They didn’t have servants.

[Sam_Stone]

Or here’s another reasonable comparison to make:

How did the average factory worker live in the Soviet Union as compared to the U.S.? Or the average manual laborer? The difference in standards of living was shocking.

[elucidator]

gr8

So is there a category rich white trash? Outside of Cher, I mean?

A doctrinaire Marxist might well insist that there is no distinction worthy of the name betweeen social class and economic class. I suspect there is some, but not much. Certainly, there is no impediment deriving from social class that cannot be entirely erased by money (economic class).

[g8rguy]

(first off, it’s g8r. G-bloody 8-r. The other way around would be… well, presumptuous and probably false anyway… )

Elucidator, the point was that this “Victorian middle class” being discussed seems to indicate pretty much everyone who doesn’t fall into the categories of “worker” and “aristocrat.” Some, then, would be quite well off, and some would not.

Now, I agree that, especially in modern America, the two are not particularly different, but then we haven’t had the historical class structure to much extent anyway, yes? Nevertheless, I don’t know that I would classify, say, Eminem as upper class even though he has a hell of a lot more money than me. Which is, regrettably, not saying an awful lot, but that’s a different story entirely.

[Scylla]

*Originally posted by elucidator *
**A doctrinaire Marxist might well insist that there is no distinction worthy of the name betweeen social class and economic class. I suspect there is some, but not much. **

You’re completely wrong. It’s not your fault. You haven’t met my in-laws.

[elucidator]

If you can’t flaunt it, its not a class distinction.

[Eolbo]

*Originally posted by g8rguy *
**Eolbo, you do realize that your cite refers to social class and Sam is referring to economic class, don’t you? The distinction is what one might call non-trivial. **

No. My cite refers to both an economic and social class and what was the middle class of its day. The teeming middle class of millions didnt exist then as it does today but it didnt just spring up overnight either. That article isn’t referring to the upper class of its day, and nor were they the wealthiest individuals of society, many of them were what we would now call lower middle class. But the point is still that many individuals in modern society are economically worse off then that middle class of 100 years ago.
Its a refutation of sam’s earlier point that the poorest of today are much richer then the middle class 100 years ago which is demonstrably untrue as any comparison of today’s homeless vs the people in my cite clearly shows.

*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
In other words, how did 80% of the population live? Not the 10% on each end of the spectrum, but the majority of humans?
]

That wasn’t your comparison.

[g8rguy]

The term was used from around the mid-eighteenth century to describe those people below the aristocracy but above the workers. As a social category, the ‘middling sort’ always referred to a broad band of the population, but this diversity increased in the nineteenth century.

Some members of the middle-class used their wealth to buy land and stately homes, becoming as rich, if not richer than the aristocracy. At the same time, many members of the skilled working class could earn as much if not more than some members of the lower middle-class.

The working class could and did enter the ranks of the lower middle-class through small capital accumulation and the ownership of a small business

It sure as heck seems like a reference to social rank and not economic rank to me…

[AHunter3]

Damn good OP, Scylla. If the Republican party – or, for that matter, the Democratic party or the Liberatarian party or the Citizens’ Party or whoever – pushes a platform of fiscal responsibility geared towards balancing the budget and spending responsibly, passing legislation and enacting taxes for programs only in conjunction with consulting the people who would be affected as much as possible and including them in the process as much as possible, and otherwise staying the hell out of private citizens’ lives, I would

a) consider that party to be conservative; and
b) would vote for its candidates.

I would like to see radical change, but I want the changes tested and determined to be dependably functional before being implemented on a large scale. I believe in the law of unintended consequences.

[pantom]

Sam Stone: Taxes are just the price government charges for the services it provides, just like a private business. The services that are commonly recognized as within the sphere of government are what society has agreed are public services, from education to transportation - whether mass or not - to law enforcement and defense, which, like insurance, protects against the occasional, inevitable disaster.
All of these things have a monetary value over and above the money paid for them to society, which is why society chooses to pay for these things. An uneducated society won’t thrive. An unprotected society will see its assets destroyed by its enemies. Poor transportation will cost its businesses and destroy the competitiveness of the private sector of that society. For all these reasons and many more, public services are paid for through taxes and “user fees”, which are really just the price the users pay for the services provided, exactly as in a private transaction.

[pantom]

Shodan: in NYC, the subways were at one time private. I haven’t done the research to figure out why they wound up in the hands of the government, but I do know from talking to a very old uncle of mine that when they were private they were, according to him, clean and very well run.
That being said, when the subways were taken over by the city, they didn’t suddenly go from wealth creators to wealth destroyers overnight. Whether in private or public hands, the subways create wealth for NYC by minimizing the use of private cars.
This is classic import replacement, which is part of how economies grow. Because of the far lesser need that New Yorkers have for cars, they are able to spend their money on other things. I remember talking to a Manhattanite who was thinking of moving to Denver and who had already calculated that his cost of living would go up, because in Denver he would need a car, while in Manhattan he didn’t. Obviously, for him and a lot of other people, the subways functioned as a wealth creator.

[Eolbo]

*Originally posted by g8rguy *
**It sure as heck seems like a reference to social rank and not economic rank to me… **

Economic rank is social rank. While I’m normally only a marxist of the Groucho variety I’m inclined to go with that doctrinaire position that elucidator mentioned here, there really isn’t much to social class other then economics. Even your own cherrypicked quotes demonstrate the primacy of economics in defining class , that workers rose into the middle class via capital accumulation ie an economic consideration. Or the notion you also quoted that the middle class was those people ‘below the aristocracy but above the workers’ which are two categories also defined by the economic factors of landowning and labour. Class is admittedly a somewhat arbitrary notion that blurs at the edges but its driven by economic considerations. You’re welcome to disagree but if you dont think economics defines social class then what do you think does it?

[Sam_Stone]

Pantom: No, there is a big difference between citizens voting for government services, and private market transaction. The difference is that there is often a large disconnect between the people who pay for a government service and those who benefit from it. In other words, it’s similar to a market that has failed due to monopoly or large social cost not borne by customers.

Whereas in a private transaction neither party will engage in it unless they each think they will benefit, government also has the power of coercion. It alone has the sovereign right to use force to compel people to do what it wants.

There is absolutely no guarantee that anything government does is economically efficient. I shouldn’t be quite so absolutist in saying that governments never create wealth - it’s certainly possible for a government agency to be funded with tax money and build something of greater value. I would say the interstate highway system added significant wealth to the U.S. So it is possible.

But this isn’t government’s prime function, and the creation of assets is a small part of what government does, and when it does it it usually does it inefficiently compared to what the private sector can do.