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If you read the essay I wrote linked below, a major point is that most millionaires themselves would be better off living in a society with a basic income, and I give a list of reasons (better medical care especially in disaster times, a better love life, a better family life and less worries about their children, less stress, happier communities and safer streets, more friends, less regulation in having businesses with employees, more free music and free software, and so on).
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
But, a lot of it has to do with what sort of society you want to live in.

Also, there are a lot of ways such a system could be paid for other than direct taxes. As I wrote there: "The US government has a lot of assets. It controls the broadcast spectrum and can rent it. It can rent fishery rights. It owns about a third of the land in the country and can get royalties for mining and forestry rights. The government controls water rights. The government can assess fines for risky or anti-social behavior (as it could have done to Wall Street instead of a bailout. :-) In Alaska, there is a Permanent Fund that gives one to two thousand dollars a year to every Alaskan resident based on royalties from oil development, as well as paying for the operation of the Alaskan government (so, no income or sales taxes). There is also control of the money supply, which needs to expand as commerce expands, and the extra money needed can be printed by the government inflation free. So, there are various ways the government can fund a basic income, even without a wealth tax. "

The core issue is, does every human have a claim to some of the productivity of the industrial commons and ecological commons by right of being alive? If you answer that yes, then you get a basic income or some other sort of similar thing however it is implemented (until we move entirely to a gift economy). If you say no, then in an age of robots and computers being able to do more and more of what humans do, what is the alternative to starvation for most people without lots of capital? Eventually, all those who can't sell their labor for less than what robots cost to operate or for what other desperate humans are willing to work for as the human-labor requiring jobs go away:
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

And, eventually, these economic dislocations may even effect most millionaires, since a million dollars is not a lot of money these days, especially in times of social unrest and economic turmoil.

As for getting over materialism, why do most billionaires still work or do other volunteer things, when they could retire and play golf all day and live in a big house? It is the natural inclination of healthy humans to want to do positive things. It is not a misleading comparison to look at stressed out people beaten down by school or work or prejudice who look for pain relief in television or drugs and then say this is how everyone would spend any leisure they had.

Our entire society can produce so much wealth that everyone can have as much as they need, or even, for the most part, as much as any healthy person would want. So, is materialism "human nature" or is it a culture that has been promoted by a particular form of economic arrangement that even the poor have been socialized to support against their own interests? More ideas on this theme:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"""
Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not millionaires, they're not making much progress toward that noble goal. That's when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable, intelligent, hard working people - and they are for t

The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

Money is a collective fantasy about rationing; how can we move beyond it? As Iain Banks wrote, money is a sign of poverty. James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" also envisioned a post-scarcity society that had moved beyond it.

The last time an big company recruiter sent me an inquiry, I sent back this link: :-)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The problem:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"School Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Some more links about moving beyond the need to work for pay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy

From something I helped put together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"Dealing with a jobless recovery presents global society with some difficult choices about values and identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand) resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition, and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."

The biggest challenge of the 21st century is technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity.

Money is a collective fantasy about rationing; how can we move beyond it? As Iain Banks wrote, money is a sign of poverty. James P. Hogan in "Voyage From Yesteryear" also envisioned a post-scarcity society that had moved beyond it.

The last time an big company recruiter sent me an inquiry, I sent back this link: :-)
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

The problem:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"School Daze links"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005379.html
"Rebutting Communiqué from an Absent Future"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006005.html

Some more links about moving beyond the need to work for pay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.usbig.net/whatisbig.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basic-income-from-a-millionaires-perspective.html
http://educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_economy

From something I helped put together:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobless_recovery
"Dealing with a jobless recovery presents global society with some difficult choices about values and identity. A straightforward way to keep the current scarcity-based economic system going in the face of the "threat" of abundance (and limited demand) resulting in a related jobless recovery is to use things like endless low-level war, perpetual schooling, expanded prisons, increased competition, and excessive bureaucracy to provide any amount of make-work jobs to soak up the abundance from high-technology (as well as to take any amount of people off the streets in various ways). That seems to be the main path that the USA and other countries have been going down so far, perhaps unintentionally. Alternatively, there are a range of other options to chose from, whether moving towards a gift economy, a resource-based economy, a basic income economy, or strong local communitarian economies, and to some extent, the USA and other countries have also been pursuing these options as well, but in a less coherent way. Ultimately, the approaches taken to move beyond a jobless recovery (either by creating jobs or by learning to live happily without them) involves political choices that will reflect national and global values, priorities, identities, and aspirations."

What is "income"? What is "money"? Seriously? What is the value of pieces of paper with pictures of dead people on them? Or the meaning of a few numbers in a banking computer somewhere? What is the meaning of all that? Is that what you are working so hard for, to have a few bits flipped in a computer somewhere? Is that what you are asking for, for a few bits to be flipped with little effort on your part? :-) Why, in a world of so much abundance do you still have to work so hard? Industrial productivity has gone up several times since the 1940s. Why can't we all work a lot less, or some who want to work do it, and others who have other things to do (like raise children or be musicians) do that instead?

Related background:

"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"""
Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a "leisure class". As capitalism has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old mythologies - gods, the "great chain of being" etc. - are no longer available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class, something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was needed was a new "rational" world-view that justified the existence of privileged elites.
    That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as economics, which included a brand new mythology.
    According to the new mythology, human beings are economic competitors. The "marketplace" is the new "Valhalla", where "economic man" frolics. The "market" we are told, contains its own "rationality". It rewards the efficient. It rewards that list of virtues George Will cites, like "thrift", "delayed gratification" and of course, "hard work". Free competition in the market place "rationally" selects the more "worthy" competitor. Thus, the wealthy are the superior competitors who have "earned" their elite status. If you haven't succeeded it can only be because of your "inferiority".
"""

"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"""
Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not millionaires, they're not making much progress toward that noble goal. That's when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable, intelligent, hard working people - and they are for the most part - who "have what it takes" to "make it". They believe that the difference between those who "make it" and those who don't is being "capable, intelligent and hardworking". Things like "having rich parents", "getting just plain lucky" or "being a crook" don't factor into the equation anywhere. No, American society is a natural hierarchy where the most capable are "rich beyond their wildest dreams", and the non-rich are chumps that just don't measure up. Only they are capable - some of them actually are - and they're not rich. Clearly, something is broken, preventing these wannabes who "have what it takes" from reaching materialist heaven. Now here's where it gets interesting. Since they "have what it takes", there must be somebody else to blame. ...
"""

Why do trillions of dollars just given to bankers? What did they do to deserve that? Is this the system you are eager to defend? How much did you get of that? Nothing? Why?

Your comments might be more effective if you could focus on the ideas more than the person. I'm just the messenger here. Anyway, thanks again for participating in the gift economy. :-)

What is "income"? What is "money"? Seriously? What is the value of pieces of paper with pictures of dead people on them? Or the meaning of a few numbers in a banking computer somewhere? What is the meaning of all that? Is that what you are working so hard for, to have a few bits flipped in a computer somewhere? Is that what you are asking for, for a few bits to be flipped with little effort on your part? :-) Why, in a world of so much abundance do you still have to work so hard? Industrial productivity has gone up several times since the 1940s. Why can't we all work a lot less, or some who want to work do it, and others who have other things to do (like raise children or be musicians) do that instead?

Related background:

"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"""
Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a "leisure class". As capitalism has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old mythologies - gods, the "great chain of being" etc. - are no longer available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class, something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was needed was a new "rational" world-view that justified the existence of privileged elites.
    That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as economics, which included a brand new mythology.
    According to the new mythology, human beings are economic competitors. The "marketplace" is the new "Valhalla", where "economic man" frolics. The "market" we are told, contains its own "rationality". It rewards the efficient. It rewards that list of virtues George Will cites, like "thrift", "delayed gratification" and of course, "hard work". Free competition in the market place "rationally" selects the more "worthy" competitor. Thus, the wealthy are the superior competitors who have "earned" their elite status. If you haven't succeeded it can only be because of your "inferiority".
"""

"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"""
Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not millionaires, they're not making much progress toward that noble goal. That's when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable, intelligent, hard working people - and they are for the most part - who "have what it takes" to "make it". They believe that the difference between those who "make it" and those who don't is being "capable, intelligent and hardworking". Things like "having rich parents", "getting just plain lucky" or "being a crook" don't factor into the equation anywhere. No, American society is a natural hierarchy where the most capable are "rich beyond their wildest dreams", and the non-rich are chumps that just don't measure up. Only they are capable - some of them actually are - and they're not rich. Clearly, something is broken, preventing these wannabes who "have what it takes" from reaching materialist heaven. Now here's where it gets interesting. Since they "have what it takes", there must be somebody else to blame. ...
"""

Why do trillions of dollars just given to bankers? What did they do to deserve that? Is this the system you are eager to defend? How much did you get of that? Nothing? Why?

Your comments might be more effective if you could focus on the ideas more than the person. I'm just the messenger here. Anyway, thanks again for participating in the gift economy. :-)

This is often trotted out by many Republicans, or Joe the Plumber, that we should live in terror of the rich going on strike, and it assumes that only a few people have what it takes to create businesses to enslave, excuse me, employ the rest of us. But the fact is more likely that without Joe the Plumber creating a vast plumbing monopoly that out-advertises everyone else, chances are the regular plumbers will still have work and may even get to keep more of the money paid for their services. See also:
    "The Mythology of Wealth"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
    "Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
   

This is often trotted out by many Republicans, or Joe the Plumber, that we should live in terror of the rich going on strike, and it assumes that only a few people have what it takes to create businesses to enslave, excuse me, employ the rest of us. But the fact is more likely that without Joe the Plumber creating a vast plumbing monopoly that out-advertises everyone else, chances are the regular plumbers will still have work and may even get to keep more of the money paid for their services. See also:
    "The Mythology of Wealth"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
    "Cheap Labor Conservatives Issues Guide"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
   

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/16
"""
When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just "dime-store economics" - intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words.

"Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell - which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives".

Once you understand the general concept, you will frequently find yourself in debate over specific issues, like healthcare, social security privatization, public school vouchers, the "war on drugs" and of course the war in Iraq. What better way to put your conservative opponent on the defensive than by exposing the true motivation for his position - "cheap labor". Can you really find the "cheap labor" angle in every conservative policy initiative, and every conservative position on any particular issue?

Yes, you can. Here is a catalogue of some of the major issues on the national agenda. In every single one of them, the conservative position advances the cause of "cheap labor". I defy any conservative reading this to show me one single conservative position, belief, principle or policy that has any tendency to boost the earning power of labor.
"""

Some ideas on what to do about it, because automation only makes this worse:
    http://www.beyondajoblessrecovery.org/2009/10/03/why-limited-demand-means-joblessness/
   

"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
On Education vs. Schooling:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
On Education vs. Schooling:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm

Wow, thanks for the fascinating and informative reply.

Related links:
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

On Marxism, Joan Roelofs
http://mysite.verizon.net/joan.roelofs/index.htm
has suggested that Charles Fourier said anything good that Marx said decades before him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier
Bob Black wrote this essay inspired in part by Charles Fourier's ideas:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

My take on economics, inspired by cybernetics:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
"""
In general, economists need to look at what are major sources of *real* cost as opposed to *fiat* cost in producing anything. Only then can one make a complete control system to manage resources within those real limits, perhaps using arbitrary fiat dollars as part of a rationing process to keep within the real limits and meet social objectives (or perhaps not, if the cost of enforcing rationing for some things like, say, home energy use or internet bandwidth exceeds the benefits).
Here is a sample meta-theoretical framework PU economists no doubt could vastly improve on if they turned their minds to it. Consider three levels of nested perspectives on the same economic reality -- physical items, decision makers, and emergent properties of decision maker interactions. (Three levels of being or consciousness is a common theme in philosophical writings, usually rock, plant, and animal, or plant, animal, and human.)
At a first level of perspective, the world we live in at any point in time can be considered to have physical content like land or tools or fusion reactors like the sun, energy flows like photons from the sun or electrons from lightning or in circuits, informational patterns like web page content or distributed language knowledge, and active regulating processes (including triggers, amplifiers, and feedback loops) built on the previous three types of things (physicality, energy flow, and informational patterns) embodied in living creatures, bi-metallic strip thermostats, or computer programs running on computer hardware.
One can think of a second perspective on the first comprehensive one by picking out only the decision makers like bi-metallic strips in thermostats, computer programs running on computers, and personalities embodied in people and maybe someday robots or supercomputers, and looking at their characteristics as individual decision makers.
One can then think of a third level of perspective on the second where decision makers may invent theories about how to control each other using various approaches like internet communication standards, ration unit tokens like fiat dollars, physical kanban tokens, narratives in emails, and so on. What the most useful theories are for controlling groups of decision makers is an interesting question, but I will not explore it in depth. But I will pointing out that complex system dynamics at this third level of perspective can emerge whether control involves fiat dollars, "kanban" tokens, centralized or distributed optimization based on perceived or predicted demand patterns, human-to-human discussions, something else entirely, or a diverse collection of all these things. And I will also point out that one should never confuse the reality of the physical system being controlled for the control signals (money, spo

Wow, thanks for the fascinating and informative reply.

Related links:
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47

On Marxism, Joan Roelofs
http://mysite.verizon.net/joan.roelofs/index.htm
has suggested that Charles Fourier said anything good that Marx said decades before him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fourier
Bob Black wrote this essay inspired in part by Charles Fourier's ideas:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

My take on economics, inspired by cybernetics:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
"""
In general, economists need to look at what are major sources of *real* cost as opposed to *fiat* cost in producing anything. Only then can one make a complete control system to manage resources within those real limits, perhaps using arbitrary fiat dollars as part of a rationing process to keep within the real limits and meet social objectives (or perhaps not, if the cost of enforcing rationing for some things like, say, home energy use or internet bandwidth exceeds the benefits).
Here is a sample meta-theoretical framework PU economists no doubt could vastly improve on if they turned their minds to it. Consider three levels of nested perspectives on the same economic reality -- physical items, decision makers, and emergent properties of decision maker interactions. (Three levels of being or consciousness is a common theme in philosophical writings, usually rock, plant, and animal, or plant, animal, and human.)
At a first level of perspective, the world we live in at any point in time can be considered to have physical content like land or tools or fusion reactors like the sun, energy flows like photons from the sun or electrons from lightning or in circuits, informational patterns like web page content or distributed language knowledge, and active regulating processes (including triggers, amplifiers, and feedback loops) built on the previous three types of things (physicality, energy flow, and informational patterns) embodied in living creatures, bi-metallic strip thermostats, or computer programs running on computer hardware.
One can think of a second perspective on the first comprehensive one by picking out only the decision makers like bi-metallic strips in thermostats, computer programs running on computers, and personalities embodied in people and maybe someday robots or supercomputers, and looking at their characteristics as individual decision makers.
One can then think of a third level of perspective on the second where decision makers may invent theories about how to control each other using various approaches like internet communication standards, ration unit tokens like fiat dollars, physical kanban tokens, narratives in emails, and so on. What the most useful theories are for controlling groups of decision makers is an interesting question, but I will not explore it in depth. But I will pointing out that complex system dynamics at this third level of perspective can emerge whether control involves fiat dollars, "kanban" tokens, centralized or distributed optimization based on perceived or predicted demand patterns, human-to-human discussions, something else entirely, or a diverse collection of all these things. And I will also point out that one should never confuse the reality of the physical system being controlled for the control signals (money, spo

"The wealth another man has or controls is irrelevant if his posession of such does not prevent me from generating enough wealth to meet my needs."

It's called political campaign donations. It's called monopoly and cartels. It's called comparative advantage. It's called out-bidding. It's called privately funded education and private tutoring. It's called back room deals. It's called buying advertising. It's called getting lots of tries to get it right. It's called keeping the others desperately poor so they have no choice but to deal on your terms and be cheap labor.

From:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
""" ... First of all, "hard work" is only a small piece of the equation. In reality, success in the market is about market position. It isn't about what you do, but about what you control. The hardest work is actually done by people whose market position makes their daily wage minimal. The person who profits most from their labor is the person who owns the factory they work in. While there are certainly examples of factory owners who started with nothing and rose to be "captains of industry", for the most part our captains of industry started out a lot further ahead of the game.
This is the difference between say, George W. Bush and you. Dubya went to prep school. You went to the public high school. Dubya went to Yale - ahead of someone with better credentials because he had family connections. Dubya had wealthy friends, through family, "skull and bones", etc, who bankrolled his oil drilling business. Ask some of his friends to bankroll your oil business. Let me know if they stop laughing before their bodyguards throw you out. Even if you managed to persuade an investor to bankroll some enterprise, you're going to have exactly one shot. If you lose, you won't be getting a second chance. Dubya, on the other hand, went broke, and then his friends bankrolled him again, before finally getting him a one percent share of the Texas Rangers.
See how it works? People with money help each other out. They don't help out people who don't have any. Many cheap-labor conservatives don't want to help out the destitute at all. They say government assistance to people will make them "dependent". They say it breeds "inefficiency" and "laziness". They say that a harsh "got mine, get yours" social environment breeds "market discipline" by rewarding the most resourceful and competitive. Some extreme cheap-labor conservatives don't even believe in public education. They say it is the family's responsibility. If your family can't afford to send you to school, well, that's not their problem.
Of course, wealthy elites shower their own with benefits - and enjoy a plethora of government benefits and services. They know the value of education, that's why they keep expensive private schools like Andover in business. In fact, they do everything they can to give their own children every advantage money can buy, because they absolutely understand the value of a "head start" in the fiercely competitive social jungle they have created. They talk about "competition", but they actually fear it, and do what they can to make the playing field as unequal as they can. Then they tell the wage earner that his position is "his fault", and that he just needs to work harder - in their factory. He needs to more "disciplined" and "thrifty" if we wants to "get ahead".
"""

There are always exceptions to these general trends. Steve Jobs, for example, is something of an exception. He got lucky (even though he is also, like Bill Gates, hard working and talented). But you can be sure Steve Jobs has been doing his best for a long time to make sure a lot of other potential Steve Jobs' In never get their chance to run the next Apple. It's a crazy way to run an advanced technological society where war over economic issues could quickly lead to Arm

Every human has some claim on the commons. Do you know how many families have been destroyed by failed businesses? How can you have opportunity when you live in grinding poverty and are easily exploited? While it is true that "hard work" is an aspect of what created wealth in our society, a lot of wealth also comes from the biosphere, natural resources, a cultural commons of ideas, as well as luck and genetics. Why should people not have a claim on at least those aspects of societal wealth even if they work not at all or have not inherited capital from their parents? The issue is ideology which defines how things work at the moment in a certain social system built on certain social assumptions with a certain physical infrastructure that reflects those assumptions and values. Why should jobs be the only justification for a right to consume, especially in an age of increasing automation? From:
"The Triple Revolution"
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm
"""
The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird people's rights as consumers. Up to this time economic resources have been distributed on the basis of contributions to production, with machines and men competing for employment on somewhat equal terms. In the developing cybernated system, potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings. As machines take over production from men, they absorb an increasing proportion of resources while the men who are displaced become dependent on minimal and unrelated government measures--unemployment insurance, social security, welfare payments. These measures are less and less able to disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S.
The existence of this paradox is denied or ignored by conventional economic analysis. The general economic approach argues that potential demand, which if filled would raise the number of jobs and provide incomes to those holding them, is underestimated. Most contemporary economic analysis states that all of the available labor force and industrial capacity is required to meet the needs of consumers and industry and to provide adequate public services: Schools, parks, roads, homes, decent cities, and clean water and air. It is further argued that demand could be increased, by a variety of standard techniques, to any desired extent by providing money and machines to improve the conditions of the billions of impoverished people elsewhere in the world, who need food and shelter, clothes and machinery and everything else the industrial nations take for granted.
There is no question that cybernation does increase the potential for the provision of funds to neglected public sectors. Nor is there any question that cybernation would make possible the abolition of poverty at home and abroad. But the industrial system does not possess any adequate mechanisms to permit these potentials to become realities. The industrial system was designed to produce an ever-increasing quantity of goods as efficiently as possible, and it was assumed that the distribution of the power to purchase these goods would occur almost automatically. The continuance of the income-through jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand--for granting the right to consume--now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system.
"""

From:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/40

From:
"How to Become As Rich As Bill Gates"
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
"""
William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998 dollars.
"""

In Bill Gates' own language, "Is this fair?" The guy is born a multi-millionaire, writes his commercial software on publicly funded computer at Harvard, learned to write software by dumpster diving at a computer center, and then, after all that, he writes a letter like this? That's chutzpah. From:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
"The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system."

Bill Gate's could have spent his lifetime writing free software. That being born a multi-millionaire was not enough for him is a sign of an illness that causes "financial obesity", not something to be emulated. But, in the end, it is not Bill Gates who has destroyed our society as much as all the people who want to be the next Bill Gates and support regressive social policies they hope to benefit from someday.

From:
"The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
http://conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47/
"""
Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not millionaires, they're not making much progress toward that noble goal. That's when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable, intelligent, hard working people - and they are for the most part - who "have what it takes" to "make it". They believe that the difference between those who "make it" and those who don't is being "capable, intelligent and hardworking". Things like "having rich parents", "getting just plain lucky" or "being a crook" don't factor into the equation anywhere. No, American society is a natural hierarchy where the most capable are "rich beyond their wildest dreams", and the non-rich are chumps that just don't measure up. ... But here's something I'll bet the dittoheads haven't thought of. Maybe they're the chumps. Maybe they've been sold a bogus "American dream" that never existed. Maybe "the rules" they play by were written by the people who have "made it" - not by the people who haven't. And maybe - just maybe - the people who have "made it" wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that's a mirage. Maybe Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Samuel Adams didn't fight to make the world safe for John D. Rockefeller - or Don LaPre, either. Maybe the Rolls Royce complete with bimbo was left out of our inalienable rights for a reason. Maybe the "pursuit of happiness" Thomas Jefferson wrote about was something a bit more profound than the empty joy of owning things you don't need so you can look down of down on the lesser mortals who lack your "ability". Maybe Thomas Jefferson intended the "pursuit of happiness" to be something attainable not just for anybody - but for everybody.
"""

See also the way that programmers could afford to work for "free" making free stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Bill Gates is a smart and creative and hard working guy, no one can dispute that. It is too bad he did not apply that to helping all of societ

Almost all these replies citing luck, talent, and hard work, and knowledge (all true), leave out a key aspect -- the way you can get or buy all these (or by having free *time* and access to *tools* can develop them), and that thing is access to capital (dollar-denominated ration units in our society). Bill Gates had a lot of ration units (capital) to give him free time and access to tools and learning because his family was wealthy and he was born with a big trust fund. See:
    "How to be as Rich As Bill Gates"
    http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/
"William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998 dollars."

Oh, and Bill Gates dumpster dived at a computer center in his formative years as well:
    http://danbricklin.com/log/2004_03_11.htm#paw
"Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?
Gates: No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems. You've got to be willing to read other people's code, and then write your own, then have other people review your code. You've got to want to be in this incredible feedback loop where you get the world-class people to tell you what you're doing wrong..."

What he describes here sounds a lot like what the free and open source community of programmers does. :-) Not what Microsoft does. He had the guts to drop out of college (Harvard), true, but he also had the safety net of personal wealth already. Starting with wealth and others' information are key aspects of the Bil Gates story (and understanding our society), and it is unfortunate this is all not better known. It puts his early letter to hobbyists in a new perspective, where an already rich guy (from inheritance) claimed poorer hobbyists sharing knowledge and content were hurting this guy economically who already was very wealthy and had gotten a lot of what he knew from reading through others' discarded printouts. (That sharing was before copyright infringement was a felony, by the way, as the laws have been made stricter since to further protect people like Bill Gates.)

I don't know which is worse:
* the ethical hyprocrisy of Gates' letter:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
* the defense of Gates and the US economic system by "Millionaire Wannabees" who do not know of this history.
    "The Wrath of the Millionaire Wannabe's"
    http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
"But here's something I'll bet the dittoheads haven't thought of. Maybe they're the chumps. Maybe they've been sold a bogus "American dream" that never existed. Maybe "the rules" they play by were written by the people who have "made it" - not by the people who haven't. And maybe - just maybe - the people who have "made it" wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that's a mirage."

Nothing was meant to suggest your particular non-profit was in any way unethical; just that the term "non-profit" doesn't mean much anymore. The only really formal definition of "non-profit" or "not for profit" is a corporation whose profits are not given to owners (like the board) -- the profits are just spent in other ways -- given to employees as salaries or to users in terms of lower fees or invested in new ventures or given to other non-profits (or sometimes unrelated individuals).

Top lawyers are now billing $1000 or more an hour:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/top_lawyers_bill_10 00_an_hour/
The formal results of their work (funded mostly by private clients) are almost all publicly available as the records of court proceedings. The law itself is almost entirely in the public domain. So, lawyers get paid vast amounts of money for helping clients craft client-specific solutions using their knowledge of the public domain. Why aren't more programmers doing this in terms of code?
And then most lawyers will turn around to those same clients and say everything related to code needs to be kept secret or proprietary. There is a ironical double-standard here isn't there?

Why then should programmers or their products be kept in (legal) chains, regardless of who pays for them?
But it is exceptionally more ironic when the money is public dollars -- it is a bad bargain for the public.

Ultimately it has to do with "power". And that balance is changing. It's one thing to have to deal with the system as it is to survive in it; it's another thing to like it and promote it as you seemeed to me to be doing here. Contrasting viewpoints:
"The Abolition of Work" by Bob Black, 1985
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolitio n.html
"Buddhist Economics" by E. F. Schumacher
http://www.schumachersociety.org/buddhist_economic s/english.html

Here is one lawyer who has gone rogue and is giving out the legal profession's deepest secrets: :-)
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
"Property and money are as mythological as Zeus. The first thing they teach you in law school - and I mean the first thing - is that "property" is a collection of legal rights. They are mental abstractions. They were created in more or less their present form in the middle ages by common law judges. They include things like "alienability" or the right to sell your rights, "inheritability" or the right to pass your rights to your heirs. They include the right to exclude other people from a defined section of planet earth. They include the right to subdivide or alienate less than all of your rights. For example, a person who holds "title" to a house, can "lease" it - that is he can convey the right to "possess" the land for a defined period of time, while he retains his rights that last "forever". He only has that right, because the law gives it to him. ... So, how are these "property rights" created? That's easy. They are created the same way all mythological realities are created - with a little "mumbo jumbo". ... It's all incantation and ritual that creates, transfers, modifies and extinguishes "rights". These rights are created by words uttered by the priests of the law. In fact there is an entire structure and system of pieces of paper with "magic words" written on them that create, transfer, modify and extinguish these rights. There is a hierarchy of these rights. Contracts rights are "private" rights created by individuals. Property rights are rights to the exclusive control

Hey better to be a bleeding heart liberal than a Cheap Labor Conservative

I know. But the (nominal) democracy forces the leaders to atleast pay lip-service to the idea that they actually intend to follow the agreements that USA voluntarily enters into. I think there's a limit to what the US public will stand for, though I'm amazed that the public has accepted as much as it has already.

We'll know Tuesday. However, we've already pulled out of a couple important treaties and pretty much ignore the Geneva Conventions with the 'enemy combatant' fiction.

Time will tell I guess, but in the end it was (more or less) resentment at home that forced the troops out of Vietnam, I ain't so convinced the same thing couldn't happen in Iraq, or with respect to ridicolous unconstitutional violations of basic rigths under the banner of "figthing terrorism"

Depends. War is Big Business. Plenty good tax payer dollars to be made supplyin the Army with the tools of the trade (apologies to Country Joe & The Fish). Add to this concept 'no-bid' contracts for companies like Haliburton & the Carlyle Group and you get massive cost overruns that turn into pure profits for these same companies. As my nephew said when he got back from Iraq, 'If you don't know KBR (a subsidary of Haliburton), you've never been to Iraq.' Keep in mind that the neocon 'prophet' Leo Strauss wrote in '53 that Western civilisation needs to be saved from itself ( http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/showthread.php?i d=200 ), and that Strauss students include Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz. These guys are all failed academics that no university would hire due to their extreme political views. So, it looks like you get to add to the old adage that 'Those who can, do. Those that can't, teach' the phrase 'Those who can't do and can't teach, hold public office, not necessarily an elected one'. And once they got their foot in the door with the government, they get snapped up by big business when their party leaves office strictly for their networking. Who they know in government determines where they'll 'work' next and how much they'll make.

The current crop of government bozos seems to be more interested in the rights of corporations than the rights of the individual citizens. We're becoming daily more of a 'product' for the megacorps. Just look at the record.

A guardian/parent has accepted the obligation to raise and support their dependents.

Implicitly, anyway; I have damn near no sympathy for those who become sexually active without taking contraceptive precautions, and end up parents by mistake. I'd also add that although expectation of some level of social support for the process is reasonable, the ultimate responsibility for the result is the parents'. However, any social framework or institution that does not facilitate or precludes such rearing faces long-term evolutionary pressure against it. Can you say "revolution", children? (No, dumbasses, "say" does not mean "sing"....)

A Marine PFC has accepted the obligation to go risk their life wherever ordered, accepting the pay the DoD has deemed sufficient.

Essentially accurate (although I believe Congress actually determines pay grades, that detail is moot to this discussion). However, a shift in accounting rules resulting in a massive shift of what their effective usable income is inequitable, especially when the PFC is stuck in a two, four, or six year enlistment. Furthermore in a longer term perspective, by diminishing the value of effective monetary remuneration, especially without increasing perceived non-rational value on service (EG: "patriotism"), diminishing the price will diminish the supply of recruits... and possibly the quality as well. That is to say: if you don't pay, they won't show up.

I realize the military is working on this, but are those obligations really compatible at the same time?

Take a longer term perspective. My understanding is parents with a history of military service tend to produce kids more likely to enter military service. It's to the military's long-term benefit to insure conditions are supportive of raising kids, to the extent that it is possible to do so without compromising military operations.

In the private sector we (IMHO rightly) have little sympathy for anyone who just entered the job market and wants to have children before having developed any distinctive skills and advanced beyond the minimum wage.

I'll grant that anyone planning to have kids should consider the economic realities of their situation before jumping in and doing so. Having children is a luxury for a couple, one that may require forgoing others, like the latest-and-greatest electronic entertainments.

On the other hand, having children is a necessity for viable society (leaving aside a few moot cases). My depression-baby parents didn't marry and start having kids until they were both about thirty, but were regarded as strange in their day; despite both my parents being the oldest in their rather large families, I only have two cousins younger than me. Corporations are legally obligated not to have a sense of social responsibility; however, I fear that it is detrimental to society that child-rearing be so routinely postponed so long.

I suspect your politics align well with the Cheap Labor Conservatives, and that's not a good thing in my book. Of course, I'm a green-to-liberarian peak-oil kook with a nasty pragmatic streak... what would I know?

The correct phrase is Cheap-Labor Conservative.

• Cheap-labor conservatives don't like social spending or our "safety net". Why. Because when you're unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like - which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you "over a barrel" and in a position to "work cheap or starve".
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives don't like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you "over a barrel".
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives like "free trade", NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are "over a barrel", and will work cheap.
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman's right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women "over a barrel", forcing them to work cheap.
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives don't like unions. Why. Because when labor "sticks together", wages go up. That's why workers unionize. Seems workers don't like being "over a barrel".
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about "morality", "virtue", "respect for authority", "hard work" and other "values". Why. So they can blame your being "over a barrel" on your own "immorality", lack of "values" and "poor choices".
  
• Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.
  

If by "The Rich" you mean Cheap Labor Conservatives then, yes.

If by "The Rich" you mean Cheap Labor Conservatives then, yes.

DEFEAT THE RIGHT IN THREE MINUTES

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/beattherightinth ree.htm

Have you got three minutes. Because that's all you need to learn how to defeat the Republican Right. Just read through this handy guide and you'll have everything you need to successfully debunk right-wing propaganda.

It's really that simple. First, you have to beat their ideology, which really isn't that difficult. At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of "haves" and "have nots" that I call "corporate feudalism". They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a "respectable" sounding ideology. That ideology is pure hogwash, and you can prove it.

But you have to do more than defeat the ideology. You have to defeat the "drum beat". You have to defeat the "propaganda machine", that brainwashes people with their slogans and catch-phrases. You've heard those slogans."Less government", "personal responsibility" and lots of flag waving. They are "shorthand" for an entire worldview, and the right has been pounding their slogans out into the public domain for getting on forty years.

So you need a really good slogan - a "counter-slogan" really, to "deprogram" the brainwashed. You need a "magic bullet" that quickly and efficiently destroys the effectiveness of their "drum beat". You need your own "drum beat" that sums up the right's position. Only your "drum beat" exposes the ugly reality of right-wing philosophy - the reality their slogans are meant to hide. Our slogan contains the governing concept that explains the entire right-wing agenda. That's why it works. You can see it in every policy, and virtually all of Republican rhetoric. And it's so easy to remember, and captures the essence of the Republican Right so well, we can pin it on them like a "scarlet letter".

Is there really a catch phrase - a "magic bullet" - that sums up the Republican Right in such a nice easy-to-grasp package. You better believe it, and it's downright elegant in its simplicity.

You want to know what that "magic bullet" is, don't you. Read on. You've still got two minutes.
Right-Wing Ideology in a Nutshell

When you cut right through it, right-wing ideology is just "dime-store economics" - intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words.

"Cheap labor". That's their whole philosophy in a nutshell - which gives you a short and pithy "catch phrase" that describes them perfectly. You've heard of "big-government liberals". Well they're "cheap-labor conservatives".

"Cheap-labor conservative" is a moniker they will never shake, and never live down. Because it's exactly what they are. You see, cheap-labor conservatives are defenders of corporate America - whose fortunes depend on labor. The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you'll work, and the more power those "corporate lords" have over you. If you are a wealthy elite - or a "wannabe" like most dittoheads - your wealth, power and privilege is enhanced by a labor pool, forced to work cheap.

Don't believe me. Well, let's apply this principle, and see how many right-wing positions become instantly understandable.

* Cheap-labor conservatives don't like social spending or our "safety net". Why. Because when you're unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like - which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you "over a barrel" and in a position to "work cheap or starve".

* Cheap-labor conservatives don't like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you "over a barrel".

* Cheap-labor conservatives like "free trade", NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Becau

> Perhaps you can tell us what they hoped to gain from this grand deception.

Brilliantly myopic of you to ask. What could a glut of intelligent high tech laborers gain them?

And it's such a simple answer too: cheap labor. Cheap labor here, cheap labor there, cheap labor everywhere. Wise up and stop being a chump. They want to destroy the middle-class because a robust middle-class eats away at their bottom line where even enough is never enough.

Learn something. Read: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/lessgovernment.h tm

Terrorism: OBL, excellently attired, looking fit and tan, gave a speech last week. He was living proof that Bush has failed to protect us from terrorism. I take Bush at his word, I don't think he is bothered by OBL as long as he can use OBL as an excuse to blanket over the rest of his misguided agenda. War is good business for these guys. Big profits!

The Draft: is almost inevitable. The soldiers that are there don't want to be there. They are being retained well beyond their time. The war is a failure. To make it work and keep those war dollars flowing into the right pockets many more americans will have to die. Say it with me: Draft!

I'll give you the middle east issue as long as it is agreed that our continued support of Israel might be misguided and create enemies for us. Israel cannot talk of peace with clean hands. Some Israelis, just like some Americans, are sick warmongering bastards.

Chief Justice Scalia? Yeah, he is a strict constitutionalist - in your dreams! Hell, the Gore decision revealed the huge partisanship of certain members of the court. Don't be a retard. The Gore decision is only useful as toilet paper. Bush may well lean the court so far right you will not know what hit you.

I keep hoping that Bush's faith is just an act for the lamers to believe in - but if it's the real deal, even you may have issues with what is to come.

And the rest of the world doesn't matter? Hmmm. that might be a bad business idea right there. I think it certainly does matter. No nation ever lost money because they made more friends in the world than the next nation over - that's just a good trade practice. When you piss everyone off, they have a tendency to take their business elsewhere.

I won't put words in your mouth, but I bet you think China and India trade with us because they like taking our leftovers, the scraps from our table. Has it occurred to you that they are just biding their time until we need them more than they need us?

Stay tuned...

http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/index.html

AoT, you might also want to check out: Conceptual Guerilla
On Rankism
Voyage from Yesteryear
Or my essay: how to to find the financing to create a "Star Trek" like society

Check the date on that one. IIRC Bush changed how the government collects it's data by purposefully underfunding and cutting certain unemployment tracking programs.

Let's face it - the gang in power is just a bunch of "Cheap Labor Republicans." They are gunning for your job because it can be done cheaper somewhere else. These guys make money by keeping labor costs down, not by a a booming economy that benefits you or yours. Catch a clue.

Political Reality Redacted

Several months ago I watched Joe Hough, President of the Faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Social Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary, speak on Bill Moyers "Now" and I was immediately impressed by both his passion as well as the following statement that he made:

HOUGH: The growing gap between the rich and the poor which has become almost obscene by anybody's standards, and the stated intentional policy of bankrupting the government so that in the future there'll be no money for anything the federal government would decide to do. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transc...print.ht ml

Now some of you may be thinking that the above statement is somewhat extreme, and I used to wonder about that myself. But the statement haunted me. The reality is that some of what our current government is doing only makes sense if you consider "bankrupting the government" their actual goal. Have they not reduced taxes for the top 1%? Have they not also run a record deficit? When is a tax cut not a tax cut? When you run a deficit.

The bottom line is that it seems to be okay to run a deficit paying off federal war contracts to Halliburton, but god forbid they should run a deficit supporting job creation programs. And you'll forgive me if I don't consider the expansion of our military "true" job creation.

So what are they really doing? Why are they doing it? You have to ask those questions because it would be a mistake to assume that anyone, esp. an apparent imbecile like Bush, acts without purpose. The appearance of the dolt just might be the mask of a sly con man.

So who has the answers? There's this one guy that has it completely nailed. His stuff is so savvy, so on point that it is frankly scary in it's simplicity and clarity. So don't hesitate - go read it. If you can't handle it all at once, pace yourself - but read it, all of it. It's just four pages: two long, two short. And the rest of the site is excellent too if you still need more.

"CHEAP-LABOR CONSERVATIVE" ISSUES GUIDE
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm

CATALOGUE OF BOGUS CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/bogusideas.htm

"PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" AND WAGES
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/wages...bility.h tm

THE WRATH OF THE MILLIONAIRE WANNABE'S
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/milli...nnabes.h tm

What's all this about in a few short sentences?

Labor is the true engine of any economy, wealth is not (it is the mere distribution of the results of labor). A boom economy benefits anyone that works for a living because labor is then scarce and labor is valued more highly. Those at the top require cheap labor to maximize their profits - so they hate boom economies. Everything our government is doing right now is intended to devalue labor. The unequal distribution of vast amounts of wealth into the hands of non-laborers makes democracy almost impossible (which is why the founders favored limits on almost everything that concentrated wealth into too few hands).

Let it sit with you a while and you will begin to realize that it explains everything from bad schools, pri

Check the date on that one. IIRC Bush changed how the government collects it's data by purposefully underfunding and cutting certain unemployment tracking programs.

Let's face it - the gang in power is just a bunch of "Cheap Labor Republicans." They are gunning for your job because it can be done cheaper somewhere else. These guys make money by keeping labor costs down, not by a a booming economy that benefits you or yours. Catch a clue.

Political Reality Redacted

Several months ago I watched Joe Hough, President of the Faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Social Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary, speak on Bill Moyers "Now" and I was immediately impressed by both his passion as well as the following statement that he made:

HOUGH: The growing gap between the rich and the poor which has become almost obscene by anybody's standards, and the stated intentional policy of bankrupting the government so that in the future there'll be no money for anything the federal government would decide to do. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transc...print.ht ml

Now some of you may be thinking that the above statement is somewhat extreme, and I used to wonder about that myself. But the statement haunted me. The reality is that some of what our current government is doing only makes sense if you consider "bankrupting the government" their actual goal. Have they not reduced taxes for the top 1%? Have they not also run a record deficit? When is a tax cut not a tax cut? When you run a deficit.

The bottom line is that it seems to be okay to run a deficit paying off federal war contracts to Halliburton, but god forbid they should run a deficit supporting job creation programs. And you'll forgive me if I don't consider the expansion of our military "true" job creation.

So what are they really doing? Why are they doing it? You have to ask those questions because it would be a mistake to assume that anyone, esp. an apparent imbecile like Bush, acts without purpose. The appearance of the dolt just might be the mask of a sly con man.

So who has the answers? There's this one guy that has it completely nailed. His stuff is so savvy, so on point that it is frankly scary in it's simplicity and clarity. So don't hesitate - go read it. If you can't handle it all at once, pace yourself - but read it, all of it. It's just four pages: two long, two short. And the rest of the site is excellent too if you still need more.

"CHEAP-LABOR CONSERVATIVE" ISSUES GUIDE
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm

CATALOGUE OF BOGUS CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/bogusideas.htm

"PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" AND WAGES
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/wages...bility.h tm

THE WRATH OF THE MILLIONAIRE WANNABE'S
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/milli...nnabes.h tm

What's all this about in a few short sentences?

Labor is the true engine of any economy, wealth is not (it is the mere distribution of the results of labor). A boom economy benefits anyone that works for a living because labor is then scarce and labor is valued more highly. Those at the top require cheap labor to maximize their profits - so they hate boom economies. Everything our government is doing right now is intended to devalue labor. The unequal distribution of vast amounts of wealth into the hands of non-laborers makes democracy almost impossible (which is why the founders favored limits on almost everything that concentrated wealth into too few hands).

Let it sit with you a while and you will begin to realize that it explains everything from bad schools, pri

Check the date on that one. IIRC Bush changed how the government collects it's data by purposefully underfunding and cutting certain unemployment tracking programs.

Let's face it - the gang in power is just a bunch of "Cheap Labor Republicans." They are gunning for your job because it can be done cheaper somewhere else. These guys make money by keeping labor costs down, not by a a booming economy that benefits you or yours. Catch a clue.

Political Reality Redacted

Several months ago I watched Joe Hough, President of the Faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Social Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary, speak on Bill Moyers "Now" and I was immediately impressed by both his passion as well as the following statement that he made:

HOUGH: The growing gap between the rich and the poor which has become almost obscene by anybody's standards, and the stated intentional policy of bankrupting the government so that in the future there'll be no money for anything the federal government would decide to do. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transc...print.ht ml

Now some of you may be thinking that the above statement is somewhat extreme, and I used to wonder about that myself. But the statement haunted me. The reality is that some of what our current government is doing only makes sense if you consider "bankrupting the government" their actual goal. Have they not reduced taxes for the top 1%? Have they not also run a record deficit? When is a tax cut not a tax cut? When you run a deficit.

The bottom line is that it seems to be okay to run a deficit paying off federal war contracts to Halliburton, but god forbid they should run a deficit supporting job creation programs. And you'll forgive me if I don't consider the expansion of our military "true" job creation.

So what are they really doing? Why are they doing it? You have to ask those questions because it would be a mistake to assume that anyone, esp. an apparent imbecile like Bush, acts without purpose. The appearance of the dolt just might be the mask of a sly con man.

So who has the answers? There's this one guy that has it completely nailed. His stuff is so savvy, so on point that it is frankly scary in it's simplicity and clarity. So don't hesitate - go read it. If you can't handle it all at once, pace yourself - but read it, all of it. It's just four pages: two long, two short. And the rest of the site is excellent too if you still need more.

"CHEAP-LABOR CONSERVATIVE" ISSUES GUIDE
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm

CATALOGUE OF BOGUS CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/bogusideas.htm

"PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" AND WAGES
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/wages...bility.h tm

THE WRATH OF THE MILLIONAIRE WANNABE'S
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/milli...nnabes.h tm

What's all this about in a few short sentences?

Labor is the true engine of any economy, wealth is not (it is the mere distribution of the results of labor). A boom economy benefits anyone that works for a living because labor is then scarce and labor is valued more highly. Those at the top require cheap labor to maximize their profits - so they hate boom economies. Everything our government is doing right now is intended to devalue labor. The unequal distribution of vast amounts of wealth into the hands of non-laborers makes democracy almost impossible (which is why the founders favored limits on almost everything that concentrated wealth into too few hands).

Let it sit with you a while and you will begin to realize that it explains everything from bad schools, pri

Check the date on that one. IIRC Bush changed how the government collects it's data by purposefully underfunding and cutting certain unemployment tracking programs.

Let's face it - the gang in power is just a bunch of "Cheap Labor Republicans." They are gunning for your job because it can be done cheaper somewhere else. These guys make money by keeping labor costs down, not by a a booming economy that benefits you or yours. Catch a clue.

Political Reality Redacted

Several months ago I watched Joe Hough, President of the Faculty and William E. Dodge Professor of Social Ethics at the Union Theological Seminary, speak on Bill Moyers "Now" and I was immediately impressed by both his passion as well as the following statement that he made:

HOUGH: The growing gap between the rich and the poor which has become almost obscene by anybody's standards, and the stated intentional policy of bankrupting the government so that in the future there'll be no money for anything the federal government would decide to do. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transc...print.ht ml

Now some of you may be thinking that the above statement is somewhat extreme, and I used to wonder about that myself. But the statement haunted me. The reality is that some of what our current government is doing only makes sense if you consider "bankrupting the government" their actual goal. Have they not reduced taxes for the top 1%? Have they not also run a record deficit? When is a tax cut not a tax cut? When you run a deficit.

The bottom line is that it seems to be okay to run a deficit paying off federal war contracts to Halliburton, but god forbid they should run a deficit supporting job creation programs. And you'll forgive me if I don't consider the expansion of our military "true" job creation.

So what are they really doing? Why are they doing it? You have to ask those questions because it would be a mistake to assume that anyone, esp. an apparent imbecile like Bush, acts without purpose. The appearance of the dolt just might be the mask of a sly con man.

So who has the answers? There's this one guy that has it completely nailed. His stuff is so savvy, so on point that it is frankly scary in it's simplicity and clarity. So don't hesitate - go read it. If you can't handle it all at once, pace yourself - but read it, all of it. It's just four pages: two long, two short. And the rest of the site is excellent too if you still need more.

"CHEAP-LABOR CONSERVATIVE" ISSUES GUIDE
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/blurbs.htm

CATALOGUE OF BOGUS CONSERVATIVE IDEAS
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/bogusideas.htm

"PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" AND WAGES
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/wages...bility.h tm

THE WRATH OF THE MILLIONAIRE WANNABE'S
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/milli...nnabes.h tm

What's all this about in a few short sentences?

Labor is the true engine of any economy, wealth is not (it is the mere distribution of the results of labor). A boom economy benefits anyone that works for a living because labor is then scarce and labor is valued more highly. Those at the top require cheap labor to maximize their profits - so they hate boom economies. Everything our government is doing right now is intended to devalue labor. The unequal distribution of vast amounts of wealth into the hands of non-laborers makes democracy almost impossible (which is why the founders favored limits on almost everything that concentrated wealth into too few hands).

Let it sit with you a while and you will begin to realize that it explains everything from bad schools, pri

Conceptual Guerilla is my favorite site. Blogs, fora, the whole works.

When you acknowledge something is a flaw (e.g. barter tax) you say it's a flaw of something else that capitalism. But perhaps, like H1B visas, or L1 visas, or Spectrum auctioning, or the 1099 independent contractor rules pushed for by a small set of companies that make it hard for contractors to not go through brokers or be paid W2, perhaps all these laws are the result of greed spawned by capitalism to keep alternatives at bay (including by high barriers to entry)? Langdon Winner, in his book _Autonomous Technology_ talks about "reverse adaptation" when an organization reverse adapts its environment to suit its needs for survival and growth (independent of its original purpose), which is exactly what is happening with corporations out of control in the USA and beyond.

The bottom line is that capitalism is becoming just a code word in some ways for "social darwinism" and "corporate feudalism", see for example: Mythology of wealth and without regulation, taxation, and charity, the results are horrendous. When capitalism was invented in some sense by the Dutch centuries ago it was (slave trade apart) tempered by strong moral values and charity in its application at home, and so the country of Holland overall prospered; with the loss of all these aspects over the centuries that surround greed and make it useful for society as an ambition to excel and prosper within a broader social context, the result is just what you would expect from rampant unchecked greed, and that is ultimately war and corruption and disaster.

Some specific points in passing (and running out of time for this interesting discussion, sadly), when I said "reasonable" I meant reasonable in the context of hunter/gatherer society accepting its strengths and weaknesses (not to keep the TVs running). And why should we be talking about "eeking out" a life? The issue is how we all can live better (even those getting ulcers from being in charge or being financially obese like Bill Gates).

A deeper point is that one can't leave the political system or the biosphere (yet). Nukes are targeted almost everywhere (or their fallout is) and if capitalism or some other-ism pulls everything down with radiation or plagues or an intrusive police state, then everyone is hit. So, the only realistic choice is to engage in social reform, not run away and wait for the poison dust clouds or whatever else it could be to show up.

Actually, much (not all) of the USSR's arms race side was driven by continued US escalation and rhetoric (even look at the newspapers around the time of the Sputnik launches where the Russians say they would share the space technology with all humankind). Even now, any country looking at the example of the US invading Iraq is going to conclude that, unlike in North Korea, this is what happens to a country when they do not have WMD, one of the reasons the Iraq war has destabilized the entire political landscape for WMD.

You write: "I like the goods of capitalism like fresh produce, health care, and interesting web sites." Much produce is shipped from far away and is produced in an unsustainable way drawing down water aquifers and poisoning illeg

Your Slashdot handle of "MoralHazard" suggests this way to look at it: limited liability for investors, no flow through bankruptcy for investors, and no criminal liability for investors, all create a "moral hazard" allowing investors to do less than proper dilligence and provide less than complete oversight for their investments. If equity investors' personal butts were on the line for each investment, one could hope investors would ensure corporate behavior met higher moral standards, or would otherwise find alternate investments they could be more sure of.

Current legalities aside, your point doesn't quite hold together morally IMHO. If someone gives money to an organization that repeatedly does immoral or illegal things, they almost surely should know how it is going to be used. Same of someone who buys stock in any corporation. If they invest money in a profit making organization in an equity position (part-owner) not knowing these things, then they are at least guilty of gross negligence. I think loans without equity or return in any way tied to corporate profits might have a slightly different moral flavor perhaps.

Any equity investor in any venture should (in theory, IMHO) have a moral obligation to oversee that venture. "I didn't know" IMHO really should not be an excuse in a world trying to hold people accountable for their deeds. If that would make certain ventures of various sizes impractical, so be it. If that makes corporate secrecy impossible, so be it. If that means many people should not prudently be stockholding corporate investors and should instead invest in other ways they can more easily monitor closer to home, so be it. Now it may be, as you suggest, that law outside of corporate law may excuse investors of criminal conduct, but nonetheless one could argue those laws are bad laws, and that people supporting profitmaking organizations that do criminal acts are guilty of at the very least gross negligence and should be held criminally liable, just like someone who puts in a pool without a fence is often held liable for gross negligence in creating an attractive nusiance if a toddler drowns there. And if that leads to a set of economic problems and then solutions (like an end to secrecy with transparent corporations and an end to passivity with active investors providing oversight lest they end up in jail) then so be it.

Just google on "corporate charter revocation" to see how active some of these ideas are becoming. See for example the links from: FreedomOrCapitalism Or see: Corporate Feudalims. It's not "guilt by association"; it is guilt by providing "aid and comfort" to people with immoral policies (even if they may or may not be illegal). From that last link: "Corporate feudalism is decidedly "unAmerican", and is a gross departure from American values. It represents the seizure of American government to serve a new purpose -- the promotion of corporate wealth and power. Opposing this corrosive new form of "privitized tyranny" is not "unAmerican". Neither is publicizing the abuses of the corporate lords around the world in Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Iran or Vietnam. America didn't do those things. You didn't do those things. An American government subverted by corporate oligarchs did those things, and lied to you about their true purpose. The "traitors" are the corporate "feudal lords" who stole our government and committed oppression and exploitation in our name. The 'traitors" are the one's who now seek to use debt and "free trade" to do to the US, what they have already done to Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The traitors are the one's -- in the name of "liberty" no less -- who seek a government they say can do nothing for the people who live under it, but can only serve the interests of corporate fiefdoms. Patriots expose these corporate potentates. Patriots seek to restore democracy, subverted by

Why is that "obvious"? Capitalism as an ideology has been widely discredited worldwide (although the media doesn't reflect that) through its end results in practice (colonialism and its aftermath, slavery and its aftermath, increasing rich/poor divide, pollution, inappropriate technological solutions, human suffering, mindless work) as opposed to claims in theory, see for example: Millionaire Wannabes. If Capitalism worked, we'd all be using Smalltalk or Lisp (developed thirty years ago) instead of Java and XML.

Money (in terms of Federal Reserve Notes) and loans (in terms of usury with interest and a fractional reserve banking system) are also equally problematical. In fact, the American Revolution was fought mainly over the right for the colonies to print their own paper money (a fact long forgotten or suppressed). See: The World's Alternative Trading Network for some more details. Or google on "Fractional Reserve". Alan Greenspan isn't busy setting interest rates to help everyone out -- he is trying to be an optimum parasite to get the most blood out of everyone he can by balancing drawing blood (interest) against how big the economy is.

Corporations? They are the biggest marauders around in many ways. Why should they have more than human rights in the USA? Effectively their charters are no longer revoked and if they commit a crime they just get fined and maybe some employees (disposable cells, like your skin cells) go to prison, while nothing about the corporation really changes. Why should investors have limited liability? If people support a bad cause, shouldn't they too go to jail? It is happening now with people who supposedly support "terrorism", so why should corporate investors get a free pass when they support pollution, habitat destruction, sweatshop practices, employee boredom, and so on?

In fact, the whole notion of "Work" underlying all that stuff is itself bogus. For alternatives to capitalism, consider: Buddhist Economics or: The End of Work. From that last: "Curiously --- maybe not --- all the old ideologies are conservative because they believe in work. Some of them, like Marxism and most brands of anarchism, believe in work all the more fiercely because they believe in so little else. Liberals say we should end employment discrimination. I say we should end employment. Conservatives support right-to-work laws. Following Karl Marx's wayward son-in-law Paul Lafargue I support the right to be lazy. Leftists favor full employment. Like the surrealists--except that I'm not kidding--I favor full unemployment. Trotskyists agitate for permanent revolution. I agitate for permanent revelry. But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work--and not only because they plan to make other people do theirs--they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They'll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusions about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among themselves they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don't care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women. Clearly these ideology-mongers have serious differences over how to divvy up the spoils of power. Just as clearly, none of them have any objection to power as such and

Then, read James Lowen's _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Texbook Got Wrong_ to see how your mind has unknowingly been filled with nationalist and consumer crap (despite your technical proclivities). Also check out Howard Zinn. Learn to live simply and frugally so you have more options:

If you have started doing all that, by now you are primed to begin to question what education really means.

And further, to even question why people need to work and what it should mean to do useful things.

You'll have time to read great minds like Bertrand Russel and Freeman Dyson.

Then you can accept you are still stuck in a stupid system.

But you'll be positioned to make the best of it and yet still see how the world can be a made better place to for the bulk of humanity and other creatures.

Always remember in your darker hours to at least ask yourself the question, "Can life be made worth living?" And in your brighter hours, remember to ask yourself if you are playing a finite (to win) game or an infinite (to play) game?

And, finally, for continual inspiration, read _Voyage From Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan.

Now go out and take some educated risks to try to make life worth living -- despite your future happiness possibilities already almost being ruined by being convinced you that you are "bright" just because you know some technical things (same thing almost happened to me).

Unemployment was 23 percent when FDR took office in 1933. It dropped to 2.5 percent by time the next Republican was in the White House in 1953. It climbed back to 6.5 percent by the end of the Eisenhower administration. It dropped to 3.5 percent by the time LBJ left office. It climbed over 5 percent shortly after Nixon took office, and stayed there for 27 years, until Clinton brought it down to 4.5 percent early in his second term.

I know gay marriage really gets your panties in a bunch, but maybe you could consider your own economic future for a moment and stop voting against yourselves.

It's beacause of the increased wages that companies can't compete.

Yeah, right. Like another poster said, they pay their executives pretty damn well, for much less work. Can't compete? Whatever. They're just pissed because they can't pump the stock price quite as high.

This is similar to the argument that an increase in minimum wage will just increase inflation, because companies will raise their prices to compensate. This link shows that this is not true: every time the minimum wage has been raised, inflation only went up by 1-2%, and sometimes even reversed. The reason is simple: sure a company could just raise their prices, but their competitors could just as easily stand pat and steal all those extra customers. So the companies leave their prices alone.

Where does the extra money to pay the workers come from? Why, the profit margin of course. Which is exactly why the cheap labor conservatives don't want anything that could increase wages for the workers.

Cue The Doom Song :)

Cheap-labor conservatism can't last, but I agree that things will only get worse before they get better. Vastly increased modern productivity means that soon not everyone CAN have a useful job, even as a wageslave -- only a select few will own the means of automated production, and the rest will be serfs again.

(until revolution and/or molecular manufacturing comes along to set everyone free from top-down tyranny.)

--

Those expensive projectionists will be replaced by our new AUTO-PROJECTOR 3000 next year anyway. I got in early and bought 10,000 shares. To use the slang of the colored proles: "Mo' money! Mo' money!"

--

You might be interested in this article on Cheap Labor Conservatives.

Conceptual Guerilla is a great site with a decidedly leftist political bent that attempts to expose and digest some of the consequences of this new reality. I suggest anyone who's interested in discussing this further to head over to the forums there. I'd also like to thank the Slashdotter who put this link in their sig.