Boris' pissed off and he's telling you why

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
But does corporations, monopolies and plutocracy really have anything to do with free market. Is it not more like mercantilism today?

[Adam Smith]

I only have a couple minutes, and once again I cant begin to straighten this out.

Oncle Boris:

Frist, I think you need to read the source in my first post more thoroughly. Central Pacific began to hire Chinese workers in February, 1865, just two months before the end of the Civil War. Moreover, the hiring was in California, which was a separated from the eastern US by a several month journey by land or a long voyage around Cape Horn. There is no way that California and the eastern US could be considered at that time to be in the same labor market. There is simply no basis for saying that the work was so horrible that people would rather go to war at half the wage. My guess is that the fatality rates were about what you would find in mining, which also involved the use of explosives. [EDIT: I would remind you again that the Chinese were in California in the early 1850's, more than a decade before the Central Pacific started hiring.]

Second, I will give you that Chinese workeres were used on the western end of the Canadian Pacific, and probably on the Pacific Great Eastern too, for that matter. But this is only two more railroads. There were hundreds of railroads in the US and Canada at the time. Central Pacific accounted for less than 1000 miles out of 30,000 miles in the US in 1865, less than three percent. The Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern accounted for similar percentages of Canadian mileage by virtue of building from west to east through mountains, while the rest of the country had much more hospitable terrain to work with.

Third, your point about railroad land grants is simply wrong. Land grants accouted for just seven percent of US railroad mileage. Moreover, the "grants" were actually in kind loans, which were repaid through free of reduced freight rates on government traffic as late as WWII. Two separate federal studies, in 1943 and 1977, concluded that the government was more than fully reimbursed for the land, with interest. HERE are some of the details.

Agathon:

I agree with Stiglitz' asssessment of the failures in the Former Soviet Union, but I think his view is that the necessary institutions were not in place (e.g., accounting standards, commercial codes, enforcement of laws and contracts), so privitization could not help but have failed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Adam Smith

Agathon:

I agree with Stiglitz' asssessment of the failures in the Former Soviet Union, but I think his view is that the necessary institutions were not in place (e.g., accounting standards, commercial codes, enforcement of laws and contracts), so privitization could not help but have failed.

Isn't that roughly what I said? My position is that people who think markets just arise out of the dirt are ignoring what you said.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by JohnT

But have you ever heard someone asking for a loan he doesn't need?

Yes. It's called "credit cards" and it happens all the time. Hell, even going to another banks' ATM machine is a loan of sorts - you're taking money from one bank and expecting your bank to make payments on that loan. Hence the $2.00 "service fee."

Thanks for your brilliant comment, John. My post was obviously about state loans.

Y'know, have you heard of this Pinochet guy? Bought some tanks with a Visa card. Used Amex for his private palace. When they found out he couldn't pay, he fled in Thatcher's home. The Bank sure tried to seize his villa in Chile, but they went away, because the closets were smelling rotten corpses.

[RGBVideo]

Evil Oncle Boris. I only checked this thread out to see why mr. Gudonov was angry.

[JohnT]

I responded to your poorly worded question as written. Given that in this thread some people purposely mis-understood Imran's use of the word "liberal", I thought such behavior was acceptable, even urged.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by JohnT
I responded to your poorly worded question as written. Given that in this thread some people purposely mis-understood Imran's use of the word "liberal", I thought such behavior was acceptable, even urged.

Do you speak any other language than English?

If so, you should know that such things as misinterpreting a word when debating in a second language is a frequent thing. It was not done on purpose.

I still fail to see in what way people misunderstood the use of the word liberal. If I personally had always associated this word with the right, and so did my friends, and so did Spiffor who lives in another country, is it reasonable to say that Imran did the mistake on this one?
Or does "liberal" has any meaning specific to America that we should have guessed?

[JohnT]

If so, you should know that such things as misinterpreting a word when debating in a second language is a frequent thing. It was not done on purpose.

Leave the attitude for somebody who gives a ****, OK?

It was done on purpose and you know it.

Or, another explanation, is that you are so unknowledgable in re: American politics as to make this discussion worthless as you're not even speaking the same language as Imran. However, as you "guessed*", 'liberal' in America is our word for the Left.

*And is there anybody here who really thinks that Oncle Boris didn't know what Imran meant when he said "liberal"? Not I.

[Fake Boris]

Leave the attitude for somebody who gives a ****, OK?

It was done on purpose and you know it.

Or, another explanation, is that you are so unknowledgable in re: American politics as to make this discussion worthless as you're not even speaking the same language as Imran. However, as you "guessed*", 'liberal' in America is our word for the Left.

*And is there anybody here who really thinks that Oncle Boris didn't know what Imran meant when he said "liberal"? Not I.

Look John, I phoned my friend to ask him if he had ever heard of the word liberal used as left-wing term. He had seen no instance of it. I'm definitely being honest on this one (and with my other points too, okay?).

The point is, I said: "Still, I had always thought liberalism to be a right-wing ideology". I understood what Imran meant, but saw his word as an irony of the fact the left in America is the right in Canada. Literally. The most right-wing party in Canada is more on the left than the Democrats.

Make it brief:
1. first I was surprised
2. after a few seconds, I realized the irony and found it funny.
3. There is definite ambivalence over the meaning of liberalism. Google dictionary gives many definitions of the word. One of these is: " An economic theory in favor of laissez-faire, the free market, and the gold standard".

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Free market conflicts with unions because most proponents of free market demand the government to dismantle regulations over how companies and markets regulate. Which happens to include laws legalising unions.

UR, unions have been around a lot longer than factories. Trade unions probably have existed since classic times in order to provide means for passing on skills to apprentices. Unions were also a guanrantee of quality.

In essence, therefor, unions are critical to capitalism.

In the factory environment, unions are "important" to provide the worker some balance of power vis-a-vis management. To cite the struggle between unions and management over wages and working conditions as evidence that "proponents of free markets" ask government to dismantle unions is a joke. BOTH sides seek to use government to tip the balance in their favor. This is nothing more than democracy in practice.

Where we see a true ban of unions and no power in the average worker is in socialist countries. The socialist say this is OK because they favor the worker. But in truth, the workers are normally a lot worse off in socialist countries than they are in capitalist countries with unions.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I welcome your arguments.

There has been some misunderstanding.

I'm glad that even free-market advocates support the existence of Unions. This has not always been the case, as proven by history. Aristocrats and industrials used to say unions woulk destroy civilization! That is not a joke. Still today, I've heard many right-wingers claim how bad are unions. Obviously this is not the case of you guys.

My conclusion here is: let tycoons do what they want as long as their workers get minimal working conditions. Wherever that may be. Why is it that a Chinese desserve 1/12th of the salary of an American worker?

(You neglected to mention that the Irish built the RR's from the East.)

Put it otherwise: Socialism + free market is the way to go.

Why are you insisting that unions and socialism are the same thing? They are not. Unions have existed in Western society for thousands of years.

Socialism, as actually practiced, eliminates free trade unions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

When he was in charge, he had been ruthlessly running his empire in all of a tycoon's glory. Now that he is retired, he's become a leftitst.

Yes, now that he's retired... so that $1billion gift the UN (which he never paid, btw) while head of Time Warner... that was a conservative talking, right?

You obviously don't have a clue as to what is free market. Free market is when supply and demand is the ONLY rule. When a third party intervenes, the market is not free anymore.
If food quality is regulated, it's not a free market anymore. If the trade was really free, you would let people decide by themselves if they are willing to buy rotten meat or genetically modified carrots.

If there is TAXATION, this is not free a market anymore, because a third party is intervening in the transaction. (ie. the trade was not based on supply and demand alone).

I am kind of sick of this socialist/communist propaganda that once there is any regulation the market stops being a free market. The free market came from the works of Adam Smith, and contrary to what the left will have you believe, he did not believe in no regulation at all. He did allow for regulation if you read his works. Smith just wanted it minimized.

A free market transaction is one private individual and another private individual. Piece together these transactions and you get the full 'free market' which is seperate from transactions with the governement on one side. So, in essense a free market does exist in EVERY capitalist country. It is that part in which the government is not a party to an economic transaction.

describing how sweat shops are preventing children from going to school (education is a fundamental right according to the Declaration of human rights), how Chinese workers died laying tracks (NOTHING can justify an employer letting 1200 of his workers dying)

Yeah, education is a fundamental right, but you can always opt out of your rights. Why should kids be FORCED to learn if they need to work the farm so their family won't be kicked out of their house?

As for 1200 of his workers dying. The workers made the choice to work in such conditions. It is hard, greuling work where the risks were made known to them. They assumed the risk.

And you persist in believing that the American foreign policy is not to bring Free Market everywhere at the expense of laws defensive of human rights, through manipulation of the many international trade instances.

Hello Mr. Strawman... you seem to like that debate style a lot.

When did I say that the US wasn't trying to bring the free market everywhere? YOU said that the US government was the pawns of corporations. The Free Market is something the US government (and plenty of Americans) believe will INCREASE the standard of living in the world, as it has for Western Europe and the US/Canada. It is not so that big corporations can raid small companies

Sometimes I think I should have the X-Files theme on when I read this thread.

[Ned]

Originally posted by JohnT


I think the argument goes like this, written in the verbage of those who believe it:

Tripledoc: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Sava: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Kidicious: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

DuncanK: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Oncle Boris: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Is there an echo here?

The one thing I have noticed about the far left is that they rely almost entirely on conspiracy theories to support their philosophy. The concept that government, responsive to the vote of the people, can redress the greviences of the poor and the worker is denied because, as they all know, the democratic governments are controlled by the corporations. This is the reason, they contend, why we must install socialism and end democracy because democratic capitalism is a fraud.

I don't know whether socialists truely believe in their conspiracy theories. But their philosophy is the most dangerous philosophy that has ever plagued mankind.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Did you know that the US ranks at number 31 in the world regarding press liberties?

Now this is an interesting statement. Who is making this measurement and how are they making it?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
I only have a couple minutes, and once again I cant begin to straighten this out.

Oncle Boris:

Frist, I think you need to read the source in my first post more thoroughly. Central Pacific began to hire Chinese workers in February, 1865, just two months before the end of the Civil War. Moreover, the hiring was in California, which was a separated from the eastern US by a several month journey by land or a long voyage around Cape Horn. There is no way that California and the eastern US could be considered at that time to be in the same labor market. There is simply no basis for saying that the work was so horrible that people would rather go to war at half the wage. My guess is that the fatality rates were about what you would find in mining, which also involved the use of explosives. [EDIT: I would remind you again that the Chinese were in California in the early 1850's, more than a decade before the Central Pacific started hiring.]

Second, I will give you that Chinese workeres were used on the western end of the Canadian Pacific, and probably on the Pacific Great Eastern too, for that matter. But this is only two more railroads. There were hundreds of railroads in the US and Canada at the time. Central Pacific accounted for less than 1000 miles out of 30,000 miles in the US in 1865, less than three percent. The Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern accounted for similar percentages of Canadian mileage by virtue of building from west to east through mountains, while the rest of the country had much more hospitable terrain to work with.

Third, your point about railroad land grants is simply wrong. Land grants accouted for just seven percent of US railroad mileage. Moreover, the "grants" were actually in kind loans, which were repaid through free of reduced freight rates on government traffic as late as WWII. Two separate federal studies, in 1943 and 1977, concluded that the government was more than fully reimbursed for the land, with interest.

Some good points here. Still, the construction started in 1862. Thousands willingly joined the Army, but no one took a boat to go to the West, even if they could earn 2.5 times the wage? Both are huge decision's in a person's life, and I'm still surprised that almost no one wanted to join the Central Pacific workforce. Seems like the company was, too, because they waited 2 years and a half before resorting to Chinese labor.

Anyway, that is not much important. I see where you are heading: you are implying that the conditions were not that bad, for the times .

The whole point of this part of my reasoning, however, is that those times were bad in themselves. No amount of historical tinkering will change my mind regarding the fact that the industrial revolution period was a dark one concerning life standards and human rights.
Remember, those guys were working 72 hours a week, died by hundreds, and we are here debating about how this is normal. Yet we have people chanting the merits of the Tycoons, while it is obviously the great sacrifice made by these workers that counts the most.

What if they had hired engineers to handle explosives? What if they paid them the same salary as the white men? Tycoons would have made somewhat lower profits. The railroad would have been completed more slowly. But it would have been built anyway. Are you guys claiming that a country must necessarily be built on the back of the unfortunates?

Now on to my main argument. What I claim is that we have the chance to avoid this happening to countries that are still to be built. We live in democratic societies that have the power to force today's tycoons, whose words are backed by billions and billions, to give today's thirld world countries what the Western world didn't enjoy in the 19th century: social justice right from the beginning, without having to sacrifice the builder's generation lives to hypothetically improve their children's conditions.

And this leads us to what I've been claiming from the beginning: the US foreign policy is directed at lifting any trade barriers, including social justice laws, in making sure that the tycoons donating to the politician's campaign can make the kind of profits that means to them another billion on top of those they already have, while to some it might be the difference between drinking water and tuberculosis, food and starvation, child labor and education.

We are rich enough to avoid this happening again. And yes, I'm willing to give up to half of my salary prevent it. Above all, I'm not a "primitive ideologue", as JohnT pretended in another thread. I'm a humanist.