Quote from: jgants;221832I don't know, Walker wants us to kill ourselves off for the good of the planet.  Surely they are at least in a dead heat for the "most liberal" prize.

That is a liberal position?  I'd hate to meet the liberals you know.

Quote from: Jackalope;221895I think at the end of the day there are basically two kinds of people in this world:  People who will toss you a life preserver when you're drowning, and people who will sell you a life preserver when you are drowning.

Would you agree that there are also other types of people in this world? I mean, I get the point you're trying to make, I just want to make sure it's recognized that there are more options than these.

Quote from: Jackalope;221895Capitalism at its heart is basically a system by which those with life preservers sell them to those who are drowning.

That's a fairly cynical view of capitalism; exploitation may be a part of capitalism, but it's hardly exploitative at its heart.

I suppose it depends on how you define "exploitative," on further reflection. Is it exploitation to sell food to people? They need it to survive, after all. Anyway, I'm using it above in its more conventional definition.

Quote from: Engine;221900That's a fairly cynical view of capitalism; exploitation may be a part of capitalism, but it's hardly exploitative at its heart.

In most ways, most of the time, Capitalism is a good thing.


Kind of like rifles are good things.

Capitalism is an excellent way to move goods and cash around, usually, for the good of all involved, hell, that needn't even be the motive.  So long as general conditions are good, someone acting purely from an "I've Got To Get Mine" perspective needn't be a bad thing.  Competition will keep his prices reasonable and his products decent.

Rifles are fun to shoot, are good for bringing down deer, and in a pinch, can help you protect your home.

Thing with capitalism and rifles both are, that in conditions that are not exactly vanishingly rare, they can be used to completely fuck over someone else.  

Hell, capitalism is even better for fucking people over than a rifle is.

Which means, like guns, you have to be careful with capitalism.

Quote from: Engine;221900Would you agree that there are also other types of people in this world? I mean, I get the point you're trying to make, I just want to make sure it's recognized that there are more options than these.

Sure.  There's also people who would just point and laugh.

QuoteThat's a fairly cynical view of capitalism; exploitation may be a part of capitalism, but it's hardly exploitative at its heart.

Yeah, well, it depends on how you define capitalism.  If you define it as "any and all forms of trade using currency" as some are wont to do, then yeah, that's not really fair.  I tend to think of capitalism as the sort of economic structures that only developed post-Royal India Tea Trading Company.  You know, large institutions.  I think it's a little silly to call shopkeepers and craftsmen "capitalists."  I think some people confuse markets and trade with capitalism.  I don't fall into that trap of thinking it's either capitalism or communism.  You can have capitalism without free markets, and you can have free markets without capitalism.

QuoteI suppose it depends on how you define "exploitative," on further reflection. Is it exploitation to sell food to people? They need it to survive, after all. Anyway, I'm using it above in its more conventional definition.

Well, I don't really want to get in a big thing about it, because if I end up arguing with a libertarian I'll get a migraine and that will suck.

I'm using it in the sense of "Taking advantage of someone else's misfortune to get them to agree to a deal that you know they wouldn't accept if they were not desperate."

For example, workers in China and Mexico have very little in the way of government protection.  They have no real civil rights, no ability to redress grievances, no ability to organize and negotiate with those who own the capital in those countries to ensure they are not unduly disadvantaged in their dealings with the capitalists in those countries.

As a result, their labor is cheaper than American labor.  So when a business sets up shop in China and uses Chinese labor because it's cheap, they are in fact exploiting the fact that those Chinese laborers live under a repressive government that does not allow them to organize.

Modern international capitalism, the system we all enjoy the benefits of right now, is founded on this sort of exploitation.  Everyone reading this is probably benefitting in countless ways right this moment from the exploitation of Chinese citizens by the collusion of capitalists and the government of China.  And the government of the US, the European Union, etc.

I don't begrudge anyone the right to sell food.  I do take issue with people taking advantage of the conflux of people's desperate need for food, inability to control their government, and general lack of education, to pay them starvation wages while they make enormous sums off of them.  I do take issue with one man living in poverty while the man he works for lives in style that would make the most self-indulgent of Roman emperors blush in shame.

I'm not saying I advocate communism, but I sure as hell understand the appeal of class war.

FWIW - not much nowadays - I happen to be a Marxist (or rather a heterodox Trotskyist with the odd neocon tendency).  

And very well said Jackalope.

QuoteYou can have capitalism without free markets

In point of fact, there has never been a free market. Capitalism requires intervention to make it work.

Quote from: Jackalope;221916I'm not saying I advocate communism, but I sure as hell understand the appeal of class war.

I understand the appeal of class war but know that engaging in it almost always makes everyone worse off in the end, particularly the poor.

Quote from: droog;221929In point of fact, there has never been a free market. Capitalism requires intervention to make it work.

Depends on how you define a free market.  There's probably never been a market that was entirely free, but there are plenty of examples of free markets.  The role-playing game industry is a prime example.  There's absolutely no oversight except the response of consumers.

I do agree that capitalism requires intervention to make it work though.  I really can't imagine modern corporations coming into existence without the government using taxation to raise enough money to oppress the people they were taxing and force them into factories and the like.

Quote from: Jackalope;221959Depends on how you define a free market.  There's probably never been a market that was entirely free, but there are plenty of examples of free markets.  The role-playing game industry is a prime example.  There's absolutely no oversight except the response of consumers.

The roleplaying industry isn't a market on its own. It's part of a rather huge leisure industry, which is part of a giant economy. Within that sub-sector, there are a lot of people who are hardly capitalists at all--they're small businessmen.

In order for that market to exist, it has to be supported by laws and policed. In your original example of the East India Companies, those companies had to be granted charters by governments and later given protection by those same governments.

The economy itself has to be continually massaged and adjusted in order to avoid a catastrophic crash.

Quote from: John Morrow;221775If you say so.

If I say so? No, the posts people have made say so. Not one post by anyone with more than 100 posts to their name has demonstrated anything like Marxism. If you think any have, point them out to me.

Quote from: John Morrow...where I'm seeing extremes is when people start assuming that almost any employment situation is exploitation and abuse.

Who's said that almost any employment situation is exploitation and abuse?

Quote from: John MorrowIsn't there a middle ground here and, if so, what is it?

My middle ground is this: treat vulnerable and non-vulnerable people the same in your dealings with them. If you employ illegal immigrants, give them the same pay as you'd give locals. Don't harass or con them, even if they'd let you.

Quote from: HinterWeltHonestly, I am rather surprised this line of reasoning (we need to take care of people, make their decisions for them) would come from you who are so strident about not invading other countries, letting them decide for themselves.

I didn't say that. I said that there is some shit you just don't do, even if the person consents to it. That includes violence to them, all kinds of abuse, ripping them off such as by paying them less than minimum wage, not paying them for overtime and so on. That includes implied threats of revealing their illegal status and so on. And it certainly includes getting them to sign a contract they can't read.

And jgants' example was a fairly clear one of people being exploited. Which is wrong, even if they consented to it.

Quote from: JackalopeI think at the end of the day there are basically two kinds of people in this world: People who will toss you a life preserver when you're drowning, and people who will sell you a life preserver when you are drowning.

I liked the definition I read a while back:

A man is drowning in a lake one hundred feet from shore. The liberal throws him a rope but doesn't tie it to anything and then wanders off to do good elsewhere; the conservative ties a rope to a tree stump, throws it fifty feet into the lake, and then tells the guy to swim.

Quote from: John Morrow;221948I understand the appeal of class war but know that engaging in it almost always makes everyone worse off in the end, particularly the poor.

You might tell that to all the fabulously wealthy winners of the war.

But then conservatives giving vast tax cuts to the rich and billion-dollar handouts to corporations is never class war while trade unionists demanding  demanding a living wage always is.

In fact your point is valid only in so far that given the current balance of forces struggling is indeed pretty pointless and we might as well roll over and let them do whatever they want to us - at least it will all be over quicker that way.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;222040I didn't say that. I said that there is some shit you just don't do, even if the person consents to it.

You have said it in the past. citation. Basically, it still sounds like you favor a hands off approach of self determination to countries but a hands on take bad decisions out of the hands of the poor ignorant bastard. It seems a bit contrary is all. Now, nothing wrong with that but you can hopefully understand why I made the statement.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;222040That includes violence to them, all kinds of abuse, ripping them off such as by paying them less than minimum wage, not paying them for overtime and so on. That includes implied threats of revealing their illegal status and so on. And it certainly includes getting them to sign a contract they can't read.

Hmm, by your definition, my wife and I are part of these exploited masses. We do not get overtime. Due to that, it is quite possible that we would get paid less that minimum wage. Again, it comes back to choice. I choose not to let that happen.

Here is a scenario since folks are hot on these ridiculous vignettes. A rich man hands you a gun. Your family and you are starving. He offers you a million dollars to shoot and kill you wife. He has it right there. Are you the bad guy if you shoot your wife to feed you kids or is the rich man?

Now, me, I would find another way. But we have these ridiculous restraints where you cannot feed your family, you cannot do anything but the moral play as prescribed. The related point here would be about opportunity as it applies to choice. You do not want to hear that though. You wish to paint me as a heartless fuck who will abandon the poor to starvation. You really want a neo-con who thinks the poor are lazy. Again, I think you should take your own advice fight what is there, not what you want. If anything, I am giving poor folks more credit than you.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;222040And jgants' example was a fairly clear one of people being exploited. Which is wrong, even if they consented to it.
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I don't know how many times I can state this or how many ways. I do not advocate fraud. I have stated the conditions the statement you are so offended by applies to. It does not apply to deceiving or misleading people into misery. Seriously, are you even reading what I am writing at this point or do you just so disparately want a neo-con to battle that you don't bother? If someone says "I have $20. Who wants to work for me for a day" and you jump up (without asking about the work, without asking where you are going) you deserve what you get (assuming it is hard labor and not kidnapping, slavery or other illegal/anti-social behavior). If someone says ""I will pay you 1 million dollars for a days work of laying around and sexing my harem" you should be wary but unless he follows through, he is conning you and wrong and should be punished. You shouldn't go with him so some of it is on you.

The simple version is, you are responsible for your choices, your actions. Don't  read anything into that.

Bill

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;222072But then conservatives giving vast tax cuts to the rich and billion-dollar handouts to corporations is never class war while trade unionists demanding  demanding a living wage always is.

Whilst i agree with you in the main, i want to indulge in going off on a little tangent.

There was a strike in the UK recently by the tanker drivers ferrying about all that very expensive petrol around the country. They said that they wanted a decent living wage. The report said they are currently paid £32,000 a year.

That's not a decent living wage?

I've never approached that sort of money and i've headed up research departments in the past (small ones admittedly, but still).

Edit: Contrast that wage with the typical wage of a private in the army - £17,000 per year.

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;222072But then conservatives giving vast tax cuts to the rich and billion-dollar handouts to corporations is never class war while trade unionists demanding  demanding a living wage always is.

Hubert, I like you.  You are my kind of people.

Quote from: HinterWelt;222084The simple version is, you are responsible for your choices, your actions. Don't  read anything into that.

Bill, I think I understand your position, but I also think your position is problematic.  It's not so much because of what you've said, but about how what you've said stands next to what other conservatives say and the reality of the situation that we're all looking.

I understand where you and Kyle are both coming from, it's just a matter of assumptions.

You're working on the assumption that freedom of choice is so important that we have to respect people's right to make bad choices.  You're saying that if someone makes an informed, consenting choice to contract for indentured servitude, that's their choice and it's horribly patronizing and elitist of others to insist they can make better choices for that person than that person.

I totally agree with you there.  100%.

But, I also get where Kyle is coming from.  Because he, and I, but apparently not you, recognize that -- outside of D/s sexual relationships --  no one enters into indentured servitude unless they are a) uninformed (i.e. fraud), b) non-consenting or consenting under duress, and/or c) not mentally competent to sign legal contracts.

So waving the banner of freedom of choice when the topic of economic exploitation comes up is...well, its obfuscation at best, simply clouding the issue.  It seems as if you are offering up the possibility that there isn't any exploitation going on, that all of these people are choosing to lead short, brutal dangerous lives scrambling for subsistence in ram-shackle villages while the people on the other side of the world who profit off their labor live more extravagantly than close friends of Louis XIV.

People make that "choice" because of a host of factors that make the phrase "freedom of choice" rather ironic.  Factors like lack of education and access to knowledge, particularly as regards the law; forced reliance on recruiters to explain contracts, recruiters may lie freely when nothing is written down and signer cannot understand text of contract; government oppression of labor groups that might provide access to legal information and lawyers to negotiate contracts; corrupt governments that allow crime to flourish and create predatory, desperate environment for citizens; etc.

When the choices are: a) Go work long hours in a dangerous factory for a subsistence wage with little or nothing in the way of rights; b) Sign a contract you can't read and travel illegally to another country to work for a company that won't let you leave the building; c) Take up a life of crime; d) Lay down in the street of some slum and wait to die; then choice is a pretty meaningless.