sandinista wrote:

GT2211 wrote:Corporatism is not a more pure form of capitalism....

Of course it is, maybe "pure" is the wrong word, let's go with "advanced" or "complete".

GT2211 wrote:Socialism for the wealthy or corporatism are now more pure forms of capitalism?

Of course, it's only socialism for the wealthy because the corporations ARE the government. They take care of themselves.

Socialize the costs (taxpayer funded bailouts), privatize the profits, the, ahem, "complete" form of capitalism.

If you're a capitalist, ya gotta love it.

When the 99% want to suck the nanny tit, they're called socialists, lazy, good-for-nothings.

When the 1% suck the nanny tit, it's called entrepreneurship.

When the 99% is told to get off the tit, it's justified as capitalism, freedom.

When the 1% are told to get off the tit, they warn us that the economy will crash unless they are bailed out.

andyx1205 wrote:When the 99% want to suck the nanny tit, they're called socialists, lazy, good-for-nothings.

When the 1% suck the nanny tit, it's called entrepreneurship.

When the 99% is told to get off the tit, it's justified as capitalism, freedom.

When the 1% are told to get off the tit, they warn us that the economy will crash unless they are bailed out.

GT2211 wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:In the US, economy was largely under the control of tycoons and the so-called "Captains of Industry" during the era known as "The Gilded Age," circa 1870-1910; there was little by way of regulation, no federal income tax, few if any State income taxes, hardly any labor movement, and the government's role in economics was pretty close to zero.

During this era most Americans were poor and a few were exceedingly rich. There wasn't much of a middle class.

Generally, that kind of situation is known as "laizzes faire" capitalism, in which those who had or controlled capital were free to do with it as they pleased, usually through corporate entities, usually privately held. This "form" of capitalism usually gives rise to a mass of low and lower middle class people and a small percentage of uber rich, as can be seen today where this situation prevails ... Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, many Latin American countries, and others, and extreme cases such as exists in Haiti or Somalia or Sudan or Zimbabwe.

I do not see how many of these countries can qualify as capitalist. Many of them have no coherent system of property rights for parts of their population which is kind of a prerequisite.

I cited the worst of them as "extreme" cases. Your argument is pithy and makes no difference. Those countries operate capitalist economies. They may border on feudal economies but they are capitalist nevertheless. I'm sure the wealthy who live in them have all the "property rights" they want.

GT2211 wrote:

By 1929 the oligarchs who ran and controlled economy in America got it so bad the system collapsed on them and the great crash of 1929 brought the economic house down and launched a ten-year period of economic stagnation and misery for millions. In order to stand the system up again, it had to be "reformed," which meant the rules had to be changed so that crashes such as happened in 1929 could be avoided. Those kinds of crashes are the inevitable result of the laizzes faire mode of capitalism, they had occurred commonly in the decades leading up to 1929, usually about every decade. They were known as "panics," and there was a bad one in 1891-92.

While poor regulations did not help. It was mismanaged monetary policy by major central banks who insisted on returning to the Gold Standard at pre-WW1 parities. That never had a chance of working, especially with the debts and reparations and continuous attempts to defend the gold standard by raising interest rates during the crisis. The mismanaged money supply was largely caused by central banks being full of people who had little to no knowledge of economics or finance and generally had dislike in the field. They were convinced that the gold standard represented the beacon of morality that needed to be defended at all costs.

And this caused the panic of 1891-92 as well?

I said "they got is so bad," which you merely reaffirm. So what's your point?

My post was long enough as it was, "they got it so bad" is the brief rendition. I don't think there's any real need here to go beyond that and say the same thing in a lengthy paragraph or three.

GT2211 wrote:

If these cyclically recurring "panics" or crashes or depressions were to be avoided, the laizzes faire model had to be changed up, a job that in 1932 fell to FDR and his Democratic minions, and they completely reformed the manner in which economics would henceforth be conducted, principally involving the manner in which investment banking would be carried out. At the same time, FDR promulgated what he called "The New Deal," which involved a host of new regulations that introduced the 40-hour work week, the social security program, and lots of other reforms aimed at making life better for common Americans and leveling the playing field on which economics was played out.

This was reform in its fullest and truest sense. The kind of economy would of course remain capitalist, but it would be a new and never before seen capitalism, a regulated capitalism, one that sought to make the system more fair and more economically just than it had ever been before. Needless to say, they moneyed class didn't like this, the capitalists were dumbfounded that their rights to do as they pleased with their capital would henceforth be subject to regulation.

But the New Deal was enacted anyway, and by the time War ii ended, the American economy did not look nor behave in the manner it had in the pre-1929 era. It had been reformed.

And given other changes that occurred at the time, the GI Bill for example, America was set on a new economic path that would give rise to a burgeoning middle class and make the so-called "American dream" possible for millions. A notable difference between the pre-1929 era and the post-1946 era was the availability of consumer credit, the American dream would be bought on credit, and debt began to rise and continued to rise right up to 2008, when the whole thing came crashing down yet once again.

And it did so because commencing about the time Reagan was elected in 1980, conservatives (republicans, capitalists, big bankers, however you wish to characterize them) began to push back against New Deal reforms, finally having pulled their act together after the great debacle of 1929. And slowly but surely they did roll back much of the New Deal reforms, principally including repeal of the Depression era Glass-Steagal Act, in 1998 which had changed the way investment banking was done as a key aspect of trying to avoid the "panics" and depressions and recessions that had characterized the 1880-1929 era.

This is wrong.

Bullshit it's wrong, it's too brief to be "wrong." Please be specific and point to exactly what part of it is "wrong," if you wish to debate it at all.

GT2211 wrote:
First of all there were many regulations in Glass-Steagall. The one that I believe you are referring to separating commercial and investment banks. A regulation that many countries have never had, and many others repealed prior to the US(including Canada) without suffering a giant bubble. There has been a lot of research published on this subject. Large trade deficits(capital account surpluses) cause lower interest rates and rapid credit expansion in countries with developed financial markets. See a discussion of one recent study below.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7555

And Kash Masanori explains the Eurozone
http://streetlightblog.blogspot.com/201 ... -part.html

We need a better(not necessarily more) regulated and designed international monetary system. These kind of crisis have been becoming more frequent with international capital flows distorting interest rates in developing countries for a while now. It is that developing countries growing tired of it now running surpluses to buffer repeats of it happening them now shifting it the rest of the world.

I wasn't talking about the world and what it may need.

Please explain why not a single Canadian bank failed in the 2008 financial crisis whereas 421 banks have failed in the US and more are being shuttered practically as we speak. Source: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/index.html

Not one bank failure in Canada versus 421 in America.

Now, banks can fail for lots of different reasons, but there's no doubt about the fact that repealing Glass-Steagal along with allowing banks to way over leverage their risk exposures is at the root of bank failures in the US.

It also points to the manner in which the banking industry lobbied hard against and won the fight over the Volker rule, which was intended to be made part of the Dodd-Frank Finance Reform Bill and would have all but reinstated Glass Steagal's prohibition on investment banks behaving like commercial banks.

I have zero interest in debating this. My interest was in setting forth a very brief outline of reform as it has occurred in America between 1880 and 2010, very brief indeed, in hopes of providing some backdrop to the ongoing chit-chat that's been going on in this thread, which has gone nowhere.

I hope members can see that there has been basically three different periods of economy in America, 1) the Gilded Age circa 1880 1929, 2) the era of the New Deal, circa 1936-1980, and the era of deregulation, circa 1980-present, and that the latter two do in fact represent actual reforms of the system, one for the better and one for the worse.

I have no interest in beating this to death, nor do I think you should.

johnbrandt wrote:Careful Rumpole (and others)...from what i've seen in other threads about this sort of thing, it's considered very poor form to ask protestors questions like "what do you propose we replace it with?" or "so what's your answer then?", or "So what do you think should be done?"...

Are you fucking me? WHAT?

WHAAAT??

IT'S SOCIAL. FUCKING. DEMOCRACY.

American protestors want a real welfare state, and they don't want to be fucked by another financial crisis, which the US government isn't achieving because of the huge amount of corporate money involved. Therefore, they want money out of politics so that their government can really represent them and prevent financial crises and give the poorer 99% (funnily enough) a better standard of living.

How many damn times do I have to explain this to you Johnbrandt? Stop fucking jumping into discussions on OWS, making the same comment against it, and then ignoring any refutations of your bollocks assertions.

andyx1205 wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:Careful Rumpole (and others)...from what i've seen in other threads about this sort of thing, it's considered very poor form to ask protestors questions like "what do you propose we replace it with?" or "so what's your answer then?", or "So what do you think should be done?"...
It's also impolite to point out the many posters we see on the news held by protestors saying sentiments like "spread the wealth around", "down with capitalism", and "tax the rich" and stuff like that...don'tcha know that catchy slogans are the solution to everything while not actually proposing any real anwers?

Funny how an Australian, who benefits from a 'national healthcare service' that Americans do not have but are campaigning in the streets to have, is criticizing the movement, especially the movement in America.

"Funny" isn't how I'd describe it, Andyx. I'd use much less flattering adjectives.

Saim wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:Careful Rumpole (and others)...from what i've seen in other threads about this sort of thing, it's considered very poor form to ask protestors questions like "what do you propose we replace it with?" or "so what's your answer then?", or "So what do you think should be done?"...

Are you fucking me? WHAT?

WHAAAT??

IT'S SOCIAL. FUCKING. DEMOCRACY.

American protestors want a real welfare state, and they don't want to be fucked by another financial crisis, which the US government isn't achieving because of the huge amount of corporate money involved. Therefore, they want money out of politics so that their government can really represent them and prevent financial crises and give the poorer 99% (funnily enough) a better standard of living.

How many damn times do I have to explain this to you Johnbrandt? Stop fucking jumping into discussions on OWS, making the same comment against it, and then ignoring any refutations of your bollocks assertions.

andyx1205 wrote:

johnbrandt wrote:Careful Rumpole (and others)...from what i've seen in other threads about this sort of thing, it's considered very poor form to ask protestors questions like "what do you propose we replace it with?" or "so what's your answer then?", or "So what do you think should be done?"...
It's also impolite to point out the many posters we see on the news held by protestors saying sentiments like "spread the wealth around", "down with capitalism", and "tax the rich" and stuff like that...don'tcha know that catchy slogans are the solution to everything while not actually proposing any real anwers?

Funny how an Australian, who benefits from a 'national healthcare service' that Americans do not have but are campaigning in the streets to have, is criticizing the movement, especially the movement in America.

"Funny" isn't how I'd describe it, Andyx. I'd use much less flattering adjectives.

What's really shameful about the kinds of criticisms JB refers to is that any close observation of a protest demonstration will invariably reveal "what the protesters want;" if they're protesting against low wages it usually means they want higher wages; if they're protesting against poor services in medical care it usually means they want UHC; if thy're protesting against income inequality, it means they want less inequality in incomes, and so on.

It usually takes a blind man not to see these things.

Questions like "what do you propose we replace it with?" or "so what's your answer then?" are just very shallow remarks that are dumber than a box of razor wire, intended to make the questioner appear as though they have something insightful to say but which amount to nothing more than propagandistic diversions that steer the discourse away from the actual subject at hand.

I mean, it's not rocket fucking science.

Btw FM you're probably aware that Bill Moyers is back but if not, check out his new series! He's had three episodes so far, and the first two were great (haven't watched the third yet, which is about how "how big banks are rewriting the rules of our economy."

http://billmoyers.com/video/

It's also balanced, since the second episode was a discussion with David Stockman, the White House Budget Director under Reagan (1981-85). I think I mentioned him before.

Last Friday (watching it right now) was John Reed, former CEO of Citigroup and progressive Democrat politician Byron Dorgan.

andyx1205 wrote:When the 99% want to suck the nanny tit, they're called socialists, lazy, good-for-nothings.

Not usually -- those that suck the nanny tit because of a real need and because of being down on their luck, I can understand. Those that are able-bodied and able-minded, and sit home and suck the nanny's tit, they ought to do so on their own dime, after they've been given reasonable help if they were down on their luck.

andyx1205 wrote:

When the 1% suck the nanny tit, it's called entrepreneurship.

That's why I opposed the bailouts. I'm not for welfare for the rich. That's why I'm against "Stimulus" programs, which are donations of nanny-tit breast milk to corporations. Good thing we agree on that.

andyx1205 wrote:

When the 99% is told to get off the tit, it's justified as capitalism, freedom.

When the 1% are told to get off the tit, they warn us that the economy will crash unless they are bailed out.

Don't bail them out. I said it at the time of the first "crisis" announced by Bernanke. Fuck 'em. That's what Chapter 13 bankruptcy is for. However, knowing that monumental frauds were being committed inside the bailed out entities, it's better to get "bailed out" than to be subject to scrutiny by bankruptcy trustees, adversarial proceedings in bankruptcy, and criminal investigations by the SEC and FBI.

That's why we were told that we had to do it, or the sky would fall. Make the deal today, or it's not available tomorrow is what we were told. I remember asking people, including writing my Congressman, why nobody brought this to Congress' and President's attention sooner? It's like - one day the Fed walks into work, puts his jacket on the hook, takes a sip of coffee and boots up the day's spreadsheets and goes - -"holy fuck! The economy is collapsing! We need a trillion dollars!"

That I need to take a shit to make that smell better.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

sandinista wrote:

GT2211 wrote:Corporatism is not a more pure form of capitalism....

Of course it is, maybe "pure" is the wrong word, let's go with "advanced" or "complete".

GT2211 wrote:Socialism for the wealthy or corporatism are now more pure forms of capitalism?

Of course, it's only socialism for the wealthy because the corporations ARE the government. They take care of themselves.

Socialize the costs (taxpayer funded bailouts), privatize the profits, the, ahem, "complete" form of capitalism.

If you're a capitalist, ya gotta love it.

That isn't capitalism - it's fascism. " Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." - Benito Mussolini. You know....like Government Motors.

Of the liberal capitalist states, Mussolini noted,"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building." And, "The truth is that men are tired of liberty."

True capitalism is just liberty. The liberty to make, buy and sell. True capitalism is a little kid's lemonade stand, where he invests $5 in lemons, ice and water, and makes $10 mixing lemonade. That's capitalism. Socialism is the kid having to get permission to sell the lemonade, buying lemons, ice and water at prices fixed by the government, and selling the lemonade at prices fixed by the government, and dividing up any money made in excess of the cost among the entire neighborhood.

State Socialism:

Theory:"We just need to give all the power to a single party leads by the smartest people,call it the People's Party and everything will be fine"

Practice:" Gulags,famine,repression"


Theory: "capitalism is liberty to buy,sell and engage in "free agreement" between two or more parties,Who cares about Inequalities??The only thing that count is economic efficiency"

Practice "In the long run the majority of wealth concentrate in the hands of an elite few who use all this money to corrupt ufficials, ,buy the best lawyers and accountants and use them to find a new way to privatize profits and socialize risks,delocalize in poor countries where human and enviromental abuses are the norm.
The real wage for the 98% are stagnant while the 1% hoard all the beneficts

People will eventually realize that there is something really wrong but can't understand exactly what is wrong because the wealthy possess all the Mass Media,think tanks and have bought key academic department(http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/10/ ... ns/,George Mason University and other 120 university in the US alone) expecially in the field of economics,business and finance where a new class is trained to believe into the “saltwater” vs “freshwater”(in reality more Tweedledum vs Tweedledee http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/TA09E ... braith.pdf) fake dichotomy and TINO(There Is Not Alternative)

So people are told to find a boogeyman in "The government" "the immigrants who take all our jobs" "the lazy parasites who need a welfare system" "the good-at-nothing in the public sector" ....and yes some CEO where bad but they were "a few bad apples" no? and these "few bad apple" would therefore never have existed in "pure capitalism" !! We have corporativism!!! no matter if corporativism is the logical end of capitalism

You see when a far-leftist says:"stop with capitalism!" he is immediately derided "But what about Stalin/Mao?we must judge a system from its real world application "

but for some reason you can't judge capitalism from its real world application but only from the theory,if you can't find the real world in a economics textbook screw the world!

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

GT2211 wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:In the US, economy was largely under the control of tycoons and the so-called "Captains of Industry" during the era known as "The Gilded Age," circa 1870-1910; there was little by way of regulation, no federal income tax, few if any State income taxes, hardly any labor movement, and the government's role in economics was pretty close to zero.

During this era most Americans were poor and a few were exceedingly rich. There wasn't much of a middle class.

Generally, that kind of situation is known as "laizzes faire" capitalism, in which those who had or controlled capital were free to do with it as they pleased, usually through corporate entities, usually privately held. This "form" of capitalism usually gives rise to a mass of low and lower middle class people and a small percentage of uber rich, as can be seen today where this situation prevails ... Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, many Latin American countries, and others, and extreme cases such as exists in Haiti or Somalia or Sudan or Zimbabwe.

I do not see how many of these countries can qualify as capitalist. Many of them have no coherent system of property rights for parts of their population which is kind of a prerequisite.

I cited the worst of them as "extreme" cases. Your argument is pithy and makes no difference. Those countries operate capitalist economies. They may border on feudal economies but they are capitalist nevertheless. I'm sure the wealthy who live in them have all the "property rights" they want.

The key beginning part of the capitalist system involves establishing a system of clearly defined property rights, much of the impoverished world does not have that. If I want to start a restaurant and own a building, but lack kitchen equipment, I can take a form of identification to prove who I am and the title of my building and convert that illiquid asset into a loan to purchase the equipment.

Let's say you are a farmer in Egypt, Sudan, or Zimbabwe. You have a large family who has helped you on your farm for decades and you would like to purchase a tractor. Can you credibly prove to the bank who you are? Probably not. That you own the property? No. 92% of Egyptians hold property without a legal title to it. Do you have anyway of obtaining funds for starting a business? No.

GT2211 wrote:

By 1929 the oligarchs who ran and controlled economy in America got it so bad the system collapsed on them and the great crash of 1929 brought the economic house down and launched a ten-year period of economic stagnation and misery for millions. In order to stand the system up again, it had to be "reformed," which meant the rules had to be changed so that crashes such as happened in 1929 could be avoided. Those kinds of crashes are the inevitable result of the laizzes faire mode of capitalism, they had occurred commonly in the decades leading up to 1929, usually about every decade. They were known as "panics," and there was a bad one in 1891-92.

While poor regulations did not help. It was mismanaged monetary policy by major central banks who insisted on returning to the Gold Standard at pre-WW1 parities. That never had a chance of working, especially with the debts and reparations and continuous attempts to defend the gold standard by raising interest rates during the crisis. The mismanaged money supply was largely caused by central banks being full of people who had little to no knowledge of economics or finance and generally had dislike in the field. They were convinced that the gold standard represented the beacon of morality that needed to be defended at all costs.

And this caused the panic of 1891-92 as well?

The fact that we lacked a central bank to properly stabilize the money supply certainly did not help the constant panic and bank runs during that era. My point was more directed at the Great Depression though.

I said "they got is so bad," which you merely reaffirm. So what's your point?

My point being that the Great Depression was not the result of laissez faire capitalism, but incoherent central banking that started with its attempt to deflate the global economy back onto the gold standard at pre-WWI parities.

GT2211 wrote:

GT2211 wrote:
First of all there were many regulations in Glass-Steagall. The one that I believe you are referring to separating commercial and investment banks. A regulation that many countries have never had, and many others repealed prior to the US(including Canada) without suffering a giant bubble. There has been a lot of research published on this subject. Large trade deficits(capital account surpluses) cause lower interest rates and rapid credit expansion in countries with developed financial markets. See a discussion of one recent study below.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7555

And Kash Masanori explains the Eurozone
http://streetlightblog.blogspot.com/201 ... -part.html

We need a better(not necessarily more) regulated and designed international monetary system. These kind of crisis have been becoming more frequent with international capital flows distorting interest rates in developing countries for a while now. It is that developing countries growing tired of it now running surpluses to buffer repeats of it happening them now shifting it the rest of the world.

I wasn't talking about the world and what it may need.

Please explain why not a single Canadian bank failed in the 2008 financial crisis whereas 421 banks have failed in the US and more are being shuttered practically as we speak. Source: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/bank/index.html

Not one bank failure in Canada versus 421 in America.

I think you are the one who needs to explain this. You are the one proclaiming repealing Glass-Steagall and allowing the sectors to merge played a large role in the financial crisis in the US. Canada repealed their version of it prior to the US. Many liberals narrative of the crisis involves the financial system being too concentrated after the interstate banking restriction was removed then the commercial/investment banking merger restriction was removed. They point to 10-12 banks owning approx 80% of financial assets. But 4-5 banks own 90% in Canada, making it far more concentrated.

Now, banks can fail for lots of different reasons, but there's no doubt about the fact that repealing Glass-Steagal along with allowing banks to way over leverage their risk exposures is at the root of bank failures in the US.

It is not clear to me why allowing investment banking and commercial banking to take place in the same building would make banks more likely to fail. I agree over-leveraging was a problem, IDK if I would say it was at the root but instead likely adding fuel to the already growing fire, but much of that damage was done by the SEC in 2004.

It also points to the manner in which the banking industry lobbied hard against and won the fight over the Volker rule, which was intended to be made part of the Dodd-Frank Finance Reform Bill and would have all but reinstated Glass Steagal's prohibition on investment banks behaving like commercial banks.

Well I am sure that some banks profit off the new rules and would not like to return to the old ones. However, that some banks profit or prefer the new rules does not count as evidence that we should get rid of them. Nobody would argue Pizza Hut lobbying against separation of pepperoni and sausage pizza making would mean we should separate the two which is what the logic would suggest. Instead we should try and look at what the evidence suggests.

Such as this study by Rajan who found no evidence in support of claims that commercial and investment banking merger played a significant role in the crisis.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v84 ... 10-32.html

There is a lot of research on this, some have found that banks that held types fared better as they were more diverse in their funding sources and exposure. In the early stages of the crisis this seemed to be true this time as well. It has been argued by some that a big reason for Glass-Steagall was the Rockefeller's were trying to break up some of their larger rival financial institutions such as the Morgans. Similarly studies have argued that part of the credit contraction was caused by the Feds decision to let non-member banks fail to increase its regulatory reach and help preserve the future profitability of its member banks.

I have zero interest in debating this. My interest was in setting forth a very brief outline of reform as it has occurred in America between 1880 and 2010, very brief indeed, in hopes of providing some backdrop to the ongoing chit-chat that's been going on in this thread, which has gone nowhere.

I hope members can see that there has been basically three different periods of economy in America, 1) the Gilded Age circa 1880 1929, 2) the era of the New Deal, circa 1936-1980, and the era of deregulation, circa 1980-present, and that the latter two do in fact represent actual reforms of the system, one for the better and one for the worse.

I have no interest in beating this to death, nor do I think you should.

But it is important to have the facts clear and correct. We can not blame capitalists for bringing down the system when it is the fault of central bankers or a broken international monetary system. Post WWII we saw the international monetary system reformed. Since that broke down capital flows have been wrecking havoc on developing countries ever since and has caused them to push back by intentionally running trade surpluses and accumulating currency which is not healthy for the rest of the world and cannot continue. These are decisions not made by capitalists but incompetent government officials.

I just think we should be a bit more pragmatic when identifying fixes to the system otherwise we risk missing problem or creating new ones. There were certainly regulatory failures(such as why non-'bank' lending/financial institutions were not held to the same lending standards as actual banks') but at times some of the actual regulatory failures get overshadowed by regulation issues over things that are more symbolic despite the lack of evidence to support their role.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

sandinista wrote:

GT2211 wrote:Corporatism is not a more pure form of capitalism....

Of course it is, maybe "pure" is the wrong word, let's go with "advanced" or "complete".

GT2211 wrote:Socialism for the wealthy or corporatism are now more pure forms of capitalism?

Of course, it's only socialism for the wealthy because the corporations ARE the government. They take care of themselves.

Socialize the costs (taxpayer funded bailouts), privatize the profits, the, ahem, "complete" form of capitalism.

If you're a capitalist, ya gotta love it.

That isn't capitalism - it's fascism. " Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." - Benito Mussolini. You know....like Government Motors.

Of the liberal capitalist states, Mussolini noted,"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building." And, "The truth is that men are tired of liberty."

So I guess we'd have to describe Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, Timmy Geithner, and all those in the Congress who voted for TARP as fascists then, eh? Or, I suppose we could be a little nicer about it and call them corporatists. And we should refer to America as being a fascist state or, again, if we wanted to be a little nicer about it, a corporatist state.

I reckon I'd not argue too much against that.

horacerumpole wrote:
True capitalism is just liberty. The liberty to make, buy and sell. True capitalism is a little kid's lemonade stand, where he invests $5 in lemons, ice and water, and makes $10 mixing lemonade. That's capitalism.

I don't think your analogy is complete without indicating that the kid has to borrow his $5 investment from a bank or charge it to his bank line of credit or his credit card. Money doesn't come free, yunno. Then he has to buy liability insurance in case his lemonade is mixed wrong and causes some of his customers to become ill or some passerby trips over his stand and breaks their leg.

horacerumpole wrote:
Socialism is the kid having to get permission to sell the lemonade,

Almost any business has to have a business license to operate, so let's not forget about that, either.

horacerumpole wrote:
buying lemons, ice and water at prices fixed by the government, and selling the lemonade at prices fixed by the government, and dividing up any money made in excess of the cost among the entire neighborhood.

Don't forget the liberty to pillage the biosphere and to pollute it at will, that's an important tenet of capitalism too, and in fact it's a pillar of the capitalist modus operandi, especially when you hear all those Republican calls to dismantle the EPA and to open up federal lands to resource extraction and to roll back any regulation that limits what a capitalist might do out there in the big wide world, like fracking and mountaintop coal mining and building tar sands oil pipelines everywhere and drilling in the ANWR or off Florida's east coast and in the Arctic ocean.

This is a component of the "freedom" capitalists tell us they want, even though, as you have done here, they usually don't include it overtly in their arguments and instead cloak it in the hallowed terms of "liberty."

Here we are in the 21st century living in a complex high tech and vastly interconnected society and we're going to describe our economy in the simpletonian terms of a kid's lemonade stand, is that it? Somehow I think that's not going to do it. I think it's just a wee bit more complicated than that.

horacerumpole wrote:True capitalism is just liberty.

wow, you can't be serious. Sorry, that's so wrong it's Capitalism is exploitation.

horacerumpole wrote:True capitalism is a little kid's lemonade stand, where he invests $5 in lemons, ice and water, and makes $10 mixing lemonade. That's capitalism. Socialism is the kid having to get permission to sell the lemonade, buying lemons, ice and water at prices fixed by the government, and selling the lemonade at prices fixed by the government, and dividing up any money made in excess of the cost among the entire neighborhood.

such baloney. That's fictional capitalism and fictional socialism. True capitalism (in your scenario) is a kid buying lemons, ice and water from a 3rd world country and thus cutting his costs at least by half, thus putting all the other kids in the neighborhood out of business. He would then hire said kids to work his lemonade stand at poverty wages while he sits back and collect the cash. When the kids try to unionize he fires them all, or gets gangs of thugs to "solve the problem".

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:Here we are in the 21st century living in a complex high tech and vastly interconnected society and we're going to describe our economy in the simpletonian terms of a kid's lemonade stand, is that it? Somehow I think that's not going to do it. I think it's just a wee bit more complicated than that.

no shit. Every proponent of capitalism tries to simplify to the point of nausea. The same as the "hey look at canaduh, the US, and britain...see capitalism must work! "

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

sandinista wrote:
Of course it is, maybe "pure" is the wrong word, let's go with "advanced" or "complete".


Of course, it's only socialism for the wealthy because the corporations ARE the government. They take care of themselves.

Socialize the costs (taxpayer funded bailouts), privatize the profits, the, ahem, "complete" form of capitalism.

If you're a capitalist, ya gotta love it.

That isn't capitalism - it's fascism. " Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." - Benito Mussolini. You know....like Government Motors.

Of the liberal capitalist states, Mussolini noted,"The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building." And, "The truth is that men are tired of liberty."

So I guess we'd have to describe Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, Timmy Geithner, and all those in the Congress who voted for TARP as fascists then, eh? Or, I suppose we could be a little nicer about it and call them corporatists. And we should refer to America as being a fascist state or, again, if we wanted to be a little nicer about it, a corporatist state.

I reckon I'd not argue too much against that.

Those principles are fascist and corporatist, yes. Just like socialised medicine is socialist. Although, one can have those things and not be a fascist or socialist state.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:
True capitalism is just liberty. The liberty to make, buy and sell. True capitalism is a little kid's lemonade stand, where he invests $5 in lemons, ice and water, and makes $10 mixing lemonade. That's capitalism.

I don't think your analogy is complete without indicating that the kid has to borrow his $5 investment from a bank or charge it to his bank line of credit or his credit card. Money doesn't come free, yunno. Then he has to buy liability insurance in case his lemonade is mixed wrong and causes some of his customers to become ill or some passerby trips over his stand and breaks their leg.

He doesn't have to buy liability insurance unless the law says he has to buy it. Otherwise, it's a business decision whether to buy it. And, he doesn't have to borrow money, but in a capitalist system there is the advantage of being able to.

You say - "I don't think your analogy is complete..." - the analogy was complete, but you did make it better. The two points you added are good things.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:
Socialism is the kid having to get permission to sell the lemonade,

Almost any business has to have a business license to operate, so let's not forget about that, either.

Actually, most businesses don't need a business "license" to operate. Mostly highly regulated fields need that -- lawyers need a license -- insurance brokers have to register with the state -- pharmaceuticals -- that kind of thing. Food service, yes. Things like construction - retail sales of general merchandise -- no.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:
buying lemons, ice and water at prices fixed by the government, and selling the lemonade at prices fixed by the government, and dividing up any money made in excess of the cost among the entire neighborhood.

Don't forget the liberty to pillage the biosphere and to pollute it at will, that's an important tenet of capitalism too,

That's not part of capitalism. Look at the most socialist countries we've seen -- they've had the worst environmental records.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
and in fact it's a pillar of the capitalist modus operandi, especially when you hear all those Republican calls to dismantle the EPA and to open up federal lands to resource extraction and to roll back any regulation that limits what a capitalist might do out there in the big wide world, like fracking and mountaintop coal mining and building tar sands oil pipelines everywhere and drilling in the ANWR or off Florida's east coast and in the Arctic ocean.

Babble.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

This is a component of the "freedom" capitalists tell us they want, even though, as you have done here, they usually don't include it overtly in their arguments and instead cloak it in the hallowed terms of "liberty."

You just made my point.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Here we are in the 21st century living in a complex high tech and vastly interconnected society and we're going to describe our economy in the simpletonian terms of a kid's lemonade stand, is that it? Somehow I think that's not going to do it. I think it's just a wee bit more complicated than that.

No, we'll just go on a puerile, foot stamping tantrum, like you do. That'll be better.

horacerumpole wrote:No, we'll just go on a puerile, foot stamping tantrum, like you do. That'll be better.

So, now recognizing the complex nature of social/economic systems is puerile. again...wow.

sandinista wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:No, we'll just go on a puerile, foot stamping tantrum, like you do. That'll be better.

So, now recognizing the complex nature of social/economic systems is puerile. again...wow.

No, your silly tantrums are puerile, and aren't anything close to "recognizing the complex nature" of anything. It's just incessant griping, and the efficient manufacture of straw men.

horacerumpole wrote:

fact-man-2 wrote:
I reckon I'd not argue too much against that.

Those principles are fascist and corporatist, yes. Just like socialised medicine is socialist. Although, one can have those things and not be a fascist or socialist state.

You lost me here, mate.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:
True capitalism is just liberty. The liberty to make, buy and sell. True capitalism is a little kid's lemonade stand, where he invests $5 in lemons, ice and water, and makes $10 mixing lemonade. That's capitalism.

I don't think your analogy is complete without indicating that the kid has to borrow his $5 investment from a bank or charge it to his bank line of credit or his credit card. Money doesn't come free, yunno. Then he has to buy liability insurance in case his lemonade is mixed wrong and causes some of his customers to become ill or some passerby trips over his stand and breaks their leg.

He doesn't have to buy liability insurance unless the law says he has to buy it. Otherwise, it's a business decision whether to buy it. And, he doesn't have to borrow money, but in a capitalist system there is the advantage of being able to.

You say - "I don't think your analogy is complete..." - the analogy was complete, but you did make it better. The two points you added are good things.

It's still a long way from being an instructive analogy.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
Almost any business has to have a business license to operate, so let's not forget about that, either.

Actually, most businesses don't need a business "license" to operate. Mostly highly regulated fields need that -- lawyers need a license -- insurance brokers have to register with the state -- pharmaceuticals -- that kind of thing. Food service, yes. Things like construction - retail sales of general merchandise -- no.

Retail in particular is licensed, usually by the municipality in which they're located. I thought you were a lawyer?

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
Don't forget the liberty to pillage the biosphere and to pollute it at will, that's an important tenet of capitalism too,

That's not part of capitalism. Look at the most socialist countries we've seen -- they've had the worst environmental records.

Wait a minute! You're telling me that those 10,000 toxic waste dumpsites that were found by EPA's Superfund program right across America weren't left behind by American capitalist corporations? Who then, pray tell, did leave them behind?

Industrial activities and resource extraction are capable of polluting, whether they occur in capitalist or socialist countries. Are you going to argue that BP somehow didn't pollute the Gulf when their Deepwater Horizon rig blew up and caused a massive oil leak that went on for months? Is this the case you're trying to make here?

I'm not sure if socialist countries are any better than capitalist ones at preventing pollution, but in the context of this discussion it doesn't really matter, we're talking about capitalism, not socialism, I am at any rate. You're trying to defend Capitalism as the be all and end-all of economy, I'm pointing that this is no longer the case, while not offering socialism as the alternative, I should note.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
and in fact it's a pillar of the capitalist modus operandi, especially when you hear all those Republican calls to dismantle the EPA and to open up federal lands to resource extraction and to roll back any regulation that limits what a capitalist might do out there in the big wide world, like fracking and mountaintop coal mining and building tar sands oil pipelines everywhere and drilling in the ANWR or off Florida's east coast and in the Arctic ocean.

Babble.

A vapid remark is no argument, Horace, you should know that much, and in fact I'm sure you do. But, when faced with the cold hard facts of the matter, you don't want to cop to them, you want to ignore them, you want to run away and hide from them, as Capitalists have done for decades.

Now tell me, do Capitalists want unfettered access to whatever part of the environment they wish to exploit, or don't they?

The case that they certainly do is easy enough to make, they fight regulations that constrain them tooth and nail. And the calls we hear from the Republicans in the House to dismantle and/or defund the EPA are a clear example of this. Maybe you could explain those calls for us, if you would (and we all know who those Republicans represent, but I'll remind you if that's somehow slipped your memory).

So c'mon, man, own up.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
This is a component of the "freedom" capitalists tell us they want, even though, as you have done here, they usually don't include it overtly in their arguments and instead cloak it in the hallowed terms of "liberty."

You just made my point.

So now you're willing to admit that the "liberty" that Capitalists want includes the liberty to pillage the biosphere and pollute it to their heart's content?

That's an admission you'll probably live to regret.

horacerumpole wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:
Here we are in the 21st century living in a complex high tech and vastly interconnected society and we're going to describe our economy in the simpletonian terms of a kid's lemonade stand, is that it? Somehow I think that's not going to do it. I think it's just a wee bit more complicated than that.

No, we'll just go on a puerile, foot stamping tantrum, like you do. That'll be better.

Horace, you should know (too) that comments like this usually only come from those who are losing the argument, not from those who are winning. Your remark is a classic example of puerile foot stomping, and every member here can plainly see that my commentary has been anything but ranting and instead has been cool, calm, and collected, and rational and logical to boot.

You seem not to care that you're embarrassing yourself in front of a whole army of fellow members.

Oh well, we all choose what we do and what we say, and we all pay the consequences. I'm just glad I don't have to pay those that will accrue to you.

Woe indeed, Horace!

For what it’s worth, I think your lemonade-stand analogy is quite valid.

In essence, and from the very beginning, what’s market-based economics but the making and selling of those goods and services that people want, in the most competitive manner possible, and at one’s own risk?

I think it’s equally valid to ask what might serve as a replacement (‘social democracy’ also implies a market-based economy).

Rick wrote: Woe indeed, Horace!

For what it’s worth, I think your lemonade-stand analogy is quite valid.

As far as it goes, which isn't very far. In today's economy more than 40 per cent of economic activity by dollar volume occurs in the banking and financial services industry, and the lemonade stand certainly isn't an analogy for that.

Rick wrote:
In essence, and from the very beginning, what’s market-based economics but the making and selling of those goods and services that people want, in the most competitive manner possible, and at one’s own risk?

But it has become a much smaller and less consequential aspect or part of economy today, and in recent times. The making and selling of goods is now attended by myriad evolving business arrangements on a global scale that nobody even dreamed about 30 or 40 years ago, arrangements in which most of the money is made. Look at what Mitt Romney did, a good model for this and light years from a lemonade stand.

It ain't the 1950's anymore, boys.

Rick wrote:
I think it’s equally valid to ask what might serve as a replacement (‘social democracy’ also implies a market-based economy).

You make the same mistake here that many make, assuming somehow that describing a replacement is something that can be done in a few brief paragraphs. Why do you think nobody does it? It's not because here aren't some good ideas floating around out there in our intellectual firmament, the are indeed, but to make their case takes a book, not a few posts on Ratskep. It's an enormously complicated affair.

I'd like to see a few admit first that a replacement is overdue, as I have myself.

No one person can conjure up a replacement by themselves, that's a big job and it'd take lots of people working in concert to develop that sort of thing into a workable schema or a model that might be discussed. I've started any number of threads on this topic and watched how they all went down to the rallying cries of "Capitalism is forever!" Nobody's interested, "we don't need no steenking replacement!" or "What are you, a fucking commie or something?"

No thanks.

Doesn't mean i can't criticize Capitalism, now, does it? Of course it doesn't.