The great genius of capitalism

Can you build a company without relying on the labor of others? How will you compensate them? How will you make them work? What purpose would that company have? How will you start the company?

Do you need money to do it? If so, where did that money come from? Did it come from capitalists...or from laborers? What is it backed by? Gold...resources? If so, how were those resources acquired? By capitalists or by laborers?

Who is necessary for the production of goods & services? The capitalist...or the laborers?

 

Rather than profits, what we should be focusing on is the sharing of knowledge, ideas, creative talents, skills, resources, and cooperative (but essential) work.

How do profits help society? Individual development is what helps society. But if profits are the focus, then individual development stagnates as labor becomes the primary focus. The monetary system/profit motive creates a fear-based slave society...one which weaponizes the psychopaths of society (predominantly CEO's/business managers)...and one in which many people feel compelled to make as much as possible for fear of being unable to "pay the bills".

Is this the kind of society you wish to live in?

Rockefeller said, "I don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers." (Only as long as HE didn't have to work.)

 

In 1920 2 years after WWI the US army had been reduced to 100k troops. The Navy had suffered almost as many cuts, and there was no air Force to speak of. The closest the government came to manipulating the economy was various protective Tariffs of which Smoot-Hawley was the best known but not the only. Other than that they had neither the tools nor the know-how to manipulate the economy. By the way the federal government still lacks the power to control and manipulate state county and local governments.

 

Hardly. You think some wealthy capitalist is going to share HIS money to ensure that YOU have a road to drive your car on? You'd better fork over a lot of money if you want this and the many other socialist benefits you take for granted on a daily basis.

Government will always have great power over the state, county, and city governments, because they DEPEND heavily on the government's socialist programs to survive. That's why secession will never happen. Everyone wants a piece of the government (taxpayer) pie...particularly the wealthy & corporations.

You think state, county, and city government will want to pay for...environmental & consumer inspections, health emergencies, natural disaster emergencies, military/defense, highways/roads, bridges, public libraries, postal services, student loans & grants, research funding, border security, port security/coast guard, CIA, FBI, farm subsidies, health care for Congressmen, vaccines, EPA, museums, public schools, jail/prison system, corporate/business subsidies, public parks, all elected govt officials, food stamps, sewer system, VA health care, medicare & medicaid, court system, GI bill, dams, zoos, IRS, free lunch programs, the Pentagon, FDA, SSDI, health care for 911 workers (still ongoing), corporate bailouts/welfare, unemployment insurance, WIC & CSFP, PBS, CDC, welfare, public street lighting, FEMA, public defenders, S-CHIP, Amtrak, NPR, the DHS, OSHA, National Monuments, USDA, government scholarships, Census Bureau, Dept. of Energy, Customs & Border Protection, Dept. of Education, Secret Service, Peace Corps, Dept. of Justice, National Weather Service, Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Housing Assistance, EITC, SNAP, SSI/Old Age Assistance, Refundable Child Credit, Make Work Pay Tax Credit, TANF, Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, Refugee Assistance, General Assistance to Indians, Assets for Independence, SCHIP, Consolidated Health Center/Community Health Centers, Maternal & Child Health, Medical Assistance to Refugees, Healthy Start, School Breakfast, Child Care Food Program, Nutrition Program for the Elderly/Nutrition Service Incentives, Summer Program, Commodity Supplemental Food Program, TEFAP, Needy Families, Farmer's Market Nutrition Program, Special Milk Program...plus, Housing (11 programs), Energy & Utlities (3 programs), Education (12 programs), Training (10 programs), Services (13 programs), Child Care & Child Development (4 programs), Community Development (4 programs).

 

I think we should take a moment and reread the Preamble to the Constitution again:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.".

It is "We the people" that are sovereign. Not Capitalists, the free enterprise markets, big business, or the corporations. It is "We the people". It is NOT Capitalism that establishes justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare(social programs), or secure our liberties and prosperities. It is the Government WE created, who's agenda is different. Capitalism simply produces wealth. Capitalism does not promote equality of opportunity, or an even playing field. Children, the mentally ill, the physically handicapped, the disabled, the aged and retired, and those without good nutrition, support, or a good education, may never even make it on the playing field. What do you think, are the benefits of a small percentage of people owning most of the wealth, most of the labor, most of the land/property, and most of the influence in Government? What do you think the greed potential is here?

Our Government is NOT a corporation. It's mandate is to its sovereign people. NOT to a mixed economy that includes some capitalist and socialist ideas. If you are a capitalist, then you are profit-driven. History has demonstrated that, without Government intervention, in any profit-driven market, corporations do not care about their duty of care, the health dangers they create, the safety of the public, their environmental impact, worker's compensations, the promoting of free competition, or any civil liberties they might violate or encourage. Their only mandate, is to make more wealth for themselves.

Firstly, there are no truly Capitalistic , Socialistic, Democratic, or Communistic societies, nor has there ever been. Secondly, no one would want to live in a truly Capitalistic society, anymore than a Feudal society. It is ironic that we forget, that people who hoard anything, is usually symptomatic of a mental illness(OCD, OCPD, ADHD, and Depression). But hoarding money seems to be the exception, and makes you smart? It only keeps widening the gap between wealth inequality.

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Are you serious? You mean they have to find their own jobs??

I agree that the DoE is not doing anything positive about education at any level, but that doesn't mean that education isn't majorly important and that education richly deserves a national level force.

It might start by an organized opposition against those inside and outside of government who don't give a crap about science, expert opinion, or educated thought in general.

 

There are always grey areas - in the case of loud music and target shooting - I don't think you would have a problem getting 2/3rds majority to agree with legislation limiting such things. Note also that these issues are not criminal violations.

 

This is a useful point. Right wingers typically have no comprehension of value. It helps account for US rentier capitalism and the coercion behind the 1% theft of labour value.

You're basing your position on an efficient and perfectly functioning capital market. You're also basing it on a perfectly competitive labour market where there is instantaneous generation of a market wage set at productivity criteria.

That position goes beyond naive. It does, however, neatly describe the lunacy required for right wing economics to achieve any resemblance of rationality.

 

Youd rather government shuffle profits to you, to manage things for them. Rent by government edict, after the owners do all the work.

 

You're not making sense again. Why do you support rentier capitalism? Dont you pretend to be libertarian?

 

And yet none of these programs existed before 1932. We got along quite well without them for nearly 150 years.

 

The problem is actually with human nature.

 

And that resulted in the Great Depression

 

There are rules and laws in place whose purpose is to control conflict of interest in public officials. Their efficacy is likely imperfect so you keep honing them. The difficulty is defining conflict of interest as opposed to rules that prohibit things that to some seem like a conflict of interest. I don't know the details but on the surface I see no conflict of interest with an owner of a charter school advocating charter schools. (Though like public schools the federal government has no business funding them in any scenario.)

 

That statement is so bad it doesn't even reach the level of wrong. It is an clear indication that there is no hope for you, and I saw no benefit or enlightenment is reading any of the rest of your post.

 

Protective Tariffs certainly did as they shut down world trade.

 

That is where it gets dicey. Her profiting from her policies is not wrong per se so long as it is "incidental." It would be wrong if it is more than incidental or especially if it is nefarious. Legally defining a conflict of interest is how legislators or regulators earn their money -- it ain't easy. Which, by the way, is why, despite it being front and center in the recent impeachment effort, "abuse of power" cannot be found anywhere in the statutes.

 

Absolute sense.
You need government to ensure your livelihood, transferring the fruits of other people's labor into your pockets, while you dream up new ways to take even more.

Rentier bureaucrat.
Not hard to sniff out

 

Especially when granted power and ability to carry out their nature

 

Cities built roads within the cities. The first road and the only road for a very long time the federal government ever spent money on was the Cumberland Pike, and that was a loan if memory serves. Erie canal was a private transaction which made its its investors a good bit of money before railroads made it obsolete. Ike was post WWII not WWI. Asphalt highways were also post WWII phenomenon. Without Ford moving cars from a luxury item to an Everyman item it is doubtful that the US highway system ever becomes what it is today.

 

Large corporations can be easily dominated by governments. That is probably why Big Government tends to empower Big Business to eliminate small businesses. Antitrust laws are the only effective way we have to reduce the power of Big Bad Business at the moment. It might be better to simply craft tax codes and a regulatory structure that favors small businesses. Big Business, like Big Government is an inherently bad thing for many of the same reasons.

"The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's
money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should
watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in
a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards
of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters
as not for their master's honour, and very easily give themselves a
dispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion, therefore, must
always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a
company. It is upon this account, that joint-stock companies for foreign
trade have seldom been able to maintain the competition against private
adventurers. They have, accordingly, very seldom succeeded without an
exclusive privilege; and frequently have not succeeded with one. Without
an exclusive privilege, they have commonly mismanaged the trade. With an
exclusive privilege, they have both mismanaged and confined it."
PROJECT GUTENBERG, AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS., By Adam Smith, 1776.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3300/pg3300.txt

 

You continue to lie about me and it really isn't appreciated, particularly when you fibbing to hide from your tacit support for rentier capitalism.

 

Yes, our corrupt political class keeps big corporations on a tight leash.

“Former Microsoft COO, Robert Herbold told me, “you're crazy if you don't play along. They will go after you.” Ray Planck, the founder and former chairman of Apache Corporation, has seen his company cough up to both parties for 50 years. He told me that campaign money and lobbying contracts are “protection money. It's what you expect from the mafia.” EXTORTION, "How Politicians Extract Your money, BuyVotes, And Line Their Own Pockets, Peter Schweizer, HMO, NY, NY, 2013, p. 3.