Is profit different from unfair tax?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious

I'm not saying that a centrally planned system can't be exploitive. I'm just as much against one that is exploitvie as I'm against a capitalist system that is. Central planning has the potential to be less exploitive than capitalism. Capitalism has no such potential. It doesn't function well with out it's exploitative nature. Exploitation is fundamental to capitalism.

You're still doing more than John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

The more capital you have to invest the better your chances are. If you are rich and lose all your money, you are just a dumb ass. If you are poor and lose money its because of your initial disadvantage.

No, it's because you have to pick a different strategy when you have less you can afford to lose.

Think of poker. If I'm playing with more money than you and we have equal ability. I will win 9 out of 10 times.

That's because your poker table is a closed market with zero-sum opportunity. What if I say: "screw you, I'm going over to Juan's and Chuy's because I know I can take those chumps, then I'll come back here when I have more money than you." Among the choices you have are where to play and what table stakes are acceptable, or too low or too high for your situation and goals.

You get to choose the best deal. Not choosing the best deal is no choice at all. That's not rational, and no one expects people to behave that way. Even if they did what would the point be. Considering options which rational people would not make does nothing for your argument.

What constitutes the best deal? There are a lot of lawyers, surgeons, etc. who make more money than me. So what? I didn't want to spend years in school to become a social parasite like a lawyer, or spend years in school to spend my working hours taking guts apart and putting them back together. When I go past NASSCO on the way to work, I'm sure some of those shipyard crane operators (especially the ones who work on the big boys) make as much as I do, if not more, but then again, I didn't want to spend the years of apprenticeship and training to get that job, and have to move around as the shipyard business moves around. There are certainly suboptimal deals, and downright crappy ones (I won't be dressing up as a cell phone anytime soon ), but there are a wide range of tradeoffs in determining what the "best" choice might be.

Why wouldn't it be fair? As long as everyone did the same amount of work for the same pay.

How do you quantify "same amount of work?" How do you compare the cell phone costume wearing sign holder to the guy who works a heavy shipyard mobile crane with me doing software architecture on prototype technologies?

One guy can be replaced by a plastic sign and some sandbags to keep it from blowing over, the other guy is part of a large group of people who build and repair ships, and can kill a lot of those people if he ****s up on the job, and I can design something that's useable all over the world and saves a ton of money for everyone who uses it. How do you assign value, let alone quantify "the same amount of work" to jobs with radically different skills, level of those skills needed to do the job, and totally unrelated output? Unless you do it by means of a market where parties can determine by their own needs how much they want each type of output?

No. The reason there was a shortage is because capitalism sucks.

That's the entire crux of your argument.

It could not allocate resources efficiently.

Au contraire, mon fraire. First of all, capitalism doesn't allocate resources. It is simply a mechanism by which interested parties (if any) can choose whether or not to allocate resources, and what type and amount.

In the long run, it was very efficient - there was a boom for workers as everyone tried the hot new toys, the different toys got to compete with each other and the hype about what great things they'd do for everyone, and then when the lack of productivity and excessive cost became clear, the market adjusted, and the useful technologies adapted and progressed, while the useful ones got discarded.

We have been told since at least the early eighties that all of the jobs were going to be in computers. Did that matter? No. How was the system to train the correct number of people for that job? What if all of us would have been trained to do that job? Then there would be an over supply. The price mechanism works for ****, and therefore so does capitalism.

Not at all - we've been told by a few morons with no grasp of reality that "all of the jobs" would be in computers, but reality is that only a few million are. Did it matter? No, because it was hyperbole. The "system" doesn't train the correct number of people, it lets forces of supply and demand motivate people to train until there's an equilibrium. The most talented and most interested stay in the field and learn the new stuff as it comes along, the mediocre, the abysmal and the disinterested play with it peripherally for a while, then move on to something else or back to what they were doing before.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian


No, you want to be given **** for free.

-Arrian

That's not true bud. You don't know me. I'm a hard working guy. I have no problem with work.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The "system" doesn't train the correct number of people, it lets forces of supply and demand motivate people to train until there's an equilibrium. The most talented and most interested stay in the field and learn the new stuff as it comes along, the mediocre, the abysmal and the disinterested play with it peripherally for a while, then move on to something else or back to what they were doing before.

You are losing your grip. Fact: there was a shortage.

[Arrian]

Maybe you are (I actually doubt it, and part of that comes down to the issues I have with your apparently definition of "work"), but lots of people aren't. Furthermore, MtG is correct to ask you about how you quantify "amount of work." Different people work at different paces, in different fields, producing different things. How can you possibly expect everyone to "do the same amount of work?" The mere concept is ludicrous.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Maybe you are (I actually doubt it, and part of that comes down to the issues I have with your apparently definition of "work"),

My definition? Because I don't think of owning something as working? That's why you think I'm a free loader? Strange.

Originally posted by Arrian
but lots of people aren't. Furthermore, MtG is correct to ask you about how you quantify "amount of work." Different people work at different paces, in different fields, producing different things. How can you possibly expect everyone to "do the same amount of work?" The mere concept is ludicrous.

-Arrian

You call fairness ludicrous? Everyone doesn't do the same amount of work, and some people like to try and let other people do the work while they get paid. I call those people capitalists. I don't know what you call them. The objective is not to allow those people to do that. You simply give them no other choice but to work, and you give the people who are willing to do their share incentives for doing so. That is much different from the system that we have now where people are given incentives for getting paid while others work.

[JohnT]

"How can you possibly expect everyone to "do the same amount of work?" The mere concept is ludicrous."

Correct, and it's even more ludicrous when one considers that totally differing opposing skill sets can be brought to the same job, meaning that the nature of the position changes with the nature of the person holding it. One person might have success with his analytical personality and financial acumen, while his successor also has success at the same position because of his leadership qualities and smarts in hiring quality subordinates to do the detail work that the first boss reveled in. How do you pay them for "equal" work when their very approach makes such comparisons irrelevant.

Of course, all that organizing described above happens naturally, with no valuable human input. How stupid of me to forget that.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Kidicious


My definition? Because I don't think of owning something as working? That's why you think I'm a free loader? Strange.

Free loader was my phrase, not Arrians. Please don't put words into your opponents mouths. Thanks.

[Arrian]

You call fairness ludicrous?

"Fairness" is subjective. I find your definition of "fair" to be ludicrous, in two ways:

1) I don't think it is possible to implement.
2) I don't think it's fair.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by JohnT
"How can you possibly expect everyone to "do the same amount of work?" The mere concept is ludicrous."

Correct, and it's even more ludicrous when one considers that totally differing opposing skill sets can be brought to the same job, meaning that the nature of the position changes with the nature of the person holding it. One person might have success with his analytical personality and financial acumen, while his successor also has success at the same position because of his leadership qualities and smarts in hiring quality subordinates to do the detail work that the first boss reveled in. How do you pay them for "equal" work when their very approach makes such comparisons irrelevant.

Of course, all that organizing described above happens naturally, with no valuable human input. How stupid of me to forget that.

I don't understand why you think they should be paid differently. Some people aren't smart enough or talented for certain jobs. I'm aware of that. I'm not saying to have stupid people doing brain surgery or anything. That being said though, things can be made much fairer than they are now. It's something that is worked on. There isn't anyway to make things absolutely fair, but things can be much fairer than they are.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by JohnT


Free loader was my phrase, not Arrians. Please don't put words into your opponents mouths. Thanks.

He's a big boy. If I put words in his mouth he will tell me about it.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian


"Fairness" is subjective. I find your definition of "fair" to be ludicrous, in two ways:

1) I don't think it is possible to implement.
2) I don't think it's fair.

-Arrian

My definition of fair is to be paid a days wage for a days work. How the hell do you have such a problem with that?

[Arrian]

Of course things could be fairer than they presently are. There I agree with you (assuredly due to the vague nature of the statement). However, given the difference between our concepts of fairness (I happen to be big on fairness too, by the way), how do we proceed? We're both Americans. We both can vote. So can millions of others. And at the end of the day, if you can convince millions of other Americans that you're right and I'm wrong, you can have your communist system.

And I will move the **** out.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Kidicious

Yes it is a matter of perspective. I can understand why you would want to rent. Now maybe you can understand why I have to rent. Because I have no means to own.

Capitalism organizes labor is such a manner that no house has been built for me. There is no surplus of housing available for those who can't afford it right now. That is a huge part of the exploitive nature of capitalism. Things are produced for the priviledged and not for the people who work at least as hard if not harder.

Ok, now we're at least getting somewhere. FYI, for a very good portion of my working life, I've had no means to own. For some time, that was due to low wages/skills. For some of that time, it was due to housing prices and the combination of where I worked and where I wanted to live or was willing to settle for living.

There is no surplus of housing available here, or where you are, because there are limits to infrastructure, land use limits, and a large number of people migrating in. There is housing available in other places, and there's also alternative means to own a house, if that's really a priority. Repos are one, but depending exactly where you are, another alternative is to out a ways into the boonies and buy a small chunk of bare land, and build yourself. Yeah, it means a lot of lost weekends, and working extra hours and having less fun, and it competes for other things you might want to do, and you'd have to learn a lot of construction and design skills, or rely on advice for others, but people can (and do) do it. You most likely won't get the optimum house of your dreams, but then again, you might be able to sell it at a profit, put that money into a better version, and repeat the cycle. Who knows, maybe there's really a capitalist land raper yearning to breathe free under that commie exterior.

The point is that there are a lot of alternatives in time, location, and manner if owning a house is what you really want to do.

Blaming "the system" and waiting for somone to subsidize labor and material costs to give you what you want ain't gonna get you there, though - you can bet on that.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Kidicious


My definition of fair is to be paid a days wage for a days work. How the hell do you have such a problem with that?

You oversimplify your response such that it has almost no meaning.


First, the definition of "work" -

Based on our discussions in this and other threads, you do not seem to consider invention and/or thinking of great ideas to be "work." Only actual manual labor seems to count. That is something I find silly.

Second, the quanitification (is that really a word? ) of "work" -

As has been pointed out, different people have different skills, strengths/weaknesses, etc. Two people might be equally valueable in your eyes but not in mine and vice-versa, because you might value certain things more than I do, and vice-versa.

Is a guy who sits at the info desk in a library for 8 hours working as hard as a guy who spends 8 hours working at a construction site? I honestly don't know - because I don't know enough about each job, and I don't care to take the time to find out just how much each person had to do and how "hard" it was. So who worked harder? I don't friggin' know. Apparently, you think you can determine the "answer."

So "a day's wage for a day's work" may sound good, it's ultimately useless.

-Arrian

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Arrian
Of course things could be fairer than they presently are. There I agree with you (assuredly due to the vague nature of the statement). However, given the difference between our concepts of fairness (I happen to be big on fairness too, by the way), how do we proceed? We're both Americans. We both can vote. So can millions of others. And at the end of the day, if you can convince millions of other Americans that you're right and I'm wrong, you can have your communist system.

And I will move the **** out.

-Arrian

You proceed like this. You put a general clause in the Constitution which requires that people are paid a fair wage instead of a market wage. You let the voters determine how that is to be done. You have one class of people. Everyone makes about the same amount of income. So no one has an interest in a minority getting an unfair advantage.

You make the govt responsible for making sure there is a job for everyone. Right now the govt is not bound to create jobs for everyone. This is ridiculous. How can individuals be responsible for themselves when they have no means to do so. Right now the govt only creates enough jobs for people when it can afford to do so. If it can't create the jobs it needs to move a side and a new govt needs to be put in place that can do that. Capitalism can not be justified when there aren't enough jobs for every worker and the majority of the jobs that there are don't pay a living wage.