WHAT'S NEXT FOR LIBERALISM?

[BonzaiDuck]

It was discussed during the Cold War in the economics discipline as "The Mixed Economy." The chicken and egg argument about taxes and government doesn't really apply. In order to generate revenue, you need an effective judicial system, all levels of law enforcement, public goods that only make sense by public provision, regulation of interstate commerce, highways, schools. Without all that, a business would spend so much on self-protection and other costs that -- well -- we'd sink back into the pre-industrial or early-industrial age.

The new but clueless activists haven't worked all this out. They want the remainder of social security recipients to hurry up and die. They want all sorts of nonsense, which in the airing of it, makes them feel like puffed up armchair experts. You will not find among their number any prize-winning macro-economists, great legal minds, or any other experts with expertise that illuminates the nature and survival of the post-industrial state.

These discussions of hyper-generalized labels or "isms" are droll. If you want to discuss political philosophy or economic philosophy, consider the options as toolboxes which don't define all solutions or even all of one solution to any given problem.

there is only the recognition of problems, the consensus on those problems, and a growing agreement as to how they can be solved now -- and in the future.

 

[desura]

You alleged voter fraud was real & significant. That's bullshit. You can't support it with data of any kind.

You now dance away on a complete tangent to the post in question spreading more bullshit in typical fashion of a post-truth sort of troll.

Not alleging voter fraud at all. I'm saying that immigration reform that is more hardline will take away D votes. Unlike you, I'm actually paying attention to the incoming administration instead of engaging in wishful thinking.

 

[Jaskalas]

Trump is stuffing his economic team with supply-siders. Just out of curiosity, do resident conservatives think trickle down is going to work this time? Was Reagan doing it wrong? Is Kansas doing it wrong? Is every other place where it has been tried just doing it wrong? Is Trump finally going to do it right, and it's going to work now?

A rising tide does lift all boats, but that should not be confused with "trickle down" as we have experienced it.
The modern economy suffers from wage suppression in the midst of soaring productivity.
Capitalism ultimately means a race to the bottom... for wages. We are rapidly experiencing this now.

Which ultimately means we have to tax productivity and force its share. So that it cannot be horded or siphoned off overseas.

A coupling of labor to (the means of) production is literally socialism by definition.

No, socialism is government owning the means of production. The elimination of private ownership.
America's current issue is wealth inequality in the fact that working for a living provides less than it used to provide.
The argument is that parents and grandparents could work less to attain more.
And that, today, workers face hardships in providing even while employed. We already provide massive "welfare" and "entitlements".

Inequality For All demonstrates the issue succinctly.

The benefits of stimulus being obvious now, it is clear to me that a healthy economy requires a certain floor for liquidity. The people need a minimum share to enable "full employment" per their necessary consumption. Otherwise downsizing sends ripples spiraling through the economy. I would see our people have the bare minimum, and I would address this by taxing productivity to fund a basic income, a "social security for all" that would close the gap or restore the wealth of the workers back to what it was.

In short, I would tell our capitalist companies that you can raise productivity all you like, but you will not leave our people behind.

 

[desura]

It isn't entirely surprising that inequality is rising. World population has increased 2.5x since 1970. Capitalists make good arguments about capitalism engaging people around the world and lifting them out of poverty. Leftists don't really have any good solutions for how the 3rd world could have modernized without work and sweatshops. The only time when wages at the bottom go up is when world population goes down, such as after large-scale die-offs like the black plague or WWII. That, or effective birth control regimes are really required, but people it seems would rather risk war than control population.

 

[Jhhnn]

Not alleging voter fraud at all. I'm saying that immigration reform that is more hardline will take away D votes. Unlike you, I'm actually paying attention to the incoming administration instead of engaging in wishful thinking.

Bullshit. You said & I quote-

For starters, if Trump and Kris Kobach really do clamp down hard on illegal immigration, this will likely mean fewer D votes, as people self-deport.

If Illegals self deporting means fewer votes that means they're voting fraudulently now. It can be no other way. There is no data indicating that they are despite a decade of innuendo & lies to that effect.

 

[Jhhnn]

A rising tide does lift all boats, but that should not be confused with "trickle down" as we have experienced it.
The modern economy suffers from wage suppression in the midst of soaring productivity.
Capitalism ultimately means a race to the bottom... for wages. We are rapidly experiencing this now.

Which ultimately means we have to tax productivity and force its share. So that it cannot be horded or siphoned off overseas.



No, socialism is government owning the means of production. The elimination of private ownership.
America's current issue is wealth inequality in the fact that working for a living provides less than it used to provide.
The argument is that parents and grandparents could work less to attain more.
And that, today, workers face hardships in providing even while employed. We already provide massive "welfare" and "entitlements".

Inequality For All demonstrates the issue succinctly.

The benefits of stimulus being obvious now, it is clear to me that a healthy economy requires a certain floor for liquidity. The people need a minimum share to enable "full employment" per their necessary consumption. Otherwise downsizing sends ripples spiraling through the economy. I would see our people have the bare minimum, and I would address this by taxing productivity to fund a basic income, a "social security for all" that would close the gap or restore the wealth of the workers back to what it was.

In short, I would tell our capitalist companies that you can raise productivity all you like, but you will not leave our people behind.

Thank you. Well said.

 

[desura]

Bullshit. You said & I quote-



If Illegals self deporting means fewer votes that means they're voting fraudulently now. It can be no other way. There is no data indicating that they are despite a decade of innuendo & lies to that effect.

1. comprehensive immigration reform would have legalized millions of potential voters. Under Trump this does not happen.
2. self-deportation would likely result in entire families, including eligible voters, emigrating completely, and would result in the longer run a slower or even reversed growth rate of immigrant and future voters.

Sure, be paranoid. Despite my saying otherwise. For the record, I don't believe there is widespread voter fraud in this country because it would be too hard to coordinate and keep secret. But if voter requirements or immigration policies were changed, as they likely will with Kris Kobach, the landscape changes.

 

[theeedude]

That's not how Republicans see it though.

 

[Jhhnn]

It isn't entirely surprising that inequality is rising. World population has increased 2.5x since 1970. Capitalists make good arguments about capitalism engaging people around the world and lifting them out of poverty. Leftists don't really have any good solutions for how the 3rd world could have modernized without work and sweatshops. The only time when wages at the bottom go up is when world population goes down, such as after large-scale die-offs like the black plague or WWII. That, or effective birth control regimes are really required, but people it seems would rather risk war than control population.

The Left has no issue with lifting up the rest of the world. We have issues with how the fruits of that are distributed within our own economy. They're hoarded at the top as the whole work for a living in America model is made obsolete by that & by technological progress.

We had a deal- the New Deal, a compact between Capital & Labor that Capitalism has rejected increasingly from Reagan forward. They don't need us to work the way they once did, but we still need to feed the kids, pay the bills & all that. We need a new New Deal, something that Repubs obviously won't deliver.

 

[theeedude]

GOP will deliver Great Depression 2.0 , and then Democrats will deliver a New Deal 2.0. But it can only happen in that order.

 

[desura]

The Left has no issue with lifting up the rest of the world. We have issues with how the fruits of that are distributed within our own economy. They're hoarded at the top as the whole work for a living in America model is made obsolete by that & by technological progress.

We had a deal- the New Deal, a compact between Capital & Labor that Capitalism has rejected increasingly from Reagan forward. They don't need us to work the way they once did, but we still need to feed the kids, pay the bills & all that. We need a new New Deal, something that Repubs obviously won't deliver.

Competition from China and Asia allowed them to modernize, but the competition also destroyed much of the American industrial base. It has also resulted in huge environmental problems in Asia that the left had fought against when such production was in the states. This was in a way natural. The left doesn't have a good answer on how to handle that except to erect artificial barriers to trade, because they don't have sovereignty or reach to those societies. If foreign competition simply did not exist, if those billion Chinese were still walled off, then the left would have had much more leverage in enacting a more equal society for workers and the environment.

 

[Jhhnn]

1. comprehensive immigration reform would have legalized millions of potential voters. Under Trump this does not happen.
2. self-deportation would likely result in entire families, including eligible voters, emigrating completely, and would result in the longer run a slower or even reversed growth rate of immigrant and future voters.

Sure, be paranoid. Despite my saying otherwise. For the record, I don't believe there is widespread voter fraud in this country because it would be too hard to coordinate and keep secret. But if voter requirements or immigration policies were changed, as they likely will with Kris Kobach, the landscape changes.

Still hedging & dancing around it. Why would we want to change the voting landscape if it's honest now? Well, other than for purely partisan purposes, the whole point of strict voter ID requirements.

Is there something desirable about American citizens leaving the country to be with their deported family members? They can still vote anyway-

https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter

 

[Jhhnn]

Competition from China and Asia allowed them to modernize, but the competition also destroyed much of the American industrial base. It has also resulted in huge environmental problems in Asia that the left had fought against when such production was in the states. This was in a way natural. The left doesn't have a good answer on how to handle that except to erect artificial barriers to trade, because they don't have sovereignty or reach to those societies. If foreign competition simply did not exist, if those billion Chinese were still walled off, then the left would have had much more leverage in enacting a more equal society for workers and the environment.

Please. The Left's answer is regulation, taxation & redistribution, all unspeakable words in the Repub Lexicon. We'd rather work for decent wages, but that's not the way it is nor will it move in that direction under the volition of Capitalism.

 

[theeedude]

Automation up the value scale will force the issue. Like a wise man once said "Middle America, now it's a tragedy, now it's so hard to see, in upper class city."

 

[agent00f]

I could be wrong, but don't the terms go as follows:

Capitalism - Wealth is power. More money, more power. To get the most, spend the least required.

Socialism - Small amounts of wealth are taken from those with abundance, and focused into providing for those without. E.g, the NHS; a perfectly acceptable standard of healthcare available to all, with no upfront cost. FYI, average amount of tax money directed to it is £2,000 paid per person, IIRC.

Communism - A flat rate of exchange between work:salary.

Naturally, implementing these in their raw form is just disaster, no matter what your corporate overlords and banks may say. Unfettered capitalism nets you the destruction of the Earth and it's inhabitants. Unfettered socialism leaves the populace with no wealth. Unfettered communism removes the carrot for many.

We got to find a balance, and that balance will change as society, the economy, and the environment changes in turn.

Your "socialism" refers to "social democracy", which is in practice just capitalism with redistributive (ie robin hood) taxes. It's what most first world countries do and works alright. Socialism proper refers to proletariat ownership of production resources, more like employee-owned business but pervasive across the board. Notice that doesn't even preclude market competition. Communism is the next logical step which eliminates ownership altogether.

 

[agent00f]

No, socialism is government owning the means of production. The elimination of private ownership.
America's current issue is wealth inequality in the fact that working for a living provides less than it used to provide.
The argument is that parents and grandparents could work less to attain more.
And that, today, workers face hardships in providing even while employed. We already provide massive "welfare" and "entitlements".

That's what folks not exactly learned (or into learning) are often told. Naturally it makes no sense because that's the point: tell the plebs something that makes no sense and then proclaim them damn commies don't make no sense.

Socialism stems from the recognition that the ownership/shareholder class accumulate the wealth instead of those doing the work because they own the means of production. Therefore to solve that fundamental problem, ownership should instead be vested in the labor force/stakeholders, a la employee owned whatever. Comically enough, that's basically what you're talking about.

The reason why "socialism" got the connotation of gubmint-owned everything is that in order for the employees/labor to own something, it has to divested the ownership class of their power grip. So that's what the head revolutionaries did; but because they like power, too, they never bothered to confer that ownership to the prols.

It's all largely covered in that insightful yet easy to read book Animal Farm, written by an actual socialist--thus very amusing when americans often confuse the work as an anti-socialist treatise.

 

[norseamd]

It was discussed during the Cold War in the economics discipline as "The Mixed Economy." The chicken and egg argument about taxes and government doesn't really apply. In order to generate revenue, you need an effective judicial system, all levels of law enforcement, public goods that only make sense by public provision, regulation of interstate commerce, highways, schools. Without all that, a business would spend so much on self-protection and other costs that -- well -- we'd sink back into the pre-industrial or early-industrial age.

The new but clueless activists haven't worked all this out. They want the remainder of social security recipients to hurry up and die. They want all sorts of nonsense, which in the airing of it, makes them feel like puffed up armchair experts. You will not find among their number any prize-winning macro-economists, great legal minds, or any other experts with expertise that illuminates the nature and survival of the post-industrial state.

These discussions of hyper-generalized labels or "isms" are droll. If you want to discuss political philosophy or economic philosophy, consider the options as toolboxes which don't define all solutions or even all of one solution to any given problem.

there is only the recognition of problems, the consensus on those problems, and a growing agreement as to how they can be solved now -- and in the future.

But, but, but, but, ..... but youre not recognizing the pure genius of Ayn Rand man!

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

Yes,Socialism is working so well in Venezuela. Nothing like starving children to death to really rev up an economy.

Oh how cute, you think its socialism that destroyed Venezuela, not a strongman dictator like president with unlimited powers.

Regardless, arguments about socialism should always start with what the author means when he uses the word. For example, Welfare != socialism.

 

[agent00f]

Oh how cute, you think its socialism that destroyed Venezuela, not a strongman dictator like president with unlimited powers.

Regardless, arguments about socialism should always start with what the author means when he uses the word. For example, Welfare != socialism.

Good thing it doesn't, or else the red states would be the most socialist places with all that white welfare.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

But, but, but, but, ..... but youre not recognizing the pure genius of Ayn Rand man!

Mmm. Pure genius, like Donald Asshole saying he was such a genius for claiming loss carryovers against 20 years of taxes. Any small-time retiree-landlord who does his own taxes knows that there's no genius there. Only a big-time fat-cat like the Donald who probably never did his own taxes would think it to be "genius."

Rand was the daughter of doting parents, and probably raided the shelves of her father's drug-store before the Bolsheviks expropriated it. They nevertheless allowed her to graduate from Russian film-school.

Then she came to the US where she became the protégé of Cecil B. DeMille. She had studied classic (ancient) philosophy and languages and became a devotee of Nietzsche. She then expounds on economics and politics, conjuring up her character fantasies in prolix fictional books, never taken seriously by literary scholars.

With all those book sales, what happened to her money? She had none. Her drug addictions don't explain it away. when diagnosed with cancer, she needed her husband's Social Security and Medicare for her treatments.

She felt . . . . so . . . . so . . . . ashamed! I like to print posters of her face to stick on the sidewalk and allow the passers-by to leave their prints.

 

[agent00f]

Mmm. Pure genius, like Donald Asshole saying he was such a genius for claiming loss carryovers against 20 years of taxes. Any small-time retiree-landlord who does his own taxes knows that there's no genius there. Only a big-time fat-cat like the Donald who probably never did his own taxes would think it to be "genius."

Rand was the daughter of doting parents, and probably raided the shelves of her father's drug-store before the Bolsheviks expropriated it. They nevertheless allowed her to graduate from Russian film-school.

Then she came to the US where she became the protégé of Cecil B. DeMille. She had studied classic (ancient) philosophy and languages and became a devotee of Nietzsche. She then expounds on economics and politics, conjuring up her character fantasies in prolix fictional books, never taken seriously by literary scholars.

With all those book sales, what happened to her money? She had none. Her drug addictions don't explain it away. when diagnosed with cancer, she needed her husband's Social Security and Medicare for her treatments.

She felt . . . . so . . . . so . . . . ashamed! I like to print posters of her face to stick on the sidewalk and allow the passers-by to leave their prints.

Funniest fact concerning Rand is that for all she rants about the russian commies, they were responsible for opening university enrollment to women, and thus the only reason why anyone knows about her ranting.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Automation up the value scale will force the issue. Like a wise man once said "Middle America, now it's a tragedy, now it's so hard to see, in upper class city."

The way I see it as long as any economic system is inherently flawed as long as it never address the fundamental problem: Dependence on other people. I doubt anybody give a shit about politics if they can fulfill all of their material needs themselves and I believe the world will be a much kinder place.

 

[Gryz]

No, socialism is government owning the means of production. The elimination of private ownership.
America's current issue is wealth inequality in the fact that working for a living provides less than it used to provide.

It's nice that you linked that definition.
But it is wrong.

What you are talking about is communism.
In socialism private ownership is not banned. Socialism is something in between capitalism and communism. In socialism the government want to have more control over stuff than in capitalism. But socialism does not want to own everything.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Oh how cute, you think its socialism that destroyed Venezuela, not a strongman dictator like president with unlimited powers.

Regardless, arguments about socialism should always start with what the author means when he uses the word. For example, Welfare != socialism.

Socialism is just a first step to a dictatorship and ruin.

 

[Jhhnn]

Perhaps stepping away from globalists that have infiltrated the Democratic party. Most likely will not happen and the US will need an alternative before 2018.

You mean Globalists like the head of Exxon as SoS? Or the head of a global financial firm as Sec of Commerce? How about a Wall St hedge funder as Sec of Treasury?

Trump's cabinet picks so far have more wealth between them than a third of Americans combined. They didn't get that way giving a damn about the little guy.