Menchise

quote:A human beings basic instincts do not include a comprehension of any moral code. Morality is instilled through values.I agree that moral codes that are as sophisticated as those instilled through values are not intrinsic. What I'm saying is that there is an intrinsic sense of a basic morality, which originates from human empathy. That is why I kept asking the question, "How would you react?", when I mentioned the scenarios.

quote:The choice to work is solely for economic reasons, unless you're an altruist who volunteers his time because it makes you feel better.I agree with that irrelevant point, but the vocation is a personal preference. Economies do not offer vocations, they offer jobs. quote:Are you saying that you can just choose to walk into my home, paint it, and then demand that I pay you for your effort?Now who's making absurd analogies? I'm not saying anything like that. You refer to a job without structure. I'm suggesting a job with a different structure. quote:The job structure tasks are decided by the owners because it is the owners who need the work to be done. Once they define what tasks need to be completed, they go out on the open market and solicit laborers to perform those tasks.You're reinforcing my point. The owners need labourers to generate profit, so they define job structures that maximize profit, then they go to market and use their bargaining power to solicit labourers into a job structure that is, by design, contrary to their interests, because maximization of profit is equal to minimization of rewards for labour. The only resistance to this minimization is in the low bargaining power of the worker.

quote:So what was the moral of your little story here Menchise? I for one don't see one at all. Or did you post this just to start a flame war?My point is that human beings are capable of having an intrinsic sense of morality, even if it's just a basic one. In this case, human beings have moral standards even if they've never been preached by religion. And no, I'm not trying to start a flame war. I was using strong language to make the point more succinct. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. quote:That's two absurd analogies in 24 hours.Absurd, but to the point. If a religious teaching is in direct conflict with one's intrinsic sense of morality, then how does one react to the application of that teaching in practice, even if one is religious?

My reply to Robert Tracinski's The Moral Basis of Capitalism: quote:With the fall of communism and the alleged end of the "era of big government," many commentators and politicians grudgingly acknowledge the practical value of capitalism. The free market, they concede, is the best system for producing wealth and promoting prosperity; the private economy, in Bill Clinton's words, is the "primary engine of growth."The free market, I concede, is the best system for producing wealth and promoting prosperity for the rulers (property owners) of the means of production, and to a lesser extent, the managers of the means of production. In other words, a quarter of the population. quote:But this has not led to the triumph of capitalism. Quite the opposite: Federal taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product are at their highest rate since the Second World War; antitrust assaults on the market's winners are growing; the regulations on the federal register continue to expand by 60,000 pages per year; even the Republicans' recent tax cut proposal would only mandate a minor decrease in the projected growth of government revenues. By practically every measure, government interference in the free market is growing. If capitalism is recognized as the only practical economic systemÔÇöthen why is it losing out to state control? The reason is that no one, neither on the left nor the right, is willing to defend capitalism as moral. Thus, both sides agree, whatever the practical value of capitalism, morality requires that the free market be reigned in by government regulations. The only disagreement between the two sides is over the number of regulations and the rate of their growth.This is the result of the other three quarters of the population going to their representatives in government, since they have no representatives in business, and demanding changes for producing wealth and promoting prosperity for more people. quote:What no one has grasped yet is that capitalism is not just practical but also moral. Capitalism is the only system that fully allows and encourages the virtues necessary for human life. It is the only system that safeguards the freedom of the independent mind and recognizes the sanctity of the individual.This is where Tracinski uses the infamous Spin language that is most commonly associated with the government that he dreads. What he calls the 'independent mind' is not simply a mind with independent thought (if that were the case then everyone with independent thought would be wealthy and prosperous), but a mind with independent power. More specifically, since he is defending an economic system, it is a mind with independent economic power. By definition, the minds with independent economic power in capitalism are the minds of capitalists: the owners of the means of production. What he calls the 'sanctity of the individual', which is supposed to mean the holiness or supreme importance of the individual, actually refers to the atomization of the individual, which means the division of all individuals into disparate units. This is where the contradictions begin to surface when applied to capitalism in practice. While the system does safeguard the freedom of the independent economic powers (the owners), it does not safeguard the same freedom for workers, because they are dependent on the owner's power for subsistence. It also doesn't recognize the so-called 'sanctity' of the individual worker, because the workplace is a collective unit where workers operate collectively in the service of the owner. quote:Every product that sustains and improves human life is made possible by the thinking of the world's creators and producers. We enjoy an abundance of food because scientists have discovered more efficient methods of agriculture, such as fertilization and crop rotation. We enjoy a lifespan double that of the pre-industrial era thanks to advances in medical technology, from antibiotics to X-rays to biotechnology, discovered by doctors and medical researchers. We enjoy the comfort of air conditioning, the speed of airline transportation, the easy access to information made possible by the World Wide WebÔÇöbecause scientists and inventors have made the crucial mental connections necessary to create these products.I agree. quote:Most people recognize the right of scientists and engineers to be free to ask questions, to pursue new ideas, and to create new innovations. But at the same time, most people ignore the third man who is essential to human progress: the businessman. The businessman is the one who takes the achievements of the scientists and engineers out of the realm of theory and turns them into reality; he takes their ideas off the chalkboards and out of the laboratories and puts them onto the store shelves.The businessman is only essential to progress in a capitalist economy because in that system the businessman is indispensable. Therefore, in order for that to change, the economic system must change. Progress in capitalism is not the progress of humans (if that were the case then every hard working human being would have all the great inventions that elites enjoy), but the progress of capital, hence the relatively huge inventory of inventions that bring joy to the holders of capital: the owners of the means of production. Businessmen do not turn the achievements of scientists and engineers into reality, nor do they put them onto store shelves. The businessman produces conditions in which the workers do all of those things for his benefit. quote:Behind the activities of the businessman there is a process of rational inquiry every bit as important as that of the scientist or inventor. The businessman has to figure out how to find and train workers who will produce a quality product; he has to discover how to cut costs to make the product affordable; he has to determine how best to market and distribute his product so that it reaches its potential buyers; and he has to figure out how to finance his venture in a way that will best feed future growth. All of these issuesÔÇöand many othersÔÇödepend on the mind of the businessman. If he is not left free to think, the venture loses money and its product goes out of existence.Yes. In a capitalist system, the businessman does all of these things, but not in the best way for human progress as Tracinski claims; the businessman organizes everything in a way that is best for him as an owner of the means of production (in other words, what is best for capital), which is contrary to the interests of the people who actually produce the products and generate all of that profit that he pockets for himself: the workers. quote:The businessman has to have an unwavering dedication to thinking, not only in solving these problems, but also in dealing with others. He has to use reason to persuade investors, employees, and suppliers that his venture is a profitable one. If he cannot, the investors take their money elsewhere, the best employees leave for better opportunities, and the suppliers will give preference to more credit-worthy customers.The businessman may use reason to persuade investors and suppliers, although even that is questionable, but the businessman certainly does not use reason to persuade employees (if he did then there would be no employees whatsoever because the owner's interests are in conflict with theirs); to persuade people to become employees, the businessman uses bargaining power, namely his independent economic power to subsist them. quote:The businessman's dedication to thought, persuasion, and reason is a virtueÔÇöa virtue that our lives and prosperity depend on. The only way to respect this virtue is to leave the businessman free to act on his own judgment. That is precisely what capitalism does. The essence of capitalism is that it bans the use of physical force and fraud in men's economic relationships. All decisions are to be left to the "free market"ÔÇöthat is, to the un-coerced decisions of buyers and sellers, manufacturers and distributors, employers and employees. The first rule of capitalism is that everyone has a right to dispose of his own life and property according to his own judgment.The fact that our lives and prosperity depend on the thoughts, persuasion, and 'reason' of the businessman is the inherent problem with capitalism. In order to live in such a system, the so-called 'virtues' of the businessman must be respected, even though they are contrary to the interests of everyone else, including other businessmen. The essence of capitalism is that it defends these exploiters and oppressors, hence banning any resistance to them that doesn't serve the interests of capital. The 'free' market is only free for the businessmen because production in that market is always in the interests of capital above all others, hence it is in the interests of the businessmen above all others. The first rule of capitalism is that if you own the property that produces the conditions of labour then you have the power and you are free to use it according to your own judgement, regardless of its effect upon others. quote:Government regulation, by contrast, operates by thwarting the businessman's thinking, subordinating his judgment to the decrees of government officials. These officials do not have to consider the long-term resultsÔÇöonly what is politically expedient. They do not have to back their decisions with their own money or effortÔÇöthey dispose of the lives and property of others. And most important, they do not have to persuade their victimsÔÇöthey impose their will, not by reason, but by physical force.Businessmen are no better than government officials. These businessmen do not have to consider the long term effects - only what is profitable. They do not have to back their profits with their own labour or sacrifice - they dispose of the lives and labour of others. And most important, they do not have to persuade their victims - they impose their will, not by reason, but by bargaining power (economic force). quote:The government regulator does not merely show contempt for the minds of his victims; he also shows contempt for their personal goals and values.The businessman is the same, except that his victims are workers. quote:In a free-market economy, everyone is driven by his own ambitions for wealth and success. That's what "free trade" means: that no one may demand the work, effort, or money of another without offering to trade something of value in return. If both partners to the trade don't expect to gain, they are free to go elsewhere. In Adam Smith's famous formulation, the rule of capitalism is that every trade occurs "by mutual consent and to mutual advantage."The consent is not mutual on the part of the worker: it is forced by the owner's bargaining power. The advantage is not mutual either: it is relative to bargaining power. On a side note, what Tracinski calls free trade is not even remotely similar to the agenda that the World Trade Organization is trying to push: its agenda is to remove trade protectionism, but other trade barriers, such as export subsidies, are preserved. The substantial difference between them is that export subsidies can only be used to significant effect by the major powers (USA, Britain, etc.) because it requires more money to implement than the minor powers are capable of accumulating (the USA's agricultural subsidies alone are twice the size of Australia's national budget). quote:It is common to condemn this approach as selfishÔÇöyet to say that people are acting selfishly is to say that they take their own lives seriously, that they are exercising their right to pursue their own happiness. By contrast, project what it would mean to exterminate self-interest and force everyone to work for goals mandated by the state. It would mean, for example, that a young student's goal to have a career as a neurosurgeon must be sacrificed because some bureaucrat decrees that there are "too many" specialists in that field. Such a system is based on the premise that no one owns his own life, that the individual is merely a tool to be exploited for the ends of "society." And since "society" consists of nothing more than a group of individuals, this means that some men are to be sacrificed for the sake of othersÔÇöthose who claim to be "society's" representatives. For examples, see the history of the Soviet Union.Capitalism is the same thing, except that the businessman claims to represent society's interests instead of government officials. quote:A system that sacrifices the self to "society" is a system of slaveryÔÇö and a system that sacrifices thinking to coercion is a system of brutality. This is the essence of any anti-capitalist system, whether communist or fascist. And "mixed" systems, such as today's regulatory and welfare state, merely unleash the same evils on a smaller scale.This is where Tracinski's argument falls to pieces. He fails to justify the injustice of capitalism, so instead he tries to label anti-capitalism as the road to Cold War Russia. This argument assumes that anti-capitalists are all marxist-leninist, fascist, or reformist. He ignores the anarchists, pareconists, etc. quote:Only capitalism renounces these evils entirely. Only capitalism is fully true to the moral ideal stated in the Declaration of Independence: the individual's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Only capitalism protects the individual's freedom of thought and his right to his own life. Only when these ideals are once again taken seriously will we be able to recognize capitalism, not as a "necessary evil," but as a moral ideal.Capitalism adopts the very same evils that it claims to renounce. It is not recognized as a moral ideal because it is not moral.

quote:What about this answer: because it just is the right thing to do. But if you say that, then from who's standards is it the right thing to do? Where did mankind get the idea/concept of morals in the first place?Let me put it this way. Suppose you're in a bar and you see a big person beating up another person because he was smaller. Do you say to yourself, "This is wrong because God says so", or do you say to yourself, "This is wrong because that big guy is a sick f***head"? Suppose it was written in the Bible that smaller people should be beaten up. When you see it happening, do you say to yourself, "This is right because God says so", or do you say to yourself, "This is wrong, therefore God is a sick f***head"?

quote:My point is that the options are unlimited until the worker makes the first choice for himself -- which vocation to pursue. Once THE WORKER makes that choice, he automatically reduces the number of options available to him to those that fall within his chosen vocation. If the worker does not have the option of vocation in the first place, then he is a slave (that word again).The choice of vocation occurs outside of the economy; it is not an economic decision. The economy comes into play when the job options are considered. Even a slave can choose a vocation; the difference is that the slave has no job options, hence the choice of vocation is pointless. quote:Suppose you just turned 18 and decide to enter the workforce. What occupation should you pursue? Do you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a designer, a repairman, a postal worker, a nurse, a politician, a policeman, a soldier, and on and on and on. Your choices are limitless. Now you choose -- Doctor. You want to be a doctor. Do you have the grades? Do you have experience? Can you get into medical school? Yes? Great! No, then your choice of doctor was unrealistic -- try again. Repairman? High School grades weren't good enough for business jobs? Did you even graduate HS? Okay, society needs repairmen but you probably won't be making the $100k/ year that doctors make. Whose fault is that? Choices. They are unlimited at first, but your downstream choices become more limited based on your earlier choices. Still, they are your choices, not choices imposed on you by others.The worker has the choice of vocation, which determines his or her preference for a set of tasks. Even if the person is qualified (it would be insane to hire someone who's not), and the job options are available to him or her, the choice is not free because the set of tasks and the rewards for completing such tasks have been organized into job structures unilaterally by owners and/or managers. Like all other labour conditions, the job structure has been designed to further the interests of owners above all other interests, including the interests of the worker. The worker has no substantial say in this, hence the choice of any such job is not free. Of course, this only applies to rote work. There are some jobs (e.g. doctors, lawyers, architects, etc.) where the employee has a substantial say in the structure. That's because those jobs are not worker's jobs, they are managerial or coordinator jobs (also known as the coordinator class). This was the class that Marx overlooked, which became the ruling class in Russia, China, etc.

I have no opinion on this issue, but I do have one thing to say about a post. quote:If we want them to grow up with any morals it would be wise. Or we could keep those beliefs from them as you suggest and continue the downward spiral this country is going through. where our families are falling apart. Our Kids are out of control and on drugs before they get out of grade school.Are you suggesting that atheists don't have morals?

quote:So your opinions are shaped by others opinions and personal gain (I believe you mentioned earlier you come from a poor family). A lack of formal education hardly is a sign of understanding or a lack of bias, if anything it is a sign of the opposite.So, you think I'm ignorant because I'm a well-off academic, and you think E5 is ignorant because he's not. Read to yourself! quote:Yes, I remember this; the people are supposed to manage themselves. Delightful, why donÔÇÖt we allow farm animals to take care of themselves as well. ItÔÇÖs madness, pure and simple, there would be a terrible paucity of infrastructure and thus things that require infrastructure (like coordinating shipments of good and the likes).Workers are not farm animals, and if you had actually read the proposals that I linked to, you would recognize that I'm not referring to decision-making on a whim without infrastructure or institutions. quote:Imagine instead that (after getting out of the shower) you were presented with a dozen people each with three or four items of clothes and they are vying against each other to get you to choose one of there outfits. This is called competition, and it is an integral part of modern capitalism.It doesn't matter how wide the range of options is, the choice is not free because consumers don't have a substantial say in the options. Picking one option instead of another may prompt other owners or managers to determine options that are more compliant with the choices of consumers, but that does not make the choice more free. The freedom simply isn't there.

quote:So what are profits? Put simply, profits are a price, just as wages, rents and interest are prices. Profits are the prices paid as residual claims to entrepreneurs in their role as risk-takers, innovators and decision-makers. Just as workers will not provide their services without wages, entrepreneurs will not provide theirs without profits. Profits, like other prices, steer resources from low-valued uses to higher-valued uses.Walter Williams is absolutely correct: profits are prices for the entrepreneur's risk-taking, innovation, and decision-making. The entrepreneur risks money, innovates a product, and makes decisions that make or break the business (at least initially). So why am I against this?... 1. What is the goal of the entrepreneur's risk-taking, innovating, and decision-making? To get profits. 2. Where do profits come from? Do they come from the entrepreneur's risk-taking, innovating, or decision-making? No! They come from the labour of workers. No matter how big the risk, how innovative the innovation, or how smart the decision is, there can be no profits without the labour of workers, because labour produces value and profit is extracted from value. 3. What does the entrepreneur produce? The conditions in which the workers' labour will generate value. 4. Considering the interests of the entrepreneur, what design will constitute the labour conditions? One that maximizes profit. 5. What's wrong with the labour conditions produced by entrepreneurs, which are designed to maximize profit? A. Decision-making is authoritarian B. Working conditions have little regard for workers' well-being C. Inefficiency (it generates large volumes of waste) D. Exploitative (the people that do the hardest work in the most unpleasant conditions get the least reward)

quote:Menchise and Lothar, you are still looking at the world through your college eyes, neither of you have held a job in the real world yet, NO Lothar, the military is not a real world job. It's a job, don't get me wrong, but it is not a REAL world job, it is a government job, and EP5, you have yet to have a real job either. Your opinions on socialism come from books and intellectuals in universities.You're assuming that all socialists are unemployed bookworms. Most socialists that I have met in person have what you call a real job, and they're more politically active than I am. quote:Socialism is government controlling the economy, and when the government does NOT work well, the economy won't either.Now we're arguing over labels. I have already stated that I do not support what you call socialism, and I have already provided links to the model that I do support (on page 6). [Mean Mood] Now for some real debating... [/Mean Mood] quote:Workers have a say in the options available to them based on the occupation they choose to pursue. Some occupations/vocations have a wider range of options than others.The issue is not about how wide the range of options is; it's about who determines what the options are in the first place. My point is that workers have no substantial say in that regard. quote:Consumers have a say on a range of choices in that the choices that consumers reject will eventually disappear and be replaced with choices more favorable to the consumers. It's called voting with your dollars.The options that replace others are still not determined by consumers. I'll give you an example of what I'm getting at: Let's say I've had a shower and now I'm going to choose what to wear. I pick two options: a blue jumper or a red sweater. Because I have direct input in the options, my choice is free. Now let's say I've had a shower and now I'm going to choose what to wear. Someone walks in and tells me that I have two options: a green or yellow dress. Regardless of what I choose, the choice is not free (for more than one reason). Let's say I pick the yellow dress, hence rejecting the green one. The next day, I have to choose between a yellow or orange dress. The choice is still not free, even though the orange is more compliant with the yellow dress that I chose previously.

quote:At least in this country I have a choice of what I wish to produce, and I have the choice of what I will consume. It's all about free choice and freedom. A republican form of government and a free enterprise capitalist system, it's all about freedom of choice, gotta love it!!In that system your choices are limited to the options that owners make available, both in terms of jobs and products, both of which are designed to maintain and/or expand the owner's power regardless of the effect on consumers and workers. Therefore, while the range of options may be vast, the choice is not free, because workers and consumers have no substantial say in the content or nature of the available options.

Well, it's even-numbered, so I'm excited.

quote:So, if you are new to the work force, you get a job at say McDonalds, or Baskin Robbins, for 3.85 an hour, and actually the minimum wage in Seattle right now is 6.90 an hour, McDonalds is hiring right now for 8 an hour plus benefits immediately. When the market sets the rates, there is a good chance that it's gonna be higher.Market rates are only higher when there is a labour shortage. quote:At the same time, and excellent example came out of Eastern Washington. The largest asparagus processing plant in the world is over there. The growers used to be able to pay the workers by the amount of asparagus they picked, and some of the REALLY good pickers were making upwards of $12 an hour. Now they have to pay them ALL a minimum of 6.90 an hour, well, the good ones have now slacked off and the bad ones are even worse. Their production is now 75% of what it was, their profits are down, and so now they are talking about shutting down the plant because they cannot afford to do business in Washington because of its high minimum wage. Washington state in it's STUPIDITY had now forced a plant that employs over 1500 people year round and over 60,000 seasonly, to shut down. IT'S gonna be gone, all because the government decided what the true "living wage" should be.I assume you're referring to Seneca's Dayton plant. The minimum wage increases were the result of public pressure, notably from the poverty-striken towns of Eastern Washington. quote:The market should ALWAYS set the minimum wage, and if the wage is not high enough, they will not get workers. Pretty darn easy, and goodness gracious, it actually works.Wages and conditions go down during economic booms, after the companies get the workers, which is why employees tend to strike during those periods. [ 06-25-2002, 08:56 AM: Message edited by: Menchise ]

To Daire, To Emmett, [ 06-25-2002, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: Menchise ]

quote:If the government took away 90% of it's regulations and let the free market do it's thing, you would see a HUGE increase in production, a HUGE increase in Jobs, and a HUGE increase in taxable income.What regulations would you like to see removed and kept? quote:The Unions were a necessity back in those times, but nowadays the Unions are a dinosaur, there are so many employee owned business's now that it is unreal. 90 days at home depot and you begin to collect stock options etc. Nothing will motivate a worker more then to have a direct effect on their own bottom line. The harder you work the more money the company makes, and the more money the company makes, the more money YOU make.First, unlike unions, stock options do not enable employees to have any substantial decision making or negotiating power in relation to the company directors, hence the so-called ownership is really tokenism. Secondly, in order to maintain a consistent rate of returns from the stocks, the share price would need to constantly grow, which would require workers to constantly increase the labour they put in to production. Thirdly, the stock market does not fluctuate according to performance alone: it is also affected by speculation and other factors that have no relevance to the performance of the company. Therefore, not only are stock options a poor substitute for union activity, they are also against the interests of workers because they require a constant increase in productivity to gain the same rate of returns over time.

quote:History has recorded a constant battle between two factions of the globe, the havs and the have-nots. The members of these factions have shifted drasticaly in the course of history for europe was an economic center in Roman times, a regressed land in the dark and middle ages, and has again become a economic center from the romance era to the post-modern era. Countries develop at different rates to different ends. The western economy and way of life is not the natural progression of the world as a whole for there are some nations whose culture values subsistance living as compared to development. The invastion of the western world into cultures of different social tracks is devastating for the culture of said country and promotes a feeling of inferiority among its members. The culture then begins to lash out at the force which caused a change in thier established way of life (Bin Laden). Over time the nation's culture will begin to accept the western culture and through cultural diffuion while at the same time the western culture is ammended by the same process. This process is known as globalism. Extremeist such as the aforementioned terrorist are swept away through public will through this process. The answer for the developing nations is time. The United States was once a backwards nation and required ~150 years to assert itself in the global community. One must rember that most of the developing nations are former colonies and have only had their independence for a maximum of 70 years.Your argument suggests that Westernization will lead to prosperity for developing countries, most of which are former Western colonies. Notice the contradiction jumping up and down?

Another point against the computer proposal is the same as one of the points against coordinatorism in general: Coordinator and managerial classes tend to generate conditions in which they are indispensable, regardless of their primary function. Therefore, even if the coordinator is as impartial as a computer can be, its top priority will always be to maintain its control over decision making, even when it contradicts with its intended goal of serving humanity. In fact, a computer is more likely to do this than a human, because the computer has been engineered for a specialized task, thus it cannot be anything other than what it was built for. [ 06-24-2002, 03:39 AM: Message edited by: Menchise ]

Hehe. I had no idea that American soccer fans were so passionate.

quote:Socialism cannot exist as a pure system because it is a utopian form of government (one where all people exist in harmony and prosperity).Of course pure socialism is utopian, just like pure capitalism is dystopian, but a pure system is not the same as a fundamental system. Fundamentally, socialism can exist. quote:Humans will always seek to better themselves to a greater degree than their peers for domination of others appears to be a strong instinctual drive for humanity as a whole.The only instinctual drives that are inherent in humanity are self-preservation, self-interest, and reproduction; everything else is determined by material and social conditions. The conditions generated by class division make it necessary for people to dominate others in order to secure their interests. quote:A pure socialist system has never existed and will never exist for there will always be a person or group leading the nation and all citizens must be equal for such a system to exist.A libertarian socialist system does not require nor desire central leadership because labour is self-managing. quote:The form of Government adopted by western culture is a blend of the two extremes.The dominant western system is Liberal Capitalism. quote:There are examples of predominant socialism in countires such as France and Canada. Health care is offered free of charge and vacation time is extended however taxes are much higher and the quality of living decreases as a result.France and Canada are far from socialist. At the most they are reformist, and even that's changing these days. quote:The system adopted by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany uses ideals of socialism to temper the caustic capitalist system. This blend of Government allows for prosperity through commerce and the distribution of wealth through socialist programs.Those ideals and programmes are liberal: they're about redistributing wealth on the basis of maintaining equal opportunity.

And now for some belated replies. quote:They developed the marketplace, but not the market. You need consumers, as well as producers, to have a market. If people won't buy, sellers can't sell. Therefore, it is not a game that everyone must play.My ambiguous writing strikes again: I was referring to every producer in the marketplace. quote:How would handle countries that can't support farming because the terrain is too frigid, or too mountainous, or too desert? For these countries, trading for food is the only option, which in your words, would make them dependent on other countries for food.Those countries don't have the capacity in the first place, and they're not the ones that are complaining, hence they are beside the point. quote:I don't understand your connection between the cost of food and the cost of production of other goods. Production costs are based on the cost of material, overhead costs, labor costs, and profit margin. Unless you are referring to having to increase labor costs because laborers need more to pay for food that is imported instead of locally produced, I think you're overstating the impact of food costs on overall production costs across the board.The higher prices are not the only factor; there is also the issue of where that money goes (i.e. out of the national economy), and the long term consequences of that leakage. It's a negative multiplier effect: because the item is imported, most of the income that is generated from the item's consumption is leaked out of the national economy, which in turn reduces the nation's capacity to consume, which in turn reduces the level of savings; less consumption leads to less income for producers, and less savings leads to less investment, which in turn leads to less production, and so on. Ideally, these leakages would be offset by the income received from exports, but when the imports include such basic essentials as food, the effect is much more difficult to counterbalance. quote:But in order to compete internationally, they are demanding that the other producers somehow change their ways in order to force their way into an existing market. That is simply not the way that it's done. If you can't make it outright on your own, you don't belong in the market.Their demands have nothing to do with the other producers: they're complaining about governments using export subsidies to lower prices. quote:Operations can only expand up to the ability of the producer to produce. Small countries do not have the resources to compete on the global scale against already established producers. Wishing it to be so will not make it so.They have no problem with that. The problem they have, as I mentioned before, is with big countries using government resources to prop up the established producers. quote:The problem for developing countries is that they're developing too late. The Industrial Revolution occured 100 years ago. The time to strike was then. Some smaller countries are in the plight they're in because they are small countries that are in remote corners of the world, which either resulted in: 1) the world passing them by on the way to modernization, 2) them being too remote for cost-effective trading, 3) their own cultures not keeping up with the rest of the world (for various ethnic, religious, or political reasons), 4) lack of resources, education, etc.Again, that is beside the point of this issue.

*sigh* I miss my lion. EDIT: Oh wait, here it is. Yay! [ 06-16-2002, 00:03: Message edited by: Menchise ]

Ahh, another debate about reformism. quote:At what point do economies of scale overrule moralistic principles?Economies of scale...haven't read that term in a long time. Anyway, the reason why I call this food thing a reformist issue is because its ultimate end is to improve social conditions without affecting the economic institutions that produce the negative conditions in the first place (i.e. the market and private ownership). Officially declaring food as a human right does nothing to solve the issue of world hunger, because the institutions that cause world hunger remain unchanged. To answer your question, moral principles are important because they point in the general direction of what is wrong and what needs to be changed. If the current economic system cannot function in accordance with the moral principles of humanity, then it is the economic system that needs to be changed, not the principles. quote:The existing farmers have been in the business for a long, long time, and probably had a hand in developing the marketplace and how it functions.Exactly. They developed the marketplace and how it functions, thus the marketplace functions to serve their interests above all others. It's like inventing a game that everyone must play, but the rules are always in one's favour. Pardon me for not respecting that. quote:Who can tell the farmer that being a farmer in an already saturated global market makes no sense? Even if farming is all that the particular farmer has to depend on, it doesn't justify changing the marketplace just to satisfy the demands of someone who chooses to be a farmer. Perhaps the farmer should choose another field of endeavor (like tourism, for instance).It's not that simple. If a country loses its farmers then it becomes dependent on other countries for food. The food imports would be more expensive because of the lack of domestic competition. The higher cost of food in that country would increase the costs of production in every other sector of the domestic economy, hence other fields of endeavor would also be disadvantaged. quote:If a Cuban farmer feels that he can help the plight of other Cubans by farming, that is great and more power to him. But why should a Cuban farmer try to sell his produce on the global market when he surely has a market at home that would eagerly consume his produce?They're already selling the product nationally; now they are trying to sell internationally to expand the consumer base. A larger consumer base enables the producer to expand operations. If a product's consumer base is purely national then multinational producers, which are capable of selling products at a lower price, can move in and undercut the national product, thus eliminating domestic competition. That is one threat that the developing countries are facing; the other is the usage of export subsidies (when government gives funds or concessions to exporting producers in an effort to reduce prices to more competitive levels), which is what they're complaining about. [ 06-15-2002, 03:44: Message edited by: Menchise ]

In Freelancer there are four ruling houses, sort of like the ruling houses in Dune. They are House Liberty, House Bretonia, House Rhineland, and House Kusari. Kusari has Japanese origins, hence the characters and ship designs. I'm guessing that most of the screenshots you saw are of characters from House Kusari.

quote:Btw, I wouldn't feel much secure in this this fighter... too much windows, little armor plating. Hope you're wearing a spacesuit all the time.The canopy provides 270 degree visibility. Throw in the rotating guns and you've got a kick-ass fighter. quote:Funny you brough up the point about Japanese style wings. I was looking through the screenshots and all the characters have Japanese anime style faces. Just seems strange considering the game is being made in US by US company. I would understand it if the game was Japanese, but this just seems strange.Freelancer has a lot of Japanese characters in it.

quote:Isn't that the way capitalism works? The more you work, the money money you get, the more stuff you can get?While people who work more than others can get more in capitalism, most of the value that they produce, no matter how much they work, goes to the capitalist. Therefore, it is those who exploit the most that get the most, rather than those who work the most. quote:I'm not totally up on theories and theorists, but aren't you just advocating a capitalist system where the labor gets paid more than management instead of management getting paid more than labor?No, because there would be no external management: labour would manage itself. Now to those questions... quote:1. If a country becomes socialist, it's interactions with other nations militarily and economically.I think a socialist revolution would only be successful if it was an international one, or at the very least, a series of national revolutions, because no single country, whether it's socialist or capitalist or feudalist or whatever, can prosper or even survive these days without international trade or some equivalent. If a country becomes socialist, and that one revolution does not lead to others, then the other nations can just isolate the country with trade blocks, thus starving it into submission or into taking aggressive measures for self-sufficiency. I think the second and third questions would be answered better than I could answer them by the link below. It's very long, but it's worth reading. Michael Albert's WSF Testimony