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On January 10 2011 10:45 Mayfly wrote:
On another note I think everyone is being pretty unfair to big corporations... considering:
1. Big corporations are more transparent than small, since whatever they do will involve more people.
Look at Enron and Worldcom, they cooked their books. Just because a company puts out a bogus 10K (annual income statement, doesn't mean they are transparent.
2. Big corporations are easier to monitor, since "bad things" that are done in one place will probably be done in many places.
Are you kidding me? Morality has nothing to do with size. There are evil small businesses and big corporations. In fact the corporate structure can be more evil because stakeholders and management have limited liability while sole proprietorship and partnerships have unlimited liability.
Look at AIG one small department (credit-derivatives) almost took down their whole company.
3. Big corporations are easier to discourage from doing "bad things" (just look at the green thing going on in most big corps).
There's many green small businesses as well. What's your point?
4. Big corporations are the reason you are rich.
Are u *beep*ing insane? Big corporations don't make anyone rich unless you work for one. Everyone makes themselves rich by working hard and getting (hopefully honest) paycheck.
Not to say, all big corporations are evil. We need some corporations. But, your points lack consistency, cogency, and fact.
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@Ido
We can argue with what socialism really means forever... I'm not arguing against socialized politics which is essentially a democracy, but I'm against socialized economic system where people are rewarded not by merit. Look I understand they are poor people, handicapped, people in need. The free-market isn't necessarily fair, but the truth is the market is us. We only have ourselves to blame when a free market does not go right. In a free-market everyone gets to vote whats important to them (we vote with our dollars/won). Unfortunately, our culture values pop-stars over helping the homeless. By spending money, we choose to embrace values of the products we buy. That's not the free-market's fault, its us. So, if you value helping the homeless, the poor, the needy, please donate to a worthy cause and I commend you if you did.
But, the free-market is not to blame for all the inequities. It's what actions we take as society and the values we practice in the market that really creates all that unfairness.
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It's interesting how just about every person arguing from a right wing point of view in this thread refuses to respond to challenges. Phoenix, then Scruffy, and now you Balthasar. You should defend the points you made or admit that you were wrong. Just ignoring contradictions is extremely dishonest.
As I told you, and you seemed unwilling to respond to directly, North Korea is not a socialist state. Yet that is exactly what you claimed earlier. It's not socialist, it's not an attempt at socialism, it has absolutely nothing to do with it beyond the completely empty claim from that insane government that it is. Either you were lying earlier or you were wrong. I would like to hear just once in this thread one of you say "Ok, you know what, I was wrong about that".
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North Korea is at least an attempt at socialism. USSR which also is a socialist experiment heavily influenced the region after WWII. China was also influenced by the Soviets. North Korea's biggest allies was socialist China and the Soviets in the Korean War. While South Korea was allied with US.
I'll say this much. To my knowledge there is no form of perfect socialism in any nation, but I contend it's a Utopian concept.
Also you should realize libertarian isn't considered right wing. Many actually contest its left of center. (Please admit you were wrong =) haha.)
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On January 10 2011 14:04 Lefnui wrote:
It's interesting how just about every person arguing from a right wing point of view in this thread refuses to respond to challenges. Phoenix, then Scruffy, and now you Balthasar. You should defend the points you made or admit that you were wrong. Just ignoring contradictions is extremely dishonest.
As I told you, and you seemed unwilling to respond to directly, North Korea is not a socialist state. Yet that is exactly what you claimed earlier. It's not socialist, it's not an attempt at socialism, it has absolutely nothing to do with it beyond the completely empty claim from that insane government that it is. Either you were lying earlier or you were wrong. I would like to hear just once in this thread one of you say "Ok, you know what, I was wrong about that".
North Korea is definitely socialist in the broadest sense of the word, ie public/common ownership of the means of production+distribution of resources.
The state in this case that does the public/common ownership is basically a theocratic monarchy, so its a form of dictatorial/totalitarian socialism.
Now you are probably limiting your definition to democratic socialism, or even as specific as a liberal democratic socialism (ie a democracy where there are civil rights guaranteed), or possibly some form of anarchy. By that means there aren't many highly socialist states. (although many are more or less socialist)
However, socialism has one of the same problems that caused the financial meltdown... entities existed that were "too big to fail", so there were few means of replacing them with others.
The state is innately an entity that is "too big to fail" (especially because 'state failing' generally involves violence) so having the state control as little as possible is the same idea as having any one corporation control as little as possible.
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On January 10 2011 14:23 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2011 14:04 Lefnui wrote:
It's interesting how just about every person arguing from a right wing point of view in this thread refuses to respond to challenges. Phoenix, then Scruffy, and now you Balthasar. You should defend the points you made or admit that you were wrong. Just ignoring contradictions is extremely dishonest.
As I told you, and you seemed unwilling to respond to directly, North Korea is not a socialist state. Yet that is exactly what you claimed earlier. It's not socialist, it's not an attempt at socialism, it has absolutely nothing to do with it beyond the completely empty claim from that insane government that it is. Either you were lying earlier or you were wrong. I would like to hear just once in this thread one of you say "Ok, you know what, I was wrong about that". North Korea is definitely socialist in the broadest sense of the word, ie public/common ownership of the means of production+distribution of resources.
If you go back in history, the core of socialism has always been workers' self management. That is the core. Not much of that in North Korea.
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Krikkitone has a good point.
@Ido it's an Utopian concept. It never truly existed and if it did, it never was good at it was supposed to be.
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On January 10 2011 13:53 Balthasar wrote:
Look I understand they are poor people, handicapped, people in need. The free-market isn't necessarily fair, but the truth is the market is us. We only have ourselves to blame when a free market does not go right. In a free-market everyone gets to vote whats important to them (we vote with our dollars/won).
in the "free market" there is no such thing like voting. yes you can choose between different products but you have no influence on what corporations do. they can act like private tyrannies and even employees have no say on policies. let alone the public who often is drastically affected from those decisions that are being made by corporations (for example environment issues etc.)
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On January 10 2011 14:32 Balthasar wrote:
@Ido it's an Utopian concept. It never truly existed and if it did, it never was good at it was supposed to be.
true. but the "free market" also is an utopian concept that never existed ;-)
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On January 10 2011 14:33 Ido wrote:
in the free market there is no such thing like voting. yes you can choose between different products but you have no influence on what corporations do. they can act like private tyrannies and even employees have no say on policies. let alone the public who often is drastically affected from those decisions that are being made by corporations (for example environment issues etc.)
It's the mass consumers who empower those corporations. If we stopped spending in those supposed tyrannical companies then they would be dis-empowered.
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On January 10 2011 14:39 Ido wrote:
true. but the "free market" also is an utopian concept that never existed ;-)
At least we're still working on it and we have a better track record. History has shown time and time again free-markets create wealthy countries.
It's also not Utopian concept because it really can happen.
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On January 10 2011 14:39 Balthasar wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2011 14:33 Ido wrote:
in the free market there is no such thing like voting. yes you can choose between different products but you have no influence on what corporations do. they can act like private tyrannies and even employees have no say on policies. let alone the public who often is drastically affected from those decisions that are being made by corporations (for example environment issues etc.) It's the mass consumers who empower those corporations. If we stopped spending in those supposed tyrannical companies then they would be dis-empowered.
the problem is i would probably die of hunger if i stopped spending in those tyrannical companies.
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So, all farm companies are evil and tyrannical?
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Frankly, I thought this debate was basically settled.
Look at the entire 20th century. I think it's obvious that in every practical matter:
free market > socialism
No need to cite facts... it's common knowledge. The history of socialism is one of colossal failures. And even if it could be implemented perfectly, I would still think that a meritocracy would be arguably a more "fair" system.
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On January 10 2011 14:43 Balthasar wrote:
So, all farm companies are evil and tyrannical?
its not a moral question. its because big corporations have to stay competetive on the national and global markets and therefore they will most likely lower the wages of their workers, produce bad working conditions, ignore environmental issues and so on...
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Then buy from those that won't do all that stuff. Buy fair-trade products or green products. There are even companies who are going green and fair-trade, support those. There are many companies who donate to worthy causes as well. Become an educated consumer.
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On January 10 2011 15:11 Balthasar wrote:
Then buy from those that won't do all that stuff. Buy fair-trade products or green products. There are even companies who are going green and fair-trade, support those. There are many companies who donate to worthy causes as well. Become an educated consumer.
As a rich guy i can do that. 99% of the people in the world cant. its just ridiculous. the whole fair-trade thing is built on rich peoples guilty conscience.
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Yeah, you're right MforWW, but some people think with their hearts instead of their brains.
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Hey Balthasar, can you stop arguing in a language you can barely speak or write? I'm having a hard time making out anything you're saying due to your dreadful use of grammar and punctuation. Pretty funny how you were telling a guy from Germany that he shouldn't argue with you because his english is supposedly worse than yours (hint: it's actually better).
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On January 10 2011 14:04 Lefnui wrote:
It's interesting how just about every person arguing from a right wing point of view in this thread refuses to respond to challenges. Phoenix, then Scruffy, and now you Balthasar. You should defend the points you made or admit that you were wrong. Just ignoring contradictions is extremely dishonest.
As I told you, and you seemed unwilling to respond to directly, North Korea is not a socialist state. Yet that is exactly what you claimed earlier. It's not socialist, it's not an attempt at socialism, it has absolutely nothing to do with it beyond the completely empty claim from that insane government that it is. Either you were lying earlier or you were wrong. I would like to hear just once in this thread one of you say "Ok, you know what, I was wrong about that".
I responded to your "challenges" till you called me a racist. Its a common move from the left, attack the person since you have no real argument. /exits general forum ignorance till another day.
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EPT
