Note : read post 2 responses up made a snide remark about the choices we have. But these so called choices are owned in mass by a few corps.
Why, that will never work! Its against human nature, for one thing. Boy, here’s positve proof that lefties are stupid, because they all believe this.
If you take comfort in such gross oversimplification, who am I to bug you about it? But it is, you know.
A progressive movement remains, has been, will be. There is no universal dogma, it is wide and diverse, “I don’t belong to an organized political philosophy, I am a progressive”. But the central gravitational point is justice, shared power amongst all citizens. Economic justice is one essential component, for what is money if not power?
The liberal contends that the machine for grinding peopleburgers can be tinkered with, altered, adjusted to a point where it is finally converted into a solar powered replicator. Others, the radicals, insist that the system must be changed fundamentally, if not by revolution, then by enhanced commitment to change.
I can’t be the only Doper who ever worked in a collective environment. I won’t claim it is free of workplace stresses and strains, but the responsibility and the decisions are shared, and in some cases, delegated. I see no reason why this cannot function well enough even under a capitalist economic system, if that system is sufficiently advanced to permit such.
(Just imagine a floor worker for Virtual Widgets permitted to review the circumstances that ensure his CEO of at least 100 times his wage to review spreadsheets in an air conditioned office and make decisions. Of course, he has the crushing burden of reponsibility…)
The more even distribution of power is social justice, the more even distribution of money is economic justice. In my opinion, we should conciously evolve towards a just society.
We’ve endlessly debated the topic of free markets and corporate monoploies before and I see no reason to repeat the same facts that people have chosen to ignore before. I’ve learned that you can’t provide enough cites to convince some people of something they don’t want to know. And I’ve also found out how annoying it is to have some people keep dismissing any evidence I provide without feeling the need to cite any evidence of their own.
So if you want to know my views on these issues and read the evidence I’ve provided to support those views go back and search out those past threads.
I’ve been in plenty of these threads and never seen this so called evidence of monopolies. How about tossing a link to one of these magical threads where you lay low the capitalist pig dogs, ehe?
-XT
Interesting. Like other people have pointed out, this kind of exists a bit already on the internet.
It doesn’t though. People aren’t out there developing open source software for the Good of the People™ (as they would be doing in a real communist society) but for other reasons such as recognition (which is pretty much contrary to most communist ideals which are all about the collective and not about the individual). Open source software is only kinda sorta like communism, if you squint real hard and forget WHY people or companies decide to go that route.
-XT
Holy crap, that is the most deluded laizes faire defence I’ve ever seen. You know what I think you don’t get? That it’s not just about efficiency or how cheap you can make the goods (what ‘natural monopoly’ technically means). Big companies have power. They have market power, and they have money power. They don’t need to be ‘natural mopolies’ the way economists define them, they’re ‘natural monpolies’ the way nature defines them. Worse, no company has to fight and grow its way to supremacy. The competitors simply say, “you know what, we’ll all make more money if we just join together.” And the fact that they’ll make more money is almost invariably true.
But fine, perhaps it’s too much to say all companies will merge together and become government. Probably more correct to say there’ll emerge a series of mights and they’ll
But anyway, yes, our laws have kept this at bay. Sort of. If we didn’t have our laws, I assure you, it’d be a whole lot worse.
Powerpoint Anarchy
Open Office my friend. 
-XT
What part of me saying I’m not going to do your research for you so look it up yourself wasn’t clear?
I suppose the part where you decided to actually defend your position.
-XT
I’m still here. But I have realized that there are some issues that some people will never be swayed on. They have a fundamental belief system that is immune to any amount of logic or factual refutation. If forced to confront a contradiction between what they want to believe and any contrary evidence, they will choose to believe. The people who believe in the Inerrancy of Capitalism are among this crowd.
As I wrote above and have written elsewhere, I have no problems with capitalism on the whole. It generally works and gets the right answers and makes society better. But I don’t deify it - it’s a system of economics not morality. Capitalism can be and is misused. Sometimes capitalist systems get some things wrong and sometimes non-capitalist systems get some things right. So while I’ve never seen any evidence of a system that works better overall than capitalism, I’m willing to concede such a system might someday be discovered.
It’s funny…I feel the same way about people who have the exact opposite ‘fundamental belief system that is immune to any amount of logic or factual refutation’. It’s why I don’t put as much effort into these kinds of threads anymore…some people are simply immune to logic, reason or historical fact. Granted, I’m also lazy…
If you had actually listened in some of those threads you’d know that virtually no one disputes this…it’s a strawman. Nearly every free market advocate on this board will tell you that morality doesn’t come into it.
Again…I doubt anyone disputes this who actually has a clue. Most likely many if not all of your supposed examples of monopolies come from abuses where the GOVERNMENT attempted to tweak things and the system got bent. Business is also not immune from attempted tweakage of the system for it’s own ends. No system devised by humans is going to be perfect…and I know of no one who claims capitalism or the free market is a perfect system. It sucks…except when you compare it to all other economic systems which suck worse.
-XT
Are we talking capitalism like Finland,Norway and Sweden. Or are we talking unfettered ,rapacious ,non regulated and eventually destructive capitalism like we are headed developing?
Unregulated or too low regulation will and has resulted in environmental and worker abuses. It needs to be watched and controlled. Capitalism will resist any attempt to regulate. It is the nature of the beast.
Since this doesn’t exist in the world today (or at any time in history) I would assume not. Nor are we headed in that direction…quite the opposite in fact.
And what do you base that on? Capitalism will resist…how? How does ‘Capitalism’ resist anything at all? Or do you mean businesses? Looking around there seems to be plenty of regulations…so, historically how did this happen if ‘Capitalism’ resists all attempts to regulate it?
-XT
Absolutely! Why, the enthusiasm and warm generosity with which American businessmen embraced the labor movement should be proof of that!
Historically they resisted tooth and nail, fighting and kicking the whole way. But businesses don’t equal Capitalism. One of the strengths of Capitalism is the ability for people to adapt it to changing conditions.
-XT
They aren’t? Then, who is? The Little Sisters of St. Ayn?
Maybe you (and gonzo) should read up a bit on exactly what Capitalism IS. That might be a good place to start, ehe?
Capitalism does not equal a business or even a collection of Big Business. It’s an economic system…and one that has changed and been modified over time. It doesn’t resist all change…if it did it wouldn’t work and we wouldn’t use it. Seriously…why get into these discussions if you don’t even know the basic stuff?
-XT
Well, I’ve done a smattering of reading on the subject, nothing to measure against your oceanic depth of scholarship, of course. But this unworthy one yet begs to differ…
Somebody made the phone calls to send goons to break heads. Carnegie, Fisk, whomever. Were they not capitalists? Were they quasi-capitalists, eager to filch the dignity of capitalism to cover their base agenda? They were faking it?
Did they not declare the value of their actions in direct relation to capitalism, that they need to preserve their ability to compete? Was it not done in the name of profit, and done with callous indifference? Was the sacred trust to stockholders invoked, or no? If these men weren’t capitalists, what, in the name of Og, were they?