Doesn't the service industry preclude communist revolt?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

No, its says volumes about the priority of cleaning up pollution when left to the general will of the people.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
No, its says volumes about the priority of cleaning up pollution when left to the general will of the people.

Actually, a lot of our pollution is hidden, frequently in plain site. We may no longer have flaming Cayahogas and dead Eire's, but the Love Canal has been repeated many times acros the U.S. There are dead streams and lakes all over the West, where heavy metals have leached from century old mines into the water. Old chemical plants disposed of chemicals in their own property. One of the towns I lived in, West Chicago, was contaminated with Thorium tailings all over. You could go to the city park and see Danger Radioactive signs posted on fenced in areas.

Cancer Alley, South Texas, Michigan, New Jersey, etc. are places so toxic in the U.S. that people shouldn't be living there.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
No, its says volumes about the priority of cleaning up pollution when left to the general will of the people.

Tell that to the current Congress.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Cancer Alley, South Texas, Michigan, New Jersey, etc. are places so toxic in the U.S. that people shouldn't be living there.

At some point or another in my career I have lived and worked in all those places. Its not that bad.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Ha ha. Snapped!

If you start allowing utility in, then why not just admit that the whole idea of property rights is based on utilitarian considerations.

I'm not justifying these rights based on utility, I'm justifying violations of these rights based on compelling utility.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
You failed to answer the question about you owning a CD factory. Why should the owners of fancy factories churning out these goods not want to make a return on their business? They wouldn't give the goods out for free-how then do they recoup their investments?

They would not sell their good for free-but for a proleteriat no longer able to sell their labor, how do they survive? And if they start giving out the goods for free-what benefit do they gain from ownership of the factory?

1) if no one has money, they CAN'T pay him anything

2) if it costs him nothing, why would it cost anyone else anything to make them on their own?

3) if everything costs nothing to make (the situation we're talking about) then what benefit would money be?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ramo
1. Forcing people to sign contracts is also a violation of freedom of contract.

It's not forcing them - they chose to buy the CD. Getting the CD is part of the contract.

2. There isn't freedom of contract if you can break it in the name of utility.

I guess there isn't a freedom of speech if you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, either. In fact, there isn't even a right to vote, because convicted criminals can't.



There just isn't an inalienable right - which isn't a problem, because there ARE no inalienable rights, not even life. You can be executed.

1. The uploader isn't in violation of freedom of contract (we just went through this argument, and it doesn't seem like you actually believe your side).

Yes, he is, he's in violation of an implicit contract called copyright. Heard of it? Among other things, it prevents him from making unlimited copies and distributing them freely.

2. Freedom of contract is involved because you have a person with a good and another person who wants it. If there's freedom of contract, any consentual deal is legitimate.

1) If there's inalienable freedom of contract, any consentually deal is legitimate. However, as I've said before, like all freedoms this is NOT inalienable.

2) If you are a witness in a case, the fact that you are not allowed to lie does not violate your freedom of contract, even though it means any contract between me and you where I pay you money to lie is automatically null and void.

Who said anything about murdering people? Do you think that usury is murder? Usury is charging high interest rates.

So? In this case, it's on utilitarian grounds - the government sees a compelling public interest in setting interest rates.

So are you saying that a basis for communism is freedom of contract? Just about everyone believes that people should freely make contracts unless they contradict with their definition of the common good.

Nope, because being detrimental to the common good is not enough to justify a violation of freedom of contract - only a compelling public interest.

[Ramo]

I guess there isn't a freedom of speech if you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, either. In fact, there isn't even a right to vote, because convicted criminals can't.

Rights is a legal term (as is "freedom of speech" something that is dependent upon who's in the SCOTUS). I'm not talking about legalistic definitions.

Let's summarize. You assert that a fundamental of capitalism is freedom of contract. But you also say that freedom of contract can be ignored in capitalism on utilitarian grounds. But then, just about everyone believes in freedom of contract, to be ignored on utilitarian grounds (excluding some libertarians). Thus, acccording to your idea, a fundamental of almost every ideology is freedom of contract.

If you think that freedom of contract should be ignored on utilitarian grounds, then the fundamentals of your ideology are not rooted in freedom of contract, but utilitarianism.

Yes, he is, he's in violation of an implicit contract called copyright. Heard of it? Among other things, it prevents him from making unlimited copies and distributing them freely.

We just went over this discussion. If you're going to ignore what I've said and repeat the same things, there's no point in continuing.

Again:

"Well, that's a crappy theory. If you can appeal to an "implicit contract" for this, why not every other social relation (thus rendering freedom of contract meaningless)?"

Nope, because being detrimental to the common good is not enough to justify a violation of freedom of contract - only a compelling public interest.

Common good, compelling public interest, same thing. The only difference is semantic nonsense.

The rest is redundant.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe

How very obtuse of you.

Do you even know what that means"

There are very compelling and correct reasons to enact strict environ control via market force. Companies have shown environmental responsibility when there is a compelling cost reduction reason to do so.

Yes and when there isn't and the opposite is true, they have shown an equal propensity to pollute. Why do you think companies pollute so much when it isn't really in their long term interest to do so. Pollution is a way of externalizing the costs of production on third parties. Companies aren't stupid, they don't pollute for no reason.

Yield increases and recylcing makes very good sense when it allows better costing and efficiency.

Except that this isn't all the time. Companies pollute for exactly the same reason that they lower prices to compete with each other - self interest. I can't believe I have to point this out to anyone, it's so obvious after all.

Contrast this to the compelling reasons in communism wherein no one takes real ownership of any problem.

This reasoning applies with just as much force to markets. They are destructive of the "commons" because there is a rational incentive not to - after all, if no one is going to punish you for reducing air quality you have no incentive to do so. The economic result is that we overuse commodities like gasoline because it's artificially cheap (because part of the cost has been externalized).

Everyone would be better off if companies voluntarily reduced their polluting activities. But they aren't going to do that any more than they will voluntarily price their goods higher than their competitors. The incentive to pollute (higher profits) is still there and since all companies have the same incentive, all will pollute.

This can only be stopped by coercion, by some entity with power enough to enforce pollution controls or pollution taxes (which boil down to the same thing). The entity which has such a monopoly of force is the state. As I said, only the state can effectively correct for such self defeating collective action problems. This does not mean that it always will (bad and incompetent states exist) but that only the state can.

Trying desparately to think of one. Ohhh yes that greater good thing that has been shown to work so well.

Eh? It's worked fantastically well. That's what states do. Even in countries like the US. Why did the government impose car safety regulations on automakers if not for the greater good?

Hmm... who has the responsibility for getting rid of that noxious waste leaking from drums. I don't know it not my problem.

The market won't do it.

But as long as you bring it up. Has there ever been a communist society with a good environemtnal track record especially one that even approximates US levels of industrialization?

You are assuming that the Soviet Union was really a "Marxist" society. It did have Marxist features but I don't think, after reading Marx, that it was particularly Marxist. In any case if you actually read Marx you would know that the communist society develops from wealthy industrialized countries, not from semi-feudal largely agrarian societies.

On the other hand you could point to countries with effective state enforced pollution controls.

Chernobyl?

Three Mile Island? Love Canal?

(Oops I forget the USSR was never communist)

It was partly communist. But then again, in my view, so is any country that has some form of welfare state.

You obviously have me painted as somebody else. I happen to believe that some form of communism is probably inevitable. But I don't think we should enact it right now - as of now a mixed economy is the only sensible solution. It works for the moment - why break it (as the radical right is attempting to do)?

Give it up Aggie. You always lose.

Hardly, you and most of the other conservatives on this board are simply incompetent when it comes to arguing about political theory. You have opinions that you sourced from Rush Limbaugh or some cretin like him, and have no capacity to step back and see the blindlingly obvious. Or otherwise, you offer some patently ridiculous argument that shows your own ignorance of basic economics. I'm no economist, but even I have to laugh at some of the things you say. Most of you are lightweights.

Ohh and by the way speaking of having it both ways Aggie, which is it, a state that enacts sanctions and utilizes deadly force to do so, or that stateless utopia that keeps getting refered to where everyone acts for the greater good.

Every state has to enact sanctions and reserves the right to use deadly force. Capitalist, communist, it doesn't make a difference.

I don't happen to agree with the stateless utopian ideal. But then again I am not a doctrinaire commie. I have my own reasons.

Pitiful, simply pitiful from you the self proclaimed deep thinker.

What's pitiful is that the lefties on Apolyton run rings around you, to which you can only respond with the same cookie cutter arguments.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Can't hold my end up?

Can't hold MY end up?

Nope. You, like most of the other Tories here, are all talk. You just repeat tiresome slogans or things you read and didn't understand properly.

I'm not the one arguing for a system that has UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY failed in every incarnation it has ever been attempted in.

Really, I take it you bothered to read Marx then?

Not once.

Yes, I see how you could misunderstand him if you hadn't read him even once.

Not once in a while, but EACH AND EVERY TIME it has been tried, it has failed.

Obviously. That's what happens when you try to plan an economy down to the last nail when the technology to do so simply does not exist.

And yet somehow we're supposed to believe that next time will be the silver bullet.

Perhaps not. But it's either that or we are dead.

Once we get those space bots built, right?

So what are we going to do for a job once AI surpasses human intelligence? You may be sceptical, but it is going to happen, probably within the next 100 years. Marx was wrong that industrial machinery would destroy the labour market, because we found additional things to do that machines couldn't do cost effectively. There is no reason to think that will always be the case.

Stop making excuses and show me a system that WORKS.

Show me some reasonable alternative once the labour market has collapsed.

Then we can talk about who's holding what end up. [/QUOTE]

Obviously not you, since you have completely failed to address the actual argument. Yet another prize post from an Apolyton conservative.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kucinich

Originally posted by Agathon
Ha ha. Snapped!

If you start allowing utility in, then why not just admit that the whole idea of property rights is based on utilitarian considerations.

I'm not justifying these rights based on utility, I'm justifying violations of these rights based on compelling utility.

@ Skywalker

If you do that then you have basically abandoned the traditional conception of rights. Rights are inalienable. If they can be trumped by utilitarian considerations then what has happened is that we haven't really specified the right claim properly.

We can reformulate the right claim. Instead of having a right to property per se, we have a right to property only when (utilitarian) conditions A,B,C....etc. hold. A full and final expression of a right will be a very long string of words.

Of course the more conditions you add the more utilitarian the right becomes. And since it is reasonable to think that unforeseen conditions might arise which might trump the right claim, it is easier to formulate the right as:

"We have a right to property unless general utilitarian considerations trump it".

Of course this means effectively that we have to look to utilitarian reasoning before we can determine that a property right must be respected. This means that any property right that conflicts with the utilitarian calculus is not to be respected. And that means that we may as well dump the right to property because the utilitarian calculus is doing all the work.

Then the claim that we have rights as long as utilitarian considerations allow them becomes not much different from saying that "we have markets as long as utilitarian considerations allow them" or "we have child welfare agencies as long as utilitarian considerations allow them". In other words, it's plain old utilitarianism.

[Whaleboy]

Pitiful, simply pitiful from you the self proclaimed deep thinker.

He gets paid for it *envy*

Stop making excuses and show me a system that WORKS.

Kibbutzim, open-source software, syndicalist communes, some Buddhist communities, not to mention the innumerable communist elements within a supposedly capitalist society. It is not a clear cut thing.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon


Do you even know what that means"

Obtuse - Meaning lacking quickness of perception or intellect

And the point stands.

Yes and when there isn't and the opposite is true, they have shown an equal propensity to pollute. Why do you think companies pollute so much when it isn't really in their long term interest to do so. Pollution is a way of externalizing the costs of production on third parties. Companies aren't stupid, they don't pollute for no reason.

You admit this is a driver. So far so good and yes I agree left to their own companies will do what ever allows best returns.

Except that this isn't all the time. Companies pollute for exactly the same reason that they lower prices to compete with each other - self interest. I can't believe I have to point this out to anyone, it's so obvious after all.

More of the same, so what?

This reasoning applies with just as much force to markets. They are destructive of the "commons" because there is a rational incentive not to - after all, if no one is going to punish you for reducing air quality you have no incentive to do so. The economic result is that we overuse commodities like gasoline because it's artificially cheap (because part of the cost has been externalized).

Thats demand you talk to. Which was the point of the original posit. For the stateless utopia to work their is an implicit understanding that demand is not impacted instead productivty nears infinite level in order to provide things that are near worthless. Ring any bells with artifically cheap.

Everyone would be better off if companies voluntarily reduced their polluting activities. But they aren't going to do that any more than they will voluntarily price their goods higher than their competitors. The incentive to pollute (higher profits) is still there and since all companies have the same incentive, all will pollute.

If demand would support a higher cost product to allow companies to reduce polluting activities then yes, i.e organically grown foods etc.

This can only be stopped by coercion, by some entity with power enough to enforce pollution controls or pollution taxes (which boil down to the same thing). The entity which has such a monopoly of force is the state. As I said, only the state can effectively correct for such self defeating collective action problems. This does not mean that it always will (bad and incompetent states exist) but that only the state can.

So you again confirm my original post that a stateless communistic society can not enforce enviro action. At least in capitalistic societies sans state intervention there is the one driver you and I both alluded to above.

Eh? It's worked fantastically well. That's what states do. Even in countries like the US. Why did the government impose car safety regulations on automakers if not for the greater good?

Still has nothing to do with my initial post regarding a stateless communistic society.

The market won't do it.

Never said it would. But please try to read more into posts than whats there.

You are assuming that the Soviet Union was really a "Marxist" society. It did have Marxist features but I don't think, after reading Marx, that it was particularly Marxist. In any case if you actually read Marx you would know that the communist society develops from wealthy industrialized countries, not from semi-feudal largely agrarian societies.

I believe I already alluded to the fact that USSR was not communistic. But since the claims exist that there never was a truely communistic modern society, one has to look at closest example, just as you love to poke at the US being capitalistic. But how many times has this issue gone round the wringer?

On the other hand you could point to countries with effective state enforced pollution controls.

Such as?

Three Mile Island? Love Canal?

Point?

It was partly communist. But then again, in my view, so is any country that has some form of welfare state.

Thanks for the history lesson.

You obviously have me painted as somebody else. I happen to believe that some form of communism is probably inevitable. But I don't think we should enact it right now - as of now a mixed economy is the only sensible solution. It works for the moment - why break it (as the radical right is attempting to do)?

I don't believe I painted you in any light wrt this point. And for the record I believe in a mixed society as well. Why break it (as the radical left is attempting to do)?

Hardly, you and most of the other conservatives on this board are simply incompetent when it comes to arguing about political theory. You have opinions that you sourced from Rush Limbaugh or some cretin like him, and have no capacity to step back and see the blindlingly obvious. Or otherwise, you offer some patently ridiculous argument that shows your own ignorance of basic economics. I'm no economist, but even I have to laugh at some of the things you say. Most of you are lightweights.

Stick and stones but please come back when you have something meaningful to say.

Every state has to enact sanctions and reserves the right to use deadly force. Capitalist, communist, it doesn't make a difference.

I don't happen to agree with the stateless utopian ideal. But then again I am not a doctrinaire commie. I have my own reasons.

Obtuse - lacking quickness of perception or intellect.

Why in God's green earth did you bother to raise a defense of state, when the orginal post asked those who think the communist utopia is a stateless society?

Was it a simple anti-capitalism troll?

Pitiful.

Come back when you care to answer the question or better yet if you don't actually believe it DON"T ANSWER.

What's pitiful is that the lefties on Apolyton run rings around you, to which you can only respond with the same cookie cutter arguments.

Whats pitiful is that you actually believe this tripe.

[Velociryx]

I agree with one thing Agathon said in that last rant.

In general, the lefties DO run rings around the rest of us...as in, running in circles and never getting anywhere.

Ever-oscillating between preaching the Commie gospel and then trying to distance themselves from the failed attempts of their forebears.

Fun to watch, not particularly compelling.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

Vel, at least Agie gives counterarguements for the points.

All you do is really repeat the general point over and over, even if you phrase it slightly different each time.