Doesn't the service industry preclude communist revolt?

[Agathon]

The idea is that this is part of law because of the utility of not forcing people to sign a written contract every time you buy a CD.

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.

You can't have it both ways. Either contracts must be voluntary (in accordance with natural rights theory) or the utilitarians are right and conservatives are promoting belief in fairies again.

[Ted Striker]

Commies

[Velociryx]

MmmmmKay Agathon...see you in the bread line then....

-=Vel=-

[Agathon]

Yeah... good one. Nice try at hiding the fact that you don't really know what you are talking about and you can't hold your end up.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon

Your particular fallacy is to argue that because some "socialist" societies have bad enviromental records, that all must. In fact the obverse is true - all pure capitalist societies, if operating according to market principles, will always destroy the environment because there is no incentive for anyone not to.

How very obtuse of you.

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

Contrast this to the compelling reasons in communism wherein no one takes real ownership of any problem.
Trying desparately to think of one. Ohhh yes that greater good thing that has been shown to work so well.
Hmm... who has the responsibility for getting rid of that noxious waste leaking from drums. I don't know it not my problem.

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?

Chernobyl?

Greater than 10% transmission losses in pipelines

My first hand observations of the state of pollution in Moscow far exceed anything I've seen in the US even at its worst.

(Oops I forget the USSR was never communist)

Give it up Aggie. You always lose.

Only a state can enact sanctions to prevent people from doing so because only a state has a monopoly on force. That doesn't mean that every state will, but that no non-state will.

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.

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

[Velociryx]

Can't hold my end up?

Can't hold MY end up?



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

Not once.

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

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

Next time we'll get it right.

Once we get those space bots built, right?

Stop making excuses and show me a system that WORKS.

Then we can talk about who's holding what end up.

-=Vel=-

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Hi Vel.

Long time, no Red bash.

[Velociryx]

Yes indeed, Brother Og! Always glad to join this particular party, and always glad to stand shoulder to shoulder!

-=Vel=-

[Ramo]

The idea is that this is part of law because of the utility of not forcing people to sign a written contract every time you buy a CD.

1. Forcing people to sign contracts is also a violation of freedom of contract.
2. There isn't freedom of contract if you can break it in the name of utility.

What does contract have to do with this? The only two parties are the uploader (who is already in violation of contract) and the downloader. How is it freedom of contract involved?

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).
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.

A prohibition on murdering people is not a violation of freedom of contract. It is completely unrelated. This has nothing to do with it!

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

Yes. And like everything, it admits utilitarian limitations on this freedom. That doesn't admit unlimited limitations, just limitations when the utility is great enough.

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.

[Whaleboy]

elijah

Now known as Whaleboy. My argument is that property is an economic status we can only apply to that which is affected by the economics of limited supply and demand. Information, as an interpreted abstraction from a particular mathematical or aesthetic pattern or symbol is in fact not a material good, and thus not property when released in public. The media, assuming it to be material is of course a different story but IP rights are a contradiction in terms.

[Whaleboy]

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

WTF?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
My first hand observations of the state of pollution in Moscow far exceed anything I've seen in the US even at its worst.

Apparently you've never been to New Jersey.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Umm.... Matter of fact I worked there and traveled there extensively.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Business owners have, in the past, paid their employees more, so they would be able to buy the products they produce. The most famous example is Henry Ford.

Ford wanted to retain workers, and yes, so they coudl afford something that compare to total income was significantly more expensive than today. BUt auto manufacturers no longer have that incentive and jobs arer being shed rapidly. That will probably happen to many other industries.

Many? More than half? I think you very greatly overstate the result of the end of the bubble, especially since we are in a general recession anyway.

Certainly not even a quarter of new computer jobs were lost due to the buble being burst-the thing is, I would wager that most jobs created by the "internet boom" were anciliary-call centers, so forth, delivery jobs at a place like Amazon, or working in the warehouse-NOT just programers. And lots of service sector jobs at retailers who used the time to expand, like Walmart. These are low end jobs, not high end jobs, and a lot of these jobs could in the future be mechanized. Maybe not a programmer-but then programmers were a small section of the new jobs created.

[GePap]

On polution-its a simple factor of being rich enough to clean up pollution. Russia begun poor-and while it gained immesely in heavy industry during the soviet period, it did not in cosumer goods, and the central planners had little incentive to clean up and curtail dirty industry.