Birdman, can I suggest quoting a relevant sentence rather than a whole series of posts - though I appreciate the kind post quoted from TheAdvocate.
M&A is mergers and acquisitions, which can, as they become excessive, become an activity reducing competition, increasing the contentration of wealth, harming the average citizen.
Not everyone realizes that capitalism unregulated inevitably leads to a system they wouldn't like at all, where most are barely surviving and a few have huge control; it's the model of monopoly, capitalism's achilles heel, which is why the US passed anti-monopoly regulation a century ago to keep the system with some competition.
For example, imagine the oil companies where the larger acquire the smaller until there's only one oil company. It's not as if you can easily start another up spending hundreds of billions to compete. What would oil cost then? In fact, OPEC is somewhat an example of monopoly, keeping oil prices higher with a consortium which would be illegal for US companies to duplicate; balanced only by the pressures of nations like the US, when the US wants lower oil prices, which does not seem to be the case with this administration.
Genx87 -
I never made that claim, the United States is a mixed economy with sprinklings of both sociliast and capitalist systems. I would like to see us shed some of the socialist tendencys and allow for the freed up capital(through reduced taxation) to expand out economy, not become stagnant like the EU due to excessive amounts of govt spending\control and taxation.
You argued with my claim that is was wrong to say a poster is a socialist for supporting micro-socialism rather than macro-socialism. I assume you concede the point now.
There are a number of responses to your post. One is to point out the many advantages the European system has for the average citizen in many - not all - economic areas, from the shorter work weeks to the greater protections for those who fall through the cracks to have less worry of homelessness, illness and hunger (which of course lead to other benefits such as a far smaller prison population), to the longer vacations, etc. Yes, the US has *some* advantages with its choices. Something in the middle is an option.
The EU faces threats from the cheap labor nations, whether Eastern Europe or Asia (or, starting in about 15 years, increasingly Latin and South America). That's not a flaw in Europe's system. Rather, it's a blow to the public as the owners maximize their short-term gains at the expense of the publics.
The real choices are between a fine economy in which the average person does much better, or a 'free market' economy in which the increases flow almost entirely to the few at the top, and the average citizens tends to do much worse than he would without all the 'free market' policies.
Of course, when you introduce cheap labor and slash wages for people, 'productivity' increases, to whose benefit? Admittedly, the US and Europe benefitted, for example, from African slave labor; the US would not have been as much the economic powerhouse as quickly as it did without it. If you want to give up vacation and standard of living and health care (and why not roll back and let your 10 year old work full time and get rid of expensive worker safety regulations and such), for the benefit of society's productivity...
The modern equivalent includes the illegal Mexican labor in the US. You probably can't tell whether you can buy affordable food because of government subsidies, or something 'superior' about the US economic policies, or because illegal immigrants without the protection of minimum wage or other laws are cheap labor. It's just a nonsensical parroting of ideology trying to discuss the economics.
Yes, the EU has its own problems; the blindness of 'free marketers' to the price those policies pay, while they pay attention only to the EU's problems, is one-sided and wrong.
I find this thought process fascinating. The fear of private industry having power over the people scares the left so much they give the power to the govt whole handed?
If the govt owns this power it has the final say, if a private industry gained such a power the consumer could simply stop buying their product and take away that power. Give that power to the govt and the people have no recourse. And why do you fear individuals having power in the way their govt and society works? What is so scary about that to you?
You do realize the more power you give the govt the less power you as an individual have? The politicians end up with all the power and sell that to the highest bidder. Who do you think the highest bidders are? You and I? Or the corporate entities you so much fear?
Let's take these one at a time. First, it's not about fear - that's basically name-calling. But it is about where you think society will best be served by power.
You make a fundamental error (explicitly later in your post): you equate the government to the communist form of government. You lose the concept of democracy.
It's typical of the less informed: because a system has done some things right, people who are unaware of what those things that were needed are, assume that they're guaranteed. There will always be plenty of nice companies to pay you for your labor and let you be in th emiddle class, right? Wrong.
The basic idea you are missing here is democracy. Communist systems lack that, for a reason. You confuse the communists' rhetoric with their policies. The communists, with control over the power of the nation's industries, are subject to the temptations of corruption and protecting their own privilege just as CEOs and Kings are.
Our nation faces a somewhat unique threat to democracy: the indocrinating propaganda by the powerful to persuade voters to vote against their own interests.
A bit of history will show you that the broad poverty and misery which existed under 'laissez-faire' capitalism were hugely rectified, and the middle class was largely created and enriched, by the liberal policies beginning in the progressive movement under Teddy Roosevelt and greatly accelerated under the liberal policies enacted by FDR. Under the republican leadership in place from 1980 to now, the most rich (say, the 0.01%) have done extraordinarily well, with the charts showing their incomes rising almost vertically, while 90-95% of Americans have seen their real wages basically flat for 25 years now, but too many voters continue to be fooled.
For example, look at one of the early myths, the now debunked 'trickle down' theory which said that if you give the money to the most wealth instead of yourself, you will get it from them trickling down. Of course what really happened is that they pocketed it, to own more of the total wealth in society, so that the 50-50 split in wealth between the top 5 and bottom 95% of Americans in the late 70's became a 75-25 split favoring the top 5% by the late 90's, and it's only gotten worse since then.
You say the people have no way to fix things if the government has power; they do, it's called the vote. That's why democracy matters. Should power be broadly held by the public - through democracy - or by a few? Your claim that the private answer is better for the public because the public can choose not to buy goods is a wonderful example of the dangerous naivete of the libertarian, reflecting no understanding whatsoever of how monopolies threaten the public, and of the basic facts surrounding what happens to a population which becomes impoverished as its need for sustinence and shelter removes its ability to negotiate well - you assume the public will continue to have the money to choose not to spend. Wrong.
And look at how the crooks are damaging our country, with the skyrocketing foreign debt, and the policies which have led to the skyrocketing of personal debt built now on the sand of housing wealth, which is going to largely collapse in coming years. The billionares are doing great; depressions are for them a buying opportunity to get yet more assets cheap.
The comparison is not between the modern US and communism. It's between America circa 1900 and America circa 1950 following decades of liberal policies.
You are fighitng to take America from 1950 to 1900 again. In fact, one of your ideological leaders, Grover Norquist, has explicitly said his goal is a return to McKinley: 1900.
I wrote: "We must pay equal attention to the distribution of prosperity. The only prosperity worth having is that which affects the mass of people."
You wrote:
Distribution of wealth is a populist notion people run on to horde more power for themselves. If you dont believe me please review the histories of every communist dictatorship in the world. All promised an equal footing, all ended with a small minority controlling all the wealth and oppressing anybody below them through the state.
Wrong. You were doing fine calling it a populist notion - and is there something wrong with a policy good for and popular with the public - but you got it wrong when said it's to horde more power for themselves. For example, what power hording for himself is Ted Kennedy doing by pushing populist policies? He'd do better under the right-wing policies personally, as would John Kerry, Warren Buffet and many other wealthy people. You are just making a false character attack with that unsupported argument.
In fact your logic is circularly nonsensical. If someone sets out to get elected to help the public, you call it 'trying to get power for themself' if they aren't on your side politically.
To have a sensible discussion, set out some real goals, like how the wealth in society is optimally distributed for a combination of productivity and wealth for the average citizen.
Then, see whose policies do it better. Whe you get past the false propaganda, the facts inform you far differently.
The only time people have possessed more than they have earned is when the state controls the economic power. Open markets where men sell their labor for a price they can agree to has always guranteed they possess what they earn and earn what they possess.
You're just spouting nonsensical ideology here. You are not discussing in any meaningful context of how much someone supposedly deserves. This works well for those who want to impoverish you, because you will hold on to these cherished notions all the way to your poverty, instead of you opening your eyes and recognizing your own self interest.
If the average American had more leisure time, a higher rate of home ownership, better medical care and so on, is that bad because they don't 'deserve' it?
You are on Mars in the way you are trying to look at the issue of wealth, not on Earth.
Your approach is riddled with fallacies, such as confusing simply the increase in productivity with whether that's good for the average citizen, by failing to look at where the increase goes. If the importation of slaves increased and this shot up productivity in the economy, was that necessarily a good thing for the slaves - or did it leave them the same and mean a nicer mansion for the owner, who oh by the way could use some of the increase to further strengthen his ability to protect the slavery system from any threat?
This history of man has been one of central authortity through a state, with heavy oppressions and hording of wealth by the people at the top. It wasnt until the renassaince age that men started viewing individual freedoms as the ticket to economic freedom and a better life. They shed the feudalism, the monarchys, the right of royalty, and erected political and economic systems based around the individual and individual rights.
Finally, you said something I can agree with; what you are confusing is that the big corporations are the new 'state'. Look, our government even now is largely dominated by the large corporations who actually pay for the campaigns in exchange for the laws serving their interest over the public's - and the donations go into marketing campaigns to keep the politicians who serve them elected over any upstart 'populists'. It's the rare exception, such as the name "Kennedy" for Ted, where anything else happens.
The issue is not private versus government - private IS the government more and more. The historical use of the government to side with the people against the powerful which has rarely happened is not so much the case now; the government providing huge subsididies and purchases and more at the taxpayer expense is now the norm. For just a couple examples, read up on the savings and loan scandal, or the military industrial complex.
It heads towards fascism; we're on the road, we're not there yet. It's time to go the other way.
Unsurprising we have seen more progress in the last 200 years than in the thousands of years previous. Amazing what happens when you let individuals create private wealth through innovation.
It's the United States *government* which has regulated the private sector to maintain the healthy level of competitivess which allows the progress to thrive. The private sector was happy to continue a system of slavery, happy to continue widespread poverty and misery for cheap labor; it was the government's interventions which led the society to its prosperity in the first half of the 20th century by putting society's interests ahead of the short-sighted corporate interests that left society far behind for most citizens.
What happened that was to great in the last 200 years was the transfer of power from a small group - the king and nobles, etc. - to the public, giving the individual citizens the right to vote which was much more power than he had had before. This necessarily meant the government having a lot more power, the only way the vote had any importance.
You are apparently paranoid about the government in democracy. If you think the government having the power to protect the public is so terrible, why don't you try running on a communist platform and promise to take all the nation's wealth from the most wealthy and hand it to the public? You won't stand a chance of winning. The danger is not there, the public chooses better, chooses the sensible system which has a lot of private power with the regulation needed for it to work better for society.
I find it interesting you fear economic feudalism so much you are willing to go back to a state controlled feudalism.
That's complete BS. I'm not supporting anything of the sort. I'm supporting democracy and everyone doing better on average.
quote:
We're in a time when there's been a big brainwashing of some citizens to think right-wing economics are right and normal.
Simply because it is right. Giving the individual freedom over his own wealth is the only moral thing to do. Taking away that right for the so called betterment of society is no better than old days of the colonies and empires.
You're still in the fantasy land where you as an average individual have any wealth under the right-wing system. You won't have nearly as much, if any.
You will end up barely making it, with bad shelter and bad food, the minimum to keep you enriching the owners, and tossed into a ditch if you get sick. You will have no say.
That's the eventual result if your policies were followed; while we may stop short, we'll move that direction with your policies.
It's frustrating to see how effective the right-wing propagandists are at making people look at a chart showing them get destroyed economically, going from 95% having equal wealth to one-third of the wealth of the top, flat wages while others skyrocket, and the nation being bankrupted such that democracy itself is put into jeopardy as an unaffordable luxury and we are at risk for becoming more like China with government/corporate repression of the public, and say "hey that looks wonderful".
Unforutnately, I think it's looking pretty dark right now - I see few who have fallen for the right-wing propaganda able to get past it and recognize the errors in their ways.
Year after year, adminisration after administration, scandal after scandal, they accept the excuses and keep the robbers in power.
One practical suggestion I think we should do: get corporate money they heck out of the political system.
Read Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Protections" for a great history on the issue.
Until that happens, the public is at risk for the dominant propaganda to mislead them.
Why don't you go define some reasonable measures for comparing the systems, and then put up your charts comparing the economy under right-wingers 1980-2006, with the most liberal time, 1932-1948, or up to 1968 if you like. You will see that the pie got bigger and the average American did great with the liberal policies, in contrast to the right-wing policies. But that's far too much hassle for most who swallow the right-wing propaganda to go to to get informed on the facts. They just take the easy info handed to them.
