^^^ Please keep it clean guys. (If nothing else GP will shut the thread down and we'll lose auspm's great post.) JOTD thread allows enough room for this sort of thing.
Poor old Bill Shorten reckons he struggles to make ends meet on his $300k+. Actually I agree with him, knowing the amount of tax I pay on my earnings. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/po...-not-for-some-on-the-dole-20120828-24yph.html
I love this one: "why doesn't she try living on the minimum wage' Its like saying to a minimum wage worker: "why don't you try live on a millionaire wage"
I take Shorten's comment to be an admission that he has poor financial management skills. Much like Wayne Swan.
Nah, he's probably just like ordinary Australians: he's bought over-valued real estate and has a huge mortgage that sucks up every spare dollar he makes. Er...so yeah, you're probably right.
It's because you and many others do not understand or want to accept the reality that yes, this is indeed capitalism. It is in fact, the evolution of capitalism to its next level. This is what happens when wealth gets centralised. Of course, you and many others will jump up and down and say that real capitalism is free, dynamic, the best of all worlds etc etc But what you have is only a theory - you need to wake up to reality. To put it another way, you would scoff at a person who would scream that gulags, forced relocations and dictatorship is not REAL communism and in fact communism is really great, people share, all are essentially equal etc etc. You would say "get your head out of the clouds and wake up - your theory is bunk and Stalin is the reality". Well...I'm sorry to tell you, but your theory is bunk and crony capitalism is the reality. Capitalism is not what YOU want it to be. It is what it IS, in the right here and now. It's not hard to understand, really.
I disagree completely. Crony capitalism can only exist through protection. That is how we have monopolies in the first place, not through merit, but by controlled markets. If you cannot differentiate between free market capitalism and what we have now, then you don't understand the concept. In a free market model, crony capitalism cannot possibly succeed because when markets become monopolised, it creates opportunities for enterprising individuals to come and undermine their market share and redress fair trade balance. As such, free market models operate on providing value to the market and support natural price discovery. Capitalism didn't fail, the integrity of men who manipulated it did and again I point out that this is the gray area of understanding the concept that most simply don't get. All I can say is that your commentary and surmation above actually reinforces my original point, not denounces it.
Auspm, if you can just step back for a minute and look at this statement, isn't this the same argument communists use? Couldn't you equally say "Communism didn't fail, it was the integrity of the people that tried to implement it that did." Can't we say communism failed because the theory can't remove human greed from corrupting the system? In the same way, you must say that crony capitalism is the result of human greed corrupting the system. Theories can be perfect on paper. But if they fail in their application to reality, then don't we have to question their practical use? Your answer to me would be that a properly governed free market would be a self regulating mechanism that would quickly correct any imbalances. But does it address the issue of human greed? Of course it does, you will say to me. It channels human greed into positive channels to create value and industry for all. This is all very good, but it is only a theory which has been shown by today's reality to fail. I'll tell you how greed causes free market capitalism to fail: People don't simply want to maximise their utility alone - they want security and certainty. In a free market economy, the way to power, security and certainty is to control the market. As long as there is human greed for power, there will be people that will want to use their money to influence the operation of the market for their own benefit. That's when we see free market distortions like price-fixing cartels, trade unions, advertising and currency manipulation. So your answer would be - well, then we need market participants to be vigilant and prevent corruption of the market mechanisms. But money is power and power corrupts. Everybody has a price, yes? And even if there are a few incorruptibles that remain true to the free market ideal, there would be a million other people out there that would simply take the money. That's human greed. Any solution you have to this issue then begins to look like coercion and repression, forcing people to act in a certain way because "I know what's best for you". That's why theoretically imposed systems, no matter what they are, are always destined for failure when you try to apply them to human realities. If there is a God, then surely this must be one of his/her divine jokes, making human beings in this way. Or if there is no God, maybe it's just the universe's mechanism to ensure constant change.
Interesting statement. What would you imply the current status quo is a derivative of? I see a lot of the 'blame' for the current situation being based upon a theory which was never put into application in the first place. Put another way, can you point me towards any example in the modern world where an economy operates on laissez faire principles? You are basing the eventuality on a fundamental paradigm that never existed in the first place and worse, blaming the unused paradigm as causing the end effect. The current state of play has absolutely nothing to do with free market capitalism simply because it was never based on free market capitalism to begin with. I disagree with your surmation because the basis of your arguement is built upon the results stemming from a wrongly assumed foundation.
Auspm, this argument can be perfectly substituted if you change "laissez faire" for "communism". The problem you have is that you accept the foolishness of the communist argument because "real" communism doesn't exist except in theories. Yet somehow you believe that laissez faire free markets CAN exist outside of theory. The problem is that theories just don't fall out of the sky and impose themselves on human reality. We don't have a blank slate to simply impose these visions. Whenever there has been and attempt to "wipe the slate" of human society to make way for these systems, repression, coercion and terror are the result. What you have is a theory very dear to your heart but: 1) No way to implement it without some form of repression 2) No way to protect it from the corruption human greed without some form of repression once it is in place (as I explained in the post previous to this one)
^^^ Don't have time to respond properly (prob take an essay), but this is total bullsh1t that sounds nice and intellectual but is simply crap wrapped around a kernel of truth. It's like philosophers using stupid word games to prove that we don't exist. Communism is awesome except that it is trying to apply to humans who purposefully act to make their lives better. If it wasn't for the striving to make things better then communism could easily work but we wouldn't be living in the world we are now. If you want to make our lives better then you need to understand how and why achievement happens then construct your social system around that. Libertarianism however, IS a system that promotes achievement AND is a system that can be implemented without some form of repression. That's the whole friggin' point. You do NOT initiate force, fraud or violence on another person or their property. "Capitalism" is a natural outcome of libertarianism (as are many other things.)
and that sir is definately NOT free market capitalism. It is whatever you want to call it - created by socialist western governments. It's in fact fascism - a twin of socialism. So get off your socialist high horse
Communism has been tried on many occasions and still does exist today, but it was based upon those ideals from the outset. Show me a capitalist society that was based on laissez faire from the outset - and where it failed? You are trying to couple the paradigm to other instances of practical implementation of other paradigms that have been tried (and failed) and assume because other paradigms failed, so to would laissez faire? That's a misleading arguement at best. I don't buy that either. In every case where there has been a 'clean slate' there was no option put forward to adopt anything but that which the power brokers wish to instill. But your surmation is that the reason why laissez faire never works is because it was never used? I'm saying there was never an option in the first instance to adopt it. The establishment will always adopt whatever paradigm of control it finds ethically palatable based on cultural and idealistic visions, but in all instances OTHER that laissez faire, they will adopt centralised policies because it benefits them. But just because those instances have all been tried (and failed) doesn't automatically assume that laissez faire would fail also and moreso, in no way, shape or form ties the current status quo to laissez faire - because it's not it at all, regardless of what you have alluded in the thread so far. What I will say though is that you are correct in that every single non laissez faire paradigm used thus far in humanity has failed and that is for very good reason. But if you look around at the sheep of today and expect them to adopt an unfamiliar model, especially in the face of a current failing one - that's also misrepresented as the capitalist model - can you honestly expect them to want to have another crack at it if and when it does fall? That's a paradigm shift that would be the biggest in world history I think and so, I don't think it'll be adopted. Humans are bound by normalcy bias and continue to adopt (and defend) bad economic, social and religious paradigms because they fear the unknown. You'd rather make excuses for a corrupt representation of Capitalism to dismiss the fundamental paradigm than accept the reality, that being the fundamental flaws of the root of the system you defend in the first instance. A root based on a misrepresentation and yet, you'd defend it and carry it to what sort of conclusion? That is failed because we never implemented it? What sort of logic is that?
This is absolute nonsense. Russia adopted "communism" from the basis of the Tsarist autocracy. China adopted "communism" from the basis of the warlordism of the 30s and 40s and the imperial tradition before that. Vietnam adopted "communism" from the basis French post-colonialism. Nothing is created from a void. Societies already have systems and values in place when new systems are imposed upon the people. Wrong question. The more useful question is "Show me a society where I could IMPLEMENT laissez faire capitalism from the outset." The obvious answer is "there isn't one and never can be". Any new system needs to be built upon the foundations of what came before. Absolutely. And it's not a misleading argument, it is a realistic one - we have the evidence. Not in the least is the Chilean experiment of the 70s to try and implement a free market economy. I hear Chile has a socialist government these days, so that really worked out well for them. How would a laissez faire revolution be any different to every other revolution that has come before? Because all the people would recognise the sense of rational free markets and there would be no power brokers? How realistic do you think that is? Who is going to put the free market system in place? No, you need to read what I post carefully. It never works because human greed would corrupt it and destroy the self-regulating mechanisms. All you're doing here is rehashing the argument communists used for why that system failed - "it was never properly implemented" or "it's never truly been tried". A catch-all excuse for the abject failure of all theoretical systems to translate themselves into workable and practical models for society.
