Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

What system of law do you reference?

 

None.

 

Then there can be no ownership.

 

It would be interesting were you to present your framework of a government system to replace our existing system in the "Opinion Polls" forum for discussion.
I would be just as opposed to a 'true' socialist form of government as I am to a 'true' democratic form of government at the Federal or State level.
Your beliefs of how government should function appear in my opinion to violate the 1st amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

And how would your system handle a case where an individual or group of individuals came up with something new that would be very attractive to consumers, and highly profitable, and simply decided to go abroad and begin their business? Would government not allow them to leave the country, force them to divulge their idea, or confiscate their collective wealth to prevent them from being able to start their business abroad?

 

I assume the same would hold true for stockholders, who are really the ones who bought and paid for the equipment the employees operate and have been paid in full for their services on an hourly or some other agreed upon basis?

 

I don't see how.

I see no reason why they couldn't leave the country and start their business elsewhere. Socialism isn't about forcing other countries to comply like our system does, and it isn't about denying people freedom including the freedom to do stupid things. You seem to have been a victim of the propaganda that says socialism is an evil system based on the elimination of all freedoms by use of force to obtain compliance.

 

Now you're getting into grey areas. Can we be sure all the stockholders bought stock with their own hourly wages or inheritance and not with business income? Can we be sure the equipment was bought with their money and not with bank loans? Usually much of business equipment is purchased with business revenue as the business grows and expands.

 

You're the whiner, and in #1578 you stated "But so you're telling me that rather than acknowledge that the condition of "living beyond our means" enhances and increases consumption, which enhances and increases sales, which enhances and increases profits, and is therefore a predictable condition dedicated to capitalist profit and is therefore in service to capitalism, you prefer to pretend that some vague "collectivism" is the cause and purpose.", and asked
"Parse that and analyze it and show how it is not true."
And my response in post #1591 was
""Capitalism is an economic system based upon private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."

You seem to have missed that I have been saying living beyond our means, not capitalism, is the cause of our problems.
Income, in the form of taxes, is redistributed from taxpayers both middle class and especially the wealthy to low and/or non-income earners who undeniably are living beyond their means which as you said "enhances and increases consumption, which enhances and increases sales, which enhances and increases profits". But this is NOT caused by capitalism, this is the effect of welfarism applied to capitalism.

U.S. Inflation Rate, 1776-1913 ($1,000)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, the dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 0.06% per year. Prices in 1913 are 9.2% higher than prices in 1776.
U.S. Inflation Rate, 1913-1967 ($1,000)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, the dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 2.28% per year. Prices in 1967 are 237.4% higher than prices in 1913.
U.S. Inflation Rate, 1967-2018 ($1,000)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, the dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 4.02% per year. Prices in 2018 are 645.5% higher than prices in 1967.
U.S. Inflation Rate, 1913-2018 ($1,000)
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, the dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 3.12% per year. Prices in 2018 are 2415.1% higher than prices in 1913."

Perhaps you should parse my words, and show it isn't true!

In #1674, somewhat poorly constructed, it appears your words were

"On the contrary, I would love to see some facts and evidence."

Go back and read my response #1591!

 

Clearly, you only see what you want to.

Isn't that basically what your 'alternate scenario' legalization is doing?
Should people allow their government to do more stupid things?

 

Then it would be a business expense, not an employee expense.
Employees are paid an agreed upon wage, and their limits of claims upon the business are the wages they have been promised. Should they desire a share of the profits AND the company is Public they can purchase shares of the stock accepting the risks of all the other stock holders to profit or lose their investment.

 

Ironic since you cannot substantiate your asinine allegation.

 

Kneejerk denialism on your part does not refute the FACTS that I provided. You have not, because you can't, substantiate any of your bogus allegations with credible sources.

 

Wow, that's some claim. I can't wait to hear your substantiating proof.

 

No.
Giving someone money to buy your own goods from you with, does not increase your profits.

Abject moronacy.


If I give you £100
-100
and you spend that £100 in my shop,
+100
the cost of the goods I sold you plus shop overheads = £75
-75

-100 +100 -75. = -75

£75 loss.

WTF "increases my profits". What a total pile of horse crap.

 

Kode appears to be posting based upon what he is calling an "alternate scenario" also known as an "alternate reality". In such, government is as he would put it "true socialism" and would be the sovereign most source of power, pretty much like what resulted in our "Declaration of Independence" and led our "Revolutionary War".
Perhaps history should repeat periodically?

 

Economics makes the distinction between uncertainty and risk. The latter, providing a focus on probability theory, encourages approaches such as rational choice analysis and it's application of expected utility. Uncertainty is a different beast. It refers to how we're ignorant and how we are ignorant of that ignorance (e.g. "what a simple idea, why didn't I think of that?"). The entrepreneur is key. Their success is based on finding new opportunity (which is essentially eliminating ignorance). It's a reality that makes the notion of the socialist planner, at least in old approaches where the planner is considered as a replacement for perfect competition's Walrasian Auctioneer, difficult to support.

Given the context, it really wasn't a difficult sentence to understand. In one comment, you ignored the vibrancy of political economy. You didn't just ignore nonmarxist forms of socialism, you also ignored the variety in Marxist approaches.

That most socialist schools of thought reject that conclusion as a matter of fact. As I said, your approach is as ideologically limited as the right wingers pushing bogus 'pure capitalism' claims. In terms of political economy, there has to be a pluralist perspective. The variation in approaches has to be acknowledged. You're not doing that. Indeed, you're deliberately using vocab to inappropriately frame the debate. Thus, you talk about 'capitalist ownership' and inappropriately suggest that somehow socialism with private ownership means capitalism is maintained.

Just basic English. That you don't know what SMEs are is, however, a tad revealing. It stands for small and medium-sized enterprises. Before I took a backseat in my company, we had 50 employees. Was I a capitalist? Nope. I was largely family based and used bonus systems to ensure happy and creative work colleagues. Many of those colleagues have since gone off and formed their own firms. The SME typically should be applauded.

Have you ever considered personal wants when framing your ideology? Take the difference between desired and actual self employment rates. The difference tends to be highest in neoliberal countries, where folk do not have genuine choice. They are forced into wage contracts. What happens in social democracy? We see self employment rates flower. Being your own boss is deemed to be a significant positive outcome in itself.

You haven't understood what tacit knowledge means. It means we cannot replicate what the entrepreneur does in socialist planning. That it is important for both capitalism and socialism cannot be denied. Without private ownership you are essentially removing the incentive to take advantage of tacit knowledge. You have an idea, be it a new process or product. Why bother exploring it if you can't use it to form your own SME? Technical progress and economic opportunities will be certainly destroyed.

Now it is possible to refer to market failure in innovation. We see that, for example, in pharmaceuticals and failure to maintain sufficient innovation in areas such as antibiotics. We also can refer to how innovation is often the outcome of non-profit motives (e.g. aspects of the university sector). However, to ignore the importance of the entrepreneur is rarely credible. See, for example, Schumpeterian creative destruction. It's the entrepreneur's search for profit which drives the economy. Now you could suggest that will eventually provide social relations in socialism where ownership is no longer needed. However, that's as credible as Star Trek notions of utopianism. Indeed, we're actually witnessing the 'vanishing hand' (essentially a switch from managerial planning to the invisible hand, where entrepreneurial behaviour becomes an even more important driver of economic activity)

 

That doesn't parse or analyze what I said. It doesn't explain it or even relate to it!

Right, no I've only been asking you to clearly explain how that is true and you've explained nothing.


[/QUOTE]Income, in the form of taxes, is redistributed from taxpayers both middle class and especially the wealthy to low and/or non-income earners who undeniably are living beyond their means which as you said "enhances and increases consumption, which enhances and increases sales, which enhances and increases profits". But this is NOT caused by capitalism, this is the effect of welfarism applied to capitalism.[/QUOTE]
And I said it is not a cause, but an effect and a symptom, AND it is much less than the welfare given to corporations!

That is completely irrelevant! Citing inflation rates doesn't prove our problems are cause by living beyond our means and you are apparently unable to see that.

Perhaps you should give relevant answers!

It's time for you to either PROVE your assertion that welfare is the cause of social division, unaffordable education, dysfunctional healthcare system, outrageous income and wealth accumulation of the top 0.1%, ocean pollution, global warming, gerrymandering, low minimum wage, immigration dysfunction, racism, our unfit and degenerate "president", gun insanity, mass shootings, tax burden being shifted off the rich and onto us, and our other problems, or give up.

 

Hey. If you can't explain and defend your statements, don't make them.

No! You suffer from SDS.

-like post mindlessly on forums? No, freedom of speech says you can do that. Unfortunately.

 

You are only thinking in terms of the law and what it allows. You're not thinking in terms of underlying reality and exploitation because you deny it.

 

Without law there can be no ownership. Do you own your car? In some societies their mode of transportation was shared. If you need to go somewhere you just take one of the horses.

Now, can you prove ownership is either innate or independent of any system of law?

 

Law of the jungle. It's not debated or written down.
But it sure as **** exists.

 

Opportunity does not equated to need. As I already explained, much of the opportunities that capitalists exploit are not recognized as desirable among the public at first. Advertising is needed to hype the products and create a market. So in terms of meaningful and welcomed production, I see no problems with socialist organization meeting it.

It wasn't a sentence and that is why I said I needed a minute to review the context.

In several comments you substitute the profit drive of capitalist opportunity for socialist drive to provide what is wanted and needed. what's your point?

I don't know that to be true, and I suspect it would take you pages of typing to prove it. What I see is that Marxism inspired communists to organize and struggle for social change, and their poor results resulted in a split of those who remained committed to violent revolution ("communists") from those who advocated a gradual approach of working different ways within societies ("socialists"). And then differences developed among those socialists and many largely abandoned Marx and his writings. Intellectualism intervened and divided the socialists, many of whom now advocate what the rest of us see as unworkable guarantees of failure.

Answer this: in your proposed "socialist" economy with a mix of public and private ownership, do the privately owned businesses hire employees and accumulate their personal profit from the operation of their businesses?

No it's not. There's no need to be insulting and condescending.

Like I said...

Where you THE owner and did you make a profit for yourself? If so, yes, you were a capitalist.

So they decided they wanted to make a profit for themselves? And you think a socialist should applaud this?

That is the problem with democratic socialism, or one of them at least.

I have. Check the definition.

That's not what it means.

-because it is useful, wanted, beneficial, and possible. This is why WSDEs are necessary. Growing within capitalism forces them to compete and to innovate to compete. The value of tacit knowledge becomes common knowledge.

I think I covered all that. I don't see your argument refuting anything I've said.

 

You're confusing issues badly. Can we refer to the creation of artificial needs? Of course. Can we use Galbraith to reject the information celebration of advertising? Certainly. None of that can be used to reject the importance of the entrepreneur as the driver of economic progress.

You can play pretend, but it was a sentence and its meaning wasn't complex.

I have simply referred to how we desire to be self-employed and, due to the available incentives, how that drives progress. In contrast, you have adopted a blinkered view of socialism which ignores that most schools of thought accept that private ownership is needed. That also includes Marxist approaches.

Then please read more about socialism.

That's a particularly narrow way of looking at it. Socialism pre-dates Marx, nor is there any notion of a coherent group who split, nor is there any notion that Marx was abandoned, nor is there any notion of intellectualism dividing socialism.

As long as they stay SMEs they can continue with their success. Any attempt to grow will automatically lead to worker ownership and control.

Yes, it is. As an Englishman, I also will continue to use basic English. There's really no excuse for not understanding common lingo.

You're attempting to dismiss the importance of SMEs without even knowing the term. That tells me you haven't one much economic reading in the area.

Your definition of capitalist is bogus. You're ultimately saying that any private ownership necessarily means we have a capitalist paradigm. As I said, this is on a par with the 'pure capitalism' right wingers (who argue that any intervention into private ownership necessarily means socialism holds)

That people are creative and decide to use that creativity to ensure that they are self-employed and have no boss? Yes, as a socialist I do applaud that. Socialism, after all, is about delivering real economic choice.

There is no attempt to reply to what I said here. I referred to how people genuinely want to be their own bosses. And your reaction? Whinge that they therefore must be capitalists.

Zero argument here! Tacit knowledge was a key development by Hayek and arguably his most important critique in the socialist calculation debate.

This is naive. Building on an idea is time consuming and involves self-sacrifice of the highest order. Those who do it typically want to be in control (with the nature of incentives in self-employment vital). Without private ownership, we will certainly see firm creation plummet and therefore potential economic opportunities destroyed.

Again, zero argument. You have made no counter-argument, for example, on the organisational analysis into the 'vanishing hand' (and how we are shifting away from internal managerial planning, more suited to standard analysis into the productivity gains of worker owned enterprises).

 

It lacked a frigging VERB. That means it was not a sentence.

Yup, you are the only one who knows anything. -Except grammar.

Go ahead and post the last word. I'm done with this.

 

Keep playing pretend. You clearly need to, given you've made no relevant critique of what I've said. Get back to me when you've gone further than socialist cliche...