http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/18/news/economy/europe-cyprus-bailout/index.html

Anyone see this? TLDR; Cyprus is in a dire economic situation considering it was the banker for Greece. In order for the EU to give it money it is demanding that Cyprus levy a 10% tax on accounts >100,000E and 6.75% on less.

I guess it's the EU's money that they are offering, so they can give it any caveats they want, but it seems like a really awkward way to get Cyprus to put up their portion.

3/18/2013 10:12:28 AM

The timing of this thread is funny. I had a friend from Cyprus in town this past week for a wedding and he was bitching about this to me.

3/18/2013 10:34:31 AM

While it would seem tough for anyone to be happy about someone going in to their bank account and taking out 7%, the people this really hurts is businesses and foriegn clients.

3/18/2013 10:39:17 AM

Cue a new round of fears about "contagion" spreading to the rest of Europe.

3/18/2013 11:08:24 AM

I tried to read an article about this, but i'm not sure exactly how much I'm understanding..

The "haircut" might be a really really bad policy - because signals that you should move money out of your bank if its health is bad. It creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. Take the 10% of banks with the worst health, everyone moves money out to the stronger banks to avoid the haircut. Great, so now those banks have just gone under.

I think we should just do away with cash-interest accounts. Either have cash with no interest and fees, or put it in a lending pool with risk. In that case, we don't need bank equity to be the float between deposits and loans. Make banks into "dumb pipes".

3/18/2013 11:38:39 AM

Quote :

"While it would seem tough for anyone to be happy about someone going in to their bank account and taking out 7%, the people this really hurts is businesses and foriegn clients."

Lets just say 10% for the sake of simplicity.

The guy with $10 billion loses $1 billion, and the guy with $10 loses $1.

The overwhelming opinion of TSB in various flat-tax debates (for example) agrees the fellow with $10 is hurt much more.

I find this a strange assertion for you to make then, Kris. Not that I disagree... it just seems out of character?

3/18/2013 12:15:36 PM

I thought the cuts in this specific case were progressive, based on the size of the account.

3/18/2013 12:16:35 PM

^^ see ^

(not that I endorse it, just explaining)

3/18/2013 1:08:54 PM

Quote :

"The overwhelming opinion of TSB in various flat-tax debates (for example) agrees the fellow with $10 is hurt much more. I find this a strange assertion for you to make then, Kris. Not that I disagree... it just seems out of character?"

The reason I make that claim isn't about the progressiveness (it's not a very progessive tax, although it at least spares the very poor who have no money in savings), but because of the size of Cyprus's banks versus the size of its local economy in general. For them to have that amount of money, most of it must have came from somewhere else (namely Russia), and this is who will really be hurt by this. I was pointing out that while the Cyprus saver is having to pay 7%, he should be happy that Russians are footing most of the bill for keeping their economy afloat, on the other hand, just getting 7% snatched from me would be infuriating enough for me to consider the Icelandic approach.

3/18/2013 1:09:18 PM

FOXNEWS JOURNALISM

3/18/2013 1:28:10 PM

So how is this (if it passes) anything other than legalized theft?

[Edited on March 18, 2013 at 8:27 PM. Reason : Sd]

3/18/2013 8:27:31 PM

You could say that about any kind of taxes. The thing I don't like about it is that the tax would obviously push people away from using banks, which should be a safe place to keep money, they'd be better off keeping it in a safe deposit box at the bank.

3/18/2013 8:42:48 PM

The problem here is that some of the accounts were insured, and they're still getting taxed, how does that make sense?

3/18/2013 9:30:09 PM

I don't like it, but they don't have to do it if they don't want money from the central bank.

The reason it's so inversely burdensome is to prevent the death of Cyprus's banking industry. Cyprus, much like many other island nations is hugely reliant on foreign money to create wealth for their banks. If you tax/steal money from large foreign depositors they will take it elsewhere. If that happens Cyprus is really screwed.

3/19/2013 8:58:33 AM

Quote :

"You could say that about any kind of taxes. "

So on the assumption that I don't buy into the idea that every tax in every form is theft (but do believe that some of the things we call "taxes" are bastardizations of the concept, like the .govcare "tax"), what is the dividing line between taxation and legalized theft? I mean at some point, there has to be a line right? If legislative fiat declaring that 10% of your savings is now government property is a "tax", then what actions could a government conceivably take that wouldn't be a "tax"?

3/19/2013 9:15:05 AM

Why does anyone save in this day and age. Near 0% interest on savings accounts. Inflation. Now the threat of all out raids on savings.

Might as well spend yourself into oblivion, the return on savings appears to be less than -10%.

3/19/2013 9:19:11 AM

Quote :

"what is the dividing line between taxation and legalized theft? I mean at some point, there has to be a line right?"

I suppose you're asking a moral question, but I don't really see any difference between whether they take money from you when you buy something, when you earn money, when you own something, or just taking it right out of your account. Heck, if you don't pay any of the first three, they'll end up doing the later. There is kind of an implied promise of safety to a savings account, so I could see something of a breech of trust there, but I wouldn't equate it to "legalized theft" any moreso than I would any other form of taxation.

3/19/2013 9:24:05 AM

seeing as how the entire system of private property is one of state-backed violent theft i can't really get that fired up by taxes

3/19/2013 9:46:45 AM

Quote :

"Why does anyone save in this day and age. "

Saving makes sense even if the real return rate is 0%, even if it's less than that. Hopefully it won't go too far below that.

A big problem with our financial system is the smoke and mirrors that exist to convince people that they can always expect positive returns. Cash fluctuates in value, just like everything else in the world. There is no such thing as absolute value - there is only relative value. The concept of negative average returns means that you can transfer capital to the future and live the same quality of life with that capital as you can today. This shouldn't be a surprising scenario with the end of oil, but globalization still pushes in the other direction. The balance is non-trivial, and the current issue is a separate one, which is the irresponsibility of government and banking institutions.

3/19/2013 10:07:30 AM

Quote :

"seeing as how the entire system of private property is one of state-backed violent theft i can't really get that fired up by taxes"

I've seen you posit semi-reasonable arguments about this with regards to land, but do you actually believe that the entire concept of private property is morally wrong?

3/19/2013 10:09:19 AM

Before I answer that, I want to make sure you don't think being anti-private property means I think I should be allowed to take your toothbrush or family photos or home away: http://dbzer0.com/blog/private-property-vs-possession

This one's decent too: http://www.anarchism.net/anarchism_privatepropertyorpossessionasynthesis.htm

And, in the end, all private property is based around land. If not the surface, the natural resources lying below it. Thomas Paine kind of alludes to this in Agrarian Justice (http://www.constitution.org/tp/agjustice.htm) but he arrives at more liberal conclusions than me (Taxes, social security, etc).


[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 10:16 AM. Reason : .]

3/19/2013 10:13:42 AM

Quote :

"I've seen you posit semi-reasonable arguments about this with regards to land, but do you actually believe that the entire concept of private property is morally wrong?"

Just take the land argument and apply it to anything else. Supose you buy wood and build a shelf, you didn't make the wood, it existed before you, even if you plant a tree and chop it down and build a shelf out of that wood, you didn't make the seed, or the tree that made that seed, etc. Private property is, at some level, arbitrary. But this is really off topic.

3/19/2013 10:24:03 AM

No, I understand that, but anything that is designed to prevent the accumulation of wealth is, IMO, contrary to human nature and removes one of the primary motivators of people, greed. It's rare to find the person who is motivated simply by the joy of discovery or the satisfaction of a job well done.

Without the possibility of additional reward or societal advancement there's little motivation for anything outside of a stagnant existence.

And, though I'm sure you'd argue the point, not all wealth springs from land or natural resources. Think of how much intellectual property exists that leads directly to wealth. Think about how many people are able to accumulate wealth based on service because of extraordinary skills or even ordinary skills (consultants, football players, dog walkers, accountants).

Finally, is there no ownership over your own labor, i.e. stuff Kris posted about above. No I didn't create the wood, but I did put forth the labor to plant the tree, tend to it, and then use my labor to turn it from a raw material to a useable product thereby adding real value.

Of course there's also the tired old debate over what is necessary for personal use vs. what is wealth accumulation. If you can get by with the most basic type why should anyone be allowed to have something better, why should I be allowed to purchase a BMW vs. a honda civic, or should I even be allowed that choice?

I'd say this thread probably isn't even the right discussion for this anyway. Cyprus's parliament will refuse this offer today.

[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 10:30 AM. Reason : sfsadf]

3/19/2013 10:28:07 AM

Quote :

"It's rare to find the person who is motivated simply by the joy of discovery or the satisfaction of a job well done."

This is literally every scientist, inventor, and general innovator in the history of planet Earth.

Quote :

"Without the possibility of additional reward or societal advancement there's little motivation for anything outside of a stagnant existence."

Societal advancement is achieved by sharing just fine. "Additional reward" comes to everyone. What you're actually alluding to is that some people feel a need not to just improve their station in life, but to feel superior than other people . That is, increase their relative rather than absolute standard of living. The former is totally acceptable and positive, the latter is in my opinion a symptom of capitalist social relations which turn us on each other and give us compulsions to dominate our peers.

Quote :

"Think of how much intellectual property exists that leads directly to wealth."

As a person who generated intellectual property for a living, I can say that I did not develop the electrical circuit or the 10,000 things I had to read about and do homework on the subject of in order to do my job today. Intellectual property, more than anything else, stands on the shoulders of giants and is an outcropping of society just as much as the individual. Hence how Liebtnitz and Newton developed calculus almost simultaneously, hundreds of miles apart.

Quote :

". No I didn't create the wood, but I did put forth the labor to plant the tree, tend to it, and then use my labor to turn it from a raw material to a useable product thereby adding real value."

Then it's the product of your labor and nobody, including someone who claims to own the land you planted the tree on, is entitled to a share of it. This is what most people confuse about leftism: Most of us are 100% in favor of you keeping the product of your labor minus maintenance costs, and that productivity and income should correlate in reliable way at all scales, and that's why we oppose Capitalism.

Beyond that: A craftsman on a desert island is not a Capitalist. A capitalist is, in the simplest terms I can imagine, one who earns an income by owning things, regardless of whether he actually works or not. He has a piece of paper signed by a State Official that says, in so many words, "Anything produced on this property belongs to you and is at your discretion to hand out to workers."

Quote :

"Of course there's also the tired old debate over what is necessary for personal use vs. what is wealth accumulation. If you can get by with the most basic type why should anyone be allowed to have something better, why should I be allowed to purchase a BMW vs. a honda civic, or should I even be allowed that choice?"

All economic systems ask this question. Right now, just like with healthcare rationing, the answer is "depends, how much money do you have?" Which, paired with the above definition of a Capitalist, makes the system of luxury distribution seem a bit dodgy.


[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 10:48 AM. Reason : .]

3/19/2013 10:46:17 AM

Quote :

"Just take the land argument and apply it to anything else. Supose you buy wood and build a shelf, you didn't make the wood, it existed before you, even if you plant a tree and chop it down and build a shelf out of that wood, you didn't make the seed, or the tree that made that seed, etc. Private property is, at some level, arbitrary. But this is really off topic."

This is extremely pedantic when applied to certain products of labor. Silicon is motherfucking dirt.



Yet we can make amazing things out of it. So you would look at a $500 processor and say that they can't really "own" it because the dirt really should have been community property? I could go to the beach with a truck and bring you enough sand to cover the elemental requirements of all the computers in the world.

The point is valid for some things, and then functionally irrelevant for other things.

3/19/2013 10:56:50 AM

Things are going to get ugly there.

3/19/2013 11:10:40 AM

Quote :

"This is literally every scientist, inventor, and general innovator in the history of planet Earth."

Yeah, like I said, rare. Shit, incredibly rare when you think about how many people have really pushed forward human achievement.

Quote :

"The former is totally acceptable and positive, the latter is in my opinion a symptom of capitalist social relations which turn us on each other and give us compulsions to dominate our peers. "

And here is where you and I diverge in such a wild way that I doubt it makes it possible for us to ever agree. In my opinion capitalism is the system which recognizes human nature and allows good to come from our essential and basic selfishness. Communist or socialist systems tend to ignore human nature, which is why on any kind of large scale they tend to fail.

Also, this:

Quote :

"As a person who generated intellectual property for a living, I can say that I did not develop the electrical circuit or the 10,000 things I had to read about and do homework on the subject of in order to do my job today. Intellectual property, more than anything else, stands on the shoulders of giants and is an outcropping of society just as much as the individual. Hence how Liebtnitz and Newton developed calculus almost simultaneously, hundreds of miles apart."

Didn't in any way answer the question of how you deal with intellectual property or the service industry. Capitalism allows this to be monetized and receive just compensation for their labor. I don't see how that is possible outside of a system that does not allow for ownership outside of simple possession.


[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 11:17 AM. Reason : Jesus, I can't string together 2 words today. Need to go back to bed.]

3/19/2013 11:11:53 AM

You're seem to presupose that what you call human nature is a cause of our system and not a result of it. It's not human nature to want green pieces of paper or anything else but food, shelter, and sex. The reason we want these other things is because of things we learned, and once we talk about things we've learned, we're not talking about human nature. It's in a dog's nature to bite small children and defecate on the floor, that doesn't mean that any system that doesn't involve biting or carpet defecation won't work. A human's nature is to adapt to it's environment, whether that environment encourages greed or not is determined by systemic drivers.

Quote :

"Capitalism allows this to be monetized and receive just compensation for their labor."

No it doesn't. Lack of intellecual property property protection and sharing is one of the greatest faults of capitalism. I suppose you are talking about the american system which does one of the silliest things, it purposely BREAKS capitalism by giving the first person to file a patent a monopoly. Monopoly is market failure, it is a broken market not adequately regulating supply and demand.

3/19/2013 11:26:17 AM

Quote :

"So on the assumption that I don't buy into the idea that every tax in every form is theft (but do believe that some of the things we call "taxes" are bastardizations of the concept, like the .govcare "tax"), what is the dividing line between taxation and legalized theft? I mean at some point, there has to be a line right? If legislative fiat declaring that 10% of your savings is now government property is a "tax", then what actions could a government conceivably take that wouldn't be a "tax"? "

In a democracy, anything a gov. says is a tax, is a tax, by virtue of the fact that is what people organized and agreed to when forming said government.

3/19/2013 11:56:15 AM

Quote :

"seeing as how the entire system of private property is one of state-backed violent theft i can't really get that fired up by taxes"

The system of private property is violent theft, or the concept of private property is, necessarily, violent theft? Is capital ownership, in your view, ever legitimate?

The immediate problem I've identified with the traditional (left) anarchist view is that capital investment always requires risk. There's always a chance that you'll lose money on the venture and just be fucked. There aren't any workers that are going to help share the burden of this loss. Given that the overwhelming majority of capitalist ventures never reach profitability, this is significant. There will never be a point where any one person or group of people can know for sure what goods and services are worth producing, so risk is here to stay.

And yet, leftists posit that once the venture has reached profitability, workers should be able to democratically decide how profits are distributed. They shouldered none of the risk, but they get all of the reward.

Marxism recognizes that capital ownership and creation has to occur in order for the workers to take the capital from owners. Without private ownership, capital never comes into existence and can't be taken. Problem is, capital development stops once the workers or "society" own it and tragedy of the commons sets in. No, people don't design and tractors and conveyor belts simply out of personal satisfaction.

3/19/2013 12:39:02 PM

Quote :

"It's not human nature to want green pieces of paper or anything else but food, shelter, and sex."

No, the green pieces of paper are just a stand in for more food, shelter, and sex. People have been trying to accumulate things beyond the basic subsistence requirements since we stopped dwelling in caves. Greed is a natural part of human psychology. Denying that people seek to accumulate more than they need seems foolish to me.

I also never said I was a pure capitalist. If I was I'd have no issue with people reverse engineering other people's inventions and then profiting from it. I think that's problematic, it's why patents and copyrights are good to a point. The problem with copyrights and patents are not that they exist, but that they last too long. Stripping away patent protection completely would seriously damage corporate innovation and R&D in my opinion.

3/19/2013 12:42:29 PM

Quote :

"The immediate problem I've identified with the traditional (left) anarchist view is that capital investment always requires risk. There's always a chance that you'll lose money on the venture and just be fucked. There aren't any workers that are going to help share the burden of this loss. Given that the overwhelming majority of capitalist ventures never reach profitability, this is significant. There will never be a point where any one person or group of people can know for sure what goods and services are worth producing, so risk is here to stay."

That same argument could be used to support feudalism. The king is the one who risks getting his head chopped off if he should lose power, so he should have all the riches, the serfs risk nothing so they should have nothing. The problem with this view is that it gives the capitalist so much credit for making a choice the workers were never even given. The capitalist can risk because he has something to risk.

Quote :

"No, the green pieces of paper are just a stand in for more food, shelter, and sex."

And partially hydrogenated oil is just corn oil that has been processed with hydrogen, that doesn't make it natural. The very fact that the "stand in" has to be learned makes it go against nature, and our nature put no value on pieces of paper, that's what happens when you come out of the womb and aren't taught anything, that's human nature. Money is against human nature. You just want to claim human nature to be the current result of what a capitalist system teaches. If our system rewarded sharing, people would start sharing and then you would call that human nature. It doesn't work that way, the entire argument is fallicious. Human nature is what you do when you come out of the womb, and capitalism isn't it.

Quote :

"Greed is a natural part of human psychology."

Theft is a much more natural part of the human psychology, why does your system deny that?

Quote :

"I also never said I was a pure capitalist."

And I never said I was a mind reader, but you seemed to assume it by saying "capitalism" and meaning something else that was never stated.

Quote :

"The problem with copyrights and patents are not that they exist, but that they last too long."

No, they create a monopoly. Monopolies are market failures, they are bad for everyone. It's extremely difficult to exclusively own an idea, and without this exclusive ownership capitalism falls apart. This is a huge flaw, and given the growing value of ideas, this will only become more of a problem in the future.

Quote :

"Stripping away patent protection completely would seriously damage corporate innovation and R&D in my opinion."

Agreed, but another answer being wrong doesn't make yours right. I would argue that public funding and ownership (or at least licensing) of ideas would be better.

3/19/2013 2:50:15 PM

^ Explain this:

Quote :

" It's extremely difficult to exclusively own an idea, and without this exclusive ownership capitalism falls apart."

I don't think that is true at all.

Ideas are nothing except potential. It is all in the execution. Execution requires capital.

Quote :

"That same argument could be used to support feudalism. The king is the one who risks getting his head chopped off if he should lose power, so he should have all the riches, the serfs risk nothing so they should have nothing. The problem with this view is that it gives the capitalist so much credit for making a choice the workers were never even given. The capitalist can risk because he has something to risk."

I can't even begin to understand how that supports feudalism. Poor argument IMO.

The capitalist gets the credit because he has the ability to take the risk, and then does. I don't understand how that is a problem or a flaw.

3/19/2013 3:09:04 PM

Quote :

"I don't think that is true at all. Ideas are nothing except potential. It is all in the execution. Execution requires capital."

It's the same reason I can't go out and make IPhones, Apple owns the ideas behind making an IPhone. Maybe medicine is a better example because they are only combinations of chemicals, but I think you'll get my point.

Quote :

"The capitalist gets the credit because he has the ability to take the risk, and then does. I don't understand how that is a problem or a flaw."

If you accept that we all collectively own the earth, the problem is that the capitalist was given an oppurtunity to gain more of the world's resources that the worker was never given. Destroyer justifies that idea that the capitalist deserves more because he risked more, but this presupposes he has a right to more to begin with, which is the very question that was originally asked, it's begging the question.

3/19/2013 3:24:57 PM

Quote :

"It's the same reason I can't go out and make IPhones, Apple owns the ideas behind making an IPhone. Maybe medicine is a better example because they are only combinations of chemicals, but I think you'll get my point."

No, that doesn't illustrate that copyright and patents are required for capitalism. Look at Samsung... They have they capital and innovation to create a competitive product.

YOU can't go out and make an iphone (not an actual iphone, but a competitive alternative) because you lack the resources and/or will to acquire them.

Quote :

" If you accept that we all collectively own the earth, the problem is that the capitalist was given an oppurtunity to gain more of the world's resources that the worker was never given. Destroyer justifies that idea that the capitalist deserves more because he risked more, but this presupposes he has a right to more to begin with, which is the very question that was originally asked, it's begging the question."

And your alternative?

Are you suggesting that those who risk more, be it time, money, or other capital do not and not have a right to demand compensation? How do you suppose anything is going to get done?

I know I am not going to show up to work and risk my time if I know that it's not worth it, or the opportunity cost.

I don't think Destroyer is justifying any idea... Only pointing out that the capital to get shit done is not going to fall out of the sky. It has to come from somewhere, and it's going to come from those who control it. Risk aversion will need to be satisfied with something, and that is generally always profit.

[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 3:54 PM. Reason : competitive alternative qualifier]

3/19/2013 3:52:35 PM

Quote :

" Human nature is what you do when you come out of the womb, and capitalism isn't it."

Well, clearly communism isn't it either. It's not coincidental that economies evolved past barter systems to currency. I would also argue that the large number of capitalist or pseudo-capitalist economies in the world and throughout history suggest that at least at some level people accept the idea of private property/private ownership.

Also, not surprisingly the parliament of Cyprus said no to this deal.

3/19/2013 4:05:30 PM

Quote :

"No, that doesn't illustrate that copyright and patents are required for capitalism. Look at Samsung... They have they capital and innovation to create a competitive product"

I was right to consider medicine a better example, so let's stick with that, it's less complicated (because samsung and apple are in legal battles and pretty much stealing from each other at this point). Let's say I make a cure for cancer. Let's say I spent a lot of money and time on it, it's very simple to reverse engineer it and for anyone else to cheaply make it, thus not allowing me to recoup my R&D costs. It's not the actual pill thats valueble, its the idea of the pill, what it's made of. Actually making it is simple. Do you see the value in intellectual property and how capitalism fails to protect it? Under capitalism I never would have made that pill. Under the current system I would only make the pill if the amount of money I could make off of it while the patent is alive is more than it would cost me to invent it. Public research doesn't have that problem, it has others, but they are easier to sucessfully mitigate.

Quote :

"And your alternative? "

Can I only be correct if I have a correct alternative?

Quote :

"Are you suggesting that those who risk more, be it time, money, or other capital do not and not have a right to demand compensation?"

No, I am pointing out what is wrong with his logic. He's begging the question.

Quote :

"Only pointing out that the capital to get shit done is not going to fall out of the sky."

It existed before you did in one form or another, why do you get to have it? The entire risk part of the equation is irrelevant because you already had to have the capital before anyways.

Quote :

"It's not coincidental that economies evolved past barter systems to currency. I would also argue that the large number of capitalist or pseudo-capitalist economies in the world and throughout history suggest that at least at some level people accept the idea of private property/private ownership."

And the lack of airplanes in the sky in the 1800's would indicate that we would never fly. Your argument is an appeal to tradition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)

[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 4:09 PM. Reason : ]

3/19/2013 4:05:35 PM

Quote :

"Can I only be correct if I have a correct alternative?"

I suppose, but what's the damned point. That's like walking up to house on fire, criticizing the person using water to put it out, pointing out the potential water damage to surviving parts of the home and how much of a negative impact that will be, and then not offering a better solution.

Finding fault is easy, finding solutions is hard.

3/19/2013 4:10:10 PM

That whole argument sub-thread is anarcho-lib vs. anarcho-communist, I don't subscribe to either, but can argue based on their assumptions. My views would be a red herring within that context.

3/19/2013 4:14:57 PM

BTW the Cypriot parliament voted down the measure 36-0, with 19 abstentions.

3/19/2013 4:46:19 PM

Yeah, I already mentioned that a few posts up. Sort of leaves Cyprus in a bit of a situation, because frankly, the Germans are pretty sick of throwing good money after bad in southern europe. It would have been hard to let Greece go under, harder still with Italy, but Cyprus.... I think they might tell them to go fly a kite.

Cyprus had better start courting Russia for some help.

3/19/2013 5:51:17 PM

Quote :

"That same argument could be used to support feudalism. The king is the one who risks getting his head chopped off if he should lose power, so he should have all the riches, the serfs risk nothing so they should have nothing. The problem with this view is that it gives the capitalist so much credit for making a choice the workers were never even given. The capitalist can risk because he has something to risk."

But the workers did have a choice. Here are your choices: work for yourself (whether it's foraging for berries and game, or building capital), work for someone else, or starve. Your problem isn't with the capital owner, it's with nature which says you must eat to live. Our true oppressor is the human body, which requires sustenance.

A machine is worth a whole lot more than the materials used to build it. Natural resources (which are essentially up for grabs in a state of nature) + work = a value added product of some sort.

Property is just a concept. Physical objects don't carry with them any metadata indicating assigned ownership. In order for civil society to function, though, we have to define property and respect property rights in some way. Everything can't be owned by the collective because the collective is really just a bunch of individuals, and some or all of those individuals will not respect the land/capital/whatever like they would respect their own possessions. Tragedy of the commons is why. The shittiest, most overcrowded pools are the ones that are "public".

Quote :

"If you accept that we all collectively own the earth, the problem is that the capitalist was given an oppurtunity to gain more of the world's resources that the worker was never given. Destroyer justifies that idea that the capitalist deserves more because he risked more, but this presupposes he has a right to more to begin with, which is the very question that was originally asked, it's begging the question."

If "we" all own the earth, then no one owns the earth. Great, I'm fine with that. We still need some way to determine who is allowed to control and access capital, unless you're suggesting that we do away with capital and get back to subsistence farming.

3/19/2013 6:01:57 PM

Completely agree. The further you get away from an agrarian society/economy the less possible it is to have any kind of communist or socialist system.

3/19/2013 6:05:38 PM

Quote :

"But the workers did have a choice."

I'll stick with the feudalism reference. The king is given a different set of choices than the serf.
The capitalist has capital, his existence presupposes inequity.

Quote :

"Physical objects don't carry with them any metadata indicating assigned ownership."

Lots of them do, serial numbers, VINs, etc.

Quote :

"The shittiest, most overcrowded pools are the ones that are "public"."

Says the person on a message board for a public college.

Quote :

"If "we" all own the earth, then no one owns the earth."

That's not true. A != !A.

Quote :

"The further you get away from an agrarian society/economy the less possible it is to have any kind of communist or socialist system."

Why whenever someone can't defend capitalism they begin attacking communism?

3/19/2013 6:30:40 PM

I thought that was sort of the debate...

Besides, that wasn't really an attack on communism, just an observation.

[Edited on March 19, 2013 at 6:38 PM. Reason : sdfsf]

3/19/2013 6:36:44 PM

Quote :

"In order for civil society to function, though, we have to define property and respect property rights in some way."

you should read just a tiny bit about how people lived on this continent before white people showed up. you can absolutely have massive communal societies, and what they were doing was just as "evolved" as mercantilism, but those poor fools didn't think to spend their time making weapons (and had never seen gunpowder) and didn't stand a chance.

Quote :

"The shittiest, most overcrowded pools are the ones that are "public"."

are you sure it's not b/c there's not very many public pools? and even so what are you arguing? that you have to keep people poor so that other people can have nice things? what decides who gets those nice things and who doesn't? i'll tell you what absolutely does not decide it: how hard they work. does anyone in this country work harder than a slave in nicaragua picking bananas to ship around the globe?

Quote :

"The immediate problem I've identified with the traditional (left) anarchist view is that capital investment always requires risk. There's always a chance that you'll lose money on the venture and just be fucked. There aren't any workers that are going to help share the burden of this loss. Given that the overwhelming majority of capitalist ventures never reach profitability, this is significant. There will never be a point where any one person or group of people can know for sure what goods and services are worth producing, so risk is here to stay. And yet, leftists posit that once the venture has reached profitability, workers should be able to democratically decide how profits are distributed. They shouldered none of the risk, but they get all of the reward."

this is only true in a society where you are a ruined person if you fail in a venture. if you did not have to worry about where your food was going to come from, paying rent or medical bills, paying for your child's higher education then there would be absolutely no risk on a venture. just b/c you can't, top of mind, think of a mechanism to inventory available supplies, needs and ideas and democratically pursue technological advancements doesn't mean it's impossible.

3/19/2013 10:43:04 PM

Quote :

"you should read just a tiny bit about how people lived on this continent before white people showed up. you can absolutely have massive communal societies, and what they were doing was just as "evolved" as mercantilism, but those poor fools didn't think to spend their time making weapons (and had never seen gunpowder) and didn't stand a chance."

So you are saying that native American's never battled over territory?

Quote :

"are you sure it's not b/c there's not very many public pools? and even so what are you arguing? that you have to keep people poor so that other people can have nice things? what decides who gets those nice things and who doesn't? i'll tell you what absolutely does not decide it: how hard they work. does anyone in this country work harder than a slave in nicaragua picking bananas to ship around the globe?"

As destroyer mentioned, it's an example of tragedy of the commons. I believe he's pointing out that in general a private pool is usually better than a public pool due to market efficiency.

Hard work =/ productive work. Hard work combined with efficient use of capital means more nice things. Arguing in favor of capitalism is in no way an argument in favor of slave labor. Nice little strawman being born there.

Quote :

"this is only true in a society where you are a ruined person if you fail in a venture. if you did not have to worry about where your food was going to come from, paying rent or medical bills, paying for your child's higher education then there would be absolutely no risk on a venture. just b/c you can't, top of mind, think of a mechanism to inventory available supplies, needs and ideas and democratically pursue technological advancements doesn't mean it's impossible."

If an individual has nothing to risk (everything fulfilled by entitlements) it seems that they have little incentive to change their circumstances. Nor do they have much of an incentive to innovate or work harder. There is always a risk tied to everything action, it's called opportunity cost. The productive among us know how to utilize and leverage this risk to produce value/profit.

I don't understand where the liberal, anti-capitalist mindset comes from. Where the hell do you think money to fund public projects and services comes from? Taxing the productive members of society. Reduce that by throttling the economy's ability to produce will reduce the amount of taxable income available to spend.

3/20/2013 7:20:52 AM

i'm not saying they never battled over territory, but i'm saying europeans showed up to a population that was totally surprised to have force and weapons used against them.

moving on, i don't understand how you can't seem to imagine any way of living other than the one way that you've lived.

you say things like capitalism makes people want to work harder, but what are you saying? in capitalism, by definition, the people who profit are not the people doing the work. so, this motivation comes from essentially being told "do something that pleases me or starve outside in the cold". and even though the social structure is very fluid, and even if it may be based on merit, a system that takes the top whatever percent (let's say 0.1%) and rewards them mightily while leaving nothing for the rest is a terrible system.

furthermore, this is an absolutely archaic way of looking at the world. the concept of "productivity" is incredibly overrated, and based on an expanding globe. our world is no longer expanding, and quite frankly we have no need to expand. we are at a point where we can use the technology that we have to build an infrastructure to take us into a totally different way of living, but instead we keep doing it the same way, going backwards in time if we can, b/c the people that are in charge have convinced you that it's in your best interest to work 60 hours per week for enough money to live in a house and feed your kids, meanwhile a quarter of the country is looking for work. that makes no sense. ignore money for a second (impossible i know), let's say we live in a commune of like 50 people. everyone has a job to do, and say our job is doing the dishes. if we show up one night and there's not that many dirty dishes, i don't inform you that i'm going to do the dishes and you have to go find some other work to do or else you're out of the village. we'd both do half of what was there and then go do something else. maybe it's spend more time w/ your family, maybe it's building robots. similarly, if we build robots that do all of our jobs for us, that should make our lives easier, not be a burden. being scared of a robot taking your job is the exact opposite of progress, that should be the most exciting prospect in the world, b/c it means you get to do something less menial and more interesting w/ your time.

and even capitalists know this. it's very easy to find examples of companies that choose to treat their employees very well b/c they know that people are more productive when they're happy. and grinding it out for the owner does not make anyone happy except the owner.

that's all not to mention that capitalism is not productive. how much money do we spend on consumer goods? on bank interest? on military exercises? on researching better bombs while children are starving and going blind from diseases that more privileged people think they have been granted immunity from by the good lord himself. that bono commercial about $2/day or whatever it is is not a joke. you could really end a huge amount of suffering just by reallocating resources that are already spent. shit, in this country we take money, oil and corn and melt it down into a substance that's worth less than what we put in and then fucking burn it, just to sell more cars. this is what productivity looks like? now i'll grant you that that's not actually capitalism, since it's based on gov't subsidies. but that brings me to yet another point. capitalism doesn't actually work, at least not in the way that you say it does. the largest chunk in our budget goes to "defense", which really means energy security and free maritime trading. if we actually went by the market, our country would shut down based on the price of oil. fortunately we don't give a fuck and take over entire countries, burning museums like nazis, propping up an absurd encampment inside of palestine just to keep things unstable, all to get oil on the cheap so that we can keep wasting it. i mean really, our national election has turned into little more than a referendum on the price of gasoline, and politicians do anything they can to keep it low.

and finally, surely you feel the middle class shrinking. how does this not worry you? personal training is going to be one of the first things to go when things get really tight. so the ideal scenario for you, i would think, would be that everyone in whatever city you lived in had 1) time to get into shape and 2) disposable income. so look at where we are now, and which direction we can go in. we can either go right or left, left leads to both of these things for all people, right leads to neither of them for most people, and only one of those to most of the rest.

3/20/2013 8:51:19 AM

ahh forget it.d

[Edited on March 20, 2013 at 9:00 AM. Reason : asdfs]

3/20/2013 8:58:09 AM

^^I do agree with some of your points. I do agree that our society, and economy, waste too much time and money on consumables, material items, and working. I agree it's not as efficient, and that wealth is not distributed "fairly". I also agree that if everyone operated under utilitarian and/or communal ethics, we'd be much better off in some regards.

Unfortunately, to break from the status quo towards these utopian ideals won't happen very easily. IMO, it goes against the fundamentals of human behavior/instinct for it to be feasible on massive scale (like the USA).

Yes, my professional industry is a premium service. However, I don't serve the middle class primarily. But that is irrelevant. I do want more people to have more disposable income. I think every business owner agrees with that.

My ideals don't shut people out of opportunity. I want anyone and everyone to have the ability to do business/act in a way that's mutually agreeable and beneficial for all parties involved. That's pretty much it. Anything beyond that is not within the scope of my beliefs.

What I find funny, and what makes me vocal, is that I actually live my ideals. Taking risks and building a profitable business. I the past year I've created jobs and brought valuable services to the local economy. In my experience, most liberals and progressives want the government to do all the work of caring for society for them; rather than living their ideals and their emphatic words.

3/20/2013 10:01:25 AM