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"conservative capitalism"??? As opposed to "liberal socialism"???
I didn't know the conservatives held a monopoly on the concept of capitalism.
A classical definition of liberalism isn't contrary to capitalism. However, current popular use, which uses the "positive liberalism" definition is socialism... which, obviously, is contrary... So, liberals would be pretty silly using "liberal capitalism". Yesteryear's liberal is today's libertarian.
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Originally Posted by burdell
Industries like mining would be free to sacrifice workers at will, refuse to set or follow safety standards as long as the bottom line was good?
That's not capitalistic. If you didn't know, Adam Smith, author of "The Wealth of Nations" and the father of capitalism was a moral philosopher. He assembled the theory of capitalism-- or, better yet, described his observations of it-- to describe an ideal, practical and sustainable group of practices that tended to treat workers best.
Real capitalism empowers employees to overcome safety issues, etc. You should read the book. Besides giving you the foundation to successfully start and run a business, it also will expose all the BS the fascist types claim to be capitalism.
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And the bloated , overpaid auto executives who made so many poor decisions over the years did nothing to hurt the auto industry? Those who attempted to substitute marketing hype for engineering, bigger tailfins for quality control?
If the free-market dictated their pay, they're not overpaid. It's that simple. Unions use the manipulation of property rights to coerce companies to pay an inflated wage.
Poor business decisions do damage a company. However, with bad executives, the company can ditch them in a heartbeat. That allows for a nimble company that can overcome mistakes and turn on a dime to respond to changes in the market.
Union employees, however, demand benefits like retirement. Now, twenty/thirty years later, instead of being able to respond to current market demands in spite of past mistakes, the company has an inertia of sorts in the debt of pensions, etc. for retirees which makes them unable to turn on a dime.
Being nimble is the most important attribute for a company... Unions (and legistlation like SS tax) kills nimbleness.
I agree, they do need each other to maintain balance. They are complementary no matter if it is not acknowledged.
Balance and progress are attained when differing views honestly arrived at through consideration and understanding of actual fact are brought together, and those differences and their implications are then taken into account in developing a blended consensus or at least majoritarian approach as to how best to proceed going forward.
Tripe about how liberals are scum and how cons are stupid serves no purpose whatsoever...
Perhaps someone should get you started, as it doesn't seem that you yet realize that the Cole attack was in October 2000, that US investigators made no progress in Yemen until December 2000, and that the final report on the incident was not delivered to the White House until February 2001. At which time the Bush administration decided to take no action on it.
Umm, so because Clinton didn't move swiftly, its Bush's fault? Some logic? I guess we were hasty into Afghanistan and to blame the al Qaeda for 9/11, since it apparently takes 4 months to figure out who attacked you.
Perhaps we should have waited to declare war on Japan then? After all, we needed to do a proper investigation to make sure that it wasn't someone else who attacked us.
You know, in hindsight, we should have destroyed Afghanistan if we had known of 9/11 in advance, and it was a mistake to not declare war after the USS Cole, but you Libs of all people know that war isn't popular, even when justified - if Pres. Bush declared war a week after his inauguration, I would bet that he wouldn't get the authorization from the Democrat-controlled Congress. Clinton could have done something - we knew who did 9/11 a couple days after, yet somehow it takes a Democrat 4 months to figure this out?
Are Democrats that dumb, or is it a guise to avoid making tough decisions (then blaming the Republicans for their inability to make tough decisions)
Are Democrats that dumb, or is it a guise to avoid making tough decisions (then blaming the Republicans for their inability to make tough decisions)[/QUOTE]
another BS story about how Democrats want to redistrubute wealth? Nobody is talking about taking your hard earned money away but the right seems to think so as if taxes was praising the devil himself. You know things cost money and somebody has to pay but if left to the Republicans dirt roads would be fine instead of paved ones.
You know I am single and pay a lot of property taxes that supports public schools but with this mentality of Repubs I shouldn't have to pay because it doesn't benefit me directly. Oh wait it benefits the rest of society to have a educated populace.
What a concept!
As for Iraq and the supporters of it how does it feel to have the newest Welfare state paid for with your taxes?
You know things cost money and somebody has to pay but if left to the Republicans dirt roads would be fine instead of paved ones.
Actually, the right, IMO, prefers that states control their own roads. Business would bear the cost of roads to facilitate commerce and interstate roads would be developed by states involved. Believe it or not, this was going on for centuries prior to the socialist movement.
How the left convinces themselves that adding a layer of unnecessary beauracracy to decision making makes the country more efficient always makes me wonder...
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You know I am single and pay a lot of property taxes that supports public schools but with this mentality of Repubs I shouldn't have to pay because it doesn't benefit me directly. Oh wait it benefits the rest of society to have a educated populace.
What a concept!
You don't understand. Public education is universally accepted. However, all the gripes about taxes is related to government putting it's nose where it's most inefficient.
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As for Iraq and the supporters of it how does it feel to have the newest Welfare state paid for with your taxes?
Necessary evil. Common defense is what government is created for. We're there. A personal sense of responsibility is what preserves freedom... it's only natural that our American sense of responsibility keeps us there to clean up the mess...
"Day in the life of west coast young liberal" college kid drives his escalade or hummer paid for by republican parents. College kid protests all sorts of liberal causes, even threw a rock at the police at one heated pro choice ralley. Liberal college kid's conservative dad calls him one day and threatens to take back part of his trust fund. Collegekid wets his pants and runs home. Welcome to the new liberal, not really willing to fight for his cause he "says" he believes in once a dose of real life hits. This sure isn't your 60's liberals anymore!
A classical definition of liberalism isn't contrary to capitalism. However, current popular use, which uses the "positive liberalism" definition is socialism... which, obviously, is contrary...
This is hogwash based upon a simplistic assumption that, because some do, all forms of socialism must be based upon public ownership of the means of production. This is a vapid ploy. What sometimes goes under the heading of managed capitalism is plainly socialistic in its bases, yet has nothing to do with property ownership issues at all. The successes of managed capitalism, both here and in locales around the world, stand as a source of contant consternation for the opposing forces of laissez-faire free-market capitalism, especially given the entirely dismal record that has been put up by the latter form, recently culminating here in the marked unpleasantness of our current economic plight.
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Originally Posted by One Thousand
So, liberals would be pretty silly using "liberal capitalism". Yesteryear's liberal is today's libertarian.
With all due respect, today's libertarians are increasingly yesterday's neocons seeking to rebrand themselves in a desperate last-ditch attempt to disassociate themselves from the all but unadulterated record of disgrace and failure that their ideals have recently resulted in.
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Originally Posted by One Thousand
That's not capitalistic. If you didn't know, Adam Smith, author of "The Wealth of Nations" and the father of capitalism was a moral philosopher. He assembled the theory of capitalism-- or, better yet, described his observations of it-- to describe an ideal, practical and sustainable group of practices that tended to treat workers best. Real capitalism empowers employees to overcome safety issues, etc. You should read the book. Besides giving you the foundation to successfully start and run a business, it also will expose all the BS the fascist types claim to be capitalism.
Real capitalism busies itself in little more than the accumulation of more and more capital, and it doesn't particularly care how it goes about that process. Real capitalism treats workers as it would trees, or water, or minerals buried in the ground -- as resources to be exploited in the earning of profits that can then be devoted to the creation of more capital. There is no mechanism in real capitalism by which the benefits of there being more captial become available or even evident to anyone but those who own capital. Adam Smith did not invent nor much support capitalism. In the Wealth of Nations (which should be taken btw in conjunction with his Theory of Moral Sentiments), Smith describes a rational political economy that exists within a patently social framework. There is little comfort to be found here by latter-day laissez-faire property rights proponents.
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Originally Posted by One Thousand
If the free-market dictated their pay, they're not overpaid. It's that simple. Unions use the manipulation of property rights to coerce companies to pay an inflated wage.
It is not a free market when property owners use their pillaged property rights to coerce workers into accepting a deflated wage. A consequent is not affirmed by a premise that is itself invalid.
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Originally Posted by One Thousand
Poor business decisions do damage a company. However, with bad executives, the company can ditch them in a heartbeat. That allows for a nimble company that can overcome mistakes and turn on a dime to respond to changes in the market. Union employees, however, demand benefits like retirement. Now, twenty/thirty years later, instead of being able to respond to current market demands in spite of past mistakes, the company has an inertia of sorts in the debt of pensions, etc. for retirees which makes them unable to turn on a dime. Being nimble is the most important attribute for a company... Unions (and legistlation like SS tax) kills nimbleness.
Oh please. Turning on a dime is a property of small craft. Large vessels cannot accomplish it. If you want all this "nimbleness" built into the economy, you'd best be about the business of breaking up every corporation included in the S&P 500. None of them has been able to turn on a dime in decades.
Umm, so because Clinton didn't move swiftly, its Bush's fault? Some logic? I guess we were hasty into Afghanistan and to blame the al Qaeda for 9/11, since it apparently takes 4 months to figure out who attacked you.
Yada, yada, yada. Apparently you aren't familiar with issues of national sovereignty or with the degree to which an autocratic regime such as that in Yemen can simply ignore the pleas of foreigners to be allowed to tread upon it. I'm sure there are many who believe that we, after all, are the United States of America, and that all others should simply accede to our wishes on that account alone. This opinion is not universally held. It is rather obvious further that you aren't familiar with the details or history of the case of the Cole, else you would have known to begin with that it was indeed Bush who decided to do nothing further about it.
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Originally Posted by Canerican
Are Democrats that dumb, or is it a guise to avoid making tough decisions (then blaming the Republicans for their inability to make tough decisions)
Do you distinguish at all between tough decisions and stupid ones? More to the point perhaps, are you able to discuss anything at all on a level more lofty than that of insipid partisan smears?
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