Re: AFTERNOON SENSITIVITY

Paul Szabady wrote:
Briarroot wrote:
Paul Szabady wrote:

Briarroot wrote:

Paul Szabady wrote:

Briarroot wrote:


This is not a crisis of Capitalism so much as it is a *political* crisis for those who promised their constituencies that things like this would never happen while *they* are in office. Capitalism is a loose system where governments act to protect private ownership, and where good ideas merit success and bad ideas deserve failure. Adjustments like the current one are necessary from time to time; think of it as a process akin to "taking out the garbage."



Untrue.


Your opinions appear as truth to *you* and to those like you, while my opinions appear true to *me* and those like me. It should not be necessary for me to call this to your attention. Let's drop the pretense, shall we?


Obviously, opinions can be neither true nor false, but the premises upon which they are based ARE open to scrutiny and truth-testing. i don't think anyone who lived through the Great Depression would have called it "taking out the garbage." It was a true crisis. Our current condition was at the point where the entire economy was about to halt, due to freezing of credit. This is not a crisis?


But the entire economy has *not* "ground to a halt," and credit is *not* frozen. When you indulge in such exaggeration, you not only weaken your argument, you raise the suspicion that you aren't being honest.

Again, it's not MY exaggeration: it was the diagnosis of the financial industry, private companies, economists, and government agencies of both parties. The government took drastic action and the immediate crisis was solved or forestalled.


You don't know what you're talking about. Apparently, the only thing you know about the current financial mess is what you've gleaned from a few sound bites. I suggest you quit using it as a debating tool until you at least gain some glimmering of what actually happened and is happening.


Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are held privately (and for the financial benefit of the owners and their investors) rather than by the actual workers themselves. 'Good ideas' and 'bad ideas' have nothing to do with capitalism other than the attempt to graft Social Darwinism (with its distortion of Natural Selection) to the vagaries of the "Market." Ideologies are, according to Marx, formed on the foundation of one's economic class. What you're doing is what Marx predicted. Didn't know you were working on Marxist principles, I bet..


I prefer this definition: "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control." (derived from the work of Ayn Rand


Any one can make up their own definitions of words and concepts, but if they don't hold with common understanding, they communicate nothing. I'm sure you grackle this hammer.


"Common understanding" translates as pop mythology. Let's just stick with calling a spade a spade and avoid the culture shock, shall we?

The literal definition and use of words has nothing to do with 'pop mythology' whatever you believe that to mean. You were the one who created your own private meaning for a word.


Now you're being openly dishonest. I *gave* you a literal definition, it just didn't correspond to the one you chose. If you can't explain your point of view, then you have none worth explaining. To pretend that my point of view, which I took some trouble to spell out, is wrong because you were taught something else or believe something else, is no less than the classic fallacy known as The Appeal To Authority.

Try again or shut up.


Tim Daneliuk's bitter denunciation of academia may have been a bit over the top, but he did hit the nail squarely on the head when he pointed out that academics live in an insular world where what is *acceptable* bears little relation to life in the outside world.

The same can be said for Wall Street, Main Street, The DC beltway, NYC, Kansas, the Suburbs, The Inner City, Fundamentalist Christian circles, the factories, the malls, rural America, etc.


<laughter> One word: tenure


*Your* definition is straight 19th century Marxist orthodoxy where the "means of production" predominate all thinking. Tell me, where does the means of production enter this equation when I invest in the stock market, a market whose rise or fall is not based on the production of actual physical goods or services, but on the performance of the market itself?


It is not MY definition. Try using a dictionary, or asking an Economist. or a person literate in English.


Oh piffle! You said it, you own it. If you don't believe it then it was disingenuous of you to *use* it!

So. You use words according to your own private definitions. I use words according to their literal common meaning, and you accuse me of using private definitions. That makes a lot of sense.


<belly laugh> Now you're confusing yourself! I never 'accused' you of using a "private definition," I accused you of being disingenuous enough to refuse stand behind what you believe in - if in fact you *know* what you believe in!


"Means of production" relates to OWNERSHIP and to who profits from a firm's activites.


In other words, not the barons of high finance but the common ordinary man who own shares; i.e: me. QED

That's right - anyone who owns shares.


Power to the people! Aren't you in favor of that sort of thing? <chuckle>


The company's whose stock you own is literally required by law to take actions that maximize profit to shareholders and owners, all else be damned.


You don't know what you're talking about. Consider a company like Intel Corporation. Intel takes billions of dollars of its profits and invests them in basic research, and spends ever vaster sums on infrastructure *even* during economic slowdowns with concomitant negative effect on its stock prices. Is this "illegal?" Hardly! Intel is a company oriented toward long term success. The theoretical company upon which you base your arguments is simply the type company that suits your ideological straight jacket. Well wake up!

You might try reading some Law.


You might try reading a newspaper. That *is* what Intel's business model has been, and it isn't even *questionable* let alone illegal.


Capital in motion creates wealth. Repeat that sentence: capital in motion creates wealth. The "means of production" *is* the market place and the market is "owned" by no one in particular because capital flows to where the profits are greatest. Close off one market, and two more spring up. You keep trotting out these little 19th century phrases as if they're all you know, and they *never* had any validity in the first place.


Marx, along with other economists, predicted that the "Boom and Bust" cycle is inherent in Capitalism.


Marx *predicted* ? Oh, come now. Marx merely noted an already widely recognized phenomenon.


Every 15 years or so, we have these crises and you think it's just taking out the garbage?


Ridiculous! They are not "crises" in any sense of the word and our current financial mess is a fine example. Is starvation and pestilence stalking the land? Are we threatened by vast armies approaching our boarders? This so-called crisis would be nothing more than a routine adjustment and (very likely) be nearly over now were it not for federal interference.


It looks like you don't know the meaning of "crisis" either. I would recommend Webster'e Colleciate Dictionary


<laughter> You won't win you any arguments around here with such nonsense!


The Great Depression and all its consequences


Many economists hold that the Great Depression would have ended 5 years sooner had not FDR overplayed his hand.


And more economists hold that the Depression would have never happened had there been intelligent oversight during the 20's. And if Hoover hadn't seen the Crash as 'taking out the garbage' and done nothing.


"More" economists? Oh really? Is that how you determine the validity of a theory, by counting heads? <chuckle>

The use of 'more' merely counters your use of 'many.' So you've just truned your own argument against yourself. Good job.


Bull***! I said "many" simply because there are more than one. If only one person voices a theory, it's legitimate to wonder if he's off his nut (given that few have time to duplicate his study), but when several do, there's less question and more interest. I would have thought that idea quite familiar to the average academic! You clearly chose to counter that by using the term "more" - another classic logical fallacy. I'm gonna take a wild guess here that history and economics aren't your fields! <chuckle>


Capitalistic Ideologues seem to think that capitalism can do no wrong and has yielded nothing but happiness and freedom.


No such thing. What were you saying about *blinders* ?

These were YOUR own statements, remember? YOU wrote them!


<laughter> Care to quote me? You may be confusing me with Tim Daneliuk, but that's okay, you're clearly confused about a lot of other things.


Similarly, true-believer Communists in the 30's were incapable of seeing that Stalin had destroyed the Revolution and turned despot and murderer.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate for Communism here because I find both viewpoints tedious and the Right Wing Line here was getting a little too monopolistic..


Translation: You are unable to defend Communism and unable to attack Capitalism without injecting spurious arguments.

In addition to not knowing the meaning of words, turning your own arguments against yourself, you also seem unable to comprehend simple prose. Do you know what "Devil's Advocate" even means?


Yes, I know what Devil's Advocate means, I also observe that you don't understand enough about Communism to do a proper job of playing the role, nor enough about Capitalism to offer a sound critique. <shrug>



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"We've gone astray from first principles. We've lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we've accomplished. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." - Ronald Reagan
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