Can we Create an America that can Lead the World

[DinoDoc]

I'm so ashamed of myself for doing this.

Originally posted by DinoDoc

Originally posted by Ozz
Maybe cause the US set up the U.N in the first place.

What exactly does that have to do with agreeing to treaties that you don't believe are in your best interests to ratify?

[Velociryx]

Who knows what Arrian will do? Maybe he'll sit around, maybe he won't. But should that be part of the equation? Should that (what Arrian does with his time) be a factor in whether or not you want a fish trap for the price he named? How is what Arrian does with his day AT ALL relevant to your decision to accept his offer?

If anything, in the example above, *I* am the one exploiting all of you.

Arrian contributed by making it possible for you to catch more fish.

You and Azazel contribute by using his tool (and other means at your disposal) to catch fish.

I'm....waiting for my share.

Who's the exploiter in that scenario?

And further, if you DO give me a share, then yep....you are living up to your communist ideals....the state (all of us) comes before the individual.

If you don't....then you've just demonstrated that you don't really believe what you say you believe.

-=Vel=-

[Willem]

Originally posted by DuncanK
That's just wrong. You are just making an assumption here. Communism can be whatever we make it. There is no reason what so ever that communism should be the death of art.

Yes there is, musicians rely on a free market system in order to ply their trade. I'm a musician, and have in the past done so professionally. But I can't just go to some music "factory" and get a job. If I want to earn a living from it, I have to take the initiative to set up my own business, and find my own work.

Your views are so individualistic.

And that's why your utopia will never take place, he's just being a typical human. You can't expect 6 billion unique individuals to conform to one single way of life, or thought process.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Willem


Yes there is, musicians rely on a free market system in order to ply their trade. I'm a musician, and have in the past done so professionally. But I can't just go to some music "factory" and get a job. If I want to earn a living from it, I have to take the initiative to set up my own business, and find my own work.

As a musician you should be more creative than that. Are you saying that music would die just because of a lack of free market? I see no reason for that.

[Az]

I didn't say that all hiring is exploitation. It's the current way things are done, and many people are ****ed up in the process, by shortsighteness, for example. Just look at the bubble. You had this period of relative prosperity, climbing share prices. Do you think that the capital came from thin air? It is the investment of people, some of them very rich people, and some are like you and me, having a pension fund. All that money was released into the market. But since most of these companies had no sound financial model, this lie came to an end. Now, there are some people that got very rich, and lots of people who became a whole lot poorer.

Private Sector lacks the longsightness of govt. It's in it's nature, being private, and seeking immedeate profits.

A government doesn't and shouldn't think that way, and should not try to increase 'profits', but to create a strong economical fundament. I think that this should be done by creating industries, predicting the supply because of the fact that the same system creates the demand .
It should be done by constantly streamlining the govt. according to scientific models, keeping an independent media that would detect malfunctions, creating a variety of products by competing designs, that would shift production capabilities according to demand.

It should be done by creating the correct number of specialist to deal with the challenges that are planned in the future.

And it could be done.

Ask me any question about my system, about percieved flaws in it.

[Arrian]

If I can make fish hooks, and that is the basis upon which I am receiving a benifit, then I'm clearly not "sitting on my ass" am I? I'm MAKING THE FISH HOOKS.

I didn't neccessarily say that. Those words were put in my mouth.

Yes, as a matter of fact you DID say that. Here, I'll quote you... oh, wait, I already did that a few posts ago. You said that people who borrow money, invest it in an industry and hire employees are cheats. I put no words in your mouth. I quoted you.

Vel,

A commie would say that if I can make fish hooks, I should make them and give them away so we could all catch fish and eat. In that type of survival situation, I probably would do just that, trusting that if another situation came up for which one of the other 3 people had a skill, I would benifit from the same goodwill.

-Arrian

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Who knows what Arrian will do? Maybe he'll sit around, maybe he won't. But should that be part of the equation? Should that (what Arrian does with his time) be a factor in whether or not you want a fish trap for the price he named? How is what Arrian does with his day AT ALL relevant to your decision to accept his offer?

If anything, in the example above, *I* am the one exploiting all of you.

Arrian contributed by making it possible for you to catch more fish.

You and Azazel contribute by using his tool (and other means at your disposal) to catch fish.

I'm....waiting for my share.

Who's the exploiter in that scenario?

And further, if you DO give me a share, then yep....you are living up to your communist ideals....the state (all of us) comes before the individual.

If you don't....then you've just demonstrated that you don't really believe what you say you believe.

-=Vel=-

Ok, here is how it would go according to communist theory.

True you would decide not to fish for hooks, but you would not do so until Arrian acted selfishly and started exploiting us. We would all decide not to fish for hooks and demand the hooks from Arrian. Arrian would get hungry. Maybe he would fish and maybe he would give in and fork over the hooks. If he decided to let us die with out the hooks we would take the hooks from him.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DuncanK
There is nothing wrong with family, but when you treat your non-family members like they are the enemy that's not civil at all and its no basis for society. It's barbaric.

Ah yes, and the Soviets set such a good example of loving their neighbours didn't they? I guess they rolled into Chezchaslovokia because they just really, really cared about their downtrodden brothers and sisters.

(Why would any nation be given a name that no one can spell?)

[Arrian]

Private Sector lacks the longsightness of govt

- Azazel

Oh, I disagree. Not that I think the private sector is farsighted. Nope. But to say that government is farsighted is laughable. Government has an attention span that is usually between 2 and 6 years (I use that range because most elected officials in the US have terms of office ranging between 2 and 6 years). They most often do what is politically expedient in the short-term so they get reelected, not what is best for the nation long-term.

It isn't that the private sector is shortsighted and government isn't. It's that PEOPLE are shortsighted. It's a human problem.

-Arrian

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Willem


Ah yes, and the Soviets set such a good example of loving their neighbours didn't they? I guess they rolled into Chezchaslovokia because they just really, really cared about their downtrodden brothers and sisters.

(Why would any nation be given a name that no one can spell?)

Willem,

Is it really fair for you to keep insisting that I'm proposing reinstating Russian style communism throughout the world when you know that I have stated clearly otherwise.

[DinoDoc]

He's only looking at how the theory has been put into practice each and everytime its been praded on the world stage.

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by Arrian
Yes, as a matter of fact you DID say that. Here, I'll quote you... oh, wait, I already did that a few posts ago. You said that people who borrow money, invest it in an industry and hire employees are cheats. I put no words in your mouth. I quoted you.

I was specific about who I called a cheat. You generalized that

[Arrian]

True you would decide not to fish for hooks, but you would not do so until Arrian acted selfishly and started exploiting us. We would all decide not to fish for hooks and demand the hooks from Arrian. Arrian would get hungry. Maybe he would fish and maybe he would give in and fork over the hooks. If he decided to let us die with out the hooks we would take the hooks from him.

In other words, if I didn't give you the hooks for free, you'd steal them.

The example is, overall, not very good. Let's say that fish hook making is my skill. Yours is cooking - you're a good cook. Vel is good at... cleaning the fist (preparing them to be cooked. He's a wiz at it). Azazel is just brilliant at doing the actual fishing - he just knows where the fish are.

Now, it would be best if I made the hooks, Azazel fished, Vel cleaned and you cooked. Each of us brings something to the proverbial table, and we trade each other our skills and everyone wins. We all exploit each other. But that's not a market economy, so it doesn't really translate.

-Arrian

[DuncanK]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
He's only looking at how the theory has been put into practice each and everytime its been praded on the world stage.

So. He's still claiming that I'm advocating the way that it has been put into practice.

In a way I understand, because he believes in a certain way that capitalism works and it never works that way.

The diference is that I'm talking about a whole diferent situation here. I'm talking about the end of nationalism. I'm talking about communism without police state.

[Willem]

Originally posted by DuncanK

When personal responsibility is separated from social responsibility the results are a survival of the fittest, classist, elitist mentality. It is precisely that mentality that holds America back.

But that has nothing to do with capitalism, that's just a question of attitude, of morality. When Stalin sent all those Ukrainian farmers to their deaths or to the concentration camps, was he exercising social responsibility? And how would you describe Bill Gates recent intitiative to throw lots of money towards Third World diseases? Hardly an example of purely personal responsibilty is it?