Income inequality in the US is now the most extreme of all countries. (global warming, millionaire)

[Huckleberry3911948]

the party is over.
ready to join a union yet? they are the only pro american labor group i know.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by irspow

No one can plan, or perhaps even should plan, a complex economy. There are those who claim to be omniscient, but there are no such beings. A true free market, not the government/business collusion that we have, does not even attempt to manipulate the masses in any systematic way. Free people simply interact with one another in their own best interest. Any economic "system" imposed upon all is simply an unjust manipulation of the people.

And you do not think that free market capitalism is a manipulation of the people? Ownership of resource automatically enslaves people. A people cannot possibly be "free" unless they are detached from dependence on someone who owns resources.

Originally Posted by irspow

We can disagree on whether a free market or collectivism is better based on our individual beliefs and that is fine. But we should not believe, in my humble opinion, that anyone has the right to enforce their particular beliefs upon another. Collectivism is just only when its members are comprised soley of voluntary subjects. The moment you force people into these associations involuntarily they are slaves.

I completely agree with you, 100%. I do not believe any government should be forced on a people top down. That is why a primary pillar of communism is the requirement that it is established bottom up. Meaning, a huge overwhelming majority must be in favor of such a complete change to make it so. I would never suggest to simply subject a group of people to something they didnt believe in, nor to force them to support it. I am completely opposed to such things that happened in Stalinism and Maoism and with Pol Pot, where they would "reeducate" or kill off "political dissadents". If the people do not support their form of government, it should be changed, and only at that point. That is the largest failing of "communism" as it has been attempted thus far. Its always being forced top down on populations, regardless of the number of people supporting it.

Originally Posted by irspow

As a libertarian, that is the only real problem I have with collectivism. The force that is always needed to implement it upon those who would not volunteer. If such ideas were to be used among voluntary groups I have no problem with them whatsoever. It is the initiation of force against others that I am against. The ideas of collectivism are not evil, rather the use of force by collectivists to impose their will upon everyone else is evil.

I completely agree with you man. I would NEVER support forcing anything top down on a people. Ever. If the majority of the US supports capitalism, then that is what we live with. Do I personally support capitalism, no I dont. However, I wouldnt dream of trying to force a change on the masses, because myself and a few fringe parties dislike the current economic system. That is not what communism has ever preached, but unfortunatley, is what has been perpetrated in the name of communism.

Originally Posted by irspow

No form of government is just that initiates force upon the individual. I don't care whether it is a dictator or direct democracy. Government is only just when it is used as a retaliatory force to punish those who initiate force. Just my opinion. You may choose to have your life planned and regulated by an omnipotent government, I would choose simply to have the freedom to plan and regulate my own life. Again, you should be free to choose to live as you see fit, but you have no right to make such choices for me.

How are you free? Are you not restricted every day by your access to funds and capital goods, your geographic region, your access to education, your skin color, even your name?

If you are average Joe, you probably go to work every day, in a job your dislike, and are probably underemployed in, not because you want to or did it on your own free will, but because you have to have money. Why do you need money? Well, you had to buy your house from someone who owned it, or rent from someone who owns. You have to buy your food from someone who owns a farm, etc etc. You have no choice but to slave unless you are born wealthy.

Capitalism is not freedom, its just a different kind of slavery. At least in the system that I propose, those barriers would be removed, and your own hard work would be the absolute only thing that determined your path in life.

Originally Posted by irspow

You may define value however you like. The DMV provides nothing of value to me. I, being the customer, determine what value I place on a product or service. Charging a person for a "service" that they would not voluntarily buy does not "create" or provide anything of value to the individual. That definition, of a forced service having value, is akin to saying that "protection rings" or any other form of extortion is "valuable".
To me personally, the DMV is merely a convoluted form of extortion and nothing more.

Labor value is completely independent of the intrinsic value of the product. In order to create labor value, the product, whatever it may be, simply has to be sold, and the difference between that price and fixed overhead is the labor value.

So, the only thing that needs to happen to create labor value, is that you need to buy a service. Those DMV workers do have value, even though you believe that the product they are building has no value. The reality is though, you pay your dollars at the DMV window, and that puts a tag on the service, and creates labor value right there.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by amirelez

A penny saved is a penny earned, and if I spend it on other things that I need it's extra money to me. What would be the difference between that and getting a raise?

A "raise" is not creating wealth either, its simply transfering your bosses "wealth" to you. I think that is the blatant piece of the puzzle you are missing here.

Originally Posted by amirelez

If somebody sold me a product and it earned me more than I had before, because of the savings the product gave me, it would be newly created wealth because I didn't extract that savings from anyone else and I passed the extra money into the economy.

No, the only thing you did was extract less wealth. No wealth was created or detracted.

Originally Posted by amirelez

You may see me spending the saved money as someone else getting my wealth[transfer] but if I buy a product from someone they get my wealth but I get theirs also.

I think you might actually be catching on a little bit, you just arent seeing it........If you save some money because someone sold you something cheaper, its just preserving wealth. If you spend that wealth somewhere else instead, its just someone else extracting it. Nothing new is created.

Follow this, and tell me where "new" wealth is created

Scenario 1

You start with $100. You see something you want for $50. You buy it. You now have $50, the store has $50, total wealth, $100. Correct?

scenario 2

You have $100. You see the item go on sale for $30. You buy it. You decide to spend the other $20 on something else. You now have $50, store 1 has $30, and store 2 has $20.....total wealth, still $100. Correct?

Where is exactly is wealth being created. What combination do I need to use in order to get MORE then $100 in the economy. I dont care how many ways you slice the pie, or how you slice it. You cannot get more then $100. Period. It is zero sum. If one guy gets a dollar, its at the direct expense of someone else.

Originally Posted by amirelez

The product they sold me cost something to them but they don't need it as bad I do so it's not really a wealth transfer but a quid pro quo. I don't think wealth is always just transferred like you say but it is sometimes.

It always is. You are right, that product ISNT worth anything essentially to them, its nothing more then a tool to extract your wealth. They used their wealth to build something you might want, to extract an even bigger amount of wealth from you then it cost them to make the item. That is profit.

Originally Posted by amirelez

Creating wealth is the end result of Bill Gates creating Microsoft. Microsoft products have produced wealth for the company, the employees, and the customers.

Lets stop right there and take a deep look at the two bolded words. These are not synonyms and they are not exchangeable. Create means to essentially build something out of nothing. Producing means to manufacture. Yes, Microsoft made a whole lot of people a great deal of money. However, that money that was made was a giant conglomeration of wealth scraped off the rest of the globes back. Yeah, Bill Gates made a butt load, the shareholders made a butt load, and many people found jobs with Microsoft. However, every dollar they made came out of someone elses wallet. Every copy of Microsoft Office that was sold, was $150 out of someone elses wallet.

Originally Posted by amirelez

I paid a little money [transfer wealth], the product saved me money[Gained back more than transferred=new wealth added], Trade for good or service[quid pro quo]

Study the bolded statement.....what is wrong with that.....give up?

You are completely leaving out the other part of the equation.

Here is a basic equation that represents what Im saying

X+y=z

Where z is the total amount of wealth in the economy, and x + y are dependent variables (meaning, wealth can only be transfered between the two, either x must sell to y, y must sell to x, or they must give eachother wealth, but it is stagnant without those transactions).

If z is determined, x and y must be inverse of eachother, always. For instance, if you ad 10 to x, then y must fall by 10 to continue to be equal to $100.

(50+10)+(50-10)=100

This is what your equation looks like

(50-5)=you paid $5 for something
(50+10)= you gained $10 from someone on the sale.

So, naturally, you think this is the result

(50-5)+(50+10)= 105....$5 of new wealth. Well, unfortunatley, thats simply bad logic. You can clearly see, you are missing two pieces of that equation

1. The person who you bought the wholesale merchandise from (+5)
2. The person who bought your jacked up finished product (-10)

So, if you look at the equation how it should be

5+(50-5)+(50+10)-10=$100. The person you bought the wholesale product from perfectly offset your loss by their gain, and the person you sold your marked up final product perfectly offset your gain by their loss.

Zero sum game. Period.

Originally Posted by amirelez

You don't have $300 to start with you really have $240

No, you have $300 to start with.

Originally Posted by amirelez

I hope you don't figure your personal budget this way
So you start with a net worth of $240 and thankfully saved $30 so now you have $270. A $30 saved is a $30 earned. When you pay off a loan don't you count the savings back into the general fund? "Now I can buy more stuff YAY!" I'm no accountant but isn't this sound logic?

The "general fund" is accumulated wealth. It is already possessed. Spending "less" of that money as some sort of discount is NOT creating wealth. Its preserving wealth.

Originally Posted by amirelez

My point was if somebody could save me money and still make a profit off of me they created wealth for both of us.

No they didnt, they just transfered less of your wealth.

Originally Posted by amirelez

It's not just quid pro quo but I have more money to spend so it's not always them taking money from me but the product can actually help me have more money and not have it transferred from somebody else.

A discount is NOT giving you any more money then you started with.

[irspow]

Originally Posted by Randomdude

And you do not think that free market capitalism is a manipulation of the people? Ownership of resource automatically enslaves people. A people cannot possibly be "free" unless they are detached from dependence on someone who owns resources.

If what we have here is "free market capitalism", I do not support it. What we have, in my opinion, is a government/business collusion that does not have any relationship whatsoever to a true free market.

If there are "winners" and "losers" in a truly free market, which is just people acting freely amongst each other, than the results of such a free market are natural and just. I would argue that I prefer to be "manipulated" by people acting freely than to be manipulated by a system of authority involuntarily. People with more resources do have more influence than those with less, but I am not usually forced to do business with such people involuntarily. It seems the government, and their coconspirators, are the only people that force me to do anything on a regular basis.

However, neither a free market or any other system that you would define as just can really exist while it is at the mercy of a private Central Bank. Can we agree that these ultimately powerful people should be attacked before dismantling or implementing any other economic system? After all, business and government are mere tools of confiscation of wealth to be collected by the private Central Bank. You see, I am trying to find a common enemy! We libertarians and communists can find things that mutually benefit each other.

Seeking to eliminate large concentrations of power must be waged on the largest of enemies. The private owners who have a complete monopoly over all currency must be destroyed before any of the other debates on economic policies make any sense at all.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

I completely agree with you, 100%. I do not believe any government should be forced on a people top down. That is why a primary pillar of communism is the requirement that it is established bottom up. Meaning, a huge overwhelming majority must be in favor of such a complete change to make it so. I would never suggest to simply subject a group of people to something they didnt believe in, nor to force them to support it. I am completely opposed to such things that happened in Stalinism and Maoism and with Pol Pot, where they would "reeducate" or kill off "political dissadents". If the people do not support their form of government, it should be changed, and only at that point. That is the largest failing of "communism" as it has been attempted thus far. Its always being forced top down on populations, regardless of the number of people supporting it.

I applaud your stance against the power of State. We are much in agreement there. However, I still resist the temptation to enslave the minority to the whims of the majority. We will have to disagree on this point as it is simply a matter of belief. I don't advocate the initiation of force against any individual even if the entire remainder of the world supported it. Unless force is used in a retaliatory manner against aggression it will always be unjust in my mind.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

I completely agree with you man. I would NEVER support forcing anything top down on a people. Ever. If the majority of the US supports capitalism, then that is what we live with. Do I personally support capitalism, no I dont. However, I wouldnt dream of trying to force a change on the masses, because myself and a few fringe parties dislike the current economic system. That is not what communism has ever preached, but unfortunatley, is what has been perpetrated in the name of communism.

Agreed, except for the "majority rule" thing again. I believe that anyone who wants to practice communism by voluntary association should be free to do so. Same goes for my libertarian ideology, I don't believe that I have a "right" to break up collectivist associations made up of voluntary participants. Live and let live. If neither of us tries to take "prisoners" there is no problem.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

How are you free? Are you not restricted every day by your access to funds and capital goods, your geographic region, your access to education, your skin color, even your name?

No human will be totally free as it is an impossibility. Even if one was the only human on the planet, natural forces would restrict freedom. I do not even seek to see anarchy prevail. I believe that some, albeit very restricted, form of government is necessary to punish those who initiate force.

I just do not feel that anything beyond retaliatory force is necessary. Again, I do not support any system which would further restrict freedom beyond what is absolutely necessary to live among one another peacefully. Any attempt to "create" a specific outcome in society is a nullification of freedom beyond what is necessary.

Everything that the "planners" of the world want to accomplish can be achieved by voluntary cooperation. Whenever these "planners" initiate force they lose all credibility when trying to bring about justice.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

If you are average Joe, you probably go to work every day, in a job your dislike, and are probably underemployed in, not because you want to or did it on your own free will, but because you have to have money. Why do you need money? Well, you had to buy your house from someone who owned it, or rent from someone who owns. You have to buy your food from someone who owns a farm, etc etc. You have no choice but to slave unless you are born wealthy.

Capitalism is not freedom, its just a different kind of slavery. At least in the system that I propose, those barriers would be removed, and your own hard work would be the absolute only thing that determined your path in life.

Actually, what you describe above is the result of your choice to be a slave to the government/business collusion in America. Most of us make this choice because it is far easier than to "go off the grid". Mind you, I am not defending the current state of our economy. I am against "corporate" and "business" law. I do not even believe that such "entities" should have any legal standing. I do not believe in the Central Bank, usury, partial reserve "banking", fiat currency, or any other such nonsense that empowers certain groups to have powers beyond what any other individual has under the law. They are all used to pillage and abuse the individual.

I think that we are very much alike in that we wish to improve the life of the individual. We just think differently on how to go about it. I would not replace the evils of business with the evils of the State. I would simply eliminate the evils of both. I would not trade the dangers of freedom for the dangers of servitude. I simply see the evil of majority rule as bad as the evil of any concentration of power. The maximum possible peaceful freedom for the individual is the only thing that I advocate. All I would say to you in this regard, is to be merciful to those who would not volunteer to be part of your system. These are humans with as much right to exist free as do you supporters. We are, in the end, both collectivists and libertarians, nearly identical in our sincere desire to help the individual live the best possible life. We are only separated on the use of force to compel others to comply with our interests.

Originally Posted by Randomdude

Labor value is completely independent of the intrinsic value of the product. In order to create labor value, the product, whatever it may be, simply has to be sold, and the difference between that price and fixed overhead is the labor value.

So, the only thing that needs to happen to create labor value, is that you need to buy a service. Those DMV workers do have value, even though you believe that the product they are building has no value. The reality is though, you pay your dollars at the DMV window, and that puts a tag on the service, and creates labor value right there.

Fair enough. If that is the definition of "labor value", I will not argue that point. I will say again that the "value" to me of such a "service" is negative. I don't want the service and would choose not to use it if given the chance. It, to me, is theft and not value. Just my opinion.

[backstaber]

inequality makes no difference---------how to cure, only basis for printing money is violence
a person seems to subtract from the value of printed money
only monetary value that increase ; along with a persons value is-?

[StillwaterTownie]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Are you advocating that there should be income equalization? That everyone should earn the same?

Are you suggesting that there should not be any "have nots"?

Well, don't conservatives pretty strongly believe there should be income inequality, because if you can't keep up with the millionaires and billionaires, then that's just tough?

[backstaber]

reduced printing of money or what ever it is understand the measurement for excess printing is based on violence
only one monetary ;is value along with a person??

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

Well, don't conservatives pretty strongly believe there should be income inequality, because if you can't keep up with the millionaires and billionaires, then that's just tough?

Conservatives generally believe that one should be able to earn / make whatever they can qualify to earn / make. That there should be no caps of any type on an individuals income.

[ergohead]

Originally Posted by backstaber

reduced printing of money or what ever it is understand the measurement for excess printing is based on violence
only one monetary ;is value along with a person??

Well, sure, but only in a didactic environment.

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

the party is over.
ready to join a union yet? they are the only pro american labor group i know.

Join a union ??? Why so I can do more work then some turd just to see him get a bump because he's been there longer? Or I have to wait to do my job because a control electrician has to come land 1 wire in a panel? No wonder our junk costs so much and the chi-coms are getting all our work.....