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PSSST, YOU become a "multi-billionaire" and you can do with your money as you please.
I smell a big heap of jealousy!
Ok! I'll get back to you on that.
Would you say the same about a dictator? You're just jealous, just wait until you're a dictator, you'll see how hard it is when everyone hates you and you have a responsibility to run the whole empire!
Dude, I don't hate billionaires because they have more money than me. I think it's great that people can independently go to space on their own dime. I don't need much at all as a minimalist, personally. All I need is a decent rural property, good food, and a lack of stress. It's when billionaires start accumulating all the world's wealth and legal/political power that it starts to bother me. We're talking geopolitically influential power on the level of small but recognizable countries.
And now for my easy cop-out, admittedly worst argument for last. I'm not cold, ruthless, and conniving enough to become a multi-billionaire.
Let us scotch this rumor once and for all, please. The Nordic countries are not socialist. The are best termed 'social democracies.' They are capitalist, with a large welfare state. In many ways they are more free-market than the US, as confirmed by studies from free-market think tanks.
The Danish Prime Minister in a 2015 talk at Harvard, complained about a certain candidate that labeled Denmark as socialist. Denmark is not socialist, the PM countered.
Democratic Socialism... yes. Just as I said larger welfare care including medicine, the people pay higher taxes but its for amenities that the people want (healthcare, parks, schools). Denmark has a much lower poverty rate and the rate of the difference between the rich vs the poor is smaller (getting larger and larger in the US).
They keep the military costs low.
They are not Cuba or Venezuela socialists. I hear Bernie Sanders speak more about being like the Nordic countries. Sounds like there are things we can learn from the place that has the % of happiest people on the planet.
Would you say the same about a dictator? You're just jealous, just wait until you're a dictator, you'll see how hard it is when everyone hates you and you have a responsibility to run the whole empire!
Dude, I don't hate billionaires because they have more money than me. I think it's great that people can independently go to space on their own dime. I don't need much at all as a minimalist, personally. All I need is a decent rural property, good food, and a lack of stress. It's when billionaires start accumulating all the world's wealth and legal/political power that it starts to bother me. We're talking geopolitically influential power on the level of small but recognizable countries.
And now for my easy cop-out, admittedly worst argument for last. I'm not cold, ruthless, and conniving enough to become a multi-billionaire.
Don't knock burglary/murder/rape if you haven't tried it, man.
Democratic Socialism... yes. Just as I said larger welfare care including medicine, the people pay higher taxes but its for amenities that the people want (healthcare, parks, schools). Denmark has a much lower poverty rate and the rate of the difference between the rich vs the poor is smaller (getting larger and larger in the US).
They keep the military costs low.
They are not Cuba or Venezuela socialists. I hear Bernie Sanders speak more about being like the Nordic countries. Sounds like there are things we can learn from the place that has the % of happiest people on the planet.
True but the DSA went down to Venezuala to get guidance from Maduro, not any of the Nordic countries.
And it's the DSA who are running under the Dem ticket for elections.
That's the type of "socialism" the likes of AOC want.
https://news.yahoo.com/democratic-so...152828711.html
Representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist political organization in the United States, met with Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro Friday.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/amp/n...mpression=true
This Friday evening, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, held a meeting with representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest left-leaning political organization in the United States.
In this sense, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela strengthens ties of cooperation, brotherhood and solidarity with activists and the people of the United States who fight for democracy and values such as peace and sovereignty of the peoples of the world, to strengthen the fight against the blockade and the coercive and unilateral measures imposed by the government of the United States.
True but the DSA went down to Venezuala to get guidance from Maduro, not any of the Nordic countries.
Do you actually believe the DSA hasn't gotten any guidance from Nordic countries? You think the DSA only had budget this century for these specific representatives to take this specific flight?
Wow you're basically quoting Marx here, you guys have a lot in common.
Basically, it's inevitable that some workers will work harder/better/smarter than others and be richer as a consequence. What's important is that everyone is given equal opportunity of class and capital. Only if we've reached a post-scarcity economy can we say "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
What you brought on from Marx is not news to me. I will distill what you brought into something more basic and blunt: the right to take from the fruit of my labor came from jealousy.
Q: If I cut 10 cords of wood and you cut 5, there is inequality between us, so what give you the right to take from me to erase the difference?
What you brought on from Marx is not news to me. I will distill what you brought into something more basic and blunt: the right to take from the fruit of my labor came from jealousy.
Q: If I cut 10 cords of wood and you cut 5, there is inequality between us, so what give you the right to take from me to erase the difference?
A: Good ol' fashion envy.
Um, nothing gives me that right, as I (and more eloquently, Karl Marx) have said? You're describing the socialist position.
The capitalist position is that the person who cuts 10 cords gets to keep 7, 3 go to the owner of the woods who does nothing, and the person who cuts 5 can go die in a ditch for all anybody cares.
Your fundamental premise, that both people get an axe and some wood to cut, accepts Marx's expressed desire from the Critique that each person should have equal opportunity.
Marx is talking about (lacking motivation for) the accumulation of capital, not labor. He's saying if everyone has their own capital, you don't have anyone to exploit to labor on your own capital, so there's no motive to accumulate extra capital. E.g. why have more land than you can farm personally if you can't hire workers, because the workers all have their own farms?
This is exactly why capital is exploitative by necessity. Capitalists can't allow everyone to have capital, because then nobody will need to work for them. They need a deprived labor class in order to compel them to work their excess capital. Some bright minds will trumpet the idea of capitalism as "equality of opportunity" but in actuality such equality would make capitalism impossible.
In other words, to complete your phrase, "Without some form of coercion, no one will work for you".
Free market commerce, referred to as capitalism by Marx, exists because if the rich land owner is not providing a good enough product, then even a small farmer with a one acre plot of land, can sell vegetables and fruits. they can also find a niche market for fruits or veggies the rich land owner is not offering to the market. This might be as simple as growing apples and berries, and putting up a sign on the road allowing customers to "Pick your own."
Curious how socialists, Marxists and nihilists hold a Utopian mindset for socialism / Marxism, and a pessimistic one for the free market. Most times they just supplant free market commerce with examples of corrupt government crony capitalism, and pretend it's the same thing as free market commerce.
Free market commerce, referred to as capitalism by Marx, exists because if the rich land owner is not providing a good enough product, then even a small farmer with a one acre plot of land, can sell vegetables and fruits. they can also find a niche market for fruits or veggies the rich land owner is not offering to the market. This might be as simple as growing apples and berries, and putting up a sign on the road allowing customers to "Pick your own."
Curious how socialists, Marxists and nihilists hold a Utopian mindset for socialism / Marxism, and a pessimistic one for the free market. Most times they just supplant free market commerce with examples of corrupt government crony capitalism, and pretend it's the same thing as free market commerce.
Capitalism exists because the rich get richer, and they prefer it that way.
Um, nothing gives me that right, as I (and more eloquently, Karl Marx) have said? You're describing the socialist position.
The capitalist position is that the person who cuts 10 cords gets to keep 7, 3 go to the owner of the woods who does nothing, and the person who cuts 5 can go die in a ditch for all anybody cares.
Your fundamental premise, that both people get an axe and some wood to cut, accepts Marx's expressed desire from the Critique that each person should have equal opportunity.
Or hellholes, in places like China or Cuba, where the people are nameless, faceless workers, who can cut 10 cords of wood, get to keep none of it, and could die in a ditch, or jump off the Foxconn roof for all government cares.
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