Forum Post: Capitalism a love story
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 6, 2011, 5:44 p.m. EST by therevolutionishere
(22)
from Newark, NJ
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/capitalism-love-story
Highly recommended, watch it in the above link. Stop the 1% which are holding our nation hostage.
Terrible mockumemtary
this movie is about crony capitalism, not capitalism. moore said as much in multiple video clips but he dishonestly titles the movie and his rhetoric is against capitalism because that gets him the most anti-capitalists to pay for his movie to stuff money in his pockets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cbUAwCE7JVY#t=48s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxmtreWQoVs&feature=player_profilepage
This is a rather anonymous SONG-CHANT-RANT offering, that will hopefully unify our message on the streets. Imparting some basic historical information that has lead to the continued debasing of free forms of Government. Where a select group of power seekers never seem to have enough of anything, including us.This is a very serious time for the FREE Global Community, our only weapon is Martin Luther King's legacy. They further try to discredit us with accusations of not having a coherent message when their only endgame is to further in-slave us! Abusing others until there is only two classes the Haves and Have-Not's. we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more
nothing’s been the same since jfk eisenhower warned us it would get this way a vast military-industrial-complex a vast military-industrial-complex
were out here to show the one percentors we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more
oly norquist pledged most congress (oly’ = satire oliver north)
to his power lil’ oly’ norquist pledged most congress (piglet)
to his power
we’ know who you are were’ tired of our voices not counting
we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more
were out on the streets to get our “countries” back
until foreign trade benefits---the 99%
were out on the streets to get our “countries” back
until foreign trade benefits---the 99%
were’ just not gonna’ take it no more were’ just not gonna’ take it no more were’ just not gonna’ take it no more
so, your’ spreadin’ democracy all over --the world your’ spreadin’ democracy all over --the world
it’s gotten’ so corrupt even we---don’t understand it!
so, your’ spreadin’ democracy all over --the world spreadin’ your’ democracy all over --the world
it’s gotten’ so corrupt even we---don’t understand it!
bring back our soldiers’s your cor-poor-et wars are all over bring back our soldiers’s your cor-poor-et wars are all over
were out here to show the one percentors we’ just not gonna’ take it no more we’ just not gonna’ take it no more
it’s too bad we hav-at spell it out but liars never listen they just -run their mouths
a thousand point of light all over the world
a new world order the bil-dah-burgers can go to hell
were’ just not gonna’ take it no more were’ just not gonna’ take it no more were’ just not gonna’ take it no more------
were’ just not gonna’ take it no more!
It was a love story until it sought to punish those whom it once helped succeed. That's the flip side to capitalism. Yes, you get rewarded for making things you want. But there is also bankruptcy for those who make bad choices. Their is failure. As soon as capitalism delivered major failure to those who had been guilty of major fraud by wrongly packaging securities, those who called themselves capitalists sought to socialize the entire cost of their failures onto the backs of everyone else:
http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/2011/10/saving-capitalists-from-capitalism-sustainable-economics/
For a long time, no one spoke out against it until the recession became a Great Recession. Everyone sat around and watched as the greatest sums of money ever known to mankind were lavished upon the greatest failures ever known to mankind. Vast sums of money were dumped into black holes never to be seen again, as the money did not even go into circulation as intended. It merely sits in dark bank vaults to right the balance sheets of failed enterprises. No one spoke out, and the media parroted every talking point the government fed to it. They constantly voiced the mantra that the Great Recession had ended in June of 2009. Someone forgot to tell the unemployed, but they did not speak out either.
Now, at last, people are speaking out.
--David Haggith http://TheGreatRecession.info/blog
The only way to kill capitalism is to kill money. We can ride the crash of the system, into a sustainable, off the grid future.
If you can make pasta, you can boil milk solids. This resin can be made into http://www.reprapcentral.com/ & made more efficient with http://www.arduino.cc/ & some computer skills. (You can make plates, utensils, sandals & toys.) From this 3-D Printer, you can then make the parts for an aqua-culture fish farm basin & hydroponics vegetable, or sustainable food production. Then a water catch & filtration system, (ever have a pool, not much more complicated). A little wind & or solar tech to power it all, built into an http://www.earthship.org/ (which is a sustainable home made from reused/recycled materials) All we need are cows, silicon, fish, seeds, old tire yards, (i'll be honest, i don't know how solar works, but i can make electricity with magnets). The point is, Off the Grid, Sustainability, is possible & cheaper, because it's open-sourced. This is the backbone of a new civilization, one that doesn't need money, politics, corporations, religion, poverty or war. Imagine, what would this do for the welfare state? & how this kind of "Welfare-to-work" program, could get people off the dole, forever! We as a society, could then recreate our education systems, so that they focused, on early development of the Trivium & Quadrivium, before High School. Then, in high school, each child would be ready to create that which i described above. Imagine now, that each child, had the knowledge of creating & maintaining their own sustainable, off the grid home, before they went off to college?
The Truth does exist, & it is Knowable.
The comment to Danimal about getting out was wrong. We need dialog with those that disagree, that's what makes us a democracy. First, yes in actual dollars, the rich do pay more than us. However they are the beneficiaries of much our society offers. They have the courts that enforce their contracts and debts, the official to enforce the orders, the police and military that protect their wealth. However as a proportion of our income we are pretty high, because we pay sales taxes, payroll taxes on ALL our wages, property taxes (even as renters as part of the rent) government fees for such things as vehicle registrations, that the rich don't even look at, and the basic costs of living for food, clothing and rent that do not constitute a burden on those making mega millions in salaries and bonuses.
I think one thing that would need to happen would be to define an "income". I am not sure if everyone realizes this, but with small businesses that are incorporated, the people who own the business are taxed on the full income of the business, not on their take home pay. That means, that the business pays taxes on what it earns. Then, out of that earnings the rent, maintenance, employees, etc. All need to be paid, then from that the owner can pay himself from what is left. However, his income tax is not based on this "what's left" that he takes home. His income tax (yes, personal income tax) is based on that first number - the total earnings of the business. The business could make a million, he could end up taking home 30K of that, but he's taxed on the million! And in the million tax bracket too. Oh, and by the way, that's the same million that was already taxed once when the government taxed the business. So, I am not saying anything about the 1%. But what I am hoping is that folks are thinking about unintended consequences of blanket laws that could end up hurting your neighbor next door who technically is not a 1%.
And actually, if its a Subchapter S corporation or he forms an LLC, there is only one tax, it is not taxed twice as you allege, as it would be in a Subchapter C corporation.
I understand what you are saying. I owned a business once that was in that boat, however, I paid no taxes because I was able to write off things. I know many small business are able to write off such things as their car that they lease through the company, put their relatives on the payroll and write off the salaries(although I agree the relative pays taxes on the wages), all the rent, cost of goods. when you talk about "what's left" that includes all expenses, including all rents, and fees that for an individual are not deductible, and let;s not forget the depreciation they can write off on equipment and real estate purchases. I do believe that a business owner has the right to prosper from his or her guts, vision and hard work, but let's be real about it, there are many benefits they enjoy that lower their tax rate.
I don't think it is fair to assume that because that may have been what you did when you owned a business, that everyone operates that way. Yes, writing off equipment necessary to run the business as a business expense is, and should be, legitimate. But putting your relatives on the payroll, writing off your family vehicle, and other such things is not acceptable. This is what I am talking about. Because some bad apples have done this sort of thing, the assumption is that everyone does. And if you haven't been, and have truly been honest with running your business, you shouldn't be treated as if you were not and vilified. I wouldn't call $30K a year such a profit that the person should be run out of business for the assumption of practices they are not even doing. Lots of talk about fairness in this forum, and all I'm saying is that! to me, doesn't sound fair either.
Well almost everyone I know who runs a a business does it that way, and it's perfectly legal and legitimate. It's not that they write off a family vehicle, its just that they lease a vehicle for the business, and just so happen use it for personal purposes. in fact, I made about 6 times the amount then that I make now and I paid absolutely no taxes because my business showed a taxable loss. frankly, I think it would be extremely rare for a business that allows the owner to take out $30k woulds have taxable income of$1 million unless their accountant is totally incompetent.
All I can say is that just because you and your friends ran your business that way, doesn't mean there are not honest people out there trying to do it right. I wouldn't be in the 1% anyway, so I am certainly not sticking up for that. I'm just saying, why can't we carefully think things through so that we don't accidentally crush all of the ants in our quest to take down the elephant. You'll prob say, tough luck for you. Ants are everywhere and you are gonna have to kill a few if you want to get at the beast. Some casualties are acceptable, right?
Well not my friends, but associates I knew through Rotary, Kiwanis, etc or at cocktail parties.
Yes things do need to be carefully thought through. I certainly do not want to "punish" success, but instead make sure that everyone shares an appropriate burden of society, and I do believe that those who succeed can pay more, but not at a confiscatory rate.
I do believe our value as a movement should be: "We believe that every person has the expectation that they will be allowed to benefit from the fruits of their hard work, ingenuity and investment, but that with any success, there comes the obligation to treat those responsible for that success with fairness, dignity and respect and also allow others to so benefit from their own hard work, ingenuity and investment, whether such investment is in the form of labor or capital."
Thanks. I think it's important to be careful in this. Thanks for thoughtfully considering.
How do you think we should handle this? It sounds like you have experience in this and your advice would be very helpful.
LOL. I am not sure I have answers I would presume to ask others to abide by! I was only concerned by the use of blanket phrases that continue to go undefined. Things like "corporation" and "rich" (because I remember that Obama is now defining the rich as anyone making $200K). I don't make that, but I also don't think those who do are the 1%. So, I am just trying to raise some thinking points if anyone is listening.
Yes i understand. I think Obama was using the 250k figure and that only that income OVER the 250 k would be subject to the increased rate, the one that was in effect during Clinton. Actually I thin the 1% figure cutoff is income over $1 million, I'm not talking about net worth, but annual income.I know that most "corporations" are small closely held corporations that run corner stores, car repair shops, etc, so I agree, the term is being used generically to large multi-national corporations.
Yup! And if the new movement makes a law for "corporations" without further definition, it affects the small ones too. This is what I meant by "unintentional consequences". I don't think anyone is out to get the small business. But unless one also looks to actively protect it, they become a casualty of generic sweeping laws.
I totally agree. Any policy must understand economics and the business world. As you can gather hopefully I am not some flaming communist flamethrower, I just want to see reforms where the middle class is strengthened, and the wage earner given an opportunity to share in productivity gained.
We, as a country can disperse like a million ants to fire or we can use this heat to form something stronger; something that, given the right conditions and materials, could change society and people as a whole. This is why humans come together in times of peril. We cannot move a system as a million separate pieces spread thin across this nation. We must form into one million-celled unit to be seen, and one million-unit movement to be recognized. It is time, once again, for this nation to come together and change the way we live our lives. ALL OF US! We, as a nation, should not stand for separate rules and treatment for the upper class. No longer shall the gluttonous few suck the fat from our nation's livestock, while the rest are given dry bones to nourish their families. The rich are getting richer and the poor are searching for 'purple-roofed Ethical Suicide Parlors' to stop their debt-consumption life. We must only serve NEEDS and stop handing over WANTS and MUST HAVES to corporations. This privatized agenda has shaved off money from every person, leaving only the top percent of the nation with any money, and therefor eliminating the middle class entirely. We have those with disposable income while at the same time an entire country is in financial crisis. It's time to level the scales and stop the misdistribution of money in this country. But all this sure as FUCK does not happen in an online forum. So for those of you who actually want to make a legitimate change in the structure of this nation, I'll see you cells at the frontline.
Would suggest this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0axH7I9v0
Your right its not a democracy its a plutonomy, I suggest this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy87kzKxkP8&feature=related
He is a millionaire. But not part of the 1%. @MMFlint wants to return our political system to the people.
At the end of the movie he says there is an alternative to capitalism: Democracy.
If you want a real solution, demand that we replace capitalism with democracy, a system where power rests with everyone equally: equal votes, equal treatment under the law and EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL EFFORT.
If income was allocated democratically, and people were no longer treated like heads of cattle where your entire standard of living and quality life is dictated by your ability to sell yourself in the market, everyone would be wealthy. There would be no poverty or middle class or homeless or uneducated. And there would be little crime.
If income was allocated equally, everyone would get paid $127,000 per year.
Or if you wanted to pay the people who did the difficult jobs that required greater mental or physical effort twice as much as the rest of the jobs, everyone would get paid $115,000 per year and everyone who worked in science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, or farming would get paid $230,000 per year.
When every citizen has access to a job with those incomes as a right, there would be no social problems.
That's not Democracy, that's Marxism. And what is Democracy besides 2 wolves and 1 goat voting on what to have for dinner? That's why we have a REPUBLIC - to protect the rights of the goat from the wants of the wolves.
Democracy isn't an economic system anyway. You cannot replace an informal economic system with a political system. Else you will find yourself the goat.
Exactly. Thank you. Capitalism != corporatism. The corruption you see today is a directly related to the corruption of the government. You can't fix government corruption by giving the State more power. That's insanity.
I don't think anyone in this forum has taken a political science class.
Marxism is a critique of capitalism. It has nothing to do with democracy or what would replace capitalism.
Democracy is a Greek work for people power. It is a system where power rests with everyone equally. It can be used to run a government, an economy, a single business, a family or it can be used in deciding what to cook for dinner.
Democracy is not mob rule or rule of the majority. It is equal power. Although voting may be one method used to make some decisions and majority votes may be one method of reaching a conclusion, that does not mean you can vote to violate someone else's rights. So a wolf can't vote to eat the goat and the goat can't vote to eat the wolf since they all have an equal power not to be eaten.
It is a metaphor. It means that the wants of the collective can override the needs of the few. For example, the rich can be taxed at 90% (again) because of the wants of rest of us.
While the metaphor was a life-death situation, I did not intend for it to be limited to inalienable rights such as life. I do not have a right to retain my wealth apparently (and hopefully I will someday earn "wealth" to be worried about) therefore the majority can vote claims to it and I am powerless in a Democracy to stop it.
Since democracy is a system of equality, you cannot vote to do something to one person in particular. Everyone is treated equally.
You get equal votes, equal treatment under the law and equal pay for equal effort.
Taking away your wealth would be a violation of your right to equality. It would violate your right to equal income or your right to equal treatment under the law or both.
Would it? This sounds even more like just non-rule. If 99% in a Democracy vote to tax me higher to meet their needs but me and the rest of the 1% vote no - it's a stalemate? I win?
Or do you mean they cannot vote me higher rates than they pay?
If a majority in society votes to raise taxes and you vote not to raise taxes, your taxes will be raised.
But society would not be able to vote to only raise your taxes and nobody else's.
So it would be a flat tax for all income brackets. Good to know.
There would be virtually no income brackets. People would be paid equally. One way to allocate income equally is to just pay everyone $127,000 per year. Or pay everyone $115,000 per year and pay $230k to everyone that worked a job that required greater physical or mental effort.
Um if the burger flipper makes $127k the price of the "value meal" just jumped to $48. I don't know if math is a problem for you but it isn't for me. An $8 value meal is made by people paid $20k for their low skill set (if that much). If you raise the cost of creating burgers by 600%, the cost to breakeven on the burger rises 600%.
I make less than $100k a year and I cannot afford to take my family of 5 out to Burger King if it will cost me $240. I don't pay that for any meal - especially fast food.
How is a business supposed to stay in the US if the cost to make their product rises 600%? Surely you have thought about that side of things. I run a business manufacturing seat cushions. I pay $9/hr to the labor force that builds the cushions here in the US. We are barely staying afloat even though I am the President, accounting department, entire sales team, warehouse manager, inventory manager, and HR rep. I work 80+ hours a week except on vacation weeks when I work 40 hours. It is also my house on the line and my personal bankruptcy if the company goes under. If I have to increase the pay of the warehouse staff to $63.50 like you suggest, I will be out of business and bankrupt by the next payday. And I will have lost my remaining customers to the ones who make cushions overseas for dirt cheap.
Now, explain how in the hell your idiotic scheme keeps my employees and myself employed.
Capitalism would be replaced with democracy.
So you would no longer be the owner with your money on the line. If you had an idea for seat cushions which current cushion manufacturers were not producing, you would present your idea to a bank. If the idea is viable, they would give you the funds to launch the business.
You would then get paid a salary just like everyone else. Your pay is not whatever profits the business generates. But your responsibility is still to make sure your company remains profitable.
However, since companies are no longer privately owned, there can be a lot more collaboration even though you still will be competing against other companies. When you launch a business you will plug into our nationwide logistics infrastructure. So it would be similar to being a subsidiary of a $15 trillion corporation.
That means a lot of the work you are doing now, you wouldn't have to do. A lot of it can be fully automated. Accounting, sales and HR can be fully automated. Even your warehousing and transit can be fully automated.
That level of efficiency is only possible when you plug into our national, state-of-the-art infrastructure. A small manufacturer in a capitalist system could never achieve that.
But to address your point about prices increasing, they won't. The total US income is not increasing, so it won't increase prices. The income is just evenly being spread out.
So although a lowly McDs worker salary will see a big increase, upper management will see a big decrease. There will no longer be people making millions of dollars per year. All that is happening is that Mcds income is being paid out more evenly. So their overall expenses won't increase, and so their prices won't increase either.
But there is a bigger issue that I think will take priority in a democratic system. We won't have people working lowly jobs like flipping burgers. Those jobs (along with jobs like waiters, cooks, warehouse, truck driving, accounting, sales, cashiers, etc) can be automated with existing technology.
In a democratic system, the economic system as a whole will actually be accountable to citizens. Quality of life will be a goal that needs to be met, just like economic efficiency and growth. So every job that nobody wants to do that can be automated, will be immediately automated.
50% of the jobs we currently do can be automated immediately.
You clearly do not know what you are talking about. However, you have helped me to see this movement for what it truly is . . .
Marxism.
No thanks.
I advocate democracy not marxism. And I don't think I am representative of the movement.
And yet you outline the exact marxist vision of utopia in the comment above this. You are advocating marxism via popular vote (which you won't get).
You are misinformed. Marx criticized capitalism. He did not provide a vision of utopia. He actually spoke out against utopian socialism.
I don't advocate utopia either.
What I present is based on existing numbers and how the world exists today, not on how it may be in the future.
I also do not advocate marxism. Marx got a lot of things wrong.
You keep calling State ownership and prefect (or nearly perfect) redistribution of income democracy. Perhaps you need to clarify your definition of your terms pertaining to an economic system.
Marxism and Communism are both defined as advocacy of a classless society in which private ownership has been abolished and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community.
What part of that do you disagree with?
I usually think of democracy meaning a government by the people, for the people - which doesn't inherently espouse any particular economic system.
I advocate a democratic economy because it is the only way to create a society that works well for everyone, that provides the highest standard of living for all, that maximizes every one’s ability to flourish and that eliminates the need to force people to waste their lives toiling in involuntary jobs.
Every worker should be guaranteed a job.
Every worker, who does the job they were hired to perform, should be wealthy. They should all get paid equally. The reason why they should all get paid equally is because they are all equally performing the job they were hired to do.
Everyone who works a difficult job, a job that requires greater physical or mental effort, should get paid $230,000 per year.
Everyone who works a job that is not difficult should get paid $115,000 per year.
The reason why incomes are paid out in those amounts is because that is what the incomes amount to when you allocate the country's total income equally among all workers and you want to pay difficult jobs twice as much as jobs that are not difficult.
If you do not do the job you were hired to perform because of incompetency or laziness, you should be fired.
If people do not buy the good or service you are working on, it should stop being produced and you should stop being paid. You should then be forced to find a new job working on something people are buying.
When you treat all workers equally, in this manner, you have a democratic economic system.
In a fully democratic society, where both government and the economy were managed democratically, everyone would have a birth right to the equal freedom to act - to pursue their happiness however they define it - without coercion or restraint so long as they do not reasonably violate that same right in others. Every citizen gets an equal freedom to act, speak, and think; equal treatment under the law; equal votes; and EQUAL INCOME FOR EQUAL EFFORT.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
-Karl Marx
Got it.
I disagree. I prefer something like "So long as I do not consume more than I have produced - begrudge me none, hinder me none."
-Danimal98367
You are not getting it.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was Marx's slogan for what would happen in communism.
It is not the same as equality or equal income for equal effort.
I agree more with your statement. If you produced 40 hours worth of goods and services, you should be able to consume goods and services that took 40 hours to produce.
Your statement means equal income for equal effort. Welcome to the team advocating for a democratic economy.
Don't worry, you are in good company: Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, George Orwell, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and current Senator Bernie Sanders.
But elsewhere you argue that what I produce will not net me more than what you produce because that would defy the equal effort part.
If I invent and make a product that people want more than the stuff you make, I cannot enrich myself more than you are able to be enriched because you are working hard too - just producing less desirable stuff.
If 10 million people want my doo-hickie, I can sell to each of them but my compensation will be the same as yours even though only 100k people want your competing doo-hickie. Yours is good but mine better. You did good but I did better. My reward? Sacrificed to the greater good.
If you take more than 40 hours worth of stuff for working 40 hours, you are taking more than what you would normally be entitled to.
You would no longer be taking an equivalent of what you produce. You would be taking more.
If you work 40 hours making 10 million doo-hickies and I spend 40 hours producing 1 million widgets, that does not mean you worked harder or produced more or deserve 10 times more than me. That just means the cost of my widget is 10 times more than your doo-hickie.
Obviously 1 car is not the same as 1 iphone.
You cannot say that a person who produced 1 car produced the same as a person who produced 1 iphone.
If nobody buys my widgets, I deserve nothing. I should stop being paid, and I should get a new job producing widgets people want to buy.
Let us assume we work the same job at the same business assembling widgets. I assemble 40 a week because I'm awesome. You assemble 35 a week because you're pretty good too. You aren't fire-worthy, you just ain't as good at the job as me.
What stops me from slowing down to 35 since I'm paid the same for it? What stops the slide to the lowest level of acceptability if there is no reward for being better?
That little thought experiment has played out thousands of times.
I forgot to type the last and most important part.
In the very small % of jobs where production is tied directly to work effort, you can possibly pay their full income only if they maintain a certain level of production or even a % more if they produce above average output.
We have decades of research on what motivates people. The best way to compensate workers is to pay them well and to pay them a flat salary so that the issue of money is off the table and they can just focus on doing great work.
If you are a slacker and refuse to work as hard as everyone else, you would be fired just like you would today.
But what all the research says, to get workers to take pride in their work and give their best effort, is the job should give them autonomy which treats them like responsible adults, an opportunity to master the tasks they are performing and a transcendent purpose to work towards.
Trying to manipulate people with monetary rewards actually hurts performance in the majority of work we do.
This is backed by studies done in many different fields including research done by the Federal Reserve.
The overwhelming majority of people already get paid this way. Most get paid a flat salary in today's system with little opportunity for advancement within your job. Nearly every union job, for example, tops out in pay after 4 years.
And this is also how doctors are paid at the Mayo Clinic, one of the best hospitals in the world. Not paying for individual performance is part of their philosophy.
View this quick TED Talk on compensation incentives which provides the evidence that the compensation model based on equality will not only work, it will work better than our current system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
Plus there are a ton of ways to effectively motivate people other than monetary rewards. Google the emerging field of gamification which is applying game mechanics (such as completing set tasks for points to level up and acquire medals and outscore the competition and reach the top of the leaderboard) to all real world activities like work, exercising, dieting, learning, etc.
It makes otherwise boring tasks fun. Advocates believe gamification will transform society and will be a part of everything we do. They think game designers will eventually be in charge of developing sophisticated systems that will turn everything we do in our lives into a fun and engaging experience.
Belts in karate or rank and medals in the military are crude examples of gamification.
View this video for gamification's potential: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NzFCfZMBkU
What stops you is the same thing that stops that from happening today.
There are a lot of variables that are at play.
Management is responsible for the financial performance of the company. So their sole job is to make sure workers are performing well.
If you produce less, price will go up. That may lower demand. And since you will likely have competition, if your price is not competitive, the whole company goes under and everyone is out of a job.
People need to work in an environment where they take pride in their work. And work will be designed to do just that. If you take pride (and most people already do; most do not look to do the least possible), you will want to continually increase output and meet goals.
Jobs that are menial with repetitive tasks will be the first to be automated. So we will rely on machines to do that kind of work.
Capitalism is as much a political system as democracy. Economics is short for the term political economy.
Democracy is a Greek word for people power. It is a system where power rests with everyone equally. It can be used to run a government, an economy, a single business, a family or it can be used in deciding what to cook for dinner.
Capitalism is a system of inequality. It is the exact opposite of democracy. It is a system where the means of production are privately owned for a profit. The goal is to accumulate as much personal wealth as possible.
We should replace capitalism, a system of inequality, with democracy, a system of equality because we are civilized and humane and all humans deserve the dignity of being treated equally.
And this differs from communism as the end-goal how?
I think the end goal of every society is communism. It is unavoidable as technology progresses.
I'm just saying we are obviously not there yet. We still live in a world of scarcity.
Until robots fix that :)
Communism is a hypothetical stage society will reach once it develops the technology to eliminate scarcity. Once you eliminate scarcity, you don't need money or property or government. Technology enables you to reach such an abundance that you no longer need goods and services to be rationed with money, people can take all they want, and automation is so advanced, all the jobs nobody wants to do is done by machines so you don't need to pay people to work.
No society has ever achieved communism. We do not have the technology to achieve it. I advocate the use of money, prices, markets for goods and services and working for an income. So I do not advocate communism.
And state ownership of production, apparently, from your long comment 3 days ago.
That is not a complete sentence. I don't know what you mean.
crap logic!
How? Demonstrate it.
Michael Moore is a self-serving liar and he is full of sh@#$%&*t!
Isn't Michael Moore in the 1%?
No.
He is, but as I commented on previous threads; in order to change a system weightier you rebuild it from scratch or remodel it completely. One must use the system from within to show the mob there needs to be a change. It is the job of the viewer/reader to make commitment to research on their own and create their own views and ideals. But also accept criticism as well as honestly giving it out themselves in a intelligent manner.
I am not for or against the man, money is needed to make films and yes he makes money from it. However, many of his films have sparked or influenced protests just like this very one you are apart of right now.
you would think a man like micheal moore would evenly distribute his earnings among all of the people he employs
If he were for the 1% he wouldnt be making documentaries against them, the 99% doesnt have to generalized as homeless vagrants Jack.
Remember when Mr. Cain said "Blacks are brainwashed"? He was partially correct. They that control you, also controls the media..all of it...not just the news. We have been propagated against for decades. While he and others are the 1% they are "allowed" too expose partial truths in order to staisfy wings of "conspiracy theorists" throughout populations. They then use this info to label them crazies enabling them to dismiss the truth buried in there.. ..Sound familiar?
Yes and he want's govt to increase his taxes.
No, he wants government to raise other rich person's tax. If it was only his he wanted upped, he would donate the money to the IRS. He can do that, you know.
Yes, he can donate to IRS. But he want's other millionaires to play fair and donate also otherwise what's the point, his donation would be a drop in the ocean.
You could take ALL the money from ALL the billonares in America. It would equal about 1.3 trillon. Our Govt spent 4+ trillon for this year. The Govet took in 2.5 trillon. Add 2.5 and 1.3..that is 3.8. But you would have to take ALL their money. Still not pay for one year of current spending. Then what?
Why billionaires only ? What if I make 100 Million ?
Absolute non sense!
Well gee, if we took all the millionares money too, well I don't know I didn't look that up the other day. But whatever it is I am sure it wouldn't last long with current spending rates(and clammoring for more). Then there would be a lot less jobs, all the business would go away, and we could just allow cannalbalism.
Non sense !
Open our tax history and study.
No he doesn't. He wants it forced from them, not donated. Taxes isn't a donation - it is taken by force. (Yes force. See what happens when you don't pay . . .)
Rules are rules, if income tax is a rule then every body has to pay. That is fairness.
Anyways if you don't want to pay income taxes at all while you still making money from this economy, I guess you still get the option of going to Jail if you want to.
But some people should have harder rules than others, I see. The rich already do pay - and more in every measureable than the not-rich.
What you're really advocating is EVEN MORE paying from the rich is "fairness", aren't you?
You want fair, let's fix the income every working person earns to 100K per year. That's fair for all because everybody works for 8 hrs in a day. Then let everybody pay 20% income tax.
OR
Let's tax everybody at 90% and then the govt will refund 50K to everybody to lead a simple life. This is fair too.
If you don't want either options, then end the Fed and dollar currency altogether and we don't need to pay any taxes then. Let everybody exchange their goods and services with each other. I'm fine with that too as it's fair.
You choose whichever option you want and implement it. Good luck. :)
How is that fair? Is everyone equal? Everyone is the same brilliance? Everyone is the same strength? Everyone does the same amount of work? Keep dreaming. Why is it so hard to imagine a world where other people can, and do, more valuable work than you?
And yes, he could donate to the IRS if he wanted to. Any millionaire who claims to want higher taxes but doesn't cut the government a check on the spot is a hypocrite.
Do you have a superiority complex ?
You're the one claiming to know what's fair.
As an aside, I like the last option best, but money would come back. Money, used with free market principles, is just a medium used to exchange value. Controlled by the govt, now you have a problem.
Not just me, all these protestors with Occupywallstreet know what's fair and unfair. Every human instinctively knows whats fair and unfair. Nobody needs to tell or be told.
I have noticed conservatives (to some extent libertarians) have a hard time trying to get this. We are trying to help them.
Competition by itself is inherently unfair.
Any system based upon competition rather than collaboration promotes inequality. This is because, competition literally implies winners (haves) and losers (have nots)
To maintain this unfair system, unfair tactics must be used, and unfair laws implemented.
So until all competitive systems are replaced by collaborative ones, there will be no such thing as 'fair'.
I agree to a large extent. Can humans completely eliminate competition among themselves ? I don't think so and competition is the main law behind nature's law of survival of the fittest.
That is what we are all taught in school.
The term "survival of the fittest" wasn't coined by Darwin. It was a political interpretation of Darwin's "natural selection" by Herbert Spencer.
Many species survive because they are better at collaborating with aspects of their environment than other species.
Our society would not have advanced from nomads to villages to cities to nations without more and more people collaborating.
So our survival as a species depends on natural selection, not competition. It depends on our ability to align our society to natural laws rather than artificial ones.
In otherwords, we need evidence based decisions rather than opinion-based decisions guiding us.
Let's see. There are 9 women and 10 men left and they want to marry each other. Will there be no competition ?
I'm not into polygamy :P
But in all seriousness monogamy is a social construct based on how we've grown up to believe male-female relationships should be. Also many marriages wouldn't occur if monetary incentives, and religious responsibilities weren't forced on people.
If they still want to marry that is fine but there must at least be an understanding that other lifestyles exist without outright condemning them. e.g. Celibacy, open relationships, dating, polygamy, etc.
It is again a system (culture) that enforces the idea that these things are right or wrong.
No comments ! :)
Human's haven't evolved enough to completely lose their animal instinct, so I guess competition will be around for sometime.
The whole reason different cultures exist is because little babies from all over the world learn to adopt whatever system they live in.
We are communicating in english, others use chinese, tagalog, italian, etc.
The fact that you aren't savagely hurting other people or animals on a daily basis shows that you aren't limited by the supposed savage instincts some people associate to cavemen.
Also if you have ever actively made a choice to change something... like the corrupt economy for example, that shows that we can also alter our own behaviors. If this self change doesn't occur then the environment has a strong enough influence. Think of Pavlov's dogs.
Olympians aren't simply born the fastest or strongest. They had to sculpt their bodies and minds to attain that level of ability.
Certain motivation speakers are also a great example of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foOsOK_RygM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ZuKF3dxCY
Other examples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpGjIpgj_YM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RL3GukV-00&feature=fvst (man can fly)
Human nature is a poor excuse to not trying and testing out what is possible. People change, if they can't then this movement itself will fail.
While I appreciate your knowledge, I would just say that there is still more for you to learn about the human mind and body.
There's always more to learn.
Some better links http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGeNvQMRnpw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlF3eoQ_lLw
I watch for a minute and bamn, all non sense. "There is no such thing as an individual". "There is no such thing as human nature". All non sense!
I have seen many original human beings who are true individuals. I can't help but laugh at this crap!
You missed the context.
He's making these claims based on our ability to choose.
All of our choices have been learned from the environment we surround ourselves with. An amazon native can't choose to buy an airplane if they've never seen one and don't know what money is.
Our culture is also limited. We don't have multiple ways of saying the word snow the way eskimos do.
This also applies to those that are uninformed or uneducated. Their perceived choices are limited to their environment.
Point is, the environment each individual lives in has a great impact on their beliefs, choices, and lifestyle.
"Point is, the environment each individual lives in has a great impact on their beliefs, choices, and lifestyle."
Doesn't mean that humans only behave as their environment !
I agree since I'm not a hardcore determinist. But if enough variables are seen a clear enough picture is formed which in a majority of cases hold true.
We want a majority of people acting ethically so it's about creating a system which makes most people act ethically, productively, generously, etc.
Some people will always cheat.. :(
yes, so we must ensure there is no reason to cheat, and no significant reward for cheating.
What's the idea in your mind to prevent cheating ?
End the game of competition. End the reason for cheating before it begins.
Cheating implies a rule is being broken. A rule implies that the use of punishment will be used if a rule is broken and the rule itself is only enforced if some group gains an advantage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FG2JLn1gJk&list=PL87394CD2EACFC56E&index=70
Advantage in this situation implies inequality. This inequality is the product of competition. Competition implies that one group 'wins' something at the expense of another.
The only reason we'd feel the urge to compete to win something is if there is a scarcity of the 'prize', and if communications break down so far that neither group is willing to cooperate. e.g. children refusing to take turns or share
The way to deal with this is to create abundance so there is no need to compete over such things (access abundance) and educate both parties on the value of cooperation.
When RBE test cities are created surveys will have to be given on personal preferences to ensure production is abundant in comparison to the demands.
Plus no one has infinite desires. Not everyone will want the same things at the same times.
As for competition, it relies on manipulation and 'beating' opponents which dehumanize people as they become more and more competitive
I mostly agree!, Do you have a blog or youtube channel, that I can subscibe ?
I don't, sorry. But most of this information was collected from various people in the zeitgeist movement and venus project.
Im pretty sure when your making billions, having to give up just 1 billion isnt going to "force" you lose your mansion, yacht, or Ferrari.
Dodged the point there, didn't you. Do you accept Moore's premise that even more money should be taken from them to support other people?
This is a government of the people, and if the people want the richer to be held accountable of their part of the bargain then let it be.
Awful envious, aren't you? It isn't your money you covet. They did not steal it from you, you have no claim on it.
Danimal get out of here Moore is not an enemy in this battle, even Warren Buffet wants to get taxed more.
You're so welcoming.
Also if you look at his homepage ( http://www.michaelmoore.com/ ) OWS is on there .