A practical utopia

[polytrip]

Yeah, it's such a waste that Marx drew such radical and flawed conlusions. Many reasonable people get the shivers nowadays if you confront them with marx analyses of the unsustainability of unregulated free markets.

What i meant with the two-layered system, i could best explain with an example.
Each country has a slightly different judicial system, but in western countries, they generally work in the same manner. Basically a judicial system is an ever expanding set of rules that precisely describes what kind of actions are forbidden. When technology and the criminal mind evolve, this means that whenever the lawmaker thinks that he has fixed a problem, another loophole is found so then a new law has to be made and this cycle goes on and on.
Where i live, for many years, people who commited crimes on the internet could not be charged with anything, because the internet was considered such a new thing that the old lawbook simply didn't aply to it. People could use the internet to steal from others, to commit all kinds of fraud or they could just behave as cyberstalkers or they would bombard other peoples computers with massive amounts of spam. The thing is that new laws had to be made that very precisely describe what not to do and ofcourse many of them are allready outdated.
It would be better if you had a set of rules like; don't steal, don't lure people into disadvantage by telling them lies, don't sabotage peoples properties, etc. And if there would be some other lawbook, that's not the lawbook itself, but that tells what the purpose of each of those rules is; Why do we have this rule?
Then a district attorney or a lawmaker could look at an old law and say;"hey, rule number 5x was actually meant to prevent that personal belongings of any kind, could be taken from a person without this persons aproval". And then say;"well, this aplies to this totally new, and when this law was made unforseen type of cybercrime, just as much as it did to shoplifting".
So you could keep the rules very simple. You don't constantly have to make new laws, and you don't need to be too rigid.
Another example could be if someone would assist another person in commiting suïcide. This could be just as much an act of compassion in some cases as it could be a hyenous crime in other cases (for instance if you feed your grandmother with half a bottle of scotch, tell her how meaningless everything is, etc, so you inherit $100.000).
In most countries assisting someone in commiting suïcide would be considered just as serious as committing a murder. If every D.A or judge would ask himself: "why is murder a crime, and does that reason apply to this situation as well?" then in some cases this would prevent D.A's and judges from having to say:"well, your intentions where good, but the law is the law, so there you go for 25 years..sorry".
So it would force law enforcers to philosophically reflect on every action, preventing rigidity and senseless bureaucracy.

 

[burnt]

The analasys that a total free market will implode always, has on the other hand been proven true more then once.
An unregulated free market does not exist, and everytime it nearly exists, like recently in the U.S, it implode's.
There realy is no invissible hand, burnt.

I think its the opposite. Regulated or influneced markets are imploding. The U.S. was unregulated in terms of people were allowed to and encouraged to make really crappy loans but it was regulated in that the central bank controls interest rates (ie they control the flow of money, how it that unregulated?).

I am not worried about an invisible hand or some super supreme government running things behind the scenes, because thats a bit paranoid. What I am worried about is that people are using this financial situation to insititute more government control and more government regulations which will only make things worse. The government should leave the market alone. Obviously you need some laws and taxes and I am not against such things but when quasi government agencies think they have the right to dictate how much money is worth (through again interest rates) we get massive boom and bust cycles and its been going on in the U.S. since the establishment of the federal reserve.

Realize by regulating interest rates through central banking means that you can create the kind of cycles we now see in our markets. A free market doesn't have these. You do not have situations with excessive credit that people can borrow tons of money and loan tons of money and then collapse when people either can't pay their loans or when people call in their debts. Low interest rates = lots of cheap money and lots of investment, high interest rates = less cheap money and less investment and speculation. YOU CANNOT I REPEAT CANNOT predict how this should be done because it always misbalances the market.

This is another thing where i think burnt is making a mistake; what's good for me doesn't have to be good for you or anybody else. But to create an atmosphere where everybody is free and able to decide for himself what 'good' is, means automaticcaly that there's a common interest and that there IS a greater good (just not defined in socialist terms).

Your forgetting something about human nature. We want to survive and we must work together to do that. Thats how people will survive not by relying on some government bullshit to fix everything. Of course your 100% right that people should ban together pay some taxes and build things that are useful. That is a perfectly legit role for a government. However when it starts to infringe on the liberty and rights of people it crosses my boundry of what a government should do. I am not promoting anarchy I am just saying that governments exist to protect peoples liberty and rights not to solve all their problems by infringing on their liberty and rights.

I am not sure what you mean though... all I am saying is that people have different values and beliefs and that no government should force those upon people. I am not trying to get all philosophical I think its a simple true statement.

When I say a free market realize I am not being an idealist saying its all free and therefore perfect. I mean that the market should be as unregulated as possible to work the best. That way when stupid banks borrow shit loads of money and loan it out to people who can't pay it back they should collapse! Obviously you need laws to regulate things like monopolies environmental abuses discrimination but those are all within the legit aspects of a government. Its not regulating the market but rather preventing abuse ie protecting liberty.

So I guess I should be more clear I am not infavor of unrestrained capitalism in that sense but I am against regulating the market ie. regulating peoples right to trade and interact with each other! Thats what markets are people trading goods and money.

Check this out. I am still reading it but its an introduction to the austrian school of economics where lots of these ideas come from:

An Introduction to Austrian Economics | Mises Institute

For the serious student, this exposition of the essentials of Austrian economics is excellent. Taylor discusses all the fundamental aspects of Austrian thought,

mises.org

Anyway I don't want to get bogged down in terms like socialism and capitalism because they barely even mean that much anymore because everything so cross connected so many different versions it gets tedious to explain each one etc etc.

All I am saying is the role of government is to protect peoples freedom and rights. By telling a company it cannot put a toxic substance in its milk is not regulating the market but protecting peoples rights to eat safe food. I hope you can see the difference between unregulated market and laws that protect people from abuses of companies.

 

[polytrip]

The U.S. and U.K. situation is unique in the sense that the governments over there managed to combine the worst of both worlds; an unregulated and yet regulated free market.
The problem of unhealthy inscentives given to these bankguys, to sell as many loans as possible was a spontaneous thing, unregulated like you say. That's one of the triggers to this crisis. If there would have been regulations in relation to loans, like in some countries, there would not have been such a large crisis. Some countries are hardly affected by the credit-crunch thing, simply because their banks where under a firmer control. Just like in some countries air-traffic is a bit more regulated then in other countries. That's why i prefer not to fly with russian or african airlines.
If a large bank would collapse and especially when more large banks would collapse (like freddy and fanny), then this could causse a domino effect that could have catastrophic results. As a result of that, you would need a 1000fold government intervention, to get things running again.

Ofcourse there is a real risk of government intervention, becoming too politicly correct and the free-market becoming a politically incorrect thing.
But that's one of the problems; that the degree of regulation itself becomes an ideological instead of just a practical issue. It has been an ideological thing to leave everything to the market, to the extent that even basic healthcare has become something no-one can afford, unless you're a millionaire. Now it can become ideological to regulate everything to the extent that GM could become a state-owned company.
While it should be just a matter of pragmatism, how far you want to regulate anything (like with air-traffic).

 

[benzyme]

practical utopia

 

[burnt]

But that's one of the problems; that the degree of regulation itself becomes an ideological instead of just a practical issue. It has been an ideological thing to leave everything to the market, to the extent that even basic healthcare has become something no-one can afford, unless you're a millionaire.

Government rules and regulations destroyed cheap health care. Prior to HMO's and excessive insurance costs health care was cheap and privately owned.

The U.S. and U.K. situation is unique in the sense that the governments over there managed to combine the worst of both worlds; an unregulated and yet regulated free market.

Haha very true.

If a large bank would collapse and especially when more large banks would collapse (like freddy and fanny), then this could causse a domino effect that could have catastrophic results. As a result of that, you would need a 1000fold government intervention, to get things running again.

I think these bailouts were a bad idea because it will lead to another worse situation in the future. But yea don't want to get into the details with this issue as its getting off topic.

Anyway that document I posted about austrian economics is really interesting and applicable to what we are talking about. Recommend checking it out if one is interested in how free markets can be utilized to create situations condusive to practical utopia.

I think the main problem with government or rather centralized economic planning is that in a complex society its impossible to calculate whats going to happen accurately, it always goes wrong. So things always get messed up then people get mad at the government and the government in turn resorts to more drastic measures to control both the market and people its governing. However I think I already made myself clear on that issue.

 

[ohayoco]

Burnt and Benzyme thanks for the links, I'll check them out soon.

Ok I understand what you're saying Polytrip. In a way, we already have this system- people have an ethical sense of 'fairness', so they get outraged when a 'loophole' occurs which forces government to create laws... but yes, the system is always playing catch-up, and lawmaking is sometimes a knee-jerk reaction to look decisive to the public. Sometimes, laws are made that outlaw any PREVIOUS actions (I think, I'm pretty sure)! This is done with tax scams etc I think.

LAW
Maybe lawmakers just need to be more longsited about new problems. I'm sure if they'd asked the people who built or first started using the internet how the system could be abused in future, the hobbyists would've been able to predict a lot of it. But would we have wanted the internet being policed from the word go? It would've been good to be warned of possible dangers to defend against, but the internet would suck if it had developed in control of the powers-that-be.
The problem with general rules is that they are ambiguous- their flexibility IS their legal fault- which is why the law becomes so specific. Without this specificness, the courts would be unmanageable- every single case would have to be analysed intricately. I'm learning a lot about law at the moment and it seems to make sense how they work things out once you get into it... every single thing is done for a reason, every phrase worded carefully.
With issues like euthenasia, it's not the law that's at fault, it's the government. The job of the judiciary is to enforce the law, and only determine it through precedent on 'relatively' minor points. The government's job is to make laws. Unfortunately politicians are corrupted by their own religious and quasi-religious irrationality as well as that of the public whom they need votes off.
One thing that does suck about law, is how it's unintelligible to the public (and lawyers have no incentive to make it otherwise). The law is just layers and layers on top of each other that refer back to each other rather than fully explain issues. Look at a statute... many of them are unintellible, not only because of the references to earlier statute but also because of the legal language which is very different now from the English that the rest of the population use, in part due to the natural evolution of the English language, in part due to legal words having distinct meanings set by precedent. Maybe the law should be a big book or set of books, that is added to or altered each time new laws are made, instead of just lazily dumping another wad of paper onto the big pile that is the law.

CENTRAL BANKS & TAXATION
So how about this then... the Central Bank is in government control. The government is NOT allowed to borrow money, so there's no ridiculous national debt with extortionate taxes to pay off the interest. The government has a yearly budget. This yearly budget rises to account with inflation but can ONLY be raised further by calling a referendum... they have to ask the public if they want more money, so the public are in control. For example, maybe they want to go to war, so they have to ask for extra cash, instead of sneakily borrowing on our behalf and essentially stealing money from our pocket by increasing the national debt. Further to this, the government are legally bound to their election promises (having to present a full budget at election time), so they can't go back on their promises. A promise broken is a breach of contract, thus voiding the contract, so means a referendum on whether or not the contract should be terminated and a new election should be held.
When the public agree to give them more money, it could either be taken in the form of increasing taxation, or the government could just print more money which could in effect be a type of taxation because inflation would increase so everyone's money becomes worth less (the central bank is keeping the amount of money in circulation at the 'right' level whatever this is, so any excess would increase inflation- correct me if I'm wrong here Burnt) Taxation may be better because the public have a say in who it hits, whereas the poor are hit hardest by inflation because they don't move their money around wisely to get the best interest rates like the rich do.

ANOTHER QUESTION:
Is there any libertarian way of dealing with the public's tendency to vote intellectually incapable people into power sometimes? E.g. ex-president George Bush junior, or London Mayor Boris Johnson (the first time in my memory that a fool has got into power in the UK, are we learning bad habits off the USA? Generally high ranking politicians are lawyers in the UK so intelligence isn't a problem). This is a very real problem of democracy, but I don't see any libertarian way of improving the situation, other than make things like IQ or whatever an election issue... as if each candidate has his top-trump values... :?

 

[polytrip]

I don't think that if laws would be ambiguous, you would have an unmanagable situation. Not if you would build in this type of philosophical reflection that i'm after. The thing is that when you have a very specific description of the moral intentions of a rule, you can keep the rule itself simpler. The philosophical foundations have to be clear. That is what's lacking as well in our political, judicial and other governmental institutions.
I'm absolutely convinced that this is not only needed so that the quality of all these things would improve, but that it's at the same time more practical as well.
Loophole's aren't my major concern even. inflexable bureaucracie is far worse.
when judges, lawyers and public servants would be trained in reflective philosophical thinking, i'm convinced my two-layered system would run even more smoothly than the best organized bureaucracie's today. It would for instance be more able to prioritize issues in all layers of public organizations, so urgent matters don't end up on the bottom of a long list.
The moral grounds on wich much of our society is based have become slippery in the past few decades, or maybe they always where.
Governments are not allowed to ban products from our markets, for instance, that where manufactured with the use of (child) slaves. They're not even allowed to tax these products, to let organizations such as unicef or oxfam benefit from the revenues of these taxes. These rules are enforced on us, by the WTO. Our own rules do not allow us to aply any sort of moral standard.
Since moral relativism has got it's hold on us, morality itself has become something of a personal issue for each of us, like religion.
And with that morality has become as 'real/unreal' as things like 'god'. The belief that morality can never be made concrete in any way has let to OUR company's selling nervegas with wich saddam hoesein killed the kurds in halabja, OUR blue jeans being made in chinese factories where workers are literally being locked to prevent them from escaping and the tea and coffee WE drink, being picked by slaves on african plantations.
And this is just trade.
We need moral foundations as solid as can be, yet aplicable.

 

[ohayoco]

I think few people believe in modern relativism these days. There is I believe at least one set of ethical rules by which people can enjoy the greatest freedom possible without undermining the right of others to exercise their own right to freedom. "Do as you will when it harms no other" would be my choice for the 'top layer' moral code.
Below that is of course a vast debate about what 'harm' is... I would say that someone is not harmed just by a mental affront at accidentally viewing something like a porno, because it's their own mind making themselves upset by seeing it (basic cognitive behavioural therapy- your thoughts come before your emotions) and it's reasonable that people who like that kind of thing should be free to watch it.
However, a raped person for example is of course harmed even in an instance when the damage was 'only' psychological, because they was physically forced into something against their will... they was not able to immediately avert their eyes and exit the situation.
The debate could go on forever in trying to decide the boundary between harm and unharm when you get into continuous exposure such as with advertising, but you get the gist of it.
The main result of a change in law along this principle would be the legalisation of drugs... however, on the other hand, using contraindicated substances while pregnant would now be a crime, child abuse as it is once the child is born and must live with the legacy of foetal alcohol syndrome or the like.

 

[polytrip]

I think few people believe in modern relativism these days. There is I believe at least one set of ethical rules by which people can enjoy the greatest freedom possible without undermining the right of others to exercise their own right to freedom. "Do as you will when it harms no other" would be my choice for the 'top layer' moral code.
Below that is of course a vast debate about what 'harm' is... I would say that someone is not harmed just by a mental affront at accidentally viewing something like a porno, because it's their own mind making themselves upset by seeing it (basic cognitive behavioural therapy- your thoughts come before your emotions) and it's reasonable that people who like that kind of thing should be free to watch it.
However, a raped person for example is of course harmed even in an instance when the damage was 'only' psychological, because they was physically forced into something against their will... they was not able to immediately avert their eyes and exit the situation.
The debate could go on forever in trying to decide the boundary between harm and unharm when you get into continuous exposure such as with advertising, but you get the gist of it.
The main result of a change in law along this principle would be the legalisation of drugs... however, on the other hand, using contraindicated substances while pregnant would now be a crime, child abuse as it is once the child is born and must live with the legacy of foetal alcohol syndrome or the like.

This is exactly the type of thinking i'm after; not simpy aplying a rule or following a principle as it's written, but seeking it's true meaning. If this would be done more often, the world would be a totally different and much better place to live in.

 

[ohayoco]

Burnt, you are what is called an anarcho-capitalist, maybe a capitalist minarchist at the very least. Society used to work like that, and we spent all our time fighting each other while ruled over by feudal overlords. Unrestrained capitalism is the 'natural' state of things and it failed miserably.

Again you fail to understand history. I am not an anarchist at all. I believe in government I just believe the role of government is to protect the liberty of its people not to regulate business and peoples lives. The system you describe ie. socialism or something similar is closer to feudalism then capitalism. To say otherwise is complete ignorance to the meaning of the words.

Lets define the two words. Socialism means in my mind state ownership of business and land. Some argue that the state is the people therefore the people have more freedom (thats more of a social democracy) but that is not true because you always will need some party to govern the state and in socialism that party has a lot of power over the economy and your life. In a social democracy which many European nations now fall into you have a medium between the two. You allow people to vote for the leaders while at the same time allowing the party to control the state thus business and your life. It can vary to extremes like fascism or communism. Fascism is complete state ownership, communism is very similar when conducted on a large scale. Lets look at the extremes the early soviet union and nazi germany. Both very brutal regimes, socialist regimes.

Now capitalism basically means in my mind free market. Basically people can do business anyway they like as long as it does not violate the laws of the land, which in a society with a government like the one I envision (as did the founding fathers of the United States) the laws are meant to protect liberty. Like obviously you can't just dump toxic waste into your neighbors land because then you are violating that persons rights. You are harming another person and thus violating his or her liberty and should be persecuted by the government. If a law doesn't exist you have a group of elected officials who are supposed to listen to the will of the people and they make a law within the framework of the constitution of that particular nation.

So do you agree with the definitions?

So now if you have a central bank which is basically a forced government monopoly on banking you do not have a free market. If you allow fractional reserve banking you basically legalized the ability of banks to commit fraud and thus interfered with the natural state of things. If you subsidize industries on a large scale you do not have a free market. Therefore the U.S. and most Europoean and most developing nations do not have free markets. So you cannot say that the system we have today is a result of the capitalist free market because we do not have that system.

Now do you want to talk about war? Do you want to know why we have wars on the massive scale we see today and have this century? Because of centralized banking and fiat currency. Basically if a country wants to go to war they need money to pay for it. So you have two options. You tax people which is usually very unpopular especially if the war is unpopular. Or you print money out of nothing via your central bank mechanism. Now this fake funny fiat money will later cause inflation which will hurt the poor and middle class but that's not the immediate concern the immediate concern is war and how its going to make the banks lots of money. World war I and world war II were both funded by this mechanism! So your socialist way of doing things provides a perfect mechanism for governments to start wars without having to immediately tax its people.

Now do you want to talk about the economic crisis? When you print funny money out of thin air as it done by any nation with a central bank you create an unnatural situation. You create a bubble by creating an environment that encourages unsound investment. If there's lots of funny free money people invest it in all kinds of stupid things. Like selling houses to people who can't afford them. Then when those people can't pay for their houses the banks lose lots of money or so you think! But since we are living in more socialist leaning countries they decide to bail the banks out again with more funny fake fiat money (which later will cost the poor and middle classes their wealth via inflation). In a true free market capitalist system this would not happen. The banks and those stupid investors would lose and the person who tries to take their place will not repeat the same mistakes. But if you continuously interfere with the market and bail out bad business that's not a free market.

Now you want to talk about the environment? In a true free market goods are regulated by supply and demand. If a resource runs low it becomes expensive. Now lets take oil as an example. Why do you think oil is cheap in the United states? Because the oil industry is subsidized! Again the government is creating an un-natural situation! If the law of supply and demand were in place as oil got more rare and thus more expensive other competing sources of energy would begin to be invested in without any need for the government to get involved. Now lets take timber as an example. Lets say you are a timber farmer and own a plot of land. You can do two things. Cut down your whole forest sell it and make some money. Or you can cut half it down and replant it and when the other half grows back cut down the other half. Therefore you can generate a continuous source of money. Because if you cut down all your trees you can't grow more and the supply goes down so you raise prices but the guy who owns the land next store has a constant supply so his prices stay low and he wins.

So basically capitalism and the free market has its own mechanisms the laws of supply and demand to control itself and this is only screwed up when governments get involved in the market as they are and have in the past. Its the governements and banks who are allowed by the governments to commit essentially fraud on a large scale that creates the unnatural situations and booms and busts and ability to fund wars and destruction of our environment (by subsidizing away the law of supply and demand). In other words its state control over business and the land that is the source of our problems. Not the natural situation a true free market would create.

I do understand history. I just didn't have time to write much and it was stuff we'd discussed already here. I respect you Burnt, and we both agree on a lot of the problems of the current Western system, but you and I do seem to misunderstand each other a lot because of what 'capitalism' means to us. You have too much faith in conspiracy videos and that guy that I have ALREADY shown to have discredited himself in the very video you have so much faith with... Ian Fleming was not the head of M15! I wonder how much of all the technical economic stuff his argument relied on is as credible as such trivial but completely erroneous claims.

As I said, you were a 'capitalist minarchist at least' if not an anarcho-capitalist, which I now think is more the case by your assertion that some form of state is necessary. I am not a socialist! I do believe in helping each other out and structuring society fairly. Do you think it's fair that the wealth of the world is again becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people? This is happening in the present state of affairs, and would happen no less in your free market.

It doesn't matter what the 'idea' of capitalism is. It matters what the reality of it is. Whatever your concept of true capitalism is, the result in practice is very different. Many concepts are not practically tenable... they are mere utopias. I have said before how exactly the same thing happened with communism- wonderful idea, horrifically flawed in practice. Read the Communist Manifesto- on paper, it looked very promising, far more so than the tyranny of the factory owners of the industrial revolution. True communism has never been enacted, only perversions.

You evoke the sacred cow of the founding fathers like a true patriot... ask the Native Americans about the founding fathers. They were racist land-grabbers. That is the reality of the USA, and European countries in a similar way, and most cultures in the world too, and it's high time America dropped patriotism. To an outsider, American patriotism sparks chills reminiscent of the patriotic belief of Nazi Germany. The British Empire was, of course, not much less racist in their patriotism. Nationalism is morally bankrupt.

I disagree with your view on the environment. During the British Empire sustainable logging, for example, was the most profitable way, because the aristocratic families wanted to maintain profits for their children and their children's children. However, I'm sure some people would still have run roughshod like they do now for maximum instant profit without a care for consequence. Because of inheritance tax, and the 1980's get rich culture of the meritocratic society, people now just make as much as they can and leave the earth scarred. To get back to a sustainable model, we either need to abolish taxes and become slaves to a new aristocracy (your way?), or just have ethical governments in power who will regulate to ensure that the earth is not destructively plundered further.

What happens to the gap between rich and poor under your system, Burnt? How do you resolve this issue- the most important issue in politics. So far you have ignored it, but it is THE priority! It is this problem of wealth accumulation and hence power that made our ancestors slaves and us wage-slaves. It is mass discontentment of this unfairness that CAUSED socialism to come into existence!

 

[ohayoco]

I think few people believe in modern relativism these days. There is I believe at least one set of ethical rules by which people can enjoy the greatest freedom possible without undermining the right of others to exercise their own right to freedom. "Do as you will when it harms no other" would be my choice for the 'top layer' moral code.
Below that is of course a vast debate about what 'harm' is... I would say that someone is not harmed just by a mental affront at accidentally viewing something like a porno, because it's their own mind making themselves upset by seeing it (basic cognitive behavioural therapy- your thoughts come before your emotions) and it's reasonable that people who like that kind of thing should be free to watch it.
However, a raped person for example is of course harmed even in an instance when the damage was 'only' psychological, because they was physically forced into something against their will... they was not able to immediately avert their eyes and exit the situation.
The debate could go on forever in trying to decide the boundary between harm and unharm when you get into continuous exposure such as with advertising, but you get the gist of it.
The main result of a change in law along this principle would be the legalisation of drugs... however, on the other hand, using contraindicated substances while pregnant would now be a crime, child abuse as it is once the child is born and must live with the legacy of foetal alcohol syndrome or the like.

This is exactly the type of thinking i'm after; not simpy aplying a rule or following a principle as it's written, but seeking it's true meaning. If this would be done more often, the world would be a totally different and much better place to live in.

Thanks. Foaf pretty much lives his life in this way, this is how his moral compass works.

 

[burnt]

You have too much faith in conspiracy videos and that guy that I have ALREADY shown to have discredited himself in the very video you have so much faith with... Ian Fleming was not the head of M15! I wonder how much of all the technical economic stuff his argument relied on is as credible as such trivial but completely erroneous claims.

Well the video I posted called the money masters had a bad conclusion in my opinion, actually in that sense it ruined the whole thing. The history of money however is quite accurate. But I should state that my opinions do not come entirely from conspiracy videos although they certainly can help perk interest and thus more research into a subject to uncover either bullshit or truth. Rather my economic theory is based on a very sound and respectable economic school of thought known as the austrian school of economics (look up ludwig von mises institute). But realize I am not an economist I just read things and observe things critically to arrive at the conclusions I have.

I do believe in helping each other out and structuring society fairly. Do you think it's fair that the wealth of the world is again becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people? This is happening in the present state of affairs, and would happen no less in your free market.

Again this concentration of wealth and power is a direct result of not having a free market. A free market has built in mechanisms by the way human societies and economic activities proceed to control itself, supply and demand, the relative theory of value, the use of labor and the balances required to make a successful business. A government is there to make laws and enforce them that protect people and groups of people from violating their liberty this doesn't mean the role is to regulate business but to enforce laws against those who violate them whether its a business dumping toxic waste into a river or a thief robbing your house.

It doesn't matter what the 'idea' of capitalism is. It matters what the reality of it is. Whatever your concept of true capitalism is, the result in practice is very different. Many concepts are not practically tenable... they are mere utopias. I have said before how exactly the same thing happened with communism- wonderful idea, horrifically flawed in practice. Read the Communist Manifesto- on paper, it looked very promising, far more so than the tyranny of the factory owners of the industrial revolution. True communism has never been enacted, only perversions.

I think communism which requires central economic planning in any complex society is impossible because its impossible to have complete central economic control work efficiently thus you will always have the party needing to exert its authority to keep people from always wanting a new better leader to control the economy better. Again this goes back to the austrian school so I won't bore everyone with explaining the whole concept. But your right we can throw the idea of capitalism out the window I'll just use the term free market to describe something I see as a more practical utopia then a more socialist leaning theory. Socialist leaning I mean more centralized control over business and society. Again it varies from social democracy to fascism.

You evoke the sacred cow of the founding fathers like a true patriot... ask the Native Americans about the founding fathers. They were racist land-grabbers. That is the reality of the USA, and European countries in a similar way, and most cultures in the world too, and it's high time America dropped patriotism. To an outsider, American patriotism sparks chills reminiscent of the patriotic belief of Nazi Germany. The British Empire was, of course, not much less racist in their patriotism. Nationalism is morally bankrupt.

Well yes I love the U.S. constitution although it did have one fatal flaw (which Obama pointed out hehe) is that it did not recognize women or people who were not white as citizens and people of the area. Another one I think was the elastic claus but anyway. Other then that I think its the first document in the history of western society to truly advance the idea of liberty in the form of a government structure designed to protect it. Yes though what was done to the native Americans was genocide straight up. I am in no denial of that and I think it was a horrible thing. Although my ancestors were still in Europe at that time its still a scar upon the nations history as is most of the 20th and now 21st century. Also I understand the problems American empiralism has caused in the world today I have lived in europe for a number of years and my partner is african, I understand that there is a world beyond america's bubble, a number of my friends are middle eastern and they definately have opinions about what america is doing there. I hear you all the way on that, and that goes for all human kind its fucked up whats going on.

But my opinion is that the american military industrial empiralistic complex that has been going on was made possible by ignoring critical parts of the constitution and the use of fiat currency fractional reserve banking and of course the federal reserve to fund it. Which in turn has weakened the wealth power and influence of the middle and lower class.

I disagree with your view on the environment. During the British Empire sustainable logging, for example, was the most profitable way, because the aristocratic families wanted to maintain profits for their children and their children's children. However, I'm sure some people would still have run roughshod like they do now for maximum instant profit without a care for consequence. Because of inheritance tax, and the 1980's get rich culture of the meritocratic society, people now just make as much as they can and leave the earth scarred. To get back to a sustainable model, we either need to abolish taxes and become slaves to a new aristocracy (your way?), or just have ethical governments in power who will regulate to ensure that the earth is not destructively plundered further.

Ok well yes people can say screw it its my land im going to cut all the trees down and sell them buy more land and sell that etc etc. But again this issue can be dealt with on a local level it doesn't require massive government oversight. It does however require that the government allows local government to do its job and also allow the market of any given area to function freely. Critically is must respect property rights of people who own their land. That mean's if some mineral is discovered under your land the government can't just declare emminent domain and take it.

But let me bring up some examples that I have noticed with just everyday people in my life. Small farms in the rural united states have fallen apart because of government subsidizes to big agricultural companies who can afford expensive equipment and thus cut labor and use technology that currently allows fast effective transportation. But now lets let the free market take control and see what happens. As the energy costs of transporting food, mass producing food with expensive equipment goes up the price of that kind of food goes up. As does the public concern of negative consequences of pesticide use and genetic engineering or whatever these are just examples which is just a societal concern. Now in a socialist or government intervention system the government would have to now maybe subsidize small organic farms to satisfy everybody (the masses) which means more taxes or printing funny money which again in turn lowers the wealth of others (through inflation and taxation). Or they could government subsidizes but that's a free market fair thing to do. But if you allow the free market to really take over look what could and is happening now. People in a free society can come together and say look ok we have this big farm competitor but you know what its getting more expensive because of higher energy costs (transportation and machinery) lets open our own local organic farms. Now people who live in that community have the option to buy local cheaper and healthier food because people with business sense said lets change how it works in our community and lets make it profitable and beneficial to our local environment. But if governments continue to give money to big agriculture and interferes with the natural flow of peoples desires with the market that harmful system of heavy machinery and chemical agriculture will continue. So we don't need the government we need people to do what free people do and make their own decisions about what they think is good and if it works and its sustainable and profitable of course they would like it.

This is one small example but its happening right now all over people are understanding how sustainability is profitable and smart. This applies with so many things from the energy industry to timber harvesting (which again should be controlled at a local level because people care about their local community and the land in their own town especially when their property rights are respected and they see the positive things that good land brings) to food production to even health care. Health care was ruined in the United States because of government intervention when the concept of HMO's and health insurance merged with the government.

The environment is tied in with our life we depend on plants we depend on diverse ecosystems. I love the earth our beautiful diverse natural environment is something I respect value and want to continue but I think only free people who understand how it can work can solve the problem. Not some government program because government programs always are more inefficient and potentially corrupt. I have faith in human beings because they are our brother sisters friends sons daughters countrymen/woman fellow human beings but I don't have faith in governments and their run for power. They always fail the people because they want more power. Thats why the role of the government should be to prevent the government and its citizens from taking too much power by allowing people to do what people can do in a free society that has a base of laws decided by the people.

Anyway man sorry I am drunk and I am rambling. Its true. haha. I don't mean to call you a socialist because I don't think that's your view point but I just want to point out that there is two ways to go more government involvement or less I think the world needs less.

But one more thing before I stop this ramble which I really should stop because shit I am drunk and its been a long time writing it and no one really should waste their time reading it but alas. To solve the problem of the gap between rich and poor we need to let the free market reign for reasons I have stated above as well as the gap between rich and poor has only gotten so big because of government interference in the market by legalizing monopolies (central banks) subsidizing huge industries making laws to protect industry abuse and just flat out trying to control as much as they can. Damn thats all I got its been fun but I really should not spend so much time typing this shit.

 

[ohayoco]

Well I'm glad that you did write that because you've proved your humanity.
We agree on a lot of things, including local co-operation, bottom-up power structures (local-central), government subsidies and fractional reserve banking.

We disagree on few, but the points we disagree on are major.

1. I have no faith in a self-regulating free market. I have yet to see any proof that wealth would not become further accumulated by the few, as happened before the bourgeois take on socialism spawned government regulation to control the corrupt free market of the industrial revolution (and all history before). As much as you hate socialism (again I am not a socialist ), it has done a lot of good, responsible for minimum wages, free healthcare, pensions and the welfare state.
Give me evidence, not theory! Life is too precious to act on political theory alone- the communist fiasco showed that.

2. You have offered nothing to convince me that a free market would protect the environment. LAW is imperative in this area, just as it is in health and safety at work etc. Directors are under pressure to earn their wages and care little for the environmental consequences- they just want to turn a profit to keep the shareholders happy and earn their multimillion pound bonuses! You say that environmental concerns could be dealt with at a local level? A bunch of poor villages trying to stand up to powerhungry multinationals? We see that happening all over the world, every day, and no-one listens... in many cases, the locals are even murdered for their dissent. Examples of successful local actions are too few and far between. Even in CANADA, supposedly a 'civilised' country, the First Nations can no longer eat the moose on their reservation or the fish from the rivers because of the polluting oil companies!
Sweatshop wage-slavery, murder of union leaders, poisoning of rivers and land, deforestation and associated flooding, deliberately sterile GM crops... how does a free market defend the world's poor from these evils?

3. I don't share your faith in people being able to police environmental issues by themselves, and when they do manage it it's often too late. You hang around with intelligent and open minded people I expect, people who question. You're in a bubble. Look at the types of newspaper that sell the most. Look at the horrific drivel and bigoted propoganda and patritism that drips from the pages. Look at what people are taught by television and a selfish consumerist society of instant (empty) gratification. Most people do not question this corrupt 'reality' that they are fed and re-fed daily. Maybe they don't even want to. I went to a lecture once about 'deviancy'... as in deviancy from the common mindset. I think he said 10% (maybe 20%) of the population are 'deviant'- free thinkers who do not take what they see or hear as red- and the rest are, it's sad to say, sheep. They open their mouths and swallow the lies, they have no desire to be different (they want to be a little bit different, the tiniest bit, just to distinguish them from their neighbour). They just want to 'keep up with the Jones's' and are driven by status anxiety. I do not see these people as capable of upholding anything except the status quo. The 'revolution in our minds' of the 60s/70s failed to change this eyes-closed culture. It seems to be only people in peril, such as in the developing world, that pull together... the West is lost in a sea of frivilous products and pasttimes. This is one of the reasons why the developing world sees America as corrupt (bigoted bullying foreign policy being another, but let's not get into that). Of course, it is the whole western world which is affected by consumerist see-no-evil-hear-no-evil. And so the masses cannot be relied upon... unless our education system alters radically (which is never going to happen because the powers-that-be are in charge of that). Bleak I know. Culture change takes a minimum of 5 years... in the case of the environmental movement, it's taken over 30 and is still not there yet.

 

[ohayoco]

Interesting links of relevence that I think you'll enjoy. I'd like to hear how a free market would deal with these problems:
Check out VBS's 'Toxic' series, watchable yet enlightening on pollution in North America poisoning the First Nations etc.

VICE - Reportages et documentaires originaux à propos de tout ce qui compte aujourd'hui.

The definitive guide to enlightening information.

www.vbs.tv

Eldorado- gold mining pollution in South America

VICE - Reportages et documentaires originaux à propos de tout ce qui compte aujourd'hui.

The definitive guide to enlightening information.

www.vbs.tv

Bolivian Marching Powder- not so relevent but actually this is an example of how America's war on drugs stops the free market and so keeps the poorest countries of South America poor

VICE - Reportages et documentaires originaux à propos de tout ce qui compte aujourd'hui.

The definitive guide to enlightening information.

www.vbs.tv

 

[burnt]

Cool thanks for the posts/links. I need some time to go through everything (very busy these days) and eventually get back to this discussion. The environment is one of my concerns also and sometimes my libertatian view points and scientific view points about the issue make it kind of confusing even in my own head. But I will think about it do some research and eventually post.

 

[Master of plants]

Mighty dose of DMT.

 

[Master of plants]

The word comes from Greek: οὐ, "not", and τόπος, "place", indicating that More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider such an ideal place to be realistically possible. It is worth noting that the homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek εὖ, "good" or "well", and τόπος, "place", signifies a double meaning that was almost certainly intended.

What is our best chance of achieving a practical utopia? One that is realistically possible.

We all have ideas of how the world could realistically be made better... legalising drugs seems to be a favourite on here. We must take into account the current limits of 'human nature', both that which is genetically natural to us, and for these purposes we must also be aware of that which is learnt as a product of current culture as well.

I have deliberately placed this thread in the science, history and technology thread rather than the philosophy/spirituality thread, in the hope that this will give the thread a more realistic leaning, rather than a 'we-all-take-entheogens-everyday-and-evolve-into-energy-beings' feel!

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