That violates their terms of use pretty severely. I don't know what they would do (Google's not the "suing-for-the-hell-of-it" type), but that wouldn't last very long when they found out. And they would find out. +5 Interesting? Well, curiosity killed the cat.
I'm just talking about parts of an ideology-- the vast majority of Wikipedians aren't big-S card carrying Socialists, but they are more likely to believe in some ideals which exist in socialist (and non-socialist) theory-- collective control over a shared resource, cooperation & collaboration, etc.
1) Those ideas aren't remotely unique to socialism - the exist in capitalism too. Believe it or not, supporters of capitalism like cooperation - just not limited to the narrow context in which you use it. In fact, in your parenthetical you admit as much. So, uh, why again why Wikipedia attract more socialists?
2) I guess you think corporations are socialist because they also involve collective ownership over a shared resource (share-holding), to say nothing of internal cooperation, collaboration, etc.
Please, get a clue what you actually stand for. You seem to have this view that "Socalism is defined as good stuff, capitalism is opposition to good stuff by definition."
Oh *I* get it. When the government owns something, that's just like the "people" owning it. When the government does something, it's just like the "people" collectively doing it. Holocaust? What Holocaust? I just remember a mass suicide!
Well, let no one say you misrepresent yourself. Of course hiring someone will always have risk. Do we have to artificially increase the risk? No. Any such attempts come straight out of the hide of the worker. I did not advocate any particular goal of "reducing risk of labor"; I was just citing one thing that pulls down wages. (And of course, you're wrong - even a wageless worker carries risk.) With your slavery example, you make my point for me: insofar as a worker can't "shop around" for a better deal, he's screwed. That happens in slavery, but it also happens with socialist states, but you wouldn't advocate that, right? Good.
And again, to clarify, lowering wages does not reduce risk; the risk is still there, it's just hedged. And regulations do not make workers better off. That's my point all along. If someone's not worth hiring at a price, they're not worth hiring at that price, no matter what the regulations are. If they are worth hiring, competition for workers drives their wage up to that price. When workers were paid in scrip, they were so paid because even that limited currency was a better offer than they could find elsewhere. Had you mandated that not happen, they would have gotten a worse deal (else employers would already make that offer). When you impose workplace regulations (beyond fraud), you may benefit the people there, but only until the employer can find a way to get rid of them and replace them. Further, like I said above, they systematically discount the value of future labor (and thus wages) not because they "feel like paying less" but because such a risky environment makes it worth less.
People like to talk about the Gilded Age, but they never mention places like Hong Kong with historically no minimum wage, yet which also is a place millions of workers flock to from places that "guarantee" a miniumum wage, like China.
It is not man's laws, but fundamental economic realities that set wages. But hey, I'd love to try out your ideas. If you really believe what you're posting, you should support the idea in my sig. The state with strong labor laws should easily draw all the workers from the state with no labor laws, right?...RIGHT?
I didn't exclude any words. You claimed that those on the left and/or with socialist leanings are more likely to contribute to a project and collaborate with others with no monetary reward. This belief is in error. And now you're putting words into my mouth. I never said "Wikipedia would fail due to some socialist leanings." If you try to find places where I said that, I'll just -- like you -- invoke plausible deniability and claim you're misinterpreting me. Fun!
Now that you've changed emphasis, I'll gladly address your other points:
I've heard the charities suggestion, but please explain to me why I should expect that to work better now than in the early 20th century, which I addressed here:
We have seen the quality of life in a close to fully free market economy, in the US during the late 19th and early 20th century. Frightful conflicts arose and led to the forming of unions to end that (though how successful that was is another debate - the point is the masses didn't stand for a fully free market solution).
The unions were more driven by ideology than sober wage-maximization. Wages were rising faster than at any other time in history. The employment offered was much easier than the "noble" alternative of small-scale farming. There, you didn't have 6 10-hour days; you had sever 12-hour days, plus the huge risks attendant with any weather-variant field. But even if you include allllllllllllll the regulations added around the turn of the century, that was an extremely free market relative to todays, which puts paid the notion that the masses "didn't stand for a fully free market". Compared to today, it was fully free, even with all the union demands met. Today's liberals would be livid at the idea of going back to Progressive Era government.
Do you think our workforce laws have had nothing to do with better conditions at work?
Not at all. Again, if someone's labor is worth $X, it's worth $X. If not, it's not. Laws don't change that. The laws are not the determinant of wages; productivity is. Safety is part of compensation to draw workers from alternate fields. If a workplace is unsafe, employers have to pay what are called "compensating differentials" i.e., more money for more dangerous work. This is not because of any regulation; it's an emergent market phenomenon. Someone who chooses his field of occupation will first go to the safest workplace; he must be paid more to be drawn away from this. If the cost of the increased safety is less than the compensating differential, the employer buys it anyway. If not, it's not worth the cost - even to the worker. All these regulations have made it more difficult to negotiate better compensation packages by mandating one-size-fits-all workplace rules. If you're willing to work at a job, tough, you can't - because the employer would have to follow some labyrinthine pay schedule that doesn't reflect current realities.
Has Social Security not improved the retirements of countless Americans compared to before it existed?
Of course it hasn't. It's a horrible deal. I mean, if you got in on the ground floor, I guess it was a massive transfer to you, but for some reason, I consider Ponzi schemes "beyond the pale". For everyone else, it's meant a horrible ROR on their retirement savings. We could fund a program at the level of SS for people who fail to plan while still allowing everyone else much better retirement plans if we would just scrap the damn thing. But some people, and I'm not naming names, have this scorched-earth policy twoard the rich were basically, they'll advocate policies that hurt them even if they hurt the poor even more! That's exactly what most redistribution schemes are like.
Other than government - how would you implement a universal minimum standard of living?
There have always been more than enough people willing to help those willing to help themselves. But people generally flee to, not away from, the countries with fewer "guarantees". But I'm actually open to testing your ideas out. Check the link in my sig. If you really thought a government-enforced minimum standard of living, you should be more than willing to support it. You do think you're right, right?...RIGHT?
Of course volunteering goes on within capitalism. Nobody claimed it didn't. The claim was that socialists would be more inclined to help something that fits their ideology.
False. The claim was that socialists are more likely to contribute to something with no monetary gain, which is false LET ME FINISH BEFORE YOU REPLY TO THAT If you were meaning to say that Wikipedia fits the socialist ideology better because it is contributing to something with no monetary gain, that's false, for the reasons given before in this thread and below.
"Helpin' people out, workin' together, not doin' it for money" is exactly what shared ownership of the means of production is with regards to Wikipedia.
Sorry, that's not socialism. Everyone helps people and works with others in some manner with no monetary gain. Does this make everyone socialist? I like it when words have meaning.
What are the means of production for Wikipedia? Oh, that's right, the editors.
You know, if you socialists would actually get your stories straight, you would see that, even according to the socialist Wikipedia, means of production are by definition non-human. Boy are you in for an education.
Since they are free to fork Wikipedia whenever they want, effecively everyone owns it.
Not really. Go read the rules behind Wikipedia. A group of higher-ups (hierarchy! eek!) has full veto power over what is added. They own it. They allow modifications, and are generally loose with who is allowed to add to it. That does not change that they are the ulimate owners. It just means they use their property in an unusual way - which in no way contradicts capitalist (in the political, not wealth-acquiring sense) ideology.
No, you are dead wrong. His posts say that socialists are more inclined to help Wikipedia. Your posts say that means he thinks socialists "care more" about volunteering or something bizarre you've invented.
Read the quotes I gathered again; I'm not going to keep holding your hand for you.
Again, I'm point out the common rhetoric of both groups. Greens and Greenpeace promote "non-violent direct action". As shown by Greenpeace, terms like that turn out to mean very little. I was ridiculing the frequent misuse of the term, irrespective of whether the NZ Greens themselves misuse it.
Further, you're just making the confusion again in the other thread: capitalism can mean the political ideology supporting private property and free markets(1), or it can mean pursuing wealth(2). Banks are capitalists in the second sense, but not necessarily the first, so it's an apples to oranges comparison.
Next, I don't think Greens in NZ are libertarian at all: on some issues, perhaps, by coincidence, but they generally support a HUGE array of governmental regulation on businesses beyond mere "don't pollute my air" regulations.
And finally, no I'm not a Brit, that forum is for the Free State Project, an attempt by libertarians to make one US state more libertarian by moving there.
I find it amazing that people can claim to care about society, and other people in general, yet oppose setting a minimum standard of living and being willing to pay to maintain that. It seems hypocritical to me, and certainly very selfish.
This is a prime example of the misconceptions I'm trying to make people aware are misconceptions. People do not oppose the minimum wage, if that's what you're referring to, because they're "against a minimum standard of living". They oppose it because it does not do what it is intended to do. If someone's labor is not expected to add $X/hour to revenues on average, that person is not worth hiring at $X/hour. No law changes that. Making employers pay that means they will simply not hire the person. Sure, you can make them hire people, but then you just ever-so-subtly push the problem upstream: seeing that they will be compelled, in some jurisdictions, to hire people they don't want, they revise all future plans about where to locate, systematically discounting the value of the labor in the min. wage region, thus reducing whatever remaining wages that are still profitable to offer. Again, you can short circuit the need for profitability by just implementing socialism, but that has a whole slew of other problems I can go into if you want. The best way, the opposition claims, to increase wages is to allow a flexible labor market in which there is no risk to hiring someone so employers will "take a chance" on anyone - disabled, female, minority, uneducated, single parent, whatever. As it stands, as you increase the difficulty of hiring people, hiring becomes a huge risk so employers make people jump through all kinds of hoops before hiring them. That "helps" the poor? Nope.
If, on the other hand, you were talking about a social safety net, I know of few non-leftists would be unwilling to significantly contribute toward a social safety net if they knew it would do any good, i.e., have checks to make sure the recipients are either genuinely unable to produce, or ensure that the aid will render them able to produce. And that just ain't how government help works.
Now do you see how someone can oppose the above policies without being evil?
If you'd like to refute that rationally, that would be fine, but it seems a safe thing to say since collaborative production without monetary gains is what socialism is all about.
False. My point all along is that people collaborate without monetary gains all the time within capitalism. If you think that all that socialism refers to is, you know, helpin' people out, workin' together, not doin' it for money... you're in for an education. Socialism involves collective ownership of the so-called "means of production"... that's a little further than, you know, working together and shit.
Instead you chose to try to make it seem as if people were saying their ideology "cares" more than others, or has "anti-capitalistic" goals whatever those terms mean.
That is precisely what EnronH was saying. See... any of my or his posts on this topic.
Damer, regarding the substantive point that you did bother to include in your post:
EnronH is claiming that people who "care" or pursue non-montary goals are more likely to be socialist. That believe is in error and betrays a poor understanding of the opposition's arguments. That was my point. I don't think I attributed to him any position that he does not either hold, or have expressed that he held.
perhaps we should turn it around, perhaps you can argue why the Greens should not be allowed to have a position on OSS. Do you often go around telling people that they should not be allowed to have a opinion on OSS?
WTF? Where did you get that? I was asking why the Greens are so interested in this, not that they be prevented from voicing an opinion on this!
Any any case, the first quote is pure fluff (anything can embody independence and finding new ways...), the third provides no reason, and the second, like I've explained before, would also justify releasing the government from restrictions requiring it to use union labor, which Greens do not support.
So again, I still don't understand the Greens' motivation here.
"Imagine that. Wikipedia reflects the bias of the thousands of people who are willing to share information, help others and collaborate on large projects together -- without any expectation of monetary payment (even if some wikipedians expect plenty of ego boosting)-- of course it has a socialist bias."
Wow, and you have the audacity to claim that it's Rush Limbaugh who's spreading malicious lies. (Don't insult my intelligence again by denying you said that. I can link that one too.)
I know, you can claim you were "only" saying that people who care, people who share, people who work together are more likely to be liberals, and that further there's a significant difference between that claim and the claim that "all people with non-monetary goals that care about the poor are liberals", but the point is, you have this deluded belief that your ideology "cares" more than other ideologies, or that there's something "anti-capitalistic" about having non-monetary goals. And that is totally off base. Until you realize it's off base, you will never understand the other side, and by extension, your own.
I have no dirt on this specific group of Greens. However, it is common, esp. on the left, to talk about "non-violent direct action" when in fact their actions are either violent, or worse than violence. Take this example of Greenpeace's "non-violent direct action":
Basically, they invaded a stock exchange and installed deafening noisemaking machines of some kind, which can cause serious hearing loss. I consider that to be violent. (Btw, I'm not implying that you were about to respond this way, but if you were, no it does not count that the traders could "run away"; anyone can run away from an act of violence; that doesn't make it non-violent.)
Again, that doesn't mean NZ's party has this kind of hypocrisy; my target was just the over- and mis-use of the concept of "non-violent direct action" that they like to promote.
Regarding the speech you quoted, it seems pretty clear they're against both ends of the spectrum of capitalism. Of course, like most people, they probably deem instances of state capitalism to be free-market capitalism, ignoring important distinctions, but that's a separate matter.
Your point is well taken and despite poking at Mr. Irony Alert (I don't think he knows what irony is)
Name's Geeste (at least, with this pseudonym), and I know exactly what irony is. When you oppose advertising, and promote that goal with advertising, that's irony.
I know of no rule that says you may not place your hand in front of, but not touching, another person's face. Surely you can find the rule and link to it for either kind of football or basketball?
Yeah, LIKE I SAID: What stake do the "non-violent direct violence" Greens have in open source? I mean, they might be a significant part of whoever actually is supporting open source, but are they actually spearheading it themselves? Why? What does this have to do with dismantling capitalism...?
And to another person: if they're really worried about locking the government into only buying from overpriced suppliers, they must also want the government not to buy union labor... right?
me:My point was that the whole allegation that "the only people who care enough about anything to do it without hope of monetary reward are liberals" is false.
you:Yeah, but my point is that you're imagining things. Really, I can't tell if you're statements are merely the result of a misunderstanding, or if you are deliberately trying to spread misinformation and confusion for kicks.
I'm claiming that there are non-liberals who care about the world... and you claim I'm imagining things? Seriously, no offense, but you have to be quite deluded to believe that. I don't know what you had to go through to have such a skewed perception of the world. Do you honestly think everyone who opposes Social Security, federal involvement in education, "progressive" income taxaction, capital gains taxation, min. wage laws, etc etc etc is doing so because they hate poor people and want to enrish themselves at their expense? That's a mighty tough conspiracy to maintain, especially since lots of low-income people support Republicans... in fact, the average low-income white person is much more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.
But my point is not to prove or disprove which political party is better. My point is that if you seriously think the intellectual justification for free-market capitalism is "gimme gimme gimme, **** the poor", you really don't understand your opponents' views, which means you really don't understand your own. That's not good.
Really? None of them? Things like sharing and collaboration don't work? Wikipedia is a failure?
*banging head on keyboard*
No, that's not even close to anything I said at all. (Except for Wikipedia starting to fail, but that's a separate issue.)
Who the **** says sharing and collaboration are socialist? That's the exact opposite of what I was trying to say! Worker-owned companies can and do exist within capitalism. Non-monetary profit organizations exist within capitalism. Non-monetary goals exist within capitalism. Pursuing non-monetary goals is not "anti-capitalist" or "socialist". The problem is, people like you equivocate between two definitions of capitalism:
1) a system in which non-human tools and natural resources (aka the means of production) are privately owned and operated
2) pursuing personal wealth
I've been using capitalism in the first sense. Then you jump on and use it in the second sense. When I say Wikipedia is biased against capitalism, I'm saying it's biased against 1), not necessarily 2) (although that shows up as well). When I say socialism (as differentiated from capitalism) is a bad idea, I'm saying that private ownership of the MOP is a good idea, not that any specific model possible within such a metacontext (employee ownership, collaboration, group projects, non-montary goals) is a bad idea.
Thought experiment: if all non-management workers took over their workplaces today and got rid of the current owners and managers and took the revenues for themselves (revenues at each firm to the workers at that firm), is the result still capitalism? Yes, the workplaces just have different owners.
Believe it or not, you don't have to be socialist to pursue a non-monetary goal. Please stop blurring the definitions here.
Imagine that. Wikipedia reflects the bias of the thousands of people who are willing to share information, help others and collaborate on large projects together -- without any expectation of monetary payment (even if some wikipedians expect plenty of ego boosting)-- of course it has a socialist bias.
INSIGHTFUL??? wtf? Yeah, if you "care" about something greater than yourself, you must be a socialist. It can't be that there are people who care but realize socialist ideas don't work... nope, if you don't agree with the entire socialist agenda, you must be greedy and only looking out for yourself.
Seriously, where do you find people like "EnronHaliburton2004"... and the people who modded him up?
I didn't say it was a charity (though it does have the same general form). My point was that the whole allegation that "the only people who care enough about anything to do it without hope of monetary reward are liberals" is false. And I wasn't talking about monetary contributions, but actual doing.
Leftists are actually heavily under-represented in charitable volunteering.
But that's not the point: people who can insert their bias into an article do so, and it remains until someone corrects it. If only left-wingers are interested in a particular topic (like sustainability or Peak Oil), they can and in fact do crowd out attempts to insert balance. I think it's inherent to the format.
This of course, just underscores the point made by Walter Block in Defending the Undefendable how even people who ridicule persuasive (non-informational) advertising as "wasteful" take every chance to engage in it themselves. (While the no-ads project may provide information, the advertisements they plan to use for that project do not.)
And yes, if the comment about the "irony" is still there, it was me.
Anyway, I just have to say: good riddance to bad rubbish. I've always complained that Wikipedia was infected with a socialist bias (like listing "ethical coffee" as a type of coffee bean, just to get in a little plug for another left-wing cause). Now, it gets to implode from that, since as we all know, socialists hate paid advertising.
Slashdot Mirror
That violates their terms of use pretty severely. I don't know what they would do (Google's not the "suing-for-the-hell-of-it" type), but that wouldn't last very long when they found out. And they would find out. +5 Interesting? Well, curiosity killed the cat.
I'm just talking about parts of an ideology-- the vast majority of Wikipedians aren't big-S card carrying Socialists, but they are more likely to believe in some ideals which exist in socialist (and non-socialist) theory-- collective control over a shared resource, cooperation & collaboration, etc.
1) Those ideas aren't remotely unique to socialism - the exist in capitalism too. Believe it or not, supporters of capitalism like cooperation - just not limited to the narrow context in which you use it. In fact, in your parenthetical you admit as much. So, uh, why again why Wikipedia attract more socialists?
2) I guess you think corporations are socialist because they also involve collective ownership over a shared resource (share-holding), to say nothing of internal cooperation, collaboration, etc.
Please, get a clue what you actually stand for. You seem to have this view that "Socalism is defined as good stuff, capitalism is opposition to good stuff by definition."
Oh *I* get it. When the government owns something, that's just like the "people" owning it. When the government does something, it's just like the "people" collectively doing it. Holocaust? What Holocaust? I just remember a mass suicide!
Well, let no one say you misrepresent yourself. Of course hiring someone will always have risk. Do we have to artificially increase the risk? No. Any such attempts come straight out of the hide of the worker. I did not advocate any particular goal of "reducing risk of labor"; I was just citing one thing that pulls down wages. (And of course, you're wrong - even a wageless worker carries risk.) With your slavery example, you make my point for me: insofar as a worker can't "shop around" for a better deal, he's screwed. That happens in slavery, but it also happens with socialist states, but you wouldn't advocate that, right? Good.
...RIGHT?
And again, to clarify, lowering wages does not reduce risk; the risk is still there, it's just hedged. And regulations do not make workers better off. That's my point all along. If someone's not worth hiring at a price, they're not worth hiring at that price, no matter what the regulations are. If they are worth hiring, competition for workers drives their wage up to that price. When workers were paid in scrip, they were so paid because even that limited currency was a better offer than they could find elsewhere. Had you mandated that not happen, they would have gotten a worse deal (else employers would already make that offer). When you impose workplace regulations (beyond fraud), you may benefit the people there, but only until the employer can find a way to get rid of them and replace them. Further, like I said above, they systematically discount the value of future labor (and thus wages) not because they "feel like paying less" but because such a risky environment makes it worth less.
People like to talk about the Gilded Age, but they never mention places like Hong Kong with historically no minimum wage, yet which also is a place millions of workers flock to from places that "guarantee" a miniumum wage, like China.
It is not man's laws, but fundamental economic realities that set wages. But hey, I'd love to try out your ideas. If you really believe what you're posting, you should support the idea in my sig. The state with strong labor laws should easily draw all the workers from the state with no labor laws, right?
I didn't exclude any words. You claimed that those on the left and/or with socialist leanings are more likely to contribute to a project and collaborate with others with no monetary reward. This belief is in error. And now you're putting words into my mouth. I never said "Wikipedia would fail due to some socialist leanings." If you try to find places where I said that, I'll just -- like you -- invoke plausible deniability and claim you're misinterpreting me. Fun!
Now that you've changed emphasis, I'll gladly address your other points:
...RIGHT?
I've heard the charities suggestion, but please explain to me why I should expect that to work better now than in the early 20th century, which I addressed here:
We have seen the quality of life in a close to fully free market economy, in the US during the late 19th and early 20th century. Frightful conflicts arose and led to the forming of unions to end that (though how successful that was is another debate - the point is the masses didn't stand for a fully free market solution).
The unions were more driven by ideology than sober wage-maximization. Wages were rising faster than at any other time in history. The employment offered was much easier than the "noble" alternative of small-scale farming. There, you didn't have 6 10-hour days; you had sever 12-hour days, plus the huge risks attendant with any weather-variant field. But even if you include allllllllllllll the regulations added around the turn of the century, that was an extremely free market relative to todays, which puts paid the notion that the masses "didn't stand for a fully free market". Compared to today, it was fully free, even with all the union demands met. Today's liberals would be livid at the idea of going back to Progressive Era government.
Do you think our workforce laws have had nothing to do with better conditions at work?
Not at all. Again, if someone's labor is worth $X, it's worth $X. If not, it's not. Laws don't change that. The laws are not the determinant of wages; productivity is. Safety is part of compensation to draw workers from alternate fields. If a workplace is unsafe, employers have to pay what are called "compensating differentials" i.e., more money for more dangerous work. This is not because of any regulation; it's an emergent market phenomenon. Someone who chooses his field of occupation will first go to the safest workplace; he must be paid more to be drawn away from this. If the cost of the increased safety is less than the compensating differential, the employer buys it anyway. If not, it's not worth the cost - even to the worker. All these regulations have made it more difficult to negotiate better compensation packages by mandating one-size-fits-all workplace rules. If you're willing to work at a job, tough, you can't - because the employer would have to follow some labyrinthine pay schedule that doesn't reflect current realities.
Has Social Security not improved the retirements of countless Americans compared to before it existed?
Of course it hasn't. It's a horrible deal. I mean, if you got in on the ground floor, I guess it was a massive transfer to you, but for some reason, I consider Ponzi schemes "beyond the pale". For everyone else, it's meant a horrible ROR on their retirement savings. We could fund a program at the level of SS for people who fail to plan while still allowing everyone else much better retirement plans if we would just scrap the damn thing. But some people, and I'm not naming names, have this scorched-earth policy twoard the rich were basically, they'll advocate policies that hurt them even if they hurt the poor even more! That's exactly what most redistribution schemes are like.
Other than government - how would you implement a universal minimum standard of living?
There have always been more than enough people willing to help those willing to help themselves. But people generally flee to, not away from, the countries with fewer "guarantees". But I'm actually open to testing your ideas out. Check the link in my sig. If you really thought a government-enforced minimum standard of living, you should be more than willing to support it. You do think you're right, right?
Again, sticking to Damer's substantive points:
Of course volunteering goes on within capitalism. Nobody claimed it didn't. The claim was that socialists would be more inclined to help something that fits their ideology.
False. The claim was that socialists are more likely to contribute to something with no monetary gain, which is false LET ME FINISH BEFORE YOU REPLY TO THAT If you were meaning to say that Wikipedia fits the socialist ideology better because it is contributing to something with no monetary gain, that's false, for the reasons given before in this thread and below.
"Helpin' people out, workin' together, not doin' it for money" is exactly what shared ownership of the means of production is with regards to Wikipedia.
Sorry, that's not socialism. Everyone helps people and works with others in some manner with no monetary gain. Does this make everyone socialist? I like it when words have meaning.
What are the means of production for Wikipedia? Oh, that's right, the editors.
You know, if you socialists would actually get your stories straight, you would see that, even according to the socialist Wikipedia, means of production are by definition non-human. Boy are you in for an education.
Since they are free to fork Wikipedia whenever they want, effecively everyone owns it.
Not really. Go read the rules behind Wikipedia. A group of higher-ups (hierarchy! eek!) has full veto power over what is added. They own it. They allow modifications, and are generally loose with who is allowed to add to it. That does not change that they are the ulimate owners. It just means they use their property in an unusual way - which in no way contradicts capitalist (in the political, not wealth-acquiring sense) ideology.
No, you are dead wrong. His posts say that socialists are more inclined to help Wikipedia. Your posts say that means he thinks socialists "care more" about volunteering or something bizarre you've invented.
Read the quotes I gathered again; I'm not going to keep holding your hand for you.
Again, I'm point out the common rhetoric of both groups. Greens and Greenpeace promote "non-violent direct action". As shown by Greenpeace, terms like that turn out to mean very little. I was ridiculing the frequent misuse of the term, irrespective of whether the NZ Greens themselves misuse it.
Further, you're just making the confusion again in the other thread: capitalism can mean the political ideology supporting private property and free markets(1), or it can mean pursuing wealth(2). Banks are capitalists in the second sense, but not necessarily the first, so it's an apples to oranges comparison.
Next, I don't think Greens in NZ are libertarian at all: on some issues, perhaps, by coincidence, but they generally support a HUGE array of governmental regulation on businesses beyond mere "don't pollute my air" regulations.
And finally, no I'm not a Brit, that forum is for the Free State Project, an attempt by libertarians to make one US state more libertarian by moving there.
I find it amazing that people can claim to care about society, and other people in general, yet oppose setting a minimum standard of living and being willing to pay to maintain that. It seems hypocritical to me, and certainly very selfish.
This is a prime example of the misconceptions I'm trying to make people aware are misconceptions. People do not oppose the minimum wage, if that's what you're referring to, because they're "against a minimum standard of living". They oppose it because it does not do what it is intended to do. If someone's labor is not expected to add $X/hour to revenues on average, that person is not worth hiring at $X/hour. No law changes that. Making employers pay that means they will simply not hire the person. Sure, you can make them hire people, but then you just ever-so-subtly push the problem upstream: seeing that they will be compelled, in some jurisdictions, to hire people they don't want, they revise all future plans about where to locate, systematically discounting the value of the labor in the min. wage region, thus reducing whatever remaining wages that are still profitable to offer. Again, you can short circuit the need for profitability by just implementing socialism, but that has a whole slew of other problems I can go into if you want. The best way, the opposition claims, to increase wages is to allow a flexible labor market in which there is no risk to hiring someone so employers will "take a chance" on anyone - disabled, female, minority, uneducated, single parent, whatever. As it stands, as you increase the difficulty of hiring people, hiring becomes a huge risk so employers make people jump through all kinds of hoops before hiring them. That "helps" the poor? Nope.
If, on the other hand, you were talking about a social safety net, I know of few non-leftists would be unwilling to significantly contribute toward a social safety net if they knew it would do any good, i.e., have checks to make sure the recipients are either genuinely unable to produce, or ensure that the aid will render them able to produce. And that just ain't how government help works.
Now do you see how someone can oppose the above policies without being evil?
Again, filtering for substantive comments:
... that's a little further than, you know, working together and shit.
If you'd like to refute that rationally, that would be fine, but it seems a safe thing to say since collaborative production without monetary gains is what socialism is all about.
False. My point all along is that people collaborate without monetary gains all the time within capitalism. If you think that all that socialism refers to is, you know, helpin' people out, workin' together, not doin' it for money... you're in for an education. Socialism involves collective ownership of the so-called "means of production"
Instead you chose to try to make it seem as if people were saying their ideology "cares" more than others, or has "anti-capitalistic" goals whatever those terms mean.
That is precisely what EnronH was saying. See... any of my or his posts on this topic.
Damer, regarding the substantive point that you did bother to include in your post:
EnronH is claiming that people who "care" or pursue non-montary goals are more likely to be socialist. That believe is in error and betrays a poor understanding of the opposition's arguments. That was my point. I don't think I attributed to him any position that he does not either hold, or have expressed that he held.
perhaps we should turn it around, perhaps you can argue why the Greens should not be allowed to have a position on OSS. Do you often go around telling people that they should not be allowed to have a opinion on OSS?
WTF? Where did you get that? I was asking why the Greens are so interested in this, not that they be prevented from voicing an opinion on this!
Any any case, the first quote is pure fluff (anything can embody independence and finding new ways...), the third provides no reason, and the second, like I've explained before, would also justify releasing the government from restrictions requiring it to use union labor, which Greens do not support.
So again, I still don't understand the Greens' motivation here.
Read the rest of my post where I point out that even the "tend to" and "bias" is wrong.
OH REALLY? Nobody said this:
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"You mean that people who contribute their time to a project for free tend to have a collectivist view of the world? Shocking. SHOCKING I tell you."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166211&cid=13
or this:
"Imagine that. Wikipedia reflects the bias of the thousands of people who are willing to share information, help others and collaborate on large projects together -- without any expectation of monetary payment (even if some wikipedians expect plenty of ego boosting)-- of course it has a socialist bias."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166211&cid=13
(Hey! I recognize that person from somewhere!)
or this:
me: "socialist ideas don't work"
someone who shall remain nameless: "Really? None of them? Things like sharing and collaboration don't work?"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166211&cid=13
Wow, and you have the audacity to claim that it's Rush Limbaugh who's spreading malicious lies. (Don't insult my intelligence again by denying you said that. I can link that one too.)
I know, you can claim you were "only" saying that people who care, people who share, people who work together are more likely to be liberals, and that further there's a significant difference between that claim and the claim that "all people with non-monetary goals that care about the poor are liberals", but the point is, you have this deluded belief that your ideology "cares" more than other ideologies, or that there's something "anti-capitalistic" about having non-monetary goals. And that is totally off base. Until you realize it's off base, you will never understand the other side, and by extension, your own.
If the eviction of an evictor is ironic, so is the use of advertisements by advertisement opponents. Try to read pages before you link them.
I have no dirt on this specific group of Greens. However, it is common, esp. on the left, to talk about "non-violent direct action" when in fact their actions are either violent, or worse than violence. Take this example of Greenpeace's "non-violent direct action":
c =9341.0
http://forum.freestateproject.org//index.php?topi
Basically, they invaded a stock exchange and installed deafening noisemaking machines of some kind, which can cause serious hearing loss. I consider that to be violent. (Btw, I'm not implying that you were about to respond this way, but if you were, no it does not count that the traders could "run away"; anyone can run away from an act of violence; that doesn't make it non-violent.)
Again, that doesn't mean NZ's party has this kind of hypocrisy; my target was just the over- and mis-use of the concept of "non-violent direct action" that they like to promote.
Regarding the speech you quoted, it seems pretty clear they're against both ends of the spectrum of capitalism. Of course, like most people, they probably deem instances of state capitalism to be free-market capitalism, ignoring important distinctions, but that's a separate matter.
Your point is well taken and despite poking at Mr. Irony Alert (I don't think he knows what irony is)
Name's Geeste (at least, with this pseudonym), and I know exactly what irony is. When you oppose advertising, and promote that goal with advertising, that's irony.
I know of no rule that says you may not place your hand in front of, but not touching, another person's face. Surely you can find the rule and link to it for either kind of football or basketball?
Yeah, LIKE I SAID: What stake do the "non-violent direct violence" Greens have in open source? I mean, they might be a significant part of whoever actually is supporting open source, but are they actually spearheading it themselves? Why? What does this have to do with dismantling capitalism ...?
And to another person: if they're really worried about locking the government into only buying from overpriced suppliers, they must also want the government not to buy union labor... right?
So again, when did open source become a priority?
me:My point was that the whole allegation that "the only people who care enough about anything to do it without hope of monetary reward are liberals" is false.
... in fact, the average low-income white person is much more likely to vote Republican than Democrat.
you:Yeah, but my point is that you're imagining things. Really, I can't tell if you're statements are merely the result of a misunderstanding, or if you are deliberately trying to spread misinformation and confusion for kicks.
I'm claiming that there are non-liberals who care about the world... and you claim I'm imagining things? Seriously, no offense, but you have to be quite deluded to believe that. I don't know what you had to go through to have such a skewed perception of the world. Do you honestly think everyone who opposes Social Security, federal involvement in education, "progressive" income taxaction, capital gains taxation, min. wage laws, etc etc etc is doing so because they hate poor people and want to enrish themselves at their expense? That's a mighty tough conspiracy to maintain, especially since lots of low-income people support Republicans
But my point is not to prove or disprove which political party is better. My point is that if you seriously think the intellectual justification for free-market capitalism is "gimme gimme gimme, **** the poor", you really don't understand your opponents' views, which means you really don't understand your own. That's not good.
Really? None of them? Things like sharing and collaboration don't work? Wikipedia is a failure?
*banging head on keyboard*
No, that's not even close to anything I said at all. (Except for Wikipedia starting to fail, but that's a separate issue.)
Who the **** says sharing and collaboration are socialist? That's the exact opposite of what I was trying to say! Worker-owned companies can and do exist within capitalism. Non-monetary profit organizations exist within capitalism. Non-monetary goals exist within capitalism. Pursuing non-monetary goals is not "anti-capitalist" or "socialist". The problem is, people like you equivocate between two definitions of capitalism:
1) a system in which non-human tools and natural resources (aka the means of production) are privately owned and operated
2) pursuing personal wealth
I've been using capitalism in the first sense. Then you jump on and use it in the second sense. When I say Wikipedia is biased against capitalism, I'm saying it's biased against 1), not necessarily 2) (although that shows up as well). When I say socialism (as differentiated from capitalism) is a bad idea, I'm saying that private ownership of the MOP is a good idea, not that any specific model possible within such a metacontext (employee ownership, collaboration, group projects, non-montary goals) is a bad idea.
Thought experiment: if all non-management workers took over their workplaces today and got rid of the current owners and managers and took the revenues for themselves (revenues at each firm to the workers at that firm), is the result still capitalism? Yes, the workplaces just have different owners.
Believe it or not, you don't have to be socialist to pursue a non-monetary goal. Please stop blurring the definitions here.
Imagine that. Wikipedia reflects the bias of the thousands of people who are willing to share information, help others and collaborate on large projects together -- without any expectation of monetary payment (even if some wikipedians expect plenty of ego boosting)-- of course it has a socialist bias.
... nope, if you don't agree with the entire socialist agenda, you must be greedy and only looking out for yourself.
INSIGHTFUL??? wtf? Yeah, if you "care" about something greater than yourself, you must be a socialist. It can't be that there are people who care but realize socialist ideas don't work
Seriously, where do you find people like "EnronHaliburton2004"... and the people who modded him up?
I didn't say it was a charity (though it does have the same general form). My point was that the whole allegation that "the only people who care enough about anything to do it without hope of monetary reward are liberals" is false. And I wasn't talking about monetary contributions, but actual doing.
Leftists are actually heavily under-represented in charitable volunteering.
But that's not the point: people who can insert their bias into an article do so, and it remains until someone corrects it. If only left-wingers are interested in a particular topic (like sustainability or Peak Oil), they can and in fact do crowd out attempts to insert balance. I think it's inherent to the format.
Isn't it funny how people are going to advertise -- on Wikipedia -- a project to keep Wikipedia free of advertisements? Check out this section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiproject _no_ads#Projects
This of course, just underscores the point made by Walter Block in Defending the Undefendable how even people who ridicule persuasive (non-informational) advertising as "wasteful" take every chance to engage in it themselves. (While the no-ads project may provide information, the advertisements they plan to use for that project do not.)
And yes, if the comment about the "irony" is still there, it was me.
Anyway, I just have to say: good riddance to bad rubbish. I've always complained that Wikipedia was infected with a socialist bias (like listing "ethical coffee" as a type of coffee bean, just to get in a little plug for another left-wing cause). Now, it gets to implode from that, since as we all know, socialists hate paid advertising.