If Apple were truly an "advocate for the consumer", then they would drop their proprietary formats and allow their iTunes songs to be played by products other than their own.
That's why Jobs called on the music companies to get rid of drm, without drm music it could be played on any player. And Apple was the first to offer legal music without drm, other than groups like the Grateful Dead who allow recording and trading. It was only after EMI allowed Apple to get rid of drm when Apple was able to offer it.
Of course they are no more likely to do that than MS will be likely to port MS Office to Linux.
MS was stupid they didn't release Office for Linux, they may not of sold so many Windows licenses but they could of sold a lot of Office licenses to Linux users. Because they didn't Open Office gained a foothold in Linux and is now spreading to Windows and OS X. People get a good taste for opensource with OO then they'll be more willing to try other OS software as well. It could turn out MS's very monopolistic practices could do more harm than if they were more open. At least I hope so.
'Will it always really be necessary to keep offering such strong protections to creators at a cost to society?'
It was NEVER necessary.
'At what point could we look to patronage and ego to supply enough new works to keep things fresh, without needing copyright law at all?'
We are there. In fact, I would contend that patronage and ego would produce better quality materials than the commercialized crap we get now. Even movies, the greatest expense these days is paying actors (there are lots of actors in the world) and for special effects (serious artificial inflation in this field, several orders of magnitude).
Technology has made copyright obsolete, copyright was only implemented because of fear mongering by book publishers in the first place.
I bet just like you writers want to eat too. If a writer has to have another job that pays a living wage why would they want to take the tyme to write? Especially when someone can take what they wrote and sell it themselves? Ego only goes so far and there aren't a lot of patrons willing and able to subsidize writers.
On the other hand someone else responded to a post of mine like this saying that some buyers would be willing to buy from the writer in order to support the writer. But that's a gamble, one that some would be willing to take but not others. For instance I might be willing, self publish with an open source license as a way to get my writing in front of people. Then again I'm not dependent on writing to make a living and because I don't work I have a lot of free tyme.
I take it that you are referring to Australian dollars? New releases here in the US average sub-$14 and have for a while. In a perfect example of your explanation of prices finding the right point on the curve, CDs were $20 in the US about ten years ago.
CDs costs under $14 now? The last tyme I bought new CDs, about three years ago, the cheapest I paid was $18. And they weren't hot pop performers, the last few new CDs I bought were by Niko Case and Norah Jones, I suppose you could say they're pop jazz. For both Amazon is showing for the street price about what I paid for most of their CDs. Now, the last CDs I bought were only half that but they were used and included Melissa Etheridge and other older ones.
At what point could we look to patronage and ego to supply enough new works to keep things fresh, without needing copyright law at all?
Can you say the same about your work? Would you work only for ego and patronage? To expect artists to do so when you won't smacks of hypocrisy. I bet just like you, artists want to get paid for their work.
I'm not too up to date on the iPhone situation but I get the gist that you can ONLY get them with AT&T. Right?
I think you're wrong, that you can get an iPhone without getting ATT service. It's just that the iPhone is setup to only work with ATT's service without any hacking, which I think is BS. Hardware shouldn't be locked to one service carrier, you should be able to use any phone with any service. But Apple isn't the only one doing this other cell services sell cellphones that only work on their service without hacking.
I'll be brief for the sake of my sanity, your sanity, and the sanity of anyone who happens to stumble upon this.
Same here, and for these reasons as well as others I think this'll be my last reply on this thread.
On Mother Teresa Charity might be noble, but charity does not solve the basic problem of the monopoly of resources by some to the detriment of the majority of humanity. Perhaps state action can't solve it either, but, when it represents the coordinated efforts of society, it sure seems like it would have a far better chance. That's why we have Social Security and don't just send all of our retirees to the Salvation Army.
Oh, I agree charity doesn't solve the problem, it actually makes it worse. Charity begets the need for more charity. I like the way some Christians put it, I'll rather teach a person to fish than give them fish. Showing people how they can make a living is better than feeding them once, then again and again. As for Social Security, it may of been helpful during the Great Depression but by the tyme SS came into being the depression was already improving. Another thing is SS is supposed to be about making sure people will have enough income during retirement to be able to afford to live. And given all the boomers who are going to be retiring unless something's done the young will be working so retirees can collect SS. I don't recall how it is now but there's something like several people working for every retired person however by the tyme the last of the babyboomers retire there will only be three workers for each retired person. And the amount taken from people's paycheck will be greater than how much they receive in retirement on SS, if it doesn't go bankrupt. A person can take the same amount of money out to save and invest, starting at the age of 18 if a person saves just $2000 a year for 7 years, until the age of 25 by the tyme they are 65 at an ROI, Return on Investment, of 10% by the tyme they are 65 and retire they will have more than $800,000 invested. And all they saved and invested was $14,000. Yes there may be bad years but to make up for those just save and invest longer. Instead of saving for 7 years say, do so for 40 years. Also a person should take out a mortgage to buy a home, it will be paid off before retirement. They could even buy a starter home that's small. A few years later when they have a growing family they can sale it and buy a bigger home. Another idea is to buy a multiplex, a duplex or triplex say, and live in one unit while renting out the other(s). The rent they collect should pay most if not all of the mortgage payment for a triplex. And while the mortgage payment will remain flat, unless an ARM, Adjustable Rate Mortgage, is taken out, they can raise the rent they charge yearly. That's what's planned for me. I currently rent an apartment in a quadraplex, 4 apartments, however my sister owns the building and when there is enough equity built up in it she will sell it to me for the amount still left on the mortgage. Even living here the rent I collect will be more than enough to pay the mortgage, plus I won't have to pay rent, or the mortgage by myself. Oops, longer than I wanted but the thing is is if people work at it most can make a decent living and save for retirement.
On Marx and/or Marxism I have only argued for the coherence and power of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Nothing more, nothing less
Yes I realize now you were just explaining about Marxism and not just supporting it.
Read up on this. If Pinochet wasn't doing his damndest to forge Chile into a freemarket capitalist Utopia, nobody knows what he was doing.
He was running a typical military dictatorship. People, mostly lower class, were forced off their land and it was given to others. Native America
After all, if it wasn't important, half of the states wouldn't have tried to get out of the US in order to preserve it; and if it wasn't important, the other half of the states wouldn't have stopped them.
The US Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. Southern states felt they had rights the federal government was denying them.
Along those same lines, it is more than ironic that you elevate Thomas Jefferson as the paragon of the kind of free-market libertarian capitalist virtue that you seem to be extolling. Just out of curiosity, were the people that Jefferson held in slavery engaged in a "free and voluntary exchange" of their labor with him? Because surely Jefferson would understand the importance of such a thing, because if he didn't, then that would mean that this whole "free and voluntary exchange" was dependent on -- like Jefferson -- on coercion in order to get off the ground...
You bring up a good point about Thomas Jefferson, he was a contradiction in terms. Though he owned slaves he was against slavery, the slaves he owned he inherited from his father and his father-in-law. In his lifetime he freed two, and two others ran away but he didn't chase them down. All seven members of the Hemming family, he had an affair and children with Sally Hemming, were freed. And all were craftsmen. He supported equal rights for all people. In early drafts of the Declaration Of Independence he included statements that held all people enjoyed the same rights including blacks and women. However because many others had to sign the DOI and they didn't approve of those statements he had to remove them. What he said on slavery:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivatng and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people for whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.]
On Charity Well, your example of Mother Teresa in NYC is quite easy to read another way: that regulation in capitalist societies is a balancing act designed to protect people from the most egregious conditions created by capitalism not in order to undo capitalism, but in order to preserve it.
In a truly capitalistic society Mother Teresa would of been able to build her shelter, government wouldn't of blocked her. What threat would allowing her to do so be to capitalism? I can't think of any but you might come up with something.
On the Environment Your embrace of the EPA and environmental regulations should clue you in to something: the kind of capitalist Utopia that you think you want is actually not something that you want at all. You say that you want capitalism; you say that where there is governmental interference there is no capitalism; yet now you say you want governmental interference. Well, what which is it? It seems that all that you have really shown is that 1. you are not consistent; and 2. the kind of free-market Utopia you embrace would look more like distopia.
I think you misunderstand me, or are engaging in purposely distortion. As I said earlier I don't believe in having no government, I'm not
Hey, lots of us realized this and understood back in the 1950s, when President Eisenhower warned us about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex". And we've been pointing it out publicly ever since then, whenever there's an opportunity.
The thing is is even though Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex he actully made it stronger by building up the conflict in Viet Nam.
From a formal economic/political definition "liberal" is actually Laissez-faire, pro-big business, free-trade, etc;
Actually Liberals, while laissez faire, and pro freetrade, were not pro big business. Liberals were most concerned with liberty thus "Liberal". And they wouldn't of given anybody a monopoly on anything, be it a "Right of Way" monopoly for cable, phone, or power companies to lay down cable or fiber; or a monopoly on patents. Heck Liberals in general did not accept patents. I say general because some did accept them eventually. Thomas Jefferson was one, at first he was against patents and copyrights, but after discussing it with his friend James Madison he changed his mind. Madison convinced him patents will help more than hinder progress.
On the other hand, I haven't seen many politicans that I would call conservative. Seems like they love big government programs, spend like mad, wars of aggression, pork everywhere, dictating to their citizens what they can and cannot do, lots of new takes and fees, and stuff like that. They may lean to the right, but I wouldn't call the right conservative by any means.
Don't you mean you wouldn't consider them Liberal, Classical Liberal? It was the Liberals who wanted small government.
Since when did Clinton turn Liberal? Clinton was the guy who introduced the DMCA, 5 year max limit for anybody needing welfare, among other things.
You can have DMCA but the 5 year max for welfare, to people not corporations, was part of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America". Do you just love it how corporations can stay on welfare permanently but people can only stay on it 5 years?
So, uhhhh, when will Americans start to realize that there's just a wee bit of fascism taking hold of their nation? You'd think with something as clear-cut as this, more people would wake up to that fact...
Some of us have been wide awake the whole tyme, and have been complaining about it too.
Ah. I see the problem here. I was writing about the world as it actually exists, and you were writing about an abstract definition of capitalism that has not and will not ever exist.
Ah but for a brief period capitalism did exist, from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. In some places it lasted until the US Civil War.
Case in point: given that much of the labor force in the US was held in slavery in the 1830s, wouldn't it be fair to say that they were not, in fact, engaged in the free "voluntary exchange" of their labor?
You could say slaves only if you included indentured servants, those who were made serfs until their debt was paid off. Fact is is most slaves were in the south, which had a lower population density, more people lived in a given area of land in the northeast than did the same amount of land in the south. As for slavery, studies in economics of the period conclude that without the civil war slavery would have ended within a generation anyway. Forced labor as the slave provided is economically unsustainable. It costs more to buy, own, and secure slaves than it does to pay freemen a living wage when those slaves want to be free.
This is why you don't leave your keys in the car, and why, if your car is taken from you, you file a report with a branch of the state. This is why people who have no home don't just come and take yours while you are away on vacation -- because the state will come in with laws (and guns if necessary) to protect your property
None of these exhibit capitalism. Capitalism is a free and voluntary exchange. Having your car stolen isn't voluntary, neither is having someone move into your home uninvited. Yes, it's government's job to do something about these. The purpose of government is to protect it's citizens, mostly from invasion but also from criminals who would deny someone their rights. Otherwise for other things civil society can do a better job than government. I recall back in the late '80s and early '90s Mother Teresa wanted to setup a shelter for the homeless and abused in NYC, however the city had so many requirements and regulations that would of had to be met it became too expensive. If the city had gotten out of the way she could have helped many people. Look at those in India she helped, though she was Catholic many Hindus admired her. Heck even China has realized capitalism, pseudo capitalism, even if it's corrupted, works.
A nuclear power plant has some waste to dispose of but lacks the space to dispose of it. It is willing to pay for someone to take it. I have a place to put it, which is my own private property. They pay me. I bury the stuff in my backyard. This is free, voluntary exchange. Now, in your capitalist Utopia, would there be anything to stop me, or not?
Yes, because it's still a threat to your neighbors, those downwind, and those downstream. Let me clue you into something, though most Libertarians would abolish the EPA, I actually support a strong Environmental Protection Agency. Not only do I support one at the state and federal levels, I'd actually support one for all of earth, I'd support one for space if we ever colonize space. Pollution doesn't know anything about imaginary lines drawn on a paper map by humans. Take a look at the Inuit of the Artic Circle, the Inuit have high blood count of PCBs and other manmade toxic chemicals they'd never made or used themself.
Have notary notarize several basically blank pages (fill in only as much as you need to convince a notary to mark it).
Mail an unsealed envelope to yourself.
Fill in your 'discovery' 'borrowed' from someone else on the notarized pages years later.
Stick in envelope, seal, sign over seal.
Have the notary write a brief description of what it is then put it and whatever paper that's described in the envelop. Then apply the postage stamp on the seal and have the notary apply the notary seal to the envelop seal as well. Also some inks will run when exposed to steam so using one that does can be used to show the envelop wasn't steam opened. In the US though it won't do you much good unless you register a copyright, however in some countries like Britain it can help.
(Since copyright is automatic, you can technically avoid registration and still be protected, but registration serves the documentation role you are looking for without any technical trickery, and copyright registration isn't particularly expensive.)
In the US without registration all you could win in court if it went that far is to get a cease and desist order. The only way to collect damages is for it to be registered with the copyright office.
Every week, I send myself an unsealed envelope, registered mail. The post office thinks I'm weird, but when someone comes out with a cool idea, I write it up and stuff it in an old envelope and seal it...
A way to defeat that is to put the postage stamp on the sealed envelop seam. Better yet, in front of a notary public stuff the envelop and have them stamp the envelope then mail it.
Yeah, think about this: how can you prove the envelope was sealed, and contained it's present contents, when you mailed it? If this worked, you could just mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope tomorrow, and then 15 years from now you could stick whatever you wanted in it and seal it.
That bring up something I read about lawyers. I don't know if it's true but I read lawyers have to keep correspondence for 7 years, even email. This one lawyer upgraded his computer and wanted to how to copy all of his email over. Even the spam, 7 years of it, as he had to keep that as well.
Yeah, think about this: how can you prove the envelope was sealed, and contained it's present contents, when you mailed it? If this worked, you could just mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope tomorrow, and then 15 years from now you could stick whatever you wanted in it and seal it.
Seal the envelop in front of a notary public and have them stamp it.
Won't work. The "Post Office Patent", as it's called, is not valid in any court case, because nothing stops you from mailing an unsealed envelope to yourself and later filling it with material.
In the US you can have a notary public stamp the sealed envelope. I don't know if this will hold up in court today but it's a method writers have used for a long tyme.
Yes, I know what capitalism is; it seems that you have some illusions about it, though. If, as you say, "there is not capitalism if there's government interference" then I guess there really is no capitalism in the world at all, at least since the early 20th century.
I'm under no illusion capitalism exists in the US, or anywhere else. What we have is the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. The US hasn't had a freemarket capitalism since Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the US in the 1830s inspiring him to write the book "Democracy in America". This may be why Thomas Jefferson said there should be a revolution every 20 years or so and wrote about the "blood of tyrants and patriots". TJ knew big and powerful corporations like banks would gain control if government were to grow, corporations would use the power of government to keep their wealth if not grow wealthier and hinder competition. Well government has grown large, and in the US both Democrats and Republicans want to keep it that way. Therefore I support the Libertarian Party which stands up for small government and liberty.
the United States is a country with a capitalist economy. There are minimum wage laws, workers' comp laws, anti-discrimination laws, safety regulations, ag. subsidies, state concessions, sales taxes, property taxes, health regulations, and, well, the list goes on.
These examples of your's of government laws and regulations show just why the US is not capitalist. Of those you list above the only ones I support are property and sales taxes. I strongly believe the federal government should go back to the limits the USA Constitution puts on government. With a constitutionally limited government income tax could be abolished. What little funding government would need could be raised from consumption or sales tax, import duties, and usage fees; along with property tax at the state and local levels. One I am definitely opposed to are the massive farms subsidies. If you go back over other posts I've made you'll see I rail against farm subsidies frequently.
You seem to be saying that just because someone can't employ labor at $1.50/hr. to make lead-based marijuana cookies that they sell as infant food, or just because I can't turn my backyard into a nuclear waste disposal site even though it is my backyard, that somehow there isn't capitalism in the USA.
I'm saying no such thing, could you please point out exactly where I said such things? Or did you just pull that out of your ass?
But the original point was that the majority of people can't do what you do. People who live in densely populated areas can't grow much, let alone enough to feed them for a winter. 5.4 billion people WOULD probably die, leaving 600m people like you. Luckily, I live right next door to a corn field (lucky until they spread the fertilizer that is) and there are woods full of animals across the street. But there are a lot of people who don't live near other sources of food.
Up until the last generation most people lived in rural ares not in cities. Some of the fastest growing cities like Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are growing because rural people living and working on farms are being driven off their farms because they can't compeat with international agricultural businesses. I don't know where you're from or live but if you're in the US have you ever wondered why there are so many "illegal aliens" or immigrants from Mexico? One reason is because US agribusinesses can grow food like corn and exports it to Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow corn. The US subsidizes agribusiness to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year. With NAFTA in force they can then export food and sell it in Mexico cheaply. This is the biggest reason the WTO talks failed, countries in Africa, as well as Brazil and India demanded the EU, Japan, and the US to stop subsidizing their farms. The US agreed to reduce subsidizes some but the EU and Japan wouldn't. If the First World countries stopped farm subsidies then more Third World farmers could stay on their farms.
Sure you can forage for food, but that's not going to support many people. I think the point still stands changing from an urban buy food in a store lifestyle to subsistence-farmer take at least one crop cycle so it's not done over night, the settlers in America used to call spring the starving time because the winter stores were depleted and the crops in the ground weren't bearing any food.
I think you're hit the nail right on the head, explained the problem. Most city dwellers would never be able to survive on their own, they depend on rural farmers to bring them food and with more any more people moving to cities it's only going to get worse. I don't care where individuals live, it should be their choice, a preference for a lifestyle. However many of those moving to cities are doing so because it's economically unfeasible for them to live on their farms. This is especially true in the Third World. The EU, Japan, and the US subsidize their farmers heavily. And while I don't know about the EU or Japan, the US gives most of the billions of US taxpayer dollars to big agribusinesses like ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland, ADM. These subsidies allow these companies to export and sale food in Third World nations for cheaper than farmers in those countries can grow food. How can a Third World farmer compeat with large businesses who receive hugh subsidies?
Hmm.. in this country there aren't enough farmers, so subsidies are basically the only way to keep local farmers in business! If there is a steady stream of imported foods then that's fine, but in a serious war situation or if there was some kind of trade blockade in and out of our country we'd be pretty screwed without any national agriculture..:P
Thing is is most of the farm subsidies go to big agribusinesses like ConAgra, Archer Damiels Midland, and others. Small farmers don't see much of the billions of dollars in farm subsidies in the US.
Just as the authors of the Declaration of Independence in the US invoked God but sensibly left it out of the Constitution, Marx's early view of the post-revolutionary state was left out of Capital.
Actually The Writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, didn't invoke "God". His words were "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". TJ didn't believe in "God" as most Christians do and did. Neither did he believe in Christ as most do. TJ was a Deist, and while he believed Jesus was a great teacher he didn't believe he was the "Son of God". He even went so far as to take all of the passages about miracles and such out of a bible to create his Jefferson's Bible. He wrote to his son that religion was a private matter and that's where it should stay. Of course even back then a lot of Christian ministers were against him and painted him as a devil worshipper.
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If Apple were truly an "advocate for the consumer", then they would drop their proprietary formats and allow their iTunes songs to be played by products other than their own.
That's why Jobs called on the music companies to get rid of drm, without drm music it could be played on any player. And Apple was the first to offer legal music without drm, other than groups like the Grateful Dead who allow recording and trading. It was only after EMI allowed Apple to get rid of drm when Apple was able to offer it.
Of course they are no more likely to do that than MS will be likely to port MS Office to Linux.
MS was stupid they didn't release Office for Linux, they may not of sold so many Windows licenses but they could of sold a lot of Office licenses to Linux users. Because they didn't Open Office gained a foothold in Linux and is now spreading to Windows and OS X. People get a good taste for opensource with OO then they'll be more willing to try other OS software as well. It could turn out MS's very monopolistic practices could do more harm than if they were more open. At least I hope so.
Falcon'So when will copyright no longer be needed?'
Today
'Will it always really be necessary to keep offering such strong protections to creators at a cost to society?'
It was NEVER necessary.
'At what point could we look to patronage and ego to supply enough new works to keep things fresh, without needing copyright law at all?'
We are there. In fact, I would contend that patronage and ego would produce better quality materials than the commercialized crap we get now. Even movies, the greatest expense these days is paying actors (there are lots of actors in the world) and for special effects (serious artificial inflation in this field, several orders of magnitude).
Technology has made copyright obsolete, copyright was only implemented because of fear mongering by book publishers in the first place.
I bet just like you writers want to eat too. If a writer has to have another job that pays a living wage why would they want to take the tyme to write? Especially when someone can take what they wrote and sell it themselves? Ego only goes so far and there aren't a lot of patrons willing and able to subsidize writers.
On the other hand someone else responded to a post of mine like this saying that some buyers would be willing to buy from the writer in order to support the writer. But that's a gamble, one that some would be willing to take but not others. For instance I might be willing, self publish with an open source license as a way to get my writing in front of people. Then again I'm not dependent on writing to make a living and because I don't work I have a lot of free tyme.
FalconI take it that you are referring to Australian dollars? New releases here in the US average sub-$14 and have for a while. In a perfect example of your explanation of prices finding the right point on the curve, CDs were $20 in the US about ten years ago.
CDs costs under $14 now? The last tyme I bought new CDs, about three years ago, the cheapest I paid was $18. And they weren't hot pop performers, the last few new CDs I bought were by Niko Case and Norah Jones, I suppose you could say they're pop jazz. For both Amazon is showing for the street price about what I paid for most of their CDs. Now, the last CDs I bought were only half that but they were used and included Melissa Etheridge and other older ones.
FalconAt what point could we look to patronage and ego to supply enough new works to keep things fresh, without needing copyright law at all?
Can you say the same about your work? Would you work only for ego and patronage? To expect artists to do so when you won't smacks of hypocrisy. I bet just like you, artists want to get paid for their work.
FalconI'm not too up to date on the iPhone situation but I get the gist that you can ONLY get them with AT&T. Right?
I think you're wrong, that you can get an iPhone without getting ATT service. It's just that the iPhone is setup to only work with ATT's service without any hacking, which I think is BS. Hardware shouldn't be locked to one service carrier, you should be able to use any phone with any service. But Apple isn't the only one doing this other cell services sell cellphones that only work on their service without hacking.
FalconI do notice a wee bit of hypocrisy here in that Apple refused to pay universal, but expects for AT&T to pay a similar fine.
It's not hypocrisy at all, Apple makes both the iPhone and the iPod, it would be hypocrisy if ATT made the iPhone and Apple demanded royalty.
FalconI'll be brief for the sake of my sanity, your sanity, and the sanity of anyone who happens to stumble upon this.
Same here, and for these reasons as well as others I think this'll be my last reply on this thread.
On Mother Teresa Charity might be noble, but charity does not solve the basic problem of the monopoly of resources by some to the detriment of the majority of humanity. Perhaps state action can't solve it either, but, when it represents the coordinated efforts of society, it sure seems like it would have a far better chance. That's why we have Social Security and don't just send all of our retirees to the Salvation Army.
Oh, I agree charity doesn't solve the problem, it actually makes it worse. Charity begets the need for more charity. I like the way some Christians put it, I'll rather teach a person to fish than give them fish. Showing people how they can make a living is better than feeding them once, then again and again. As for Social Security, it may of been helpful during the Great Depression but by the tyme SS came into being the depression was already improving. Another thing is SS is supposed to be about making sure people will have enough income during retirement to be able to afford to live. And given all the boomers who are going to be retiring unless something's done the young will be working so retirees can collect SS. I don't recall how it is now but there's something like several people working for every retired person however by the tyme the last of the babyboomers retire there will only be three workers for each retired person. And the amount taken from people's paycheck will be greater than how much they receive in retirement on SS, if it doesn't go bankrupt. A person can take the same amount of money out to save and invest, starting at the age of 18 if a person saves just $2000 a year for 7 years, until the age of 25 by the tyme they are 65 at an ROI, Return on Investment, of 10% by the tyme they are 65 and retire they will have more than $800,000 invested. And all they saved and invested was $14,000. Yes there may be bad years but to make up for those just save and invest longer. Instead of saving for 7 years say, do so for 40 years. Also a person should take out a mortgage to buy a home, it will be paid off before retirement. They could even buy a starter home that's small. A few years later when they have a growing family they can sale it and buy a bigger home. Another idea is to buy a multiplex, a duplex or triplex say, and live in one unit while renting out the other(s). The rent they collect should pay most if not all of the mortgage payment for a triplex. And while the mortgage payment will remain flat, unless an ARM, Adjustable Rate Mortgage, is taken out, they can raise the rent they charge yearly. That's what's planned for me. I currently rent an apartment in a quadraplex, 4 apartments, however my sister owns the building and when there is enough equity built up in it she will sell it to me for the amount still left on the mortgage. Even living here the rent I collect will be more than enough to pay the mortgage, plus I won't have to pay rent, or the mortgage by myself. Oops, longer than I wanted but the thing is is if people work at it most can make a decent living and save for retirement.
On Marx and/or Marxism I have only argued for the coherence and power of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Nothing more, nothing less
Yes I realize now you were just explaining about Marxism and not just supporting it.
Read up on this. If Pinochet wasn't doing his damndest to forge Chile into a freemarket capitalist Utopia, nobody knows what he was doing.
He was running a typical military dictatorship. People, mostly lower class, were forced off their land and it was given to others. Native America
After all, if it wasn't important, half of the states wouldn't have tried to get out of the US in order to preserve it; and if it wasn't important, the other half of the states wouldn't have stopped them.
The US Civil War wasn't about slavery, it was about states rights. Southern states felt they had rights the federal government was denying them.
Along those same lines, it is more than ironic that you elevate Thomas Jefferson as the paragon of the kind of free-market libertarian capitalist virtue that you seem to be extolling. Just out of curiosity, were the people that Jefferson held in slavery engaged in a "free and voluntary exchange" of their labor with him? Because surely Jefferson would understand the importance of such a thing, because if he didn't, then that would mean that this whole "free and voluntary exchange" was dependent on -- like Jefferson -- on coercion in order to get off the ground...
You bring up a good point about Thomas Jefferson, he was a contradiction in terms. Though he owned slaves he was against slavery, the slaves he owned he inherited from his father and his father-in-law. In his lifetime he freed two, and two others ran away but he didn't chase them down. All seven members of the Hemming family, he had an affair and children with Sally Hemming, were freed. And all were craftsmen. He supported equal rights for all people. In early drafts of the Declaration Of Independence he included statements that held all people enjoyed the same rights including blacks and women. However because many others had to sign the DOI and they didn't approve of those statements he had to remove them. What he said on slavery:
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivatng and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people for whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.]
On Charity Well, your example of Mother Teresa in NYC is quite easy to read another way: that regulation in capitalist societies is a balancing act designed to protect people from the most egregious conditions created by capitalism not in order to undo capitalism, but in order to preserve it.
In a truly capitalistic society Mother Teresa would of been able to build her shelter, government wouldn't of blocked her. What threat would allowing her to do so be to capitalism? I can't think of any but you might come up with something.
On the Environment Your embrace of the EPA and environmental regulations should clue you in to something: the kind of capitalist Utopia that you think you want is actually not something that you want at all. You say that you want capitalism; you say that where there is governmental interference there is no capitalism; yet now you say you want governmental interference. Well, what which is it? It seems that all that you have really shown is that 1. you are not consistent; and 2. the kind of free-market Utopia you embrace would look more like distopia.
I think you misunderstand me, or are engaging in purposely distortion. As I said earlier I don't believe in having no government, I'm not
Hey, lots of us realized this and understood back in the 1950s, when President Eisenhower warned us about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex". And we've been pointing it out publicly ever since then, whenever there's an opportunity.
The thing is is even though Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex he actully made it stronger by building up the conflict in Viet Nam.
FalconFrom a formal economic/political definition "liberal" is actually Laissez-faire, pro-big business, free-trade, etc;
Actually Liberals, while laissez faire, and pro freetrade, were not pro big business. Liberals were most concerned with liberty thus "Liberal". And they wouldn't of given anybody a monopoly on anything, be it a "Right of Way" monopoly for cable, phone, or power companies to lay down cable or fiber; or a monopoly on patents. Heck Liberals in general did not accept patents. I say general because some did accept them eventually. Thomas Jefferson was one, at first he was against patents and copyrights, but after discussing it with his friend James Madison he changed his mind. Madison convinced him patents will help more than hinder progress.
FalconOn the other hand, I haven't seen many politicans that I would call conservative. Seems like they love big government programs, spend like mad, wars of aggression, pork everywhere, dictating to their citizens what they can and cannot do, lots of new takes and fees, and stuff like that. They may lean to the right, but I wouldn't call the right conservative by any means.
Don't you mean you wouldn't consider them Liberal, Classical Liberal? It was the Liberals who wanted small government.
FalconSince when did Clinton turn Liberal? Clinton was the guy who introduced the DMCA, 5 year max limit for anybody needing welfare, among other things.
You can have DMCA but the 5 year max for welfare, to people not corporations, was part of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America". Do you just love it how corporations can stay on welfare permanently but people can only stay on it 5 years?
FalconSo, uhhhh, when will Americans start to realize that there's just a wee bit of fascism taking hold of their nation? You'd think with something as clear-cut as this, more people would wake up to that fact...
Some of us have been wide awake the whole tyme, and have been complaining about it too.
FalconAh. I see the problem here. I was writing about the world as it actually exists, and you were writing about an abstract definition of capitalism that has not and will not ever exist.
Ah but for a brief period capitalism did exist, from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. In some places it lasted until the US Civil War.
Case in point: given that much of the labor force in the US was held in slavery in the 1830s, wouldn't it be fair to say that they were not, in fact, engaged in the free "voluntary exchange" of their labor?
You could say slaves only if you included indentured servants, those who were made serfs until their debt was paid off. Fact is is most slaves were in the south, which had a lower population density, more people lived in a given area of land in the northeast than did the same amount of land in the south. As for slavery, studies in economics of the period conclude that without the civil war slavery would have ended within a generation anyway. Forced labor as the slave provided is economically unsustainable. It costs more to buy, own, and secure slaves than it does to pay freemen a living wage when those slaves want to be free.
This is why you don't leave your keys in the car, and why, if your car is taken from you, you file a report with a branch of the state. This is why people who have no home don't just come and take yours while you are away on vacation -- because the state will come in with laws (and guns if necessary) to protect your property
None of these exhibit capitalism. Capitalism is a free and voluntary exchange. Having your car stolen isn't voluntary, neither is having someone move into your home uninvited. Yes, it's government's job to do something about these. The purpose of government is to protect it's citizens, mostly from invasion but also from criminals who would deny someone their rights. Otherwise for other things civil society can do a better job than government. I recall back in the late '80s and early '90s Mother Teresa wanted to setup a shelter for the homeless and abused in NYC, however the city had so many requirements and regulations that would of had to be met it became too expensive. If the city had gotten out of the way she could have helped many people. Look at those in India she helped, though she was Catholic many Hindus admired her. Heck even China has realized capitalism, pseudo capitalism, even if it's corrupted, works.
A nuclear power plant has some waste to dispose of but lacks the space to dispose of it. It is willing to pay for someone to take it. I have a place to put it, which is my own private property. They pay me. I bury the stuff in my backyard. This is free, voluntary exchange. Now, in your capitalist Utopia, would there be anything to stop me, or not?
Yes, because it's still a threat to your neighbors, those downwind, and those downstream. Let me clue you into something, though most Libertarians would abolish the EPA, I actually support a strong Environmental Protection Agency. Not only do I support one at the state and federal levels, I'd actually support one for all of earth, I'd support one for space if we ever colonize space. Pollution doesn't know anything about imaginary lines drawn on a paper map by humans. Take a look at the Inuit of the Artic Circle, the Inuit have high blood count of PCBs and other manmade toxic chemicals they'd never made or used themself.
Have notary notarize several basically blank pages (fill in only as much as you need to convince a notary to mark it).
Mail an unsealed envelope to yourself.
Fill in your 'discovery' 'borrowed' from someone else on the notarized pages years later. Stick in envelope, seal, sign over seal.
Have the notary write a brief description of what it is then put it and whatever paper that's described in the envelop. Then apply the postage stamp on the seal and have the notary apply the notary seal to the envelop seal as well. Also some inks will run when exposed to steam so using one that does can be used to show the envelop wasn't steam opened. In the US though it won't do you much good unless you register a copyright, however in some countries like Britain it can help.
Falcon(Since copyright is automatic, you can technically avoid registration and still be protected, but registration serves the documentation role you are looking for without any technical trickery, and copyright registration isn't particularly expensive.)
In the US without registration all you could win in court if it went that far is to get a cease and desist order. The only way to collect damages is for it to be registered with the copyright office.
FalconEvery week, I send myself an unsealed envelope, registered mail. The post office thinks I'm weird, but when someone comes out with a cool idea, I write it up and stuff it in an old envelope and seal it...
A way to defeat that is to put the postage stamp on the sealed envelop seam. Better yet, in front of a notary public stuff the envelop and have them stamp the envelope then mail it.
FalconYeah, think about this: how can you prove the envelope was sealed, and contained it's present contents, when you mailed it? If this worked, you could just mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope tomorrow, and then 15 years from now you could stick whatever you wanted in it and seal it.
That bring up something I read about lawyers. I don't know if it's true but I read lawyers have to keep correspondence for 7 years, even email. This one lawyer upgraded his computer and wanted to how to copy all of his email over. Even the spam, 7 years of it, as he had to keep that as well.
FalconYeah, think about this: how can you prove the envelope was sealed, and contained it's present contents, when you mailed it? If this worked, you could just mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope tomorrow, and then 15 years from now you could stick whatever you wanted in it and seal it.
Seal the envelop in front of a notary public and have them stamp it.
FalconWon't work. The "Post Office Patent", as it's called, is not valid in any court case, because nothing stops you from mailing an unsealed envelope to yourself and later filling it with material.
In the US you can have a notary public stamp the sealed envelope. I don't know if this will hold up in court today but it's a method writers have used for a long tyme.
FalconYes, I know what capitalism is; it seems that you have some illusions about it, though. If, as you say, "there is not capitalism if there's government interference" then I guess there really is no capitalism in the world at all, at least since the early 20th century.
I'm under no illusion capitalism exists in the US, or anywhere else. What we have is the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. The US hasn't had a freemarket capitalism since Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the US in the 1830s inspiring him to write the book "Democracy in America" . This may be why Thomas Jefferson said there should be a revolution every 20 years or so and wrote about the "blood of tyrants and patriots". TJ knew big and powerful corporations like banks would gain control if government were to grow, corporations would use the power of government to keep their wealth if not grow wealthier and hinder competition. Well government has grown large, and in the US both Democrats and Republicans want to keep it that way. Therefore I support the Libertarian Party which stands up for small government and liberty.
the United States is a country with a capitalist economy. There are minimum wage laws, workers' comp laws, anti-discrimination laws, safety regulations, ag. subsidies, state concessions, sales taxes, property taxes, health regulations, and, well, the list goes on.
These examples of your's of government laws and regulations show just why the US is not capitalist. Of those you list above the only ones I support are property and sales taxes. I strongly believe the federal government should go back to the limits the USA Constitution puts on government. With a constitutionally limited government income tax could be abolished. What little funding government would need could be raised from consumption or sales tax, import duties, and usage fees; along with property tax at the state and local levels. One I am definitely opposed to are the massive farms subsidies. If you go back over other posts I've made you'll see I rail against farm subsidies frequently.
You seem to be saying that just because someone can't employ labor at $1.50/hr. to make lead-based marijuana cookies that they sell as infant food, or just because I can't turn my backyard into a nuclear waste disposal site even though it is my backyard, that somehow there isn't capitalism in the USA.
I'm saying no such thing, could you please point out exactly where I said such things? Or did you just pull that out of your ass?
FalconBut the original point was that the majority of people can't do what you do. People who live in densely populated areas can't grow much, let alone enough to feed them for a winter. 5.4 billion people WOULD probably die, leaving 600m people like you. Luckily, I live right next door to a corn field (lucky until they spread the fertilizer that is) and there are woods full of animals across the street. But there are a lot of people who don't live near other sources of food.
Up until the last generation most people lived in rural ares not in cities. Some of the fastest growing cities like Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are growing because rural people living and working on farms are being driven off their farms because they can't compeat with international agricultural businesses. I don't know where you're from or live but if you're in the US have you ever wondered why there are so many "illegal aliens" or immigrants from Mexico? One reason is because US agribusinesses can grow food like corn and exports it to Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow corn. The US subsidizes agribusiness to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year. With NAFTA in force they can then export food and sell it in Mexico cheaply. This is the biggest reason the WTO talks failed, countries in Africa, as well as Brazil and India demanded the EU, Japan, and the US to stop subsidizing their farms. The US agreed to reduce subsidizes some but the EU and Japan wouldn't. If the First World countries stopped farm subsidies then more Third World farmers could stay on their farms.
FalconSure you can forage for food, but that's not going to support many people. I think the point still stands changing from an urban buy food in a store lifestyle to subsistence-farmer take at least one crop cycle so it's not done over night, the settlers in America used to call spring the starving time because the winter stores were depleted and the crops in the ground weren't bearing any food.
I think you're hit the nail right on the head, explained the problem. Most city dwellers would never be able to survive on their own, they depend on rural farmers to bring them food and with more any more people moving to cities it's only going to get worse. I don't care where individuals live, it should be their choice, a preference for a lifestyle. However many of those moving to cities are doing so because it's economically unfeasible for them to live on their farms. This is especially true in the Third World. The EU, Japan, and the US subsidize their farmers heavily. And while I don't know about the EU or Japan, the US gives most of the billions of US taxpayer dollars to big agribusinesses like ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland, ADM. These subsidies allow these companies to export and sale food in Third World nations for cheaper than farmers in those countries can grow food. How can a Third World farmer compeat with large businesses who receive hugh subsidies?
FalconHmm.. in this country there aren't enough farmers, so subsidies are basically the only way to keep local farmers in business! If there is a steady stream of imported foods then that's fine, but in a serious war situation or if there was some kind of trade blockade in and out of our country we'd be pretty screwed without any national agriculture.. :P
Thing is is most of the farm subsidies go to big agribusinesses like ConAgra, Archer Damiels Midland, and others. Small farmers don't see much of the billions of dollars in farm subsidies in the US.
FalconJust as the authors of the Declaration of Independence in the US invoked God but sensibly left it out of the Constitution, Marx's early view of the post-revolutionary state was left out of Capital.
Actually The Writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, didn't invoke "God". His words were "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God". TJ didn't believe in "God" as most Christians do and did. Neither did he believe in Christ as most do. TJ was a Deist, and while he believed Jesus was a great teacher he didn't believe he was the "Son of God". He even went so far as to take all of the passages about miracles and such out of a bible to create his Jefferson's Bible. He wrote to his son that religion was a private matter and that's where it should stay. Of course even back then a lot of Christian ministers were against him and painted him as a devil worshipper.
Falcon