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Capitalism's Core Flaw

Debate Information

-The logical end goal of society should be to maximize the prosperity of all its people so that there is as much societal stability as possible.
-Capitalism is unavoidably exploitative, for a private individual (controller of the means of production) must exploit the expenditures so that the private individual's revenue will exceed the cost value of the expenditures to achieve profit, and a primary expenditure is workforce labor.
-Therefore, a capitalist society focuses on exploitation rather than the maximization of prosperity for its people.
-In light of this, capitalism doesn't meet the logical endgame of society and is thus inefficient as an economic system.
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  • It’s lIke this, if I have a company, its gonna be my goal to further my bloodline and mine only. So, what am I gonna do? Share my money and food with people? Or am I gonna keep it for myself and my family? Capitalism is probably the b est economic system because it plays to our individual needs and wants. Communism treats us like one big family that hates each other and therefore is dysfunctional.
    Zombieguy1987
    Not every quote you read on the internet is true- Abraham Lincoln
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @AmericanFurryBoy ;
    -You argued on my behalf in your first point. Yes, in capitalism, if you run a company you will be encouraged to keep the rewards for yourself. That’s exactly the problem: exploitation. So now re-read my argument so you can see why I object to such an exploitative model.

    -To your second point, where did I express communism as my ideology? You realize that the economy is not limited to a capitalism <----> communism paradigm, right?

  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    The exact opposite of Capitalism is Communism, Socialism is a step down from Communism.  
    Socialism and Communism are pretty dreams that have never worked in practice, not once.  The argument that all those that tried and failed because of corruption is rather weak.  Are you suggesting that our Government is not corrupt?  Where are you going to find these incorruptible leaders?
    Yes Capitalism is cruel and i do not have a problem with limited social programs to help those who really need it.  But i do not want to see those programs expanded.  Forcing people to dig themselves out of their own hole might seem cruel, but it works.  Propping them up just keeps them where they are.
    Now again, i have no problem with social programs for our disabled, our children, and our elderly.  Those people are often not in control of their circumstances, beyond that as cruel as it might be forcing a person to do for themselves helps everyone.
    As to your issue with the rich.  Yes there are mega rich out there, no i do not want their money.  No economic program will ever change the fact that there are the haves and the have nots.  As long as our have nots can get food and shelter, i do not care what out haves have.
    Zombieguy1987
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    -The logical end goal of society should be to maximize the prosperity of all its people so that there is as much societal stability as possible.
    1. It is impossible to maximize the prosperity of all people in the society, unless the society consists of either 0 or 1 people.
    You are probably talking about maximizing the overall prosperity, but the metric used for assessing it is arbitrary and inherently subjective. Is a society in which half people have $10,000 a month and another half have $100,000 a month more prosperous, than a society in which all people have $20,000 a month? Depends on the metric.

    2. I fail to see why the society should have any end goal at all. I believe that, instead, we should have principles by which we live at a given moment. Where you end up is not necessarily more important than the path you take to get there.

    3. There is no objective reason to suggest that maximizing some metric of societal prosperity should be the end goal of society. It is very subjective, but personally I value momentary freedom much more, than some subjective measure of "prosperity".

    4. Societal stability can only exist on a graveyard. An active, living, developing society is going to be inherently unstable.

    -Capitalism is unavoidably exploitative, for a private individual (controller of the means of production) must exploit the expenditures so that the private individual's revenue will exceed the cost value of the expenditures to achieve profit, and a primary expenditure is workforce labor.
    This is incorrect. Capitalism is a system in which every exchange is based on the mutual consent, hence it cannot be exploitative by definition. You are probably referring to a different system: mercantilism. It intersects with capitalism only very superficially, and is based on completely different presuppositions and intentions.

    -Therefore, a capitalist society focuses on exploitation rather than the maximization of prosperity for its people.
    A capitalist society focuses on prosperity for each involved individual through a series of mutually beneficial exchanges. This naturally leads to maximization of every individual's prosperity, compared to any other system they could be subjected to. Nothing provides one with as much prosperity as the ability to pursue their own vision of prosperity unrestricted.

    -In light of this, capitalism doesn't meet the logical endgame of society and is thus inefficient as an economic system.
    Capitalism is and has been the most efficient economical system ever attempted in human history. Most "manual" systems, such as socialism, communism or state corporativism, have failed utterly, and "guided" system, such as state capitalism or mercantilism, achieved a very mixed success - at the expense of countless human lives.

    Is capitalism the best system possible in terms of raw prosperity? Perhaps not. Perhaps a system guided by a very advanced AI, the quality of the analysis of which cannot be replicated even by a free unrestricted human-driven market, could bring humanity more prosperity than capitalism can. But
    a) we are too far away from even experimenting with such a system locally, and
    b) raw prosperity is not the only thing that matters.

    United Arab Emirates is arguably 2nd economically most prosperous nation in the world. Would you want to live in such a place, as opposed to modern Western democracies? I would not. Prosperity is important, but it is not the sole determinant of the societal well-being. If to achieve prosperity you have to sacrifice human rights, then perhaps it is not as good a trade as it might seem at the first glance.
    Zombieguy1987
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Aranea said:
    @AmericanFurryBoy ;
    -You argued on my behalf in your first point. Yes, in capitalism, if you run a company you will be encouraged to keep the rewards for yourself. That’s exactly the problem: exploitation. So now re-read my argument so you can see why I object to such an exploitative model.
    Not sharing your own property with others is not "exploitation". Exploitation is taking away others' property against their will, and that is exactly what capitalism explicitly stands against.
    Zombieguy1987
  • AmericanFurryBoyAmericanFurryBoy 531 Pts   -   edited February 2019
    @Aranea
    I chose Communism due to the fact that these are two historic competitors, and that usually people that on capitalism are indeed communists.
    Not every quote you read on the internet is true- Abraham Lincoln
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa ;
    -Perhaps it is the exact opposite in contemporary times, but such a spectrum is by no means eternal as new systems can arise are different from all currently formed economic models.

    -With your corruption point: No, I never said our government is not corrupt. Furthermore, a society doesn’t have to have direct leaders, or at least not types that we know of today.

    -On your point on social programs: You just made up that expanding social programs would merely prop a person’s dysfunctions up. Isn’t rehabilitation a way to invest in social programs that aids a person to stop their dysfunction(s)?

    -What kind of a have-and-have-not paradigm will we always have? I just need more specifics to understand where you’re coming from.

    Zombieguy1987
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar As I've stated before in previous debates with you, I don't have the energy to go through such expansive responses. Can you summarize your points or, at the very least, post a response for every topic of yours? Thanks in advance.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @AmericanFurryBoy ;Fair enough, I suppose.

    Next, to continue onward, can you make a line of logical argumentation as to why you're okay with the exploitative model of capitalism?

  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar
    A society lead by an AI is an interesting argument.  Your first major hurdle (after creating the thing) would be to convince a society to trust such a creation.  Sci-fi is our only resource here, and with very few exceptions the AI becomes evil.  But say you could create a benevolent AI that ran societies lives doling out medicine and food equally, people would still chaft under such a regulated society.  Those people would have to be allowed to escape that society, that would decrease efficiency, but if the AI did not allow them the option to leave, that would be evil.  That society would also have a thriving black market, which would again create wealth for those with less scruples 

  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa Heh, well, I didn't mean non-human rule. When I said leaderless, I was referring to democratic societal structures.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa Oops. I guess I should've read who you were responding to before I commented. Ugh... Dismiss my comment.
  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @Aranea
    No problem it was a slant on the main debate i found interesting.  That said a truely Democratic society only works in small groups.  Even a group as large as 500 would have a very difficult time without a representative  government. Then you would want those groups to communicate with each other, which would require representatives.
  • @Aranea ;
    You are saying the core of Capitalism is profit. This is false. The core of Capitalism is the ownership of Capital. The core of labor is profit. I work to profit in several ways 1. Income. 2. Experience. 3. Acquiring capital as investment for saving income. 4. Posterity.
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    @Aranea

    In short, your view on capitalism as exploitative is objectively wrong, as capitalism is based exactly on the idea of exclusively voluntary exchanges, with no coercion involved. In addition, your ideas on what the society should strive to achieve as a whole are questionable and subjective at best, and impractical and unachievable at worst.


    @GwynneMa ;

    I believe, at that stage of our technological evolution we will learn to alter our brains in order to tweak our preferences to best match the environment around us. Perhaps we will learn to somehow inhibit people's demand for freedom, and the society as a whole will agree that doing it is in everyone's best interest.

    Aside from that, it would indeed be a very grim society to live in from the perspective of us, freedom lovers. But perhaps there is a way for the AI to control the economy in a way that still gives us a lot of freedom to act, and yet corrects our mistakes in a gentle way that ultimately benefits all of us. I cannot say I would like to live in such a society, but a) most people might, and b) in some implementations, it may still be an upgrade over the current system featuring extensive governmental interventionism. If the government is going to tell people what to do anyway, then that government might as well be a creature basing its decisions on pure rational logic and pragmatic calculations, rather than emotional appeal to the voters.
    Zombieguy1987
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa ;Firstly, we could structure society around small societal territories which democratically govern themselves. Secondly, the idea that representation is a necessity is not really the case. All sorts of additions and unique structuring could surround a directly democratic government so that it would run more efficiently.

  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @John_C_87 ;No, I said capitalism is unavoidably exploitative in its search for profit.

  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar ;-I am objectively correct. In order to make a profit, you have to exploit your expenditures (which includes labor) so that the costs of said expenditures don’t exceed your company’s revenue. There is no avoidance of exploitation here.

    -Why are my ideas questionable?

    -Why are my ideas subjective?

    -Why are my ideas impractical?

    -Why are my ideas unachievable?

  • @Aranea ;
    That still is not the core of Capitalism. The core is ownership of Capital.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @John_C_87 That was never my argument.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @John_C_87 I said that exploitation is the core FLAW of capitalism.
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Aranea said:
    @MayCaesar ;-I am objectively correct. In order to make a profit, you have to exploit your expenditures (which includes labor) so that the costs of said expenditures don’t exceed your company’s revenue. There is no avoidance of exploitation here.

    -Why are my ideas questionable?

    -Why are my ideas subjective?

    -Why are my ideas impractical?

    -Why are my ideas unachievable?

    This is not what the word "exploitation" means. You are talking about effective utilization, not exploitation. There is nothing wrong with effective utilization; in fact, effectiveness of resource utilization is what defines both the individual success, and the success of the economy as a whole.
    Exploitation, on the other hand, refers to taking an unfair advantage of someone/something. Nothing like this ever happens in capitalism, because capitalism is based on consensual exchanges. Every party enters every deal voluntarily; there is nothing to exploit, as people give you their resources by their own volition.
    Of course, there are many definitions of the word "exploit", but you used the one with a negative connotation, hence the meaning is pretty clear here.

    As for the other questions, the large post I made before addresses all of them well. Mainly, you have not clarified what quantity exactly you want to maximize. "Maximization of prosperity" is a very broad term that can be interpreted in many ways, all of which are subjective and questionable. Impracticality derives from that as well. And unachievability refers to the way you formulated the goal initially: "maximization of prosperity for everyone", which is impossible to accomplish as long as you have at least two people in the society with conflicting interests.
  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @Aranea
    So your talking about a utopian society.  Many have been tried, almost all have failed.  While i was trying to find the specific one i was taught about in Sociology, i found there is actually one active now, East Wind Community.  They are in the rare category of actually lasting longer then a year (they were started in the 70s)  
    Honestly it sounds like a nightmare to me but perhaps it is exactly what you seek.  There are a lot of reasons why these societies rarely work, and they only work on a very small scale.  Few people have the same idea of a Utopia.

  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar
    "I believe, at that stage of our technological evolution we will learn to alter our brains in order to tweak our preferences to best match the environment around us. Perhaps we will learn to somehow inhibit people's demand for freedom, and the society as a whole will agree that doing it is in everyone's best interest."
    So we would turn ourselves into slave droids for the greater good.....
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    GwynneMa said:
    The exact opposite of Capitalism is Communism, Socialism is a step down from Communism.  
    Socialism and Communism are pretty dreams that have never worked in practice, not once.  The argument that all those that tried and failed because of corruption is rather weak.  Are you suggesting that our Government is not corrupt?  Where are you going to find these incorruptible leaders?
    Yes Capitalism is cruel and i do not have a problem with limited social programs to help those who really need it.  But i do not want to see those programs expanded.  Forcing people to dig themselves out of their own hole might seem cruel, but it works.  Propping them up just keeps them where they are.
    Now again, i have no problem with social programs for our disabled, our children, and our elderly.  Those people are often not in control of their circumstances, beyond that as cruel as it might be forcing a person to do for themselves helps everyone.
    As to your issue with the rich.  Yes there are mega rich out there, no i do not want their money.  No economic program will ever change the fact that there are the haves and the have nots.  As long as our have nots can get food and shelter, i do not care what out haves have.
    We live in a Capitalist world, yes?

    Where capitalism governs the trade of nations, right?

    And not once in the last couple of hundred years since modern Capitalism has there been a single year where millions of children haven't needlessly died from starvation, malnutrition and preventable disease - even though right now we produce enough to feed billions more people than exist on earth with the issue not being a lack of food but structural inequalities that don't direct food and medecine to those in need - because it's not profitable enough for Capitalists to do so.

    So tell me, how can Capitalism be anything other than a murder when for hundreds of years it hasn't been able to go a single day without needlessly killing masses of people through institutional structural issues?

    In comparison the issues with socialism/communist countries are easily soluble. They flourished in the most deprived and destitute of nations with no history of democracy - Russia went from the Tsars to the Politburo. And while there were massive problems there - they've not structural to socialism or communism. The CIA backed coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Allende in Chile isn't an inherent issue with Capitalism. The Holdomor and great Leap forward were atrocities - but it weren't repeated by the successors to Mao or Stalin because the issue was extrinsic to the overall structure of the economic systems and it would be possible to have the egalitarianism without the despotic rulers.

    I would also point out that your claim that you are okay with "our have nots" having food and shelter implicitly implies you're fine with "other have nots" dying of starvation - which seems intrinsically racist. I hope you can deny this reading of your post, accept that people everyone have a basic human right to live and that Capitalism is structurally incapable of delivering this.
    Plaffelvohfen
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar ;
    -There is definitely unfair compensation because the majority of profit goes to the private owner rather than it being distributed proportionately amongst all workers based on their value. So the business owner is financially exploiting his or her employees.

    -It is technically voluntary and not enslavement, but it is hardly voluntary in the bigger picture because a worker would essentially have no choice but to work for a private company as the society has a capitalist economy.

    -To be exact on my point of maximization, I mean in terms of finances. What about maximizing the financial prosperity of the people is questionable or subjective?

    -What is impractical about maximizing the prosperity of the people in the financial perspective?

    -On achievability, what conflicting interests would interfere with maximizing financial prosperity in society?

  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa
    -I am not talking about a utopia, as there is going to be some degree of fault in any society since humans by nature aren’t perfect.

    -I am talking about a hypothetical society which is ideally functional in that it brings the most economic prosperity and governmental stability to its people.  

  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    This is incorrect. Capitalism is a system in which every exchange is based on the mutual consent, hence it cannot be exploitative by definition. You are probably referring to a different system: mercantilism. It intersects with capitalism only very superficially, and is based on completely different presuppositions and intentions.
    You don't seem to have understood the point and are making a semantically redundant argument. Exploitation and consent are not mutually exclusive. To give you a basic example; if I find out you've committed a crime I could blackmail you to give me money. If you agree, the fact that you have consented to this does not make it exploitative - in fact the very nature of how I used my power over you to get you to agree to something you wouldn't otherwise do is what makes it exploitative.

    In the same way, people's requirements to fulfil their human needs requires them to work in a modern society and as an employee they will generate value from their labour - part of which they will get to keep but part of which they will give to the business owner. This isn't because the workers is madly in love with the business owner, it's because there's a limited amount of factories, office and capital to purchase such things with and lacking capital they are put in a situation where the only realistic option is to work for someone else and help them accrue profits. It is only the power that capitalists have over workers that causes the workers to agree to give the capitalist a portion of the profit from their labour - hence it is explicitly exploitative.

    That you haven't really thought  through your argument and are being hypocritical can be seen in your stance towards businesses and the government. While you have no issue with the power businesses have over workers because they consent to it because workers have the option of not working and living in poverty, you find the power the government has over businesses as immoral and non-consensual even though business owners mutually consent to create their businesses under the aegis of the relevant government. This is a mutually exclusive position and shows that you are simply mindlessly arguing in favour of business and changing your ideology as soon as it is convenient.

    A capitalist society focuses on prosperity for each involved individual through a series of mutually beneficial exchanges. This naturally leads to maximization of every individual's prosperity, compared to any other system they could be subjected to. Nothing provides one with as much prosperity as the ability to pursue their own vision of prosperity unrestricted.
    A series or unevidenced and largely meaningless claims.

    Referring to Ha-Joon Chang's (Professor of Economics at Cambridge University) analysis of national economics throughout history, the greatest prosperity has actually been achieved by restricting the freedom of Capitalists with greater tariffs and regulation,. It's only once a nation has become developed and prosperous that they then lift restrictions.



    Capitalism is and has been the most efficient economical system ever attempted in human history. Most "manual" systems, such as socialism, communism or state corporativism, have failed utterly, and "guided" system, such as state capitalism or mercantilism, achieved a very mixed success - at the expense of countless human lives
    .I'd happily take Capitalism in comparison to fuedalism or an ancient slave state. however this is the modern world and there are other possibilities. I'd also note that socialism has resulted in massive economic and social gains even in the messed up third world countries it's been practiced in and that as I noted in my previous post, Capitalism is a system that is instrinsically murderous on an industrial scale. 

    You also go all over the place with your argument, at one moment saying how prosperity isn't important then tryign to boost Capitalism based on that very criteria.

    United Arab Emirates is arguably 2nd economically most prosperous nation in the world. Would you want to live in such a place, as opposed to modern Western democracies? I would not. Prosperity is important, but it is not the sole determinant of the societal well-being. If to achieve prosperity you have to sacrifice human rights, then perhaps it is not as good a trade as it might seem at the first glance. 
    A bit lower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

    Qatar is actually number 1 by most metrics. You might notice there's a trend of countries with massive oil wealth being very wealthy and think that perhaps a nation's prosperity and success could be based on things other than its economic policies.

    Of course if you did that rather than mindlessly parroting that Capitalism = Good, you'd have to consider the idea that socialism didn't fail for intrinsic reasons but because it was on a war with capitalism were socialism was massively handicapped.
    Plaffelvohfen
  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @Ampersand
    Capitalism is the reason children starve in Fascist regimes?
    So your suggesting we have a global economy based off of socialism.  How would one accomplish this? Because i have to tell you this really smells like imperialism.  Imperialist often went in with some good intentions, "bringing these heathens into modern society", yet history is never kind to them.  At some point we need to learn from our mistakes.
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    @GwynneMa

    If you want to give me a specific example of what you consider a modern fascist country then I can get into specifics perhaps, but I can't see how it wouldn't be a yes anyway. Food is handled on an international market so regardless of a country's internal politics they behave Capitalistically in the global economy in relation to other economies. Food is a commodity that is sold for profit. This results in people starving to death because it is more profitable to sell the food to others. The relationship is a capitalistic profit motivated one.

    Also socialism should be implemented the same way any economic policy should be implemented, through democratically elected official representing the interests of their constituents,. I will vote for socialist candidates and involve myself democratically in support of socialist movements to try and further this agenda in the same way any politically motivated person should advance the causes they believe in. That - with absolutely no information about my actual methods or beliefs - you assume that I will be involved in Imperialism says more about you than it does about me.
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -   edited February 2019
    Aranea said:
    @MayCaesar ;
    -There is definitely unfair compensation because the majority of profit goes to the private owner rather than it being distributed proportionately amongst all workers based on their value. So the business owner is financially exploiting his or her employees.

    -It is technically voluntary and not enslavement, but it is hardly voluntary in the bigger picture because a worker would essentially have no choice but to work for a private company as the society has a capitalist economy.

    -To be exact on my point of maximization, I mean in terms of finances. What about maximizing the financial prosperity of the people is questionable or subjective?

    -What is impractical about maximizing the prosperity of the people in the financial perspective?

    -On achievability, what conflicting interests would interfere with maximizing financial prosperity in society?

    It would only be unfair if the workers had been forced into these terms. Since the workers gave their consent voluntarily, they accepted the terms as fair (i.e. they deemed that the return from their work will be bigger than the investment).

    Everybody has a choice, not just between working and not working (there are plenty of ways to make a lot of money without working for someone else), but also between literally thousands of places to work at.

    Maximizing how? The individual prosperity is a complex distribution, not a uniform trend. Do you want to maximize the conditions for the poorest? For the richest? For the middle? Maybe you want to maximize the prosperity value integrated over the entire distribution? Because all of these are mutually exclusive.
    You cannot maximize it for everyone period, unless you decide to kill off everyone else and give their wealth to one individual. And even then, chances are, the individual will waste it all away.

    Example: I want to own the ISS, and my neighbor wants to own the ISS. To maximize my prosperity, you have to give the ISS to me. To maximize my neighbor's prosperity, you have to give the ISS to him. To maximize some arbitrary metric of "overall prosperity", you have to give it to neither, or to split it between both of us. Either way, at least one of us does not get their prosperity maximized.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar ;
    -This isn’t true, for while the voluntary agreement can be fair, there is still existing financial unfairness in accordance to pay distribution amongst the employees. Fairness doesn’t just come in one perspective.

    -The majority of people can’t be self-employed as then there would most likely be a shortage of workforce supply.

    -What are these other ways of making income without relying on working for someone else and how does it maintain stable income like employment?

    -Yet, if these ‘thousands’ of workplaces are all private, then that means they all most definitely maintain the exploitative financial model.

    -In terms of financial demographics, wealth should be evened out amongst the entire populace so that all people have a financially prosperous life.

    -Why can’t we achieve maximized financial prosperity for the populace?

    -To your example, I can’t really work with that because the International Space Station, if that’s what you mean, is not something for an individual or any individuals to possess as property as it’s not a consumer good. Perhaps use a different analogy.

  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -   edited February 2019
    Aranea said:
    @MayCaesar ;
    -This isn’t true, for while the voluntary agreement can be fair, there is still existing financial unfairness in accordance to pay distribution amongst the employees. Fairness doesn’t just come in one perspective.

    -The majority of people can’t be self-employed as then there would most likely be a shortage of workforce supply.

    -What are these other ways of making income without relying on working for someone else and how does it maintain stable income like employment?

    -Yet, if these ‘thousands’ of workplaces are all private, then that means they all most definitely maintain the exploitative financial model.

    -In terms of financial demographics, wealth should be evened out amongst the entire populace so that all people have a financially prosperous life.

    -Why can’t we achieve maximized financial prosperity for the populace?

    -To your example, I can’t really work with that because the International Space Station, if that’s what you mean, is not something for an individual or any individuals to possess as property as it’s not a consumer good. Perhaps use a different analogy.

    As far as capitalism goes, "fair" and "consensual" are synonymous. Something being unfair in capitalism means that something violates the rules of capitalism. Hence the only way for financial unfairness to occur in a capitalist system is for one party to force another party into action - and that happens to be illegal in such a system.

    Everyone can be self-employed; in fact, in a way, everyone is. Employment is just one of the forms of a voluntary economical exchange between two or more individuals. Everyone makes their own economical decisions, everyone invests their efforts, time and resources in the endeavors they deem most worthwhile.

    Economical exchanges occur when one party has something of value to the other party, and the other party has something of value to the first party - and each party values what the other party offers more, than what they consider giving. What are other ways to make income then? Literally anything you can think of that benefits others.
    Take some completely random value you possess. Let us say, you are great at archery. Well, you can open your archery training center. Or you can make an online course on archery. Or you can start a Youtube channel and talk there about archery, show off your skills, etc. Or you can just write a book on archery. Finally, you can just go outside and offer to teach someone archery for $30 an hour (if you are good enough, I would take that offer in a heartbeat).
    Anything of value that you can offer to others can be exchanged for something you value. This is what capitalism is all about.

    First, it is not exploitative, as I already explained. Second, they also have to compete with each other, just as workers have to compete with each other - which limits what they can practically do. Third, if everything is so simple, then you can always go ahead and open your own workplace, so you do not have to deal with these problems.

    No, it should not. Different people can offer products of different values to others. I will pay much more to a programmer that knows 100 languages proficiently and has 50 years of experience working on incredibly sophisticated projects, than to a teenager who just read a couple of e-books and wrote Checkers in DosBox. Any reasoning suggesting that both of these should receive the same amount of wealth is utterly insane.
    One person clearly offers more value to both the society and individual employers, than the other - hence, the trades will lead to different outcomes for them.

    What is the "maximized financial prosperity for the populace"? Define it properly, and then we will talk.

    Why not? The ISS is a piece of property that, in a capitalist society, anyone could buy if its previous owner offers it for sale. To maximize everyone's prosperity, everyone should get the ISS - but since that cannot happen, someone will be left over.
    We do not have unlimited resources, you see. As such, they will always be distributed in some way, and always in the way that leaves some people wanting for more.
  • AraneaAranea 61 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar

    -In this matter of discussion, fair is objective in that it regards the compensation appropriate for employees in the conditions of economic resource capability. Once again, consent terms can be fair, but that doesn’t change the unfair compensation of capitalism. And, as long as that compensation is unfair to churn out a profit, it is exploitative.

    -How can everyone be self-employed? Furthermore, if you work for someone else, you are by default not self-employed.

    -On your third paragraph, I thought you were stating that there were other means of sustained income outside of working for a company or being self-employed.

    -I never said pay people exactly the same. I said I believe wealth should be distributed to maximize the financial prosperity of the people; this doesn’t innately mean exact same pay. I believe in paying people what they deserve and the people, in turn, contributing back to society what they can.

    -The maximized financial prosperity for the populace would be the people receiving the financial compensation appropriate for both their needs and work done.

    -But you realize that the ISS serves an agenda for society, where something like a car is commodity. The ISS is greater in intent and purpose than a consumer product so it is not equivalent in such regard.

    -Of course we don’t have unlimited resources, so we should manage those resources amongst the people in such a manner as to compensate the people proportional to their work and needs and then have the people in turn contribute what they can back into the system to keep it functioning in an orderly economy.

  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -   edited February 2019
    @Aranea

    -The logical end goal of society should be to maximize the prosperity of all its people so that there is as much societal stability as possible.
    I think I would replace "prosperity" with "well-being" here. I think prosperity carries a sense of "having more things" whereas well-being carries a sense of "people welfare"...

    To me prosperity means a bigger house, a bigger backyard, a yacht, shinier bling and such, which in itself is fine IMO, futile but legit... Whereas well-being means a good roof, good food, good education and universal healthcare.

    Once we have maximized the number of people with roof, food, education and healthcare, won't prosperity naturally impose itself on society??  
    -Capitalism is unavoidably exploitative
    I agree but to an extent, I put in on a spectrum... On the lower end, libertarian anarchy being the worst of capitalism and on the higher end Cooperative Corporatism like the Mondragon experience. I'll say though that when someone say Capitalism is "based on the mutual consent" , it smells fishy...  I would tend to think that Consumerism maybe more of a problem than Capitalism per se... 
    -Therefore, a capitalist society focuses on exploitation rather than the maximization of prosperity for its people.
    I would not go that far, what I think it's that it was at some point the best system we had, but we've outgrown it and it need to be updated or changed. Its addiction to constant growth and its inherent recurring cycles of crash and bubbles in a truly global reality is not the absolute best we can do...
    -In light of this, capitalism doesn't meet the logical endgame of society and is thus inefficient as an economic system.
    Endgame sounds ominously finale for a society.... ;)  And as for its efficiency, I think that as a strictly theoretical economic system, its pretty effective. But in practice, I think the inequalities it unavoidably generates, more so when unchecked, outweigh the benefits for society.
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • GwynneMaGwynneMa 15 Pts   -  
    @Ampersand
    Lol ok so give me your "methods" for creating socialism in the middle east without being imperial
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    GwynneMa said:
    @MayCaesar
    "I believe, at that stage of our technological evolution we will learn to alter our brains in order to tweak our preferences to best match the environment around us. Perhaps we will learn to somehow inhibit people's demand for freedom, and the society as a whole will agree that doing it is in everyone's best interest."
    So we would turn ourselves into slave droids for the greater good.....
    But are we not already slaves to our biological instincts? Everything we do is completely defined by the chemistry in our bodies. If we could 'rewrite' that chemistry in a desirable way, then is it really slavery, or is it, rather, a manifestation of ultimate freedom?

    This is an interesting philosophical question. Or maybe even a practical one. Perhaps this is why we never encounter any aliens - at some technological stage, they always turn themselves into passive drones and then die to starvation, as they have overwritten their psychology in a way that does not make them perceive pain as negative. That would be a great premise for a sci-fi book.
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Aranea said:
    @MayCaesar

    -In this matter of discussion, fair is objective in that it regards the compensation appropriate for employees in the conditions of economic resource capability. Once again, consent terms can be fair, but that doesn’t change the unfair compensation of capitalism. And, as long as that compensation is unfair to churn out a profit, it is exploitative.

    -How can everyone be self-employed? Furthermore, if you work for someone else, you are by default not self-employed.

    -On your third paragraph, I thought you were stating that there were other means of sustained income outside of working for a company or being self-employed.

    -I never said pay people exactly the same. I said I believe wealth should be distributed to maximize the financial prosperity of the people; this doesn’t innately mean exact same pay. I believe in paying people what they deserve and the people, in turn, contributing back to society what they can.

    -The maximized financial prosperity for the populace would be the people receiving the financial compensation appropriate for both their needs and work done.

    -But you realize that the ISS serves an agenda for society, where something like a car is commodity. The ISS is greater in intent and purpose than a consumer product so it is not equivalent in such regard.

    -Of course we don’t have unlimited resources, so we should manage those resources amongst the people in such a manner as to compensate the people proportional to their work and needs and then have the people in turn contribute what they can back into the system to keep it functioning in an orderly economy.

    Objectively, the only appropriate compensation is the one that is defined by the contract, voluntarily consented to by both individuals. Both individuals explicitly stated that they find the contract conditions as beneficial for them, otherwise they would not have signed it.

    "Self-employed" refers to the fact that you work for yourself, not for someone else. Is this not what you do when you work at a company as an employee? Yes, you benefit the company, but the ultimate goal of your work is your own financial well-being.

    There are. You can open your own business, for example. You can even not depend on any interaction with other people for the income. For example, my grandparents had a very nice garden they constantly tended to, that provided them with essentially free food - and they would sell the surplus for a sizable income, although they did not really depend on those sales.

    What people "deserve" is a subjective matter. What people agree on is not. If two people agree on the terms of the economical exchange, then what can they possible deserve, other than what is prescribed by the contract?

    Again, what is "appropriate" is inherently subjective.

    The intent and purpose does not really matter, as far as property goes. In fact, every person can have a unique purpose for the property they own. Some grow trees on their gardens, others shoot rifles on them, other still use them for barbeque and nothing else.

    Again, a lot of this is subjective. The point is, you cannot maximize everyone's prosperity, but you can maximize some subjective measure of prosperity.
    Let us say that in one society, all people receive $20,000 a month. In another, half people receive $15,000 a month, and another half $100,000 a month. Which society is more prosperous? All people in the first society are a bit more prosperous than half the people in the second society, but drastically less prosperous than another half. Which one is the prosperity-maximizing one? Depends on the metric.
    Commonly used indicators are the median income and the GDP per capita. But as common as they are, they are still subjective. For example, in UAE the majority of people receive incredible income, so in terms of both the median income and the GDP per capita that nation is very prosperous. On the other hand, roughly a third of the population live in the slums and work dirty jobs for scraps. Is this society prosperous or not? I would say "yes", but my personal judgment applies only to my world view and should not be used on the societal scale as a guide.
  • @Aranea

    I said that exploitation is the core FLAW of capitalism.

    The truth is still flawed as exploitation is not a core flaw of capitalism. Exploitation is a flaw of incorporating as in many cases those who incorporate pay taxation twice, often three times if organized labor is described as taxation. Taxation is legal collection on impartial separation for law as a cost to the public. Otherwise taxation becomes the means of public punishment without due process.


     
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    GwynneMa said:
    @Ampersand
    Lol ok so give me your "methods" for creating socialism in the middle east without being imperial
    I never stated I would create socialism in the middle east so I've no idea where you're getting this from. I would hope that it would come as a result and socialist countries would obviously have different priorities and criteria for handling foreign relations so my country democratically turning socialist would hopefully have a knock-on effect on other countries, but any decision on a county's economic set-up should be made by duly elected representatives of that country. The challenge for most of the Middle East is how the countries aren't democratic but are being propped up by capitalist Western nations regardless.

    MayCaesar said:

    Objectively, the only appropriate compensation is the one that is defined by the contract, voluntarily consented to by both individuals.
    Lol at not knowing the difference between objective and subjective.
  • @Aranea
    Would you rather stand in a line for hours on end waiting for some bread? Or pay for it yourself?

    Anyway, I see no exploitation. Let’s use McDonalds as an example. If you’re flippin’ burgers for 25 hours a week, you deserve less than the CEO that manages a multi billion dollar company for 90 hours a week. Also, its not like the CEO just got picked at random, he worked for years and years and years either to make his company worth billions of dollars, or he worked years and years and years to climb the management chain to become CEO, I don’t see it as exploitation I see it as fair work.
    Not every quote you read on the internet is true- Abraham Lincoln
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    @Aranea
    Would you rather stand in a line for hours on end waiting for some bread? Or pay for it yourself?

    Anyway, I see no exploitation. Let’s use McDonalds as an example. If you’re flippin’ burgers for 25 hours a week, you deserve less than the CEO that manages a multi billion dollar company for 90 hours a week. Also, its not like the CEO just got picked at random, he worked for years and years and years either to make his company worth billions of dollars, or he worked years and years and years to climb the management chain to become CEO, I don’t see it as exploitation I see it as fair work.
    Also that's an incredibly simplistic example.

    Do you believe that a person who works 90 hours a week down a mine deserves to earn less than the owner of the mine who does no work themselves, leaving it in the hands of Directors of the company who work on their behalf, and owns the mine because they received it in their parent's will through any work of their own?

    Do you believe someone who works 35 hours a week providing healthcare deserves to earn less than someone else who works 35 hours a week providing healthcare in exactly the same way but happens to be paid 30% less due to different factors impacting the labour market in their area?

    Now each of these on their own is also fairly simplistic, but they show that there are other sides to the equation and sometimes drastically different results from the specific situation you put forth so that simply looking at one cherry picked hypothetical example is pretty meaningless and doesn't help the conversation, because it says more about your skills at cherrypicking than about the benefits or problems of Capitalism.

    I think what would help is if we have a basis for what should determine people's pay. I think people should be paid based on how hard they work, how beneficial their work is and how rare their talents are - not necessarily in that order. Do you agree? If not, on what basis do you think people should be paid?
  • @Ampersand
    I believe that the one who owns a company should be able to set the salaries (granted that they are above minimum wage). If we for example using even more simplistic examples, paid the Miner working 90 hours a week, the company would likely die, and or prices would go up. You see, there are a lot more miners than there are bosses.
    Not every quote you read on the internet is true- Abraham Lincoln
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    @Ampersand
    I believe that the one who owns a company should be able to set the salaries (granted that they are above minimum wage). If we for example using even more simplistic examples, paid the Miner working 90 hours a week, the company would likely die, and or prices would go up. You see, there are a lot more miners than there are bosses.
    I think you've made some typos there because at the moment you're saying people who work 90 hours a week in mines shouldn't be paid.
  • AlofRIAlofRI 1484 Pts   -  
    Capitalism is great. It's like eating, though, to much of it will turn into a BAD thing. 
    Greed is an emotion that few do not experience, and, when it comes to money, few can control. Capitalism, without controls (regulations), will drive many people to get ALL they can get and many don't give a damn how they get it. They don't care how much they destroy the environment or the people they use to get it, as long as they get it. THERE HAS TO BE RULES. A capitalist who will raise the price of a life-saving drug from $15 to $1500, where few can afford it without bankruptcy, is a capitalist that NEEDS to be regulated. (Jailed, IMO). 
    Capitalism, without regulation, will, as it has shown several times, rapidly grow into an oligarch state. It has in Russia, it did in the U.S. during the 1800's. Deregulation will allow that to happen again. We stopped it then and we grew into the richest country in the world. We can NOT allow it to turn U.S. into todays Russia where the "haves" control the country, the laws, the money, the rest of us.

    I worked with a man in the 50's who had worked at that same company for 50 years. He showed me his first pay stub. $6.50 for 65 hrs. work. At that time he was making just about that per hr., along with a  LOT of overtime. Capitalism was mostly under control then (in the 50's). The capitalists were paying (or were supposed to be) around a 90% tax rate and they were still getting richer. One could put some money in the bank, send the kids to college, health care was largely taken care of by the company you worked for and it was as good as you could get. It was a very good economy.

    Today, capitalists get to pay few taxes … relative to the amount of money they make. Only the very lucky can put money in the bank, afford health care, send the kids to college and not have to mortgage the house or leave them or the kids with a debt for MANY years. It's what some are calling a "great economy" today. An economy engineered by capitalism, and if you really BELIEVE it's great, they've been successful in more ways than one! Likely, they've got you convinced that more deregulation will make it even better! (It WILL, for them). There are not a lot of people today who remember a REAL good economy when one person could work, buy a house, raise a family and have some money in the bank. Funny, I heard someone say, yesterday, that our economy is the greatest ever! I think someone called him "President". MY, how the word "great" has changed … through uncontrolled capitalism.
    CYDdharta
  • Nathaniel_BNathaniel_B 182 Pts   -  
    And what does communism do besides makin people poor? All I'm gonna say is that Capitalism works, and that I love it, because socialism NEVER works, its just trash, and there's no point in defending trash.
    “Communism is evil. Its driving forces are the deadly sins of envy and hatred.” ~Peter Drucker 

    "It's not a gun control problem, it's a cultural control problem."
    Bob Barr
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -   edited February 2019

    Do you believe that a person who works 90 hours a week down a mine deserves to earn less than the owner of the mine who does no work themselves, leaving it in the hands of Directors of the company who work on their behalf, and owns the mine because they received it in their parent's will through any work of their own?

    Do you believe someone who works 35 hours a week providing healthcare deserves to earn less than someone else who works 35 hours a week providing healthcare in exactly the same way but happens to be paid 30% less due to different factors impacting the labour market in their area?

    I think what would help is if we have a basis for what should determine people's pay. I think people should be paid based on how hard they work, how beneficial their work is and how rare their talents are - not necessarily in that order. Do you agree? If not, on what basis do you think people should be paid?
    "@Ampersand
     Yes, I do believe that a person who works 90 hours a week deserve less than the owners. The business is the property of the owner. The workers aren't being forced to work there.

    Yes, I do believe someone working 35 hours a week can deserve more than someone else doing the same job, especially in healthcare services which is driven by a system of merit, not by whoever has been doing it longer.

    There already is a basis for what determines peoples pay, it's called merit. If someone is more valuable to an employer or business, they probably deserve a better pay. That system is built into capitalism.
  • @Ampersand
    sorry, I meant to flip the salaries of the miner and the owner
    Not every quote you read on the internet is true- Abraham Lincoln
  • piloteerpiloteer 1577 Pts   -  
    @Ampersand
    sorry, I meant to flip the salaries of the miner and the owner

    @AmericanFurryBoy

    Ya, that one always snarls me up too.
  • AlofRIAlofRI 1484 Pts   -  
    @Nathaniel_B I agree with you, on principle. However, NO political or economic entity has proven to be flawless. I'm NOT a socialist, I'm not a complete capitalist either. I'm pushing to take the best, the least harmful, the most beneficial of democracy AND socialism and put them together to make what we have, better. 
    It's hard to argue that capitalism, unregulated, will not lead to an oligarchy. That would be inferring that GREED doesn't exist. It does! 
    It's hard to argue that socialism, in its Marxist form, will not lead to an authoritarian government taking advantage of "the workers".

    Still, a government OF, BY and FOR the people can use the BEST of BOTH worlds and put together a fair system for everyone. Reasonably free trade, ownership of property, protection of "the people" from oligarchs, affordable health care and education through collective cooperation, and protection from GREED.
    There is NO need to have a "small government" if it IS for the people. It HAS to be big enough to take care of a big country, AND keep state governments from "creating their own country".

    Just so's ya know, I ain't one of them "everything for free" socialists. Wouldn't it be nice though if we could get together in a single payer health insurance that took the (YUGE) profit motive out of insurance and put it on our costs?? Pressured the drug companies to keep their prices "reasonable" through ACTUAL competition (maybe with other countries). Democratic, paid for socialistic benefits, with "somewhat controlled" capitalism. We ALL want LOWER COSTS, NOT "free". That's kind of the way America WAS, when it was great. Still had problems, but, could work together to save money AND lives.
    Nathaniel_B
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