How about the case where costs and benefits conflict? Last time I checked, this conflict is always present. In such a case, the company always picks costs as being more important than placating the worker.
Can we also stop with this knowledge worker junk? Knowledge worker is something cooked up by (guess who?) and it has very little meaning.
The answer has to do with ideologies, ideals, and philosophies....
Let me generalize this to left-wing, as opposed to just liberals. To most, liberals and the left is pretty synonymous anyway.
It's not that liberals dont' believe in defense; it's just taht they are not as pro-military as conservatives. Don't forget that guys like FDR (who led USA into WWII) and LBJ (who led USA into Vietnam) are liberals. Anyway...
The left-wing, in general, believes in peace over war. This is why leftists are more anti-war than right-wingers. This essentially means that the left (and hence liberals) support the military less than conservatives (who worship the military).
Most people on the left also believe that shrinking the military will lead to peace, rather than increasing it. There are several reasons for this. First of all, having a large military will necessarily lead to wars. The military will not want to sit around doing nothing. Second, opponents will attempt to increase their own militaries as well, resulting in greater probability of death and destruction.
As well, many leftists view large militaries (and police forces, and everything goes with it) as weakening freedoms. This is especially true the farther one is from the center (i.e. between left and far-left). People at this position in the econopolitical spectrum are anti-state, and the state's power comes from the military (the government and the politicians have no power without the military (you can check by looking at other countries and military coups)).
Another thing to note is that the notion of defense is treated more sceptically by liberals than conservatives. Many liberals know that what passes for defense is mostly offense. Ever since war departments were renamed to defense departments (circa 1940's/50's), this has mainly been true...
So to sum it up, the difference on military policy between liberals and conservatives has to do with the ideals underlying liberalism vs conservatism. Liberalism tries to create peace by eliminating the militaries of the world; conservatism tries to create peace by projecting military power. In general, a conservative would say USA is well protected (since it has the largest military and hence the most power). A liberal, in contrast, would probably say that a country like Sweden is more protected (since the threats against it are less than USA, even though Swedish military is extremely weak and has little power). This view is reflected in the world view and foreign policy of the country. You can usually tell who is running the country by looking at foreign policy*.
(* Although in two party or one party states like USA, where both the Democrats and Republicans are almost identical, it is hard to say).
As for _No Logo_, there was a recent issue involving Firestone tires. They tended to come apart and cause accidents. Don't you think it's nice that all of the Firestone tires have "Firestone" written on the side so that I can avoid buying them in the future? Or would you prefer that all tires come unbranded, and you just hope that you don't get a Firestone the next time you need tires?
In general, companies just switch their names. The company is still pretty much the same but they are called something different to confuse the masses. This happens all the time. Things like takeovers (eg. Arthur Andersen being sold off after Enron), or creating shell companies (eg. Hollinger International) is very common in the business world.
I argue that branding is nothing more than an attempt brainwash the masses (so that they can buy a particular product). All the benefits cited in this thread are mainly due to other factors, such as quality control and MOST IMPORTANTLY size of corporations. I claim that a heavily branded product from a smaller company is worse than one from a large company. This is more reflective of business than the opposite being put forth by many here (namely, brand increases quality, rather than my argument that it depends on the size of corporation). A good example of this is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's branding is weaker than many higher-end retailers. However, it is much larger. Therefore, Wal-Mart attracts more people (even with inferior brands) than the higher-end retailers. People go to Wal-Mart not just because costs are lower but because they can return a product with no questions (including reasons where the customer is at fault).
It just so happens that the large corporations can afford to spend more money on advertising and branding. Therefore, it seems that branding improves quality of service. However, I claim that that reality is that the quality of service is dependent on the size of the corporation. Most of the products I have purchased have been better if they are from large corporations, regardless of branding.
The basic stuructre of the universe may be fairies scrunched up by angels and used to play cosmological billiards with, but don't expect a mathematical theory based on it soon.
You raise a good point: can a community created system ever be more accurate than a professionaly created one? It's almost like open-source with respect to knowledge. Another similar example is independent, non-profit, media vs established professional media.
I don't what the right answer is... it remains to be seen. All I can say is... open-source software (which is largely created by hobbyists and for non-profit reasons) seems to match professional software... non-profit, community-based, media is NOt as good as professional media right now... wikipedia is also not as good as professional encyclopedias (like Encarta for instance)...
I'm not in the field so I'm not sure what happened exactly... but my IMPRESSION was that Hawking PROVED it, while the ones you mention CAME up with some ideas.
So, once the object goes past the event horizon, it's being accellerated _faster_ than the speed of light toward the center of the black hole.
I'm not an astrophysist but I think that's wrong. I don't think anything is accelerated beyond the speed of light--even within a black hole!!! Can someone else shed some light on this? I don't see why something would pass speed of light inside a black hole...
... on the event horizon as physics breaks down.
I think that is not correct either. Physics does NOT break down at the event horizon (from what I know). Rather, physics breaks down at the singularity deep within the black hole. I think the event horizon is well understood. (Actually you may mean something else--in which case you would be right. You are correct if you say that Newtonian Physics breaks down at the event horizon. However, Einstein's Relativity Theory can be used at the event horizon. However, inside the singularity, everything breaks down. We* need quantum gravity, which merges quatum physics and relativity. We haven't developed quatum gravity yet).
Having said that, we don't know what happens inside the black hole. Since nothing can escape, we have practically no observational evidence of anything inside. So all we have are theories.
BTW, someone correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. I am not 100% sure either--since I'm not in the field:(
(* When I say 'we', I'm talking about humanity. I'm not saying *I* am part of this whole thing. I never even took physics in university:| )
It is best to think of these things as VIRTUAL particles. A pair of virtual particles form anywhere in the universe (has nothing to do with black holes). After a short while, the pair merges with itself (i.e. the two particles (pair) collides and annihilates itself). That is what happens in general.
If there is a black hole, and hence an event horizon, there is a probability that one part of the virtual pair can form inside the black hole (i.e. within the event horizon) while the other part of the pair forms outside the horizon. Since nothing inside the event horizon can escape the black hole (gravity of black hole stronger than anything else), the pair inside gets sucked in while the pair outside can freely leave. The outside particle is what we call as radiation form the black hole.
So to answer your question ('If not, why don't the particles that don't fall in destroy each other, and why does the black holes net mass change?')... the pair that completely forms outside does destroy itself. The pair that is partly outside and partly inside does not get destroyed (because the gravity of the black hole won't let the inside particle get away and collide with the outside one).
I am not a physist but my limited understanding is that gravity does not repel ANYTHING. Gravity only attracts. I have never heard of any particle or matter/energy that is repelled somehow by gravity. (someone correct me if I'm wrong--thanks).
If you go with that view (i.e. gravity doesn't repel) then your final conclusion is wrong (since you are assuming some particles are repelled).
I think the best way to think of these things is as VIRTUAL particles.
BTW, if you are interested in black holes, an excellent book (for the layperson, like me:) ) is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne. Check it out. It's a really good book... no, I don't get paid for advertising this book:(:)
Democracies treat everyone as equals. Anything that deviates from it will be an elitist system.
Whether people are illiterate or not doesn't make THAT much difference. MAny people in USA and Canada don't bother reading anything anyway. A politician's speech or television advertising probably has a greater impact than anything they read.
Yeah... proportional representation is the way to go. That will be closer to true democracy. Anything else is an attempt to euqalize the smaller districts, which often leads to side-effects.
Having said that, it isn't happening in USA any time soon. It is in the interest of the two dominant parties to keep it as it is.
I haven't seen the movie but from what I read, it really wouldn't appeal to anyone unless they were Christian (I'm an athiest BTW). Rumour has it that Mel is thinking of making more Christian movies (due to this success) so maybe his future films will explain things better.
As far as anti-Semitism is concerned, I'm not going to go there.
The system that MAXIMIZES freedom and trade would be anarchism. So it definitely isn't capitalism.
Capitalism has little to do with freedom. If you don't think so, you haven't looked around hard enough. Nazism, which is more capitalist than socialist, is totalitarian. Kuwait, which is arguably more capitalist than Canada, provides very few freedoms to anyone (unless you are a foreigner or part of the monarchy establishment of course). Singapore, which some claim is more capitalist than even USA, is a totalitarian country.
Having said that, capitalism DOES promote trade. Although, it can be argued that the type of trade promoted by capitalism is not what benefits countries. Don't forget: the type of trade matters. Colonialism (which is nothing more than looting resources from some country) involved a lot of trade but it didn't benefit much of humanity. Many argue that modern day globalization (trade in the name of capitalism) is not benefitting many countries (only the wealthy owners of the corporations and a few rich countries benefit).
Socialism artifically changes the markets, so companies are forced to react (not free to react).
By freedom, I'm mainly talking about politics (not economics). Freedom to me involves things like freedom of speech, press, and things like that. I don't really consider economic issues to be free. Any restriction on the market, under socialist-type systems, is supposed to be in the interest of society. If a government restricts business by erecting environmental regulations, or worker regulations, or whatever, it is supposed to benefit society. I do NOT consider such things as taking away from freedoms. Obviously, capitalists would disagree (they would consider market intervention to be taking away freedoms). So, market intervention has little to do with freedoms* IMO.
NOTES:
* There are a couple points to be made about this. Clearly, market intervention CAN take away freedoms. For example, if I became Vice-President of USA and started handing out billion dollar contracts to my friends;) or if I banned certain corporations from conducting business because I want my allies to benefit, that is definitely abuse of freedoms. However, this has more to do with corruption and is not reflective of market intervention...
The second point I wanted to make was to justify my thinking of why market intervention is not taking away freedoms. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Freedom with no limitations makes no sense whatsoever. Freedom only makes sense within the context of society and how society benefits (including individuals/minorities**). For example, consider your freedom to do whatever you want. Such freedom makes no sense without some context of society. If you had the freedom to do whatever you want, you may come and kill me. Is that really freedom? For you, yes; but not for me. You have the freedom to do whatever you want but I end up being killed. Society as a whole must have some say. In this case, the view of most societies is that people can do whatever but not kill others. Governments actually pass laws saying that you cannot kill me, and I cannot kill you, and so on. I do NOT consider such laws to be taking away freedoms. It is done in the interest of society so it has nothing to do with weakening freedom. That is a similar argument to market intervention. I am perfectly ok with governments manipulating the market in the interest of society. Such action does not take away freedom any more than passing a law banning murder takes away your freedom to live.
** One should not just consider society as a whole but the individuals as well. Otherwise it would not be consistent with liberalism (eg. majority may oppress minority, as with slavery)
I think people understand that very well. I certainly do! So the problem is NOT what is causing the imbalance (we know the answer). The real issue is how to prevent it.
Capitalists, who are elitists, don't care about this discrepancy. Non-capitalists, like me, do care.
In life, the descriptions of events are often easy. One just needs to perform some observations. The difficulties are coming up with solutions. For instance, it is easy to explain why a tiny few controlled politics in, say, 1700's (the answer would basically include monarchy, aristocracy, elitism, and merchantilism). The real difficulty, at that time, was coming up with a way of rectifying the perceived problem. The final solution consisted of abolishing monarchy (replace with "democracy"), curbing merchantilism (ended up being replaced by a close relative of it: capitalism), and so forth.
Not quite. It is possible to be paid more or less than your market value, but capitalism says that the market will correct itself quickly, so you won't be over or under-paid for long, in comparison to your market value.
True... but I'm not talking about these inefficiencies or anamolies; I'm talking about after it stabilizes (the market wage). Read my third comment to see what I mean.
If this were a serious discussion, I would hope you would back up these extremely vague claims with at least a few specific claims.
I'm not going to waste my time looking this up (sorry, I don't have any bookmarks or anything that I can reference quickly). You can try looking it up. In most industries, the major component of variable costs are wages. This is blatantly obvious for service industries but is also true for many other industries.
The reality is, in a free market, if a company wants to succeed (which they do), they will have to pay market value for their employees.
I am assuming the employer in question is paying market wage (no inefficiencies, mistakes, etc). Even if a company pays market wage, it can be above or below fair wage. To a capitalist, market wage and fair wage are the same thing. To me, it's not. Fair wage, in my view, would include things like worker conditions, welfare, cost of living, and things like that. For example, someone being paid $5/hour in USA (in the underground market) is not getting fair wage but they certainly are getting market wage.
I think it's interesting that you see this issue in terms of the large corporation versus the blue collar worker. While that undeniably a part of this discussion, you can't exclude small businesses from the picture, where forcing a company to pay an artificially high price for labor could mean forcing that company to close its doors.
It's about employer vs employee (or capitalist (i.e. owner) vs worker). My comments apply equally well to small corporations. In fact, workers are exploited more in small companies than large ones (unless they get ownership or something). This is going to be surprising to you but it will point out our different world views: I would rather have that small business that you mention go out of business than it exist and provide "unfair" wages! If a small business can't provide what I call fair wage then I'm perfectly ok with not having them in my economy/country. If your business can't provide fair wages, I don't care if you go out of business. This argument is similar to leftist argument against highly polluting businesses*.
And I'm sure you'll agree...$1/hour is better than no job at all.
No, I disagree! I'm ok with having no job (whatever that means; as if you have to have low wage jobs) than having $1/hour** jobs. That's why I am in favour of minimum wage. If you were in favour of having a job at any wage, then you would be against minimum wage. This view is what seperates us. You don't care about wages. All you care about is some notion of jobs.
Why do you stoop to a personal attack here? So much for a rational debate.
There is no such thing as a rational debate in these cases. We can present our views and debate them but there is very little rationality in any of them. The reason for this that econopolitics (what I call politics+economics) is about ideals, principles, and philosophies. One cannot rationalize anything (except within one system). If we could have a rational debate, we can prove one view and all of us would admit that is the best policy and go from there. Instead, there is never any agree because of underlying differences. For example, a socialist would consider it evil that a few people can hoard large amounts of wealth (and consequently power, and everything else that goes with it) under capitalism. To a capitalist, that is perfectly fine (afterall, the guy became rich due to his own attempts, or luck, or whatever). In contrast, a socialist would say that red
Anyway, you didn't understand my point. I am talking about wealth disparancy. My point is this. Around 50% of Americans own corporations (via the stock market) yet they only control something like 20% of the corporations (in terms of wealth/ownership). The point here is that this will generally be always true under an elitist system like capitalism. So what's the point? If the majority of the population only controls 20%, it doesn't really make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
(Of course, YOU, as an individual, might become wealthy and be part of the 30% (or whatever) that controls 70% of the stock market. But I am talking about society as a whole. Whether YOU become wealthy or not is irrelevant to me. What I care about is what happens to society as a whole.)
As for employees owning the company, United Airlines tried that and ended up going bankrupt.
If people owned only one company, it would definitely be risky. It also wouldn't solve anything in the long term. If you owned only your company and even if it did well, the problems will still exist. YOU will become wealthy but no one else will. We will end up with the same situation as now, with a few wealthy hoarding a lot--except you will belong to the wealthy class now.
The ideal solution would be for EVERYONE to own EVERYTHING. A simple case of this would be if everyone owned every stock in the stock market (basically own an index of all stocks). Then again, this might actually be socialism (except with modern financial markets). This might be anti-capitalist (and hence shunned by capitalists).
Here in colorado, it only takes $50 to incorporate, but most people would rather send that $50 on games, beer, pot, etc...
Owning your own corporation which is up to no good;) does nothing. The problem is that you have to own a business that is successful in some sense. Having paper titles to a corporation does nothing! You have to partake in the wealth accrued by the economy!
Also, only a finite number of people (I would argue less than 25%) are capable of--or want to--run businesses. So the vast majority of people will not try starting businesses. This is just like how only 25% (probably) care about science--the majority doesn't care what goes on in science. Or how only 25% probably care about econopolitics (the real stuff; not the fake rhetoric and propaganda coming out of of governments).
On the contrary. The market for jobs determines the fair wage for a worker.
Most non-capitalists and socialists, like me, do not consider what you describe as fair wage. Fair wage, to us, has a more specific meaning. What you call fair wage has nothing to do with fairness. Instead, it is market wage.
Because the market determines wage (intersection of supply and demand), there is no concept of overpaid and underpaid to capitalists (i.e. someone who supports capitalism and subscribes to that theory). A CEO making $22 million is no more overpaid than a factory worker making minimum is underpaid. At least that's the capitalist view.
If you are more efficient than the average coder, and you are being paid the average wage, it is in some company's interest to pay you more to produce more. This is underpayment in the capitalist market.
If you are being paid a particular wage, that's what yo uare worth. That's basic capitalist theory. You may think you are worth more (or less) but that's irrelevant.
Capitalists will do anything to maxamize profits, typically. This may or may not involve driving wages as low as possible (which would be $0, theoretically.)
I think it has to be nonzero positive value. But anyway, driving wages down is one of the most popular ways of maximizing profits. Wages are huge component of most employers' costs so they try to drive it down at all times.
Outsourcing allows profits to increase, and with competition will allow prices to be dropped. Protectionist policies will cause labor costs to be artifically high - which causes prices to be high. This results in a tax on everyone to pay higher prices - due to an inefficient market.
I'm not a capitalist and I'm ok with paying "taxes" or more accurately, subsidizing others. You might be selfish (like all capitalists) and might not want to do that.
USA did not become wealthy because of capitalism (although it helped it.) If what you are saying were true, then Europe (at least the parts that are largely capitalist like Britain) would have kept pace. Also, Latin America, which followed US-style capitalism, would be wealthy, yet it is worse off now than ever.
USA became wealthy for the following reasons:
Trade: The number one reason countries, or civilizations, become wealthy is due to trade. USA largely accumulated its wealth in the 1800's (not 1900's as many think). This was mostly due to trade. By late 1800's, USA was the most prosperous country and had the largest GDP in the world. Civilizations like India and China (circa 100 BCE to 200CE) became wealthy for similar reasons.
War (or lack thereof): USA was founded on non-interventionist principles. It has stuck with that principle for the most part (until it switched to imperialism in the 1940's of course). War was a massive drain on resources (not to mention the fact that it destroys everything) and USA somehow managed to avoid many of them. All throughout the 1700's and 1800's, USA avoided getting entangled in the European wars. This essentially enabled them to be more prosperous than their wealtheir European counterparts.
Freedom: Since USA was founded by liberals and libertarians who valued freedoms (American Founding Fathers are called classical liberals for a reason), USA was better off than Europe which wasn't as free with their monarchies, imperialists, colonialists, and authoratarians. This particularly led to the rapid increase of science, at the expensive of religion--which was a good thing. Scientific advances can immensely help a civilization/country.
Those are the main reasons for the prosperity of USA. Capitalists always love to claim that capitalism is the driver but that is false. What capitalists use as minimum criteria for capitalism was probably not even present until the 1900's. USA wasn't very capitalist in the 1700's or 1800's.
Any country that can leverage the three factors I described can be prosperous. History has shown this. Right from India and China, down to USA, that has been the recipe for sucess. Sure, you can become wealthy via imperialism and colonialism too but that is not very stable. So it doesn't matter what system you practice; the key things are: freedom, trade, and non-intervention (avoidance of wars).
To further strenthen my argument, let me make a prediction. Any country that deviates from those three factors will decline. Present day USA is not doing anything it did in the past. USA switched to imperialism and "total war for total peace" ideology in the 1900's (definitely after WWII). It also is weakening its freedoms due to the rise in conservatism and imperialism (imperialists generally curb freedom at home). The present path of USA will lead to its collapse within 70 years. Yes, I just became Nostradamus (take that Nate;) ).
The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves)...
There is something you are overlooking with anti-capitalist measures like minimum wage. The increase is SUBSIDIZED by the higher classes. So yes, prices go up but it is subsidized across the whole spectrum (including the middle and upper classes). What this does is that the increase isn't so large. This is the principle by which socialist institutions and policies work. A socialist institution like a library, for example, works because it is subsidized by everyone. Only a few use the library while many pay for it. So the cost of the library is spread across the whole spectrum. Minimum wage is somewhat similar (since only a fraction of the people work at minimum wage--most don't). THe lower classes actually benefit from minimum wage because they aren't borne the full costs. If EVERYONE was working at minimum wage, I would agree with your view that the increase in wage will be passed on and the lower classes wouldn't benefit. However, only a few work at minimum wage so it works.
You are most likely against minimum wage because you are nowhere near the lower classes and hence you don't want to subsidize their wage increases. All of your other arguments are nonsensical. Passing on the costs is not a big thing. You can probably poll the lower classes and ask them whether they want wage increases (i.e. minimum wage) with higher costs passed down or no minimum wage, and they will likely pick the first one--and it's a correction/rational decision too.
Politicians necessarily have foresight that lasts only a few years into the future, which is why they are so dangerous to citizens and why citizens should never put much faith in the government.
That applies to anyone. I mean, corporations, perhaps the most important capitalist institutions, are very short term oriented as well. You mention things like tax cuts and medicare. These are actually long-term plans. The tax cut is something like a 10-year trillion cut and the medicare is long term as well. The tax cuts, for example, were largely supported by all the leading capitalists and their institutions (including Federal Reserve Bank Chairman).
If you don't want to put faith in the government that's fine. But you should do it because they are corrupt--not for the reasons you say.
Clearly, any arguments against a capitalist like you is going to fall on deaf ears...
I care more about unemployment and working conditions than inflation. Capitalists, like you, care more about inflation and growth rate than anything. People could end up working 12 hours a day for low wages (and basically become exploited robots like in poor countries) and capitalists like you won't care. To you, it would make no difference: inflation will still be under control and growth will still be sufficient. I, on the other hand, will not put up with that.
According to capitalist theory, inflation and unemployment are inversely correlated. You can't have both. You, like all capitalists (especially the popular neo-liberal economists), pick inflation as being more important. I, being an anti-capitalist, is picking the other side.
One final note... Judging from your comment on homelessness, you either have no clue what homelessness is or you don't care. Homelessness has nothing to do with minimum wage. It is a social problem, not an economic one! Homeless people have personal problems that need to be dealt with. That's why they are on the street. It's not because they can't find any work. You CAN find jobs at minimum wage (if you can't, you can always revert to the underground economy, or the black market, or the gray market, or something). Yet homeless people don't. It's because these people need social help more than anything. It's too bad you don't realize that but hopefully you will one day.
You cannot reach the stage where workers has improved conditions without asking for it. The capitalists will always suppress wages and like to keep all the profits for themselves. If you dont' believe me, look at history.
In the early 1900's (say 1930's to 1950's), workers in USA (and Europe) were very poor. The conditions at that time were similar to what most poor and developing countries face (Korea is actually better than what USA was at that time). The economy wasn't as good either. However, the workers demanded--and fought for--benefits. That is why most workers in USA have good conditions now.
If someone was following your argument (which is nothing new by the way: it is a classical capitalist argument against worker benefits), then someone could argue that the workers in USA in the mid 1900's should NOT ask for wage increases and better conditions. Fortunately, your advice (or at least your bretheren at that time) wasn't followed. If your line of thinking was followed, the workers in USA would still be as poor as they were in the mid 1900's. The owners would not share the profits (that's what wage increases and improved conditions are!) and things would pretty much be similar.
To put this into the modern day, Korea will unlikely EVER be at the level of the G7 in the near future. Even if Korea becomes wealthier, the G7 will likely become even more wealthier. Under your thinking, the workers will never get to the point that they can really ask for better compensation.
Slashdot Mirror
How about the case where costs and benefits conflict? Last time I checked, this conflict is always present. In such a case, the company always picks costs as being more important than placating the worker.
Can we also stop with this knowledge worker junk? Knowledge worker is something cooked up by (guess who?) and it has very little meaning.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Economics is a SCIENCE
lol Economics is nothing more than modern day alchemy. It has little to do with reality.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The answer has to do with ideologies, ideals, and philosophies....
Let me generalize this to left-wing, as opposed to just liberals. To most, liberals and the left is pretty synonymous anyway.
It's not that liberals dont' believe in defense; it's just taht they are not as pro-military as conservatives. Don't forget that guys like FDR (who led USA into WWII) and LBJ (who led USA into Vietnam) are liberals. Anyway...
The left-wing, in general, believes in peace over war. This is why leftists are more anti-war than right-wingers. This essentially means that the left (and hence liberals) support the military less than conservatives (who worship the military).
Most people on the left also believe that shrinking the military will lead to peace, rather than increasing it. There are several reasons for this. First of all, having a large military will necessarily lead to wars. The military will not want to sit around doing nothing. Second, opponents will attempt to increase their own militaries as well, resulting in greater probability of death and destruction.
As well, many leftists view large militaries (and police forces, and everything goes with it) as weakening freedoms. This is especially true the farther one is from the center (i.e. between left and far-left). People at this position in the econopolitical spectrum are anti-state, and the state's power comes from the military (the government and the politicians have no power without the military (you can check by looking at other countries and military coups)).
Another thing to note is that the notion of defense is treated more sceptically by liberals than conservatives. Many liberals know that what passes for defense is mostly offense. Ever since war departments were renamed to defense departments (circa 1940's/50's), this has mainly been true...
So to sum it up, the difference on military policy between liberals and conservatives has to do with the ideals underlying liberalism vs conservatism. Liberalism tries to create peace by eliminating the militaries of the world; conservatism tries to create peace by projecting military power. In general, a conservative would say USA is well protected (since it has the largest military and hence the most power). A liberal, in contrast, would probably say that a country like Sweden is more protected (since the threats against it are less than USA, even though Swedish military is extremely weak and has little power). This view is reflected in the world view and foreign policy of the country. You can usually tell who is running the country by looking at foreign policy*.
(* Although in two party or one party states like USA, where both the Democrats and Republicans are almost identical, it is hard to say).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
As for _No Logo_, there was a recent issue involving Firestone tires. They tended to come apart and cause accidents. Don't you think it's nice that all of the Firestone tires have "Firestone" written on the side so that I can avoid buying them in the future? Or would you prefer that all tires come unbranded, and you just hope that you don't get a Firestone the next time you need tires?
In general, companies just switch their names. The company is still pretty much the same but they are called something different to confuse the masses. This happens all the time. Things like takeovers (eg. Arthur Andersen being sold off after Enron), or creating shell companies (eg. Hollinger International) is very common in the business world.
I argue that branding is nothing more than an attempt brainwash the masses (so that they can buy a particular product). All the benefits cited in this thread are mainly due to other factors, such as quality control and MOST IMPORTANTLY size of corporations. I claim that a heavily branded product from a smaller company is worse than one from a large company. This is more reflective of business than the opposite being put forth by many here (namely, brand increases quality, rather than my argument that it depends on the size of corporation). A good example of this is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's branding is weaker than many higher-end retailers. However, it is much larger. Therefore, Wal-Mart attracts more people (even with inferior brands) than the higher-end retailers. People go to Wal-Mart not just because costs are lower but because they can return a product with no questions (including reasons where the customer is at fault).
It just so happens that the large corporations can afford to spend more money on advertising and branding. Therefore, it seems that branding improves quality of service. However, I claim that that reality is that the quality of service is dependent on the size of the corporation. Most of the products I have purchased have been better if they are from large corporations, regardless of branding.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The basic stuructre of the universe may be fairies scrunched up by angels and used to play cosmological billiards with, but don't expect a mathematical theory based on it soon.
;)
I'm sure some theist is working on that theory
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You raise a good point: can a community created system ever be more accurate than a professionaly created one? It's almost like open-source with respect to knowledge. Another similar example is independent, non-profit, media vs established professional media.
I don't what the right answer is... it remains to be seen. All I can say is... open-source software (which is largely created by hobbyists and for non-profit reasons) seems to match professional software... non-profit, community-based, media is NOt as good as professional media right now... wikipedia is also not as good as professional encyclopedias (like Encarta for instance)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not in the field so I'm not sure what happened exactly... but my IMPRESSION was that Hawking PROVED it, while the ones you mention CAME up with some ideas.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
And no, quantum randomness DOES NOT allow for free will.
Why not? I always thought of that as being free will...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
So, once the object goes past the event horizon, it's being accellerated _faster_ than the speed of light toward the center of the black hole.
... on the event horizon as physics breaks down.
:(
:| )
I'm not an astrophysist but I think that's wrong. I don't think anything is accelerated beyond the speed of light--even within a black hole!!! Can someone else shed some light on this? I don't see why something would pass speed of light inside a black hole...
I think that is not correct either. Physics does NOT break down at the event horizon (from what I know). Rather, physics breaks down at the singularity deep within the black hole. I think the event horizon is well understood. (Actually you may mean something else--in which case you would be right. You are correct if you say that Newtonian Physics breaks down at the event horizon. However, Einstein's Relativity Theory can be used at the event horizon. However, inside the singularity, everything breaks down. We* need quantum gravity, which merges quatum physics and relativity. We haven't developed quatum gravity yet).
Having said that, we don't know what happens inside the black hole. Since nothing can escape, we have practically no observational evidence of anything inside. So all we have are theories.
BTW, someone correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. I am not 100% sure either--since I'm not in the field
(* When I say 'we', I'm talking about humanity. I'm not saying *I* am part of this whole thing. I never even took physics in university
Sivaram Velauthapillai
DISCLAIMER: I am not an astrophysist
It is best to think of these things as VIRTUAL particles. A pair of virtual particles form anywhere in the universe (has nothing to do with black holes). After a short while, the pair merges with itself (i.e. the two particles (pair) collides and annihilates itself). That is what happens in general.
If there is a black hole, and hence an event horizon, there is a probability that one part of the virtual pair can form inside the black hole (i.e. within the event horizon) while the other part of the pair forms outside the horizon. Since nothing inside the event horizon can escape the black hole (gravity of black hole stronger than anything else), the pair inside gets sucked in while the pair outside can freely leave. The outside particle is what we call as radiation form the black hole.
So to answer your question ('If not, why don't the particles that don't fall in destroy each other, and why does the black holes net mass change?')... the pair that completely forms outside does destroy itself. The pair that is partly outside and partly inside does not get destroyed (because the gravity of the black hole won't let the inside particle get away and collide with the outside one).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I am not a physist but my limited understanding is that gravity does not repel ANYTHING. Gravity only attracts. I have never heard of any particle or matter/energy that is repelled somehow by gravity. (someone correct me if I'm wrong--thanks).
:) ) is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne. Check it out. It's a really good book... no, I don't get paid for advertising this book :( :)
If you go with that view (i.e. gravity doesn't repel) then your final conclusion is wrong (since you are assuming some particles are repelled).
I think the best way to think of these things is as VIRTUAL particles.
BTW, if you are interested in black holes, an excellent book (for the layperson, like me
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Democracies treat everyone as equals. Anything that deviates from it will be an elitist system.
Whether people are illiterate or not doesn't make THAT much difference. MAny people in USA and Canada don't bother reading anything anyway. A politician's speech or television advertising probably has a greater impact than anything they read.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Yeah... proportional representation is the way to go. That will be closer to true democracy. Anything else is an attempt to euqalize the smaller districts, which often leads to side-effects.
Having said that, it isn't happening in USA any time soon. It is in the interest of the two dominant parties to keep it as it is.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I haven't seen the movie but from what I read, it really wouldn't appeal to anyone unless they were Christian (I'm an athiest BTW). Rumour has it that Mel is thinking of making more Christian movies (due to this success) so maybe his future films will explain things better.
As far as anti-Semitism is concerned, I'm not going to go there.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Jim is Catholic. I know because he is the lead in my favourite movie of all time: The Thin Red Line.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The system that MAXIMIZES freedom and trade would be anarchism. So it definitely isn't capitalism.
;) or if I banned certain corporations from conducting business because I want my allies to benefit, that is definitely abuse of freedoms. However, this has more to do with corruption and is not reflective of market intervention...
Capitalism has little to do with freedom. If you don't think so, you haven't looked around hard enough. Nazism, which is more capitalist than socialist, is totalitarian. Kuwait, which is arguably more capitalist than Canada, provides very few freedoms to anyone (unless you are a foreigner or part of the monarchy establishment of course). Singapore, which some claim is more capitalist than even USA, is a totalitarian country.
Having said that, capitalism DOES promote trade. Although, it can be argued that the type of trade promoted by capitalism is not what benefits countries. Don't forget: the type of trade matters. Colonialism (which is nothing more than looting resources from some country) involved a lot of trade but it didn't benefit much of humanity. Many argue that modern day globalization (trade in the name of capitalism) is not benefitting many countries (only the wealthy owners of the corporations and a few rich countries benefit).
Socialism artifically changes the markets, so companies are forced to react (not free to react).
By freedom, I'm mainly talking about politics (not economics). Freedom to me involves things like freedom of speech, press, and things like that. I don't really consider economic issues to be free. Any restriction on the market, under socialist-type systems, is supposed to be in the interest of society. If a government restricts business by erecting environmental regulations, or worker regulations, or whatever, it is supposed to benefit society. I do NOT consider such things as taking away from freedoms. Obviously, capitalists would disagree (they would consider market intervention to be taking away freedoms). So, market intervention has little to do with freedoms* IMO.
NOTES:
* There are a couple points to be made about this. Clearly, market intervention CAN take away freedoms. For example, if I became Vice-President of USA and started handing out billion dollar contracts to my friends
The second point I wanted to make was to justify my thinking of why market intervention is not taking away freedoms. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. Freedom with no limitations makes no sense whatsoever. Freedom only makes sense within the context of society and how society benefits (including individuals/minorities**). For example, consider your freedom to do whatever you want. Such freedom makes no sense without some context of society. If you had the freedom to do whatever you want, you may come and kill me. Is that really freedom? For you, yes; but not for me. You have the freedom to do whatever you want but I end up being killed. Society as a whole must have some say. In this case, the view of most societies is that people can do whatever but not kill others. Governments actually pass laws saying that you cannot kill me, and I cannot kill you, and so on. I do NOT consider such laws to be taking away freedoms. It is done in the interest of society so it has nothing to do with weakening freedom. That is a similar argument to market intervention. I am perfectly ok with governments manipulating the market in the interest of society. Such action does not take away freedom any more than passing a law banning murder takes away your freedom to live.
** One should not just consider society as a whole but the individuals as well. Otherwise it would not be consistent with liberalism (eg. majority may oppress minority, as with slavery)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think people understand that very well. I certainly do! So the problem is NOT what is causing the imbalance (we know the answer). The real issue is how to prevent it.
Capitalists, who are elitists, don't care about this discrepancy. Non-capitalists, like me, do care.
In life, the descriptions of events are often easy. One just needs to perform some observations. The difficulties are coming up with solutions. For instance, it is easy to explain why a tiny few controlled politics in, say, 1700's (the answer would basically include monarchy, aristocracy, elitism, and merchantilism). The real difficulty, at that time, was coming up with a way of rectifying the perceived problem. The final solution consisted of abolishing monarchy (replace with "democracy"), curbing merchantilism (ended up being replaced by a close relative of it: capitalism), and so forth.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Not quite. It is possible to be paid more or less than your market value, but capitalism says that the market will correct itself quickly, so you won't be over or under-paid for long, in comparison to your market value.
True... but I'm not talking about these inefficiencies or anamolies; I'm talking about after it stabilizes (the market wage). Read my third comment to see what I mean.
If this were a serious discussion, I would hope you would back up these extremely vague claims with at least a few specific claims.
I'm not going to waste my time looking this up (sorry, I don't have any bookmarks or anything that I can reference quickly). You can try looking it up. In most industries, the major component of variable costs are wages. This is blatantly obvious for service industries but is also true for many other industries.
The reality is, in a free market, if a company wants to succeed (which they do), they will have to pay market value for their employees.
I am assuming the employer in question is paying market wage (no inefficiencies, mistakes, etc). Even if a company pays market wage, it can be above or below fair wage. To a capitalist, market wage and fair wage are the same thing. To me, it's not. Fair wage, in my view, would include things like worker conditions, welfare, cost of living, and things like that. For example, someone being paid $5/hour in USA (in the underground market) is not getting fair wage but they certainly are getting market wage.
I think it's interesting that you see this issue in terms of the large corporation versus the blue collar worker. While that undeniably a part of this discussion, you can't exclude small businesses from the picture, where forcing a company to pay an artificially high price for labor could mean forcing that company to close its doors.
It's about employer vs employee (or capitalist (i.e. owner) vs worker). My comments apply equally well to small corporations. In fact, workers are exploited more in small companies than large ones (unless they get ownership or something). This is going to be surprising to you but it will point out our different world views: I would rather have that small business that you mention go out of business than it exist and provide "unfair" wages! If a small business can't provide what I call fair wage then I'm perfectly ok with not having them in my economy/country. If your business can't provide fair wages, I don't care if you go out of business. This argument is similar to leftist argument against highly polluting businesses*.
And I'm sure you'll agree...$1/hour is better than no job at all.
No, I disagree! I'm ok with having no job (whatever that means; as if you have to have low wage jobs) than having $1/hour** jobs. That's why I am in favour of minimum wage. If you were in favour of having a job at any wage, then you would be against minimum wage. This view is what seperates us. You don't care about wages. All you care about is some notion of jobs.
Why do you stoop to a personal attack here? So much for a rational debate.
There is no such thing as a rational debate in these cases. We can present our views and debate them but there is very little rationality in any of them. The reason for this that econopolitics (what I call politics+economics) is about ideals, principles, and philosophies. One cannot rationalize anything (except within one system). If we could have a rational debate, we can prove one view and all of us would admit that is the best policy and go from there. Instead, there is never any agree because of underlying differences. For example, a socialist would consider it evil that a few people can hoard large amounts of wealth (and consequently power, and everything else that goes with it) under capitalism. To a capitalist, that is perfectly fine (afterall, the guy became rich due to his own attempts, or luck, or whatever). In contrast, a socialist would say that red
What's an ISM?
Anyway, you didn't understand my point. I am talking about wealth disparancy. My point is this. Around 50% of Americans own corporations (via the stock market) yet they only control something like 20% of the corporations (in terms of wealth/ownership). The point here is that this will generally be always true under an elitist system like capitalism. So what's the point? If the majority of the population only controls 20%, it doesn't really make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
(Of course, YOU, as an individual, might become wealthy and be part of the 30% (or whatever) that controls 70% of the stock market. But I am talking about society as a whole. Whether YOU become wealthy or not is irrelevant to me. What I care about is what happens to society as a whole.)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
As for employees owning the company, United Airlines tried that and ended up going bankrupt.
;) does nothing. The problem is that you have to own a business that is successful in some sense. Having paper titles to a corporation does nothing! You have to partake in the wealth accrued by the economy!
If people owned only one company, it would definitely be risky. It also wouldn't solve anything in the long term. If you owned only your company and even if it did well, the problems will still exist. YOU will become wealthy but no one else will. We will end up with the same situation as now, with a few wealthy hoarding a lot--except you will belong to the wealthy class now.
The ideal solution would be for EVERYONE to own EVERYTHING. A simple case of this would be if everyone owned every stock in the stock market (basically own an index of all stocks). Then again, this might actually be socialism (except with modern financial markets). This might be anti-capitalist (and hence shunned by capitalists).
Here in colorado, it only takes $50 to incorporate, but most people would rather send that $50 on games, beer, pot, etc...
Owning your own corporation which is up to no good
Also, only a finite number of people (I would argue less than 25%) are capable of--or want to--run businesses. So the vast majority of people will not try starting businesses. This is just like how only 25% (probably) care about science--the majority doesn't care what goes on in science. Or how only 25% probably care about econopolitics (the real stuff; not the fake rhetoric and propaganda coming out of of governments).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
On the contrary. The market for jobs determines the fair wage for a worker.
Most non-capitalists and socialists, like me, do not consider what you describe as fair wage. Fair wage, to us, has a more specific meaning. What you call fair wage has nothing to do with fairness. Instead, it is market wage.
Because the market determines wage (intersection of supply and demand), there is no concept of overpaid and underpaid to capitalists (i.e. someone who supports capitalism and subscribes to that theory). A CEO making $22 million is no more overpaid than a factory worker making minimum is underpaid. At least that's the capitalist view.
If you are more efficient than the average coder, and you are being paid the average wage, it is in some company's interest to pay you more to produce more. This is underpayment in the capitalist market.
If you are being paid a particular wage, that's what yo uare worth. That's basic capitalist theory. You may think you are worth more (or less) but that's irrelevant.
Capitalists will do anything to maxamize profits, typically. This may or may not involve driving wages as low as possible (which would be $0, theoretically.)
I think it has to be nonzero positive value. But anyway, driving wages down is one of the most popular ways of maximizing profits. Wages are huge component of most employers' costs so they try to drive it down at all times.
Outsourcing allows profits to increase, and with competition will allow prices to be dropped. Protectionist policies will cause labor costs to be artifically high - which causes prices to be high. This results in a tax on everyone to pay higher prices - due to an inefficient market.
I'm not a capitalist and I'm ok with paying "taxes" or more accurately, subsidizing others. You might be selfish (like all capitalists) and might not want to do that.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
USA became wealthy for the following reasons:
Those are the main reasons for the prosperity of USA. Capitalists always love to claim that capitalism is the driver but that is false. What capitalists use as minimum criteria for capitalism was probably not even present until the 1900's. USA wasn't very capitalist in the 1700's or 1800's.
Any country that can leverage the three factors I described can be prosperous. History has shown this. Right from India and China, down to USA, that has been the recipe for sucess. Sure, you can become wealthy via imperialism and colonialism too but that is not very stable. So it doesn't matter what system you practice; the key things are: freedom, trade, and non-intervention (avoidance of wars).
To further strenthen my argument, let me make a prediction. Any country that deviates from those three factors will decline. Present day USA is not doing anything it did in the past. USA switched to imperialism and "total war for total peace" ideology in the 1900's (definitely after WWII). It also is weakening its freedoms due to the rise in conservatism and imperialism (imperialists generally curb freedom at home). The present path of USA will lead to its collapse within 70 years. Yes, I just became Nostradamus (take that Nate
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The wage increases get passed right back to customers (e.g., the wage-earners themselves)...
There is something you are overlooking with anti-capitalist measures like minimum wage. The increase is SUBSIDIZED by the higher classes. So yes, prices go up but it is subsidized across the whole spectrum (including the middle and upper classes). What this does is that the increase isn't so large. This is the principle by which socialist institutions and policies work. A socialist institution like a library, for example, works because it is subsidized by everyone. Only a few use the library while many pay for it. So the cost of the library is spread across the whole spectrum. Minimum wage is somewhat similar (since only a fraction of the people work at minimum wage--most don't). THe lower classes actually benefit from minimum wage because they aren't borne the full costs. If EVERYONE was working at minimum wage, I would agree with your view that the increase in wage will be passed on and the lower classes wouldn't benefit. However, only a few work at minimum wage so it works.
You are most likely against minimum wage because you are nowhere near the lower classes and hence you don't want to subsidize their wage increases. All of your other arguments are nonsensical. Passing on the costs is not a big thing. You can probably poll the lower classes and ask them whether they want wage increases (i.e. minimum wage) with higher costs passed down or no minimum wage, and they will likely pick the first one--and it's a correction/rational decision too.
Politicians necessarily have foresight that lasts only a few years into the future, which is why they are so dangerous to citizens and why citizens should never put much faith in the government.
That applies to anyone. I mean, corporations, perhaps the most important capitalist institutions, are very short term oriented as well. You mention things like tax cuts and medicare. These are actually long-term plans. The tax cut is something like a 10-year trillion cut and the medicare is long term as well. The tax cuts, for example, were largely supported by all the leading capitalists and their institutions (including Federal Reserve Bank Chairman).
If you don't want to put faith in the government that's fine. But you should do it because they are corrupt--not for the reasons you say.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Clearly, any arguments against a capitalist like you is going to fall on deaf ears...
I care more about unemployment and working conditions than inflation. Capitalists, like you, care more about inflation and growth rate than anything. People could end up working 12 hours a day for low wages (and basically become exploited robots like in poor countries) and capitalists like you won't care. To you, it would make no difference: inflation will still be under control and growth will still be sufficient. I, on the other hand, will not put up with that.
According to capitalist theory, inflation and unemployment are inversely correlated. You can't have both. You, like all capitalists (especially the popular neo-liberal economists), pick inflation as being more important. I, being an anti-capitalist, is picking the other side.
One final note... Judging from your comment on homelessness, you either have no clue what homelessness is or you don't care. Homelessness has nothing to do with minimum wage. It is a social problem, not an economic one! Homeless people have personal problems that need to be dealt with. That's why they are on the street. It's not because they can't find any work. You CAN find jobs at minimum wage (if you can't, you can always revert to the underground economy, or the black market, or the gray market, or something). Yet homeless people don't. It's because these people need social help more than anything. It's too bad you don't realize that but hopefully you will one day.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You cannot reach the stage where workers has improved conditions without asking for it. The capitalists will always suppress wages and like to keep all the profits for themselves. If you dont' believe me, look at history.
In the early 1900's (say 1930's to 1950's), workers in USA (and Europe) were very poor. The conditions at that time were similar to what most poor and developing countries face (Korea is actually better than what USA was at that time). The economy wasn't as good either. However, the workers demanded--and fought for--benefits. That is why most workers in USA have good conditions now.
If someone was following your argument (which is nothing new by the way: it is a classical capitalist argument against worker benefits), then someone could argue that the workers in USA in the mid 1900's should NOT ask for wage increases and better conditions. Fortunately, your advice (or at least your bretheren at that time) wasn't followed. If your line of thinking was followed, the workers in USA would still be as poor as they were in the mid 1900's. The owners would not share the profits (that's what wage increases and improved conditions are!) and things would pretty much be similar.
To put this into the modern day, Korea will unlikely EVER be at the level of the G7 in the near future. Even if Korea becomes wealthier, the G7 will likely become even more wealthier. Under your thinking, the workers will never get to the point that they can really ask for better compensation.
Sivaram Velauthapillai