# I'm ready for class war. Bring on the socialism! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2009, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044 "2009-04-05T09:11:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/61 "2009-04-06T19:20:11Z")
Suppose you have a hamster, of a variety that requires 1,000 calories per day, lest it starve. Being a conservative possessed of compassion,you feed it 500. It dies. Pressed by a cackling cabal of evil socialists, you raise the caroric ration to 600. The hamster dies. “Well, look! Simply feeding the hamster more food doesn’t work, we raised the ration by 20%, and the hamster still died!..” ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/62 "2009-04-06T19:32:31Z")
Suppose you have a hamster, of a variety that requires 1,000 calories per day to run on its wheel. Being a liberal possessed of compassion,you feed it 1500. Now, instead of running on the wheel, it sits in the corner of it’s cage all day, napping. Your mouse and rat wither away as they starve, all their food being given to the hamster. The hamster stirs itself and waddles over to it’s food bin, sniffs, and turns a withering look in your direction. You quickly pour in 500 more calories, thinking “Ah! NOW it will have enough energy to run on the wheel!”, Strangely, all the fat hamster does is sleep in the corner. Not strangely, though, is that the hamster thinks you are a great master. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/63 "2009-04-06T19:35:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > There are a couple of problems with this.[ul][li]Your link doesn’t go to any charts [_]The NEA’s word for it is not necessarily the last one on the topic [_]The assertion the broken link to a biased cite is supposed to establish is wrong.[/ul] Try [this one](http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html). Note that among the top three spenders is that well-known high achiever the DC school district. Or [this](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/03/08/27report_web3.h25.html), or [this](http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/22332/2007_NAEP_Scores_Show_Spending_Increases_Havent_Produced_Results.html).[/li] > Or [this](http://www.schoolchoiceva.com/2009/02/alec-state-education-rankings-released-for-15th-straight-year-again-show-spending-does-not-correlate-with-student-results/) - > > As for the rest of the suggestions in the OP, well, [been there, done that](http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan I apologize for the broken link. [Here](http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/05/23/school-spending.htm) is another one that show education spending per state. If you look at trends instead of cherry picking a single number, you’ll clearly see that states which under-perform academically are more likely to have lower spending per-pupil. For the record,[this](http://www.nea.org/home/29402.htm)was what I originally intended to link when I clicked the wrong browser box. Table 5 shows the states ranked in order of education spending per pupil. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/64 "2009-04-06T19:47:40Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > If you did not earn your money, I want the government to take it from you. This includes everyone whose parents bought their university acceptance slips, anyone who inherited a bunch of money, anyone who gouged the price of a commodity, almost everyone who got rich through a lawsuit, ambulance chasing lawyers, and a million fat corporate executives. This is just silly. As others have pointed out, there is no simple way to define who does and doesn’t deserve money that could possibly come to any sort of agreement. Why don’t corporate executives earn their money? They may or may not be overpaid, but in general, they got whatever education and built and/or maintained whatever company is paying them. A blanket on lawsuits is silly too. Does someone who got a limp from a car accident deserve a million dollars? Probably not. But someone who got severely disabled and needs lifetime care as a result could very well need even more than a million dollars to pay for it. Bottom line, money is property, and you just can’t take it away without a damn good reason. Besides the impossibility of defining it, not deserving it isn’t a good enough reason. > [@](#): > > I want to take away your guns. First off, why? To reduce violent crime? Because they’re scary? What purpose would it serve? Hell, I’m very pro-gun myself, and if you could give a bullet proof thesis on how confiscating guns would make enough of a dent in violent crime to make giving up that right worth it, then I’d be all for it. The problem is, you just can’t do that. And I hate to reiterate, but guns are property, and you can’t take it away without good reason. The fact that SOMEONE ELSE is using it improperly, isn’t a good reason. If I can owe a piece of property and use it responsibly, it damn well shouldn’t matter if it’s a gun, a computer, a car, or anything else. > [@](#): > > I want your religions to lose any government protection. I want your religions out of my schools. I want your religions out of my courts and out of my government policy. Ultimately, I think it would be best if everyone simultaneously agreed that worshiping spirits is ridiculous, but since we haven’t found a way to cure stupid I realize it’s impossible. I disagree with the first part. Freedom of religion is tantamount to freedom of speech. You may or may not like religion, but removing protections on religion leads to a very dangerous path. And calling people who have religious beliefs stupid doesn’t help this cause either. As for removing it from courts and government policy, I’m all for that. That is, government policy shouldn’t be made that it gives a specific advantage or disadvantage to one religion or follower of a religion compared to another. However, courts and government policy shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t exist either. Religion should be treated like gender, ethnicity, etc. Just treat everyone equally, regardless of what they believe. > [@](#): > > I want every government restriction on unions gone. Organized labor has been consistently opposed by every administration since the inception of unions. Workers and company owners need each other equally, but without organized labor the workers can not bargain on equal footing. I want company executive salary to be tied to a multiple of the pay their workers get. Money is power. The the more money you have, the more power you have to take even more, until almost all of the power is held by a very small number of people, who are acting in their own interests with complete disregard for anything else. This is unacceptable and not reconcilable with a just society. Quite frankly, I think the point of unions has passed. Right now, they’re either so weak as to be useless, or so omni-present, that other employees feel threatened, or the employer has no choice but to accept their demands. Personally, I think the free-market would work things out just fine, so I’m okay with removing restrictions on unions. > [@](#): > > I want gays to marry. I think any two concenting adults should be able to enter a legally binding contract. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the extent of what the government should have to say about marriage. If two people want to get what equates to a standard legal marraige now and all the rights and responsibilities thereof, fine. I’d also like to see some changes that let people pick and choose what parts they want and don’t want, or let them modify various other parts to work for them. At the same time, I’d think any religious implications about recognizing the marriage or not can be left up to the religions to decide for themselves. > [@](#): > > I want any kind of government censorship abolished. Sure, censorship is bad, and it’s not the government’s responsibility. > [@](#): > > I want the size of the military budget reduced to less than 10% of what it is now. I want mandatory impeachment for any president who wants to invade another country, where he states under oath exactly what his reasons are for the invasion. If investigation finds these reasons to be untrue, the president should go to jail. You better be damned sure of your intelligence reports and motivations before you send a bunch of 19 year old kids to die, and kill a bunch of civilians. That number is not only arbitrary, but just plain too small. I do agree that the US spends too much money on the military, but a lot of that could be fixed with a better approach to budgetting. Throwing money at things doesn’t fix a problem. Chances are we could maintain most of the current functionality of the military while having significant cuts in funding with some proper organization. I would also say that withdrawing our policy of global policing would do plenty more for reducing the necessary size and budget of the military. As for your impeachment policy, that’s just silly and clearly motivated by your distaste for Bush. Will you investigate every action? How will you determine who is at fault? What if it the President was fed bad information by someone else? Do you also hold responsible members of Congress who voted for funding for a military action? If a President can be automatically impeached for that action, where do you draw the line? I think that judgment is best left to how it’s drafted in the constitution, and letting Congress decide where that line is. > [@](#): > > I want all recreational drugs legalized, and regulated by the FDA. Let medical experts decide whether a substance is too dangerous to consume, instead of politicians and churches. I agree. I would add the caveat that if we’ll continue to have laws about DUIs and drunk and public and no smoking in public areas, then similar laws should be put in place to have similar restrictions so that people aren’t smoking pot in bars where smoking cigarettes are banned, or driving while tripping on shrooms. > [@](#): > > I want the USA to disarm its nuclear arsenal first. All of it, without any conditions. In theory, sure; it would be a great gesture. In practice, it would be utterly meaningless. Anyone that would respect the action wouldn’t go to war with us anyway. Chances are our enemies wouldn’t care. > [@](#): > > I want nuclear power plants everywhere. Fair enough. Though I’d rather go further and be looking at other ways of getting cleaner energy. > [@](#): > > I want free health care. I do too. I’d love to be able to get any care I need, whenever I need it, at no cost, but it’s impossible. How would you fund it? Unless the funds are unlimited, there will be limitations in what level of care can be provided and when. Do you fund it through a tax? Then is it fair that someone who is young and in great physical condition pay taxes on it while someone who is older or in poor health (whether their fault or not) pays more? No. If you treat it like social security where you pay in while you’re young and healthy and take out later when you need it, you’d run into all the inherent problems of that system. How do you cover funding for people who are inherently going to be drains on the system or inherently are healthy enough that they only need it for the occassional emergency? > [@](#): > > I want nationally accredited private schools gone. What’s wrong with private schools? If they don’t get accreditation, why would anyone go to them? > [@](#): > > I want free college tuition everywhere, where your acceptance to a particular school is based only on your academic qualifications. Again, I love this. I’d love to see people get the opportunities they deserve intellectually, but it’s just not that simple. How do you fund it? Even moreso, it doesn’t solve the problem of bringing students who could be exceptional but get don’t get the education they need in a poor school. I’d like to see more educational opportunities open up for people, but as of now, it seems like scholarships will probably continue to work better than trying to have the government fund it. > [@](#): > > I want any executive who accepts a performance bonus from a failing company that laid off workers to go to jail. Really, who cares? Unless they’re accepting funds from the government, it’s their money and their responsibility to their stock holders. If they’re accepting funds from the government, why are they getting it? I hate the fact that we’re propping up failed business models. Even worse, we’re not even being consistent about who we’re propping up, how much aid they get, and what we expect back from them. Let the free market do it’s thing. > [@](#): > > And I want a pony. I’m more likely to get all of the above than I am to get the pony. Actually, you’re probably more likely to get a pony than almost any of the above with the possible exception of gay marriage. And even that probably won’t happen for at least another generation or so. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/65 "2009-04-06T19:51:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > There are a couple of problems with this.[ul][li]Your link doesn’t go to any charts [_]The NEA’s word for it is not necessarily the last one on the topic [_]The assertion the broken link to a biased cite is supposed to establish is wrong.[/ul] Try [this one](http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html). Note that among the top three spenders is that well-known high achiever the DC school district. Or [this](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/03/08/27report_web3.h25.html), or [this](http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/22332/2007_NAEP_Scores_Show_Spending_Increases_Havent_Produced_Results.html).[/li] > Or [this](http://www.schoolchoiceva.com/2009/02/alec-state-education-rankings-released-for-15th-straight-year-again-show-spending-does-not-correlate-with-student-results/) - > > As for the rest of the suggestions in the OP, well, [been there, done that](http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm). > > Regards, > Shodan Missed the edit window. Your first link shows that of the top 3 spenders on a per-pupil basis, two are above national average academically, and that among the bottom 3 spenders on a per-pupil basis, all three are below the national average academically. I don’t know how you drew the conclusion that this proved anything you wanted it to. Also, you should probably know that the assertions your second link make are based on a report that’s unavailable for review because it’s at the end of a broken link, and the conclusions they draw are not based on any comparison between places with different per-pupil spending. I don’t know how they could possibly make the assertion that “per pupil spending doesn’t increase academic success” when they are not comparing academic success to differences between places with different per-pupil spending. The third link you gave was a study funded by the Heartland institute, with opinions from leaders of the Cato Institute. Again, this study has obvious methodology issues in that it compares the national average per-pupil spending with what it was in the past, instead of the obviously more meaningful comparison between current discrepancies in education spending. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/66 "2009-04-06T19:54:51Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > For the record,[this](http://www.nea.org/home/29402.htm)was what I originally intended to link when I clicked the wrong browser box. Table 5 shows the states ranked in order of education spending per pupil. You did notice that Table 5 ranks DC No. 1 in spending, do you not? DC ranks [dead last](http://www.mibazaar.com/education/actscores.html) in ACT scores. New Jersey is No.2 in spending, but twelfth in its scores. I didn’t get further than that, but the notion that there is a strong correlation between average spending and educational achievement is not a well-supported one, to say the least. I will leave aside discussion that this is coming from the NEA, who has a vested interest in spinning the numbers to get more money. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/67 "2009-04-06T19:56:42Z")
Well, except for a few comments on details of education statistics, I have yet to see the OP defend any of his positions to anyone. I therefore must assume he’s not serious. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/68 "2009-04-06T19:57:38Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > Really, who cares? Unless they’re accepting funds from the government, it’s their money and their responsibility to their stock holders. If they’re accepting funds from the government, why are they getting it? I hate the fact that we’re propping up failed business models. Even worse, we’re not even being consistent about who we’re propping up, how much aid they get, and what we expect back from them. Let the free market do it’s thing. The free market relies on aggressive oppression of organized labor, which essentially gives business owners and company executives the legal power and right to steal from their employees. Workers are prevented from negotiating from a position that represents their value to a company. It’s not “their” money to do with as they choose. It’s ours, and we want it back. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/69 "2009-04-06T20:01:54Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Well, except for a few comments on details of education statistics, I have yet to see the OP defend any of his positions to anyone. I therefore must assume he’s not serious. I am serious, but there’s a lot to cover here, and so many of the rebuttals to my OP are telling me to move to Cuba or comparing me to Pol Pot. I’m doing my best to refute serious rebuttals, but others like BrainGlutton, who pointed out that I’m not really asking for much different from European style social Democracy, have pretty much hit the nail on the head already. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/70 "2009-04-06T20:08:05Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I didn’t get further than that, but the notion that there is a strong correlation between average spending and educational achievement is not a well-supported one, to say the least. I will leave aside discussion that this is coming from the NEA, who has a vested interest in spinning the numbers to get more money. The NEA chart I linked to made no such assertion, it just ranked the states in order of average spending per pupil. The fact that you looked at 2 numbers, and 1 of them supported my assertion, is the problem here. Seriously, the reason you didn’t “get further than that” is because if you had, you would have had to admit that the D.C. is a statistical anomaly. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/71 "2009-04-06T20:10:29Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I want all recreational drugs legalized, and regulated by the FDA. Let medical experts decide whether a substance is too dangerous to consume, instead of politicians and churches. Umm. That’s the way it currently works. > **[Controlled Substances Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act)** > > The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is the statute establishing federal U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of certain substances is regulated. It was passed by the 91st United States Congress as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon. The Act also served as the national implementing legislation for the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. > The legislatio... ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/72 "2009-04-06T20:15:48Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Umm. That’s the way it currently works. > > [Controlled Substances Act - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act) Did you get the acronyms FDA and DEA confused? ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/73 "2009-04-06T20:25:45Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I am serious, but there’s a lot to cover here, and so many of the rebuttals to my OP are telling me to move to Cuba or comparing me to Pol Pot. I’m doing my best to refute serious rebuttals, but others like BrainGlutton, who pointed out that I’m not really asking for much different from European style social Democracy, have pretty much hit the nail on the head already. Even in Europe, there are executive bonuses, and there are inheritances. And there most certainly are private schools. I think BrainGlutton is wrong on this. What you’re asking for is quite different from European style social Democracy. Ed ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/74 "2009-04-06T20:31:49Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Did you get the acronyms FDA and DEA confused? Did you even read the cite? The FDA and the DEA both have say under which schedule drugs are classified. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/75 "2009-04-06T20:35:35Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I’m doing my best to refute serious rebuttals, I provided 100% serious and genuine counterpoint and you did not address any of them. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. For example, in this thread (and several times in previous threads), I have explained why the owner-vs-employee relationship is not equal and not a single SDMB poster has ever attempted to refute its logic. Here’s one of the things I’ve learned about lefty SDMB posters… it’s very easy to type out “_I want this! I want that! I want X,Y, and Z!_”. It’s very easy to chant, “_I want want want ad infinitum_” because that’s what whining children do. It’s much much harder to type out a workable mechanism that citizens will agree to for all those wants. It’s much harder to architect a program and type out, “_To provide universal healthcare, fund it with X tax, and reduce spending on Y, etc. The tradeoff is of this approach is Z._” And then support the argument with concrete mathematics show how the numbers balance out in real life. Real debate lies with the outlining the actual mechanisms of taxation & spending and poking holes into what will be tolerated by the citizens. Just listing a set of “wants” is immature and to borrow **elucidator** ’s word, “absurd.” > [@Mosier](#): > > It’s not “their” money to do with as they choose. It’s ours, and we want it back. Could you explain exactly what this sentence means? Or can you provide examples to make this concept clearer? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/76 "2009-04-06T20:36:35Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > The free market relies on aggressive oppression of organized labor, which essentially gives business owners and company executives the legal power and right to steal from their employees. Workers are prevented from negotiating from a position that represents their value to a company. It’s not “their” money to do with as they choose. It’s ours, and we want it back. I keep hearing this stupid argument over and over again. Your “value to the company” is equal to what someone is willing to pay you in exchange for your labor. It’s not “your money” to be stolen from you until someone decides to exhange it for your labor. And it’s not your labor anymore after you have been paid. You gave it to the company in exchange for your paycheck. If you think your labor is worth more, why wont someone else pay you more for it? Sorry if that is too “Ayn Rand” for you, but how do you expect the world to work? Someone should force an employer to hire you at your expected salary rate when there is a perfectly capable person willing to do at least as good a job for less money? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/77 "2009-04-06T20:49:50Z")
I agree completely with the OP with one small proviso…I get to be God King. Once I’m ensconced as God King then sure…bring it on! -XT ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/78 "2009-04-06T20:53:41Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > The free market relies on aggressive oppression of organized labor, which essentially gives business owners and company executives the legal power and right to steal from their employees. Workers are prevented from negotiating from a position that represents their value to a company. It’s not “their” money to do with as they choose. It’s ours, and we want it back. Huh? How does the free market rely on oppression of organized labor? The free-market simply says that you will get paid what the market deems you’re worth. If you’re not getting paid what you think you’re worth, you find someone who will, and if no one will pay you what you think you’re worth, then chances are, your estimation is wrong and you should look into another line of work. The fact that people are willing to get paid what they are getting paid to do what they’re doing means that what they’re getting paid is probably about what that job is worth. If there’s a shortage of workers, then they’re probably not getting paid enough, and if there’s an excess of workers, then they’re probably getting paid too much. you know, supply and demand. To some extent, unions do work against the principles of the free-market because it artificially inflates the value of a resource by artificially reducing the supply. The problem is, by doing that, it causes upwards ripples by increasing costs which, when propogated through, ends up inflating the whole system. So the end effect if all labor had a union is a net gain of zero (because the inflation would rebalance at a higher value), or an imbalance in some sectors where some jobs that would otherwise have lower relative value end up with a higher one, which causes all kinds of problems. Add to that a lot of negative side-effects of unions that aren’t mentioned. For instance, when I was in high school, I had a business with a union where the union wasn’t mandatory, but not being a member resulted in lots of harrassment for “not watching out for my fellow employee” and that kind of garbage. So, in the end, I just can’t see how unions ultimately have any positive effects on the economy as a whole, even if they may specifically help some sectors of it, they end up hurting others. And, thus, in an ideal system, they wouldn’t exist. That all said, I don’t have a problem with people forming unions because they should have the option of organizing if they so choose, even if it is selfish and stupid. I would much prefer people seek an appropriate career path for the compensation they feel they deserve through additional training or education than through extorting a business and/or sector into paying the workers more than the market says they deserve. But considering what you quoted from my post, I really don’t see what any of it has to do with bonuses for executives of failing companies. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/79 "2009-04-06T21:14:26Z")
You guys keep waving this “free market” at us like someone warding off Dracula with a crucifix. What “free market”? When has such a thing ever existed? And if it does not currently exist, nor has ever existed, how is it that you can be so utterly certain of its mechanisms? If I tell you that Jesus dictates the fair value of labor, you’re likely to scoff. But without hesitation, you will tell me that the Sacred Free Market dictates such value, without offering any reason to believe that such a thing even exists. Do you, by chance, pine for the halcyon days of Standard Oil and the monopolistic trusts, when business men were free to squeeze the public to whatever lengths might satisfy their greed? And by what magic does the Sacred Free Market make a man worthy of gross overcompensation for engineering a catastrophic failure? In the Church of Mammon, this is a\* mitzvah\*? ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044/80 "2009-04-06T21:45:43Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > If I tell you that Jesus dictates the fair value of labor, you’re likely to scoff. But without hesitation, you will tell me that the Sacred Free Market dictates such value, without offering any reason to believe that such a thing even exists. You are confusing the term “_free market_” with “_fair-and-I’m-totally-happy-with-the-money-I received/paid-for-product-X-or-labor-Y_” The “free” in “free market” means the government does not hold a gun to the head of the seller (price cap) or the buyer (mandatory purchase) for transactions. Both the seller & buyer can walk away from the transaction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ready-for-class-war-bring-on-the-socialism/492044.md?page=5)