Well, if that’s all you know, then you certainly don’t have sufficient evidence to blame Washington or the IMF. What’s your point?
Maeglin:
Thank ye kindly.
Two compliments so far! This must be my lucky thread!
T’would be my pleasure. Before beginning, however, I’d like to tease apart two claims that seem to get all too easily entangled with each other during discussions of this sort. I think that each of them needs to be addressed separately.
The first claim is the following: Left to its own devices, Capitalism tends to create growing disparities in income distribution as time goes on. This is a pretty straightforward assertion.
The second claim is:** The disparities in income distribution produced by Capitalism result in an increase of wealth at one end of the scale, and in an increase in poverty at the other end of the scale, as resources are reallocated upwards.** I guess this is what is being continually referred to in this thread as the ”zero-sum proposition.” In contrast to this claim, it is possible to imagine that in a dynamically growing capitalist economy everyone is becoming wealthier, even the poor, but that, at the same time, income disparities are increasing, as the incomes of the wealthy rise faster than those of the poor. This is, in fact, probably the most commonly-cited argument against the Marxist/Neo-Marxist perspective, and the point I believe you’re trying to make.
Regarding the first proposition, it should be relatively easy to ”test,” empirically. One could, for example, investigate long-term trends in income disparity in countries that rely more or less exclusively upon the so-called ”free market” as a mechanism for economic redistribution. If in such cases we discover that as time goes on, markets tend to distribute wealth more and more equitably, then the hypothesis would be falsified, which would in turn reflect poorly on the Chumpskian model. If we see the opposite effect, on the other hand, then we can say that, at the very least, this model remains in the running as a possible theoretical explanation for the effects we observe.
Luckily, Chumpsky has already linked to a cite above that provides information of the sort we are looking for. Since the info is handy, since much of it is taken from the US Census Bureau, and since I doubt anyone will object to the raw figures, I’ll simply reproduce some of it here.
To begin with, taking the US domestic economy as our test case, we observe extreme discrepancies in both income and wealth holdings as we move up the economic scale. For example, we note that the .5% wealthiest members of American society in 1983 (about 14 million people) owned approximately 45% of the nation’s entire wealth, including 47% of all corporate, privately-held stock. At the same time, the bottom 60% of all US families owned $5000 or less in assets. In fact, if this web page is to be believed, ”The bottom 90% of the US population ha[d] (in 1992) a smaller share (23%) of all kinds of investable [sic?] capital than the richest 0.5% (who own 29%).” At the very least, assuming that this disparity of wealth reflects the operation of the US economy over time, we can say that it does not contradict the predictions of our model.
If we observe the trends in US income distribution between 1974 and 1994, again as presented by the US Census Bureau, we note the following: in 1974, the poorest 20% of the US population (in terms of households) shared among themselves 4.3% of the total US aggregate income. The top 20%, on the other hand, shared 43.5% of that income. (Interestingly, the wealthiest 5% of the US population received 16.5% of the aggregate income, which was more than the total earned by the bottom 40% (15.1%).) By 1984, the figures were: bottom 20%, 4.0% of aggregate income; top 20%, 45.2%; top 5%, 17.1%. And in 1994, it looked like this: bottom 20%, 3.6 % of aggregate income; top 20%, 49.1%; top 5%, 21.2 %. The entire change over time (from 1974 to 1994) can be charted as follows: first quintile, -16%; second quintile, -16%; third quintile, -11.7%; fourth quintile, -4.9%; fifth quintile, +12.9%; top 5%, + 28.5%. By 1994, the top 5% earned almost double the entire income of the bottom 40% (21.2% vs. 25%).
I suggest that these figures lend weight to the first claim, above; at the very least, they do not falsify it.
So then we move on to the second claim, which is somewhat trickier. This trickiness lies in the fact that it also involves a kind of value judgement.
It would of course be easiest to simply assert that the evidence we have shows that the poor are getting poorer, at the expense of the wealthy. I think there is evidence that supports such a claim, at least at the global level, which I cited earlier, above. But then again, as you point out, in a slightly self-contradictory fashion:
If the data is equivocal, then neither you nor I can really make any categorical claims regarding it, can we?
But let us take the stronger thesis. Let’s address the argument that in fact, despite increased income inequity, the economy is growing such that everyone, both rich and poor, are gradually becoming better off. If that’s the case, one might ask, then what’s the problem? Or, as you put it:
Well, with regard to arguments that demonstrate such a dynamic is ”inherent in the system,” there are a few, as any macroeconomist will probably tell you. One dynamic of primary importance is profit motive: corporations are under pressure to squeeze as much wealth out of their systems as possible. High profits are valuable because they allow high levels of reinvestment (which will hopefully lead to even higher profits) and because they attract more investment capital.
This has both positive and negative effects. On the plus side, it tends to make corporations very effective with regard to resource use. But on the minus side, and more to the point, this dynamic exerts a downward pressure on wages. Obviously: if I sell my product on the market at the price the market sets for it, then the less I pay for labor, the higher my profits. The higher my profits, the more money I have to reinvest, and the more attractive my company is to investors with capital. Clearly, such a dynamic is ”inherent in the system.”
This pressure is further exacerbated by market competition, which is also rather obvious, when one pauses to reflect upon it. If several similar products are competing for the same market, then this will tend to exert a downward pressure on the price of the product. This dynamic also has both positive and negative effects – competition can be good for the consumer, for example. But again, it puts pressure on the corporation to cut production costs as much as it possibly can, in order to realize a profit; and this in turn creates a downward pressure on wages.
These effects are also empirically falsifiable, at least in a general sense. Of course, when looking at a potential workforce, wages and benefits are not the only variables that concern large corporations. They also look at such factors as the level of discipline the workforce exhibits, the social/political stability of the country in which the workforce is located, and so forth. But assuming that all other things are equal, and the that only question facing the corporation was the actual cost of two equally stable, well-disciplined workforces, market dynamics constrain corporations to chose the least expensive of those workforces. These considerations can be used to explain, for example, the current transfer of manufacturing facilities to the so-called third world. They can be falsified by a set of examples, taken from the real world, in which (all other things being equal) corporations choose less productive, more expensive workforces over more productive, less expensive workforces. I challenge you to find such examples.
Both of these pressures, it can be argued, tend to force wealth upwards, towards the top. They create a class of individuals, investors and businessmen, who possess fantastic amounts of wealth, who work ruthlessly to protect that wealth, and who are constantly on the lookout for the next, most profitable investment. Does this mean that they are ”picking the pockets of the poor?” Well, to a certain extent, that depends on one’s perspective, but one can certainly contend that this is the case. Even in an expanding economy, if the benefits of growth are not spread equitably, then it is not unreasonable to claim that one group is profiting at the expense of another.
Regarding this:
*Agreed, in general. There are details in Parenti’s essay that are questionable, but I haven’t found any weaknesses in its major thesis, even if some examples are perhaps poorly chosen, and so forth.
js:
On the contrary. You’ve been a perfect gentleman (gentlewoman?), and my jibe was in no sense directed towards you personally. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for a whole slew of other participants in this discussion. (Y’all know who you are.)
Looking forward to your return. Say hi to your sister from me!
Mr. Svinlesha
Excellent analysis, as always.
You point out an a priori argument for the creation of poverty under capitalism that I think holds. That is, just the workings of the market, without any nefarious activity, tend to push wages down, and create a more impoverished underclass. This is also exactly what we observe. I think this is a crucially important point. That is, just taking the sort of bare-bones capitalist system, we can make a good argument that poverty will increase. Thus, the only true saving grace of capitalism, namely that it creates wealth, is lost. Before we even enter into discussions of the other evils of capitalism, such as those that are endemic to any authoritarian system, and those that are uniquely capitalist, we have good cause to reject it.
The component of the capitalist system which you did not touch upon is imperialism. That is not a criticism, I am just pointing out that imperialism only accentuates the bad aspects of an evil system. We can reject capitalism without talking about imperialism, but when we do look at the horrific effects of imperialism, capitalism looks worse and worse. One component of imperialism is that it aids in the enterprise of forcing wages down around the world, and hence at home. Imperialism also has other benefits for the ruling class, obviously, with the extraction of wealth from the Third World, and the creation of a foreign underclass which the domestic underclass can participate in exploiting. It is also a form of class warfare that goes under the heading of “divide and conquer.”
He was concerned about the masses in exactly the same manner that Hitler or Stalin were concerned about the masses.
Sort of reminds me of the old saw: One more victory like that and we’re done for.
Many around the world were euphoric at the victory of the Vietnamese, but this soon turned cold when they looked at the price the Vietnamese had to pay. The lesson learned is that if you are going to attempt to develop along an alternative path, you will have to fight against the fury of the most powerful state on Earth.
I wonder if I am even speaking the same language as you if you can write that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was of “equal savagery” to the U.S. attack on Iraq. The Iraqis killed about 240 people in their invasion and did very little damage to the infrastructure. On the other hand, the U.S. killed a couple hundred thousand people, and also destroyed the necessities of life, such as water treatment facilities, damns, bridges, etc. The attack on Iraq was a systematic attempt to destroy Iraqi civil society, with the certain knowledge that it would lead to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is not even comparable.
Furthermore, since 1991, it has been official U.S. policy that the sanctions will not be lifted unless Saddam is out of power.
“President Bush said today that the United States would oppose the lifting of the worldwide ban against trading with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein is forced out of power in Baghdad”.
Source: “Bush Links End Of Trading Ban To Hussein Exit” The New York Times, May 21, 1991
Similar statements have been repeated in the ensuing decade. At no point has the U.S. ever said that the sanctions will be lifted if Iraq complies with U.N. resolutions.
This is simple terrorism, on a massive scale. Any definition of terrorism includes the targetting of the civilian population for political purposes. That is exactly what the sanctions are doing. They target the civilian population, while leaving the ruling class untouched, for a political purpose, namely removing Saddam from power. This brand of terrorism, the terrorism of economic sanctions, has cost the lives of at least 500,000 civilians, most of whom are children. Furthermore, the sanctions don’t just kill, they torture you to death. People die a slow, agonizing death of starvation or easily treatable diseases. It makes the attacks of 9/11/01 look like a picnic.
Exactly the same as Hitler or Stalin, hmmm? Funny, I don’t recall the Nixon administration starving tens of millions of people or shipping entire ethnic groups off to concentration camps. The casual comparison to Hitler sounds like a perfect Godwin violation to me.
They saved all their infrastructure damage for the spiteful oil-well fires they touched off during their retreat. Their initial invasion killed relatively few people because Kuwait was mostly defenseless and could be clobbered in a matter of hours. The U.S. counteroffensive was to drive out an actual army, with actual tanks and actual guns. And none of it would have been necessary had the Iraqis pulled out prior to the Jan. 15th deadline. If the American government was determined to destroy “Iraqi civil society” (such as it is) why didn’t they invade Iraq? Carpet-bomb cities? Deploy nukes? The widespread strategic attacks on bridges and whatnot were to weaken Iraqi command and control. You’re ascribing petty revenge motives to something that was actually pretty straightforward, and while you claim the U.S. government is an instrument of absolute evil, you never seem to address the checks it puts on itself, by not actually behaving in an absolutely evil way. I’m sure you’re bitterly disappointed that the U.S. hasn’t nuked Baghdad, because that would really give you something to kvetch about.
You really ride the sanctions horse a lot, don’t you? It’s an easy way to blame U.S. capitalists for being greedy for exploiting some countries and heartless for not trading with others. How convenient for you.
So it’s bad that they want to remove Saddam from power, and bad that they haven’t done it already? There you go again, taking both sides.
You are entertainingly misguided. Keep it up. It’s fun.
Its very simple. I am unwilling to spend the time and effort to do so in a thread like this one (and I’m sure you all understand what I mean by that) while in Finals Week.
Chumpsky came in and made claims, thus far without any evidence. I am not going to spend any effort to disprove him until he comes up with some sort of evidential justificaion.
All I know is that his ass must be getting tired from having opinions pulled out of it ten times a day.
You have made this claim before, Chumpsky.
I don’t believe you. Prove it.
Regards,
Shodan
Very well, let’s just count them up then, shall we?
Poster…Number of Cites (in this thread)
Shodan…0
smiling bandit…0
Bryan Ekers…0
Chumpsky…7
Anyone else notice a pattern here?
But I think I recognize the technique: a group of like-minded posters gang up on one with an unpopular opinion, and demand cites of him until he finally gives up in exhaustion. During the process, they obtusely misconstrue his arguments, demand responses to claims that he never made, and mock him under the guise of presumed superiority. I mean anything other than engage him in honorable debate, with respect for the fact that he presents an alternative perspective.
:rolleyes:
Ah yes, Bryan Ekers: master of projection.
You should know that your performance in this thread reflects much more poorly upon you than it does upon your opponent.
None of his cites, however, actually act as direct or indirect evidence for his position unless one accepts Chumpsky’s assumptions. The number is irrelevant; he has been unable as of yet to show any clear supporting evidence.
That’s okay, I’m a vampire.
Chumpsky is the one making absurd (or at the very least, unlikely) claims. The onus is on him to provide evidence, and when his agenda/bias is so extreme, the onus is even stronger because we’re challenging a set of beliefs that have more of an air of dogma than reason to them. As with Witnessing, he’s making absolute claims and declines to address the exceptions we casually point out. Nixon viewed citizens exactly the same way Stalin and Hitler did? Puh-leeze.
As for my low cite total, I find that I don’t actually need the writings of others to support my observations that Chumpsky’s opinions are, to be as generous as possible, kinda nutty. With such a high bullshit-to-reason ratio, I can calmly pick out just his looniest statements and still have more than enough material to display my own sparkling wit. My “performance,” incidentally, is primarily for my own amusement and that of others, in which I feel I have succeeded. Converting Chumpsky into an Ayn Rand fan is, at best, an extremely distant second, though were it to happen I’d consider it a Nobel Prize-worthy accomplishment and would include it in my signature line.
If you’re not amused, that’s your problem.
And I’m not really a vampire, so please don’t ask for a cite.
sb:
Really? None? Not a single one? Would you care to back up this assertion with an argument, an example, a demonstration, or…dare I say…a cite?
Anyway, as I understand it, that was the whole point of this exercise. Chumpsky introduced an essay and asked others to participate in a critical analysis of it, for the purpose of seeing whether or not it could stand up to such scrutiny. So far, I’ve heard two critical comments: 1) Puerto Rico was poor choice for an example of US imperial influence, and 2) there is more freedom of thought in US universities that Parenti gives credit for. The remainder of this thread has been little more than a Chumpsky-bashing free-for-all. And amazingly, through its entirety, I have yet to see Chump respond to anyone in a mocking, sarcastic, or disrespectful manner. Had it been me, I would have washed my hands of this discussion long ago.
Anyway, if the man is so far out to lunch as many here seem to believe, it should be a cakewalk for those who disagree with him to refute his claims in a sensible, respectful, rational manner.
Or perhaps they’re afraid that he might have a point?
Bryan:
- You mean, like his earlier claim that there’s no distinction between ”building an Auschwitz and building a MacDonalds?”
I see. How very adult of you.
I agree with chula: sounds like you need to be reminded of which forum you’re in.
I’m glad you separated your claims, Mr. Svinlesha, as they really should be treated separately.
This I agree with. However, I think that several factors not necessarily related to capitalism contribute to the growing income disparity.
[ul]
[li]The bequeathment of family assets maintain and exacerbate existing privilege.[/li][li]Advances in finance have made it easier to turn large amounts of money into gigantic amounts of money than to turn small amounts of money into moderate or even large amounts of money.[/li][li]Unintended consequences of governmental fiscal policy have created a “culture of poverty,” in which botched attempts at wealth redistribution have made the problem of poverty more intractable.[/li][li]Economic protectionism has severely increased the cost of many vital consumer goods. The high prices of these goods fleece the poor much more than the affluent.[/li][/ul]
There are many, many more.
The problem I tend to have with Chumpsky’s analysis (and yours, to a lesser extent), is that it only seems to make room for systemic criticisms, rather than criticisms levelled at specific flaws, inadequacies, or failures. For the record, I tend to be quite liberal, and often favor programs which redistribute wealth in order to combat poverty. But I tend to see poverty as the product of individual political and market failures rather than as a flaw in the entire system.
You rightly acknowledge that this is much trickier.
I’d love to give that a shot. How does one distinguish whether a country relies more or less on the “free market”?
Yes and no, because I believe that a study of the data would depend on the time frame and on the prevailing conditions of the world economy. Let’s say we are examining the data for Ghana, whose cash crop happens to be cocoa. Let’s pretend that Ghana has relied heavily on globalization and free marketeering. But if the price of cocoa plummets, all the capitalism in the world won’t keep it from poverty. Contrast that with a nation in the middle east, whose oil industry is entirely nationalized. Comparing the levels of poverty between the two countries while oil prices are high and cocoa prices are low is no way to falsify this model. The problem is the ceteris paribus.
I won’t dispute the Census Bureau data, which seems to point to a disturbing trend of upward flow of capital. Yet I feel that some of my above explanations plus American’s very special brand of cronyism contribute more to this problem than a system of free enterprise and private ownership.
Alternatively, there is evidence to the contrary. This week’s Economist reports, regarding formerly impoverished East Germany:
(Link requires subscription, I will post it if you can read it.)
To be honest, I think it cuts both ways. Good policies have caused regions to flourish, bad policies have the opposite effect.
The data may be insufficient and difficult to work with, but we can make all the categorical claims we want using whatever data is available. I don’t think a black hole full of economic data will ever provide is with enough information to make universal generalizations like the rate of gravitational acceleration in physics. We simply have to work with whatever we have.
The rest addresses your analysis with respect to the profit motive.
Yup, this is absolutely true. However, it is only half the picture. While the demand curve for labor slopes downward, the supply curve slopes upward, putting an upward pressure on wages. To wit, there are many more people (presumably talented people with skills and experience) who are willing to work for $50k who would not be willing to work for half that. Wages are determined equally by those who supply it: that is to say, at equilibrium, where the two curves meet. If wages are in equilibrium, this benefits firms the most, because at this point they maximize their consumer surplus. Its benefits to employees are obvious, for at equlibrium, the greatest number of people are employed at the highest wage.
Furthermore, as you admit, the profit motive causes firms to produce goods efficiently. This has pushes prices downward . Although individuals might not be making as much money as they would really like, they are paying a relatively low price for goods, which lowers the opportunity costs of using their money.
There are, of course, a few problems with this. There are all sorts of distortions that get in the way of equilibrium, some good, some not so good. These are generally imposed by the government: taxes, mandated benefit costs, pension costs, etc. This results in wages lowered further, though certainly employees may ultimately reap the benefits of medical insurance and social security.
The bigger problem is caused by “sticky wages.” I am a salaried employee, and I make a fixed amount for an entire year. The pace of the economy changes faster than this, obviously. Firms have to weather extremely quick changes but are unable to pass these changes on to employees, for good and for ill. I would be pretty pissed off if business took a downturn next month and I saw my check cut in half.
On the other hand, if wages were more flexible, firms wouldn’t have to lay off so many people when times were tough, and lowered wages would have a further downward pull on prices.
Once again, you are missing half the equation. Competition has an equally positive effect on wages. If firms are going to produce the highest quality goods at the lowest prices, they need to employ the most talented and experienced people. This upward push on wages balances the need to produce goods cheaply until equilibrium is reached.
And this is as it should be. In the increasingly service-oriented economy of the western world, there are simply less people who are willing to work relatively low-paying jobs in manufacturing. As the labor supply shrinks and the cost of living in the west continues to increase, it makes perfect sense for firms to redistribute their resources to maximize comparative advantage.
No, I believe it is other factors that force wealth upwards. Although third world employees obviously aren’t as well off as their western counterparts, they have certain demonstrable material advantages. From The Economist, August 15, regarding a “capitalist” health care initiative that cost a mere $.80 per person per year:
This is, sadly, not universal. But I believe that the failures of private ownership and free enterprise are not flaws in the system itself, but are very human failures of short-sightedness, insensitivity, and stupidity.
This begs the question as to whether the benefits of the growth should be spread equitably.
I read it yesterday, and I do have some issues with it. I will post them shortly.
I am neither responsible nor interestd in any other poster inthis case save myself and Chumpsky. I have taken a look at his “sources” and have found none of them worthy of reconsidreing any views I hold, assuming his sources supported him (several of which I believe do not). He has utterly failed to make me even blink, except at his untenable “logic.”
As I said before, he doesn’t actually respond with anything of substance. And for the most part it is uninteresting to whack away at a large, empty ballon with a Louisville Slugger.
Aside from which, he is an exceptionally prolific poster, often creating several replies before I’ve even seen a thread. The result is that I, much less any other poster, cannot adequately respond to every post and point he tries to make. SO we pick and choose the most egregarious examples of shody thinking to demolish. That he does not notice his arguments are false, overly simplified, rely on wild assumptions, or that he refuses to acknoledge he’s been beaten is hardly our fault.
I’m sorry, I realized my spelling in that last post was truly horrific. I really can spell correctly, just not when I’m typing.
Little damage to the infrastructure, eh?
Releasing oil slicks - cite.
Setting oil wells on fire - cite.
Baghdad estimated the number of civilian deaths at 35,000 - cite.
The Guardian says there were 600 missing from Kuwait after the invasion - cite.
OK, I violated the “person making the assertion has to prove it” rule - but all I need to do is throw in a couple of links to ridiculously bogus sites to bump my cite count, and I will have won the argument.
Right?
Chumpsky has very little credibility on this board, based primarily on the number of unsupported claims he makes and will not prove. I am not willing to take his word for it.
Twenty paragraphs of warmed-over cant from the latest policy statements of the Glorious People’s Revolutionary Cadre For the Liberation of Indigenous Proles does not a debate make. You claim something (the US government kills people in soccer stadiums, Adolf Hitler and Roy Kroc had exactly the same life goals, etc., etc.), you gotta back it up.
Them’s the rules. So far, he ain’t doing it.
Regards,
Shodan
Since Shodan has shamed me by her (his?) willingness to help, I will go ahead and justify myself in part, though I don’t even need a cite to do it.
Svinlesha asked me for a cite on why I thought the 3rd world is doing beter. This is why: population. Its blatantly obvious to me that most of the 3rd world is eating better and living better. They are surviving in numbers now, and living long enough, that the population is skyrocketing. In some places, government mismanagement has been so incompetant as to ruin that (North Korea). The reasons for this explosion is pretty simple. They are getting better water, often more food, and experiencing some advanced medical care.
maeglin:
Thanks for the excellent reply! It will require a detailed response, so I will get back to it (I hope!) as time allows. That might take a day or two, as my plate is rather full now over the coming weekend.
That said, please post the links to the articles if you have the time – not because I doubt you, but because they sound like interesting reading.
Shodan:
Chanting ”Cite, Cite, Cite,” at the end of every paragraph Chumpsky posts does not make a debate either, you know.
You’ve missed my point. If you feel that the Parenti article, for example, is nothing more than ”Twenty paragraphs of warmed-over cant from the latest policy statements of the Glorious People’s Revolutionary Cadre For the Liberation of Indigenous Proles,” then I (and other readers out there, I suppose) would sincerely like to hear why.
By the way, you may note that Chumpsky wrote that the Iraqis killed about 240 people, and did little damage to the Kuwaiti infrastructure, ”in their invasion” – i.e., during the act of invading Kuwait. The oil slicks and well fires occurred during their retreat – that is, as Iraqi forces were forced out of the country. A heinous act carried out at the behest of a heinous man, as I’m sure Chumsky would agree. But in conflating these two events, you are simply twisting Chumpsky’s words to fit your eye, yet again.
If we compare the brutality of the Iraqi invasion – with a casualty rate somewhere between 240 and 600 people, apparently – to the brutality of the US retaliation, both against military and civilian targets, then, at least as far as I am aware, the US has factually been much more brutal. The actual number of deaths that can be attributed to US-imposed sanctions and military air raids must, of course, be a hotly debated topic, but is almost certainly higher than 600. And even if we do not know with certainty that all 500,000 deaths of children in Iraq during the last 10 years can be attributed to the sanctions (as some studies have indicated), we do know that US decision-makers would not balk at that number. Madeline Albright, speaking on the US TV news show 60 Minutes, was asked if she supported a US policy that led to the deaths of so many children, and responded, approximately, ”That is a sacrifice we must make.”
You may wish to rationalize away that statement in some way or another, but to me, it speaks volumes.
Your post’s last segment begins with an errroneous premise and proceeds from there into ruin. (Although, now this thread is getting interesting)
Point analysis:
I suspect Shodan mistook the actual language; the word invasion can mean the literal advance of the armed forces or the overall military schema of an offensive campaign. Iraqi troops performed those acts while returning from an offensive campaign. Shodan was not incorrect, bu the language was not perfectly clear. Moreover, its not clear what was done and who was killed (and you ignored Baghdad’s own numbers in your last post) and when.
Now for the beef:
The US being brutal in waging Desert Storm? Hardly so. It was arguably the least brutal war of all time until the Afganistan war recently. Since you pulled up this point without actually developing it or defending it, I must take offense. That is not a charge to make so lightly.
All war is hell, or perhaps war is all hell, but the US has done its level best to efficiently wage war and to cause as much pain as possible and still cause as little damage as possible.
- Iraq itself has caused any deaths by malnutrition or starvation or lack of medicine. There has been sufficient funds and food made availabel, but Hussein himself has done everything to refuse it so he can get sympathy.
Which is irrelevant. War is designed to make your opponent hurt. Its sad that children suffer (and your numbers are so far off it isn’t even funny), but that war for you.
Ah yes, the way to insult your opponent without insulting them openly. At least be open in your denunciation.
Its quite obvious you consider any war to be worthless. Well, that ain’t so, just because you says its so. And just because I accept war when it becomes neccesary doesn’t mean I enjoy it.
If I concentrate on the systemic flaws of capitalism, it is because I want to understand the system itself. Simply looking at various abuses and individual flaws doesn’t tell you much, unless they are a part of a consistent pattern.
Liberal capitalists will defend the system as being inherently good, despite its many flaws, imputing the bad aspects to “individual political and market failures,” as you put it. However, this can only go so far. It could perhaps explain one failure in isolation, or two, or even a dozen. However, it cannot explain the overall tendency, nor can it explain the entirely consistent pattern we see throughout the world.
There are two basic points of view one can adopt when looking at the mass poverty that exists in the world today. One way to look at it is to see it as a series of individual failures that can be corrected within the existing framework. Another way to look at it is to see it as the perfectly predictable consequence of a system that works exactly as it is supposed to.
I adopt the latter viewpoint. I don’t see the utter failure of the capitalist system, which by this point has succeeded in conquering most of the world, to provide a decent life for the majority as a failure of the system. Rather, this is exactly what we would expect to happen.
The most important question to ask is, Who benefits? Who benefits from the current situation? If concentrated power centers do not benefit from it, then we can propose that the situation is a failure. However, if concentrated power centers do benefit, then the system is a success, from their point of view.
It is quite clear who benefits from the globabl capitalist system. The largest beneficiaries are the ruling classes of the imperialist powers in North America and Europe. They essentially run the system. Another class which benefits from the system is the comprador class in the Third World, those who hold power in Third World countries. They benefit it terms of power and wealth, and their job is to maintain the system. They must show proper obeisance to their masters in the imperialist countries, and in return they are rewarded with power and wealth.
Who loses? The losers in this system are most of the population of the world. The biggest losers are the working classes of the Third World. They create the wealth that is expropriated, while they spend their lives toiling in miserable labor usually for subsistence wages.
What is often missed, though, is that WE are also losers in this system. By “we” I mean the majority in the imperialist countries. We lose for several reasons. For one thing, the same class war that is waged globally is waged locally. The same market pressures that force wages down around the world work at home also. There is thus a constant struggle for livable wages, for environmental and workplace safety regulations, and so on. So, there is the class war aspect of it, where we are the losers.
We also lose when the rest of the world is forced to be poor. We lose not only because of the depraved immorality of it, but we miss out on the benefits of living with others from different cultures who have decent lives. We are greatly impoverished from the lack of the potential contributions that could be made to our own culture by those abroad. We further lose by the creation of hatred at our country for what has been done to the poor around the world.
In short, the beneficiaries of the system represent a very narrow sector of society.
Oh please.
The “invasion” of Kuwait covers from the time they invaded, until the time they were driven out. Since the invasion was unjustified, all casualties inflicted on both sides should be chalked up to the Iraqi account.
By your rationale, a burglar is blameless for stealing from my house, because he only took my TV with him as he retreated.
And you accuse me of being the one who is “twisting” words.
The absurdity of the reasoning is obvious. Iraq invades Kuwait, murdering (by your own admission) “only” some hundreds of innocent persons. The minute they get possession, none of the deaths and destruction they cause can be counted against them.
Apply your logic to another situation. Three escaped convicts break into a house, killing the homeowner. The police set up a siege, kill two of the convicts, and capture the third. By your logic, the police have been twice as “brutal” as the escaped convicts, since they only murdered one person and the police killed two.
The moral knots you people have to tie yourselves into to justify blaming everything on the US!
Obviously not. On the other hand, making a contentious statement, and refusing to provide any evidence for it, does not make a debate either.
I have seen instances where Chumpsky simply made something up, and presented it as if it were a fact. Accordingly, I am not willing to discuss his accusations unless and until he can show that he is not doing so again.
It was a tactical error on my part to be sucked into attempting to disprove his unfounded assertions, rather than requiring him to do his own research. Obviously, I believe he does not attempt to back up his assertions because he cannot do so - accepting his kind of evidence requires a twisted view of the role of America and the West found only in the fever swamps of the loony left. But I fell for it anyway. So now the subject has successfully been changed from “What evidence do you have that America is the Great Satan?” to a bait and switch on “that wasn’t really an invasion, and anyway it wasn’t so bad after all, and isn’t the US a terrible country for putting an end to it all”.
Of course, I could counter by asking why his posts are evaluated by sheer number of cites, even if they don’t prove anything, whereas mine require trying to define his discrepancies away.
Be that as it may - I will continue to regard every word of his posts as suspect until proven - and very little by way of proof seems to be forthcoming.
Regards,
Shodan