Response to Iwbiek

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Response to Iwbiek

iwbiek wrote:
stop with the fucking "marxist" shit. you're just like brian: you don't know jack shit about marxism yet run your mouth about it. i basically forced you to admit as much several years ago, then linked you to volume 1 of capital via the marxist internet archive to at least try to get you to educate yourself on what you keep denigrating. instead, you started trying to pick marx apart in the first couple sentences. when i explained to you why you completely misunderstood those sentences because you were ignorant of the context (not surprising, considering those couple sentences were the first bit of marx you'd ever actually read), i recall you turned tail and never responded. you disagree with leftist politics in general? fine. but it only shows your ignorance when you talk shit about a school of thought you have zero knowledge of.


I figured from your nasty tone, you didn't want to hear from me again. OK try again.

marxists.org wrote:


The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article.



I totally disagree with this statement. There is little and sometime no correlation between the value or price of a commodity and the value or cost of the labor that goes into producing a commodity. Especailly with the commodities that matter most to the poor(food, clothing and shelter). If there was this correlation, low wages would mean low prices, so the working poor wouldn't struggle.

The correct statement is 'Labor like every other commodity is subject to the law of supply and demand.' I don't get how resevere labor or necessary labor have anything to do with determining value.

Take for example the commodity of land. No labor went into producing it, no amount of labor will produce more. Same it pretty much true for other important commodities such as oil and water.

Look at the affordable housing crisis. There is pleanty of cheap labor around to build housing. We can and do import desperately poor men from Mexico to do our constuction jobs and pay them barely a subsitence wage. So why can't sufficient affordable housing be built with all this available cheap labor? Because there is no cheap land availble in the areas that need affordable housing or there is no water available for these homes once built. Same thing is true for the other essential commodities of food and clothing.

I've read Marx, I get the gist of what he is saying. Wages will always be driven down to a subsitence level so that the workers are struggling just to survive. Marx errors in blaming this on capitalists as if this is their evil intent. Sure they make massive profits off the situation of an oversupply of labor(due to overpopulation) and and undersupply of natural resourses(due to living on a small planet). But the wealth made off the cheap labor is not the cause of low wages, it is the effect. This is like blaming Swiss bankers and arm dealers for causing war. War profiteers are not the cause of war they are an effect of war. This is what irrational people always do, confuse cause and effect.

Malthus analyzed the problem of low wages, unemployment and poverty before Marx's time. He correctly identified the source of the problem as population pressure. The starvation wages that employees are paid are a type of Malthusian catastrophe that limit population growth. Minimum wage laws or making the government everyone's employer and provider does not change the stituation of labor oversupply and natural resource undersupply.

Marx blamed overpopulation, like everything else on Capitalism. Unless Marxism causes people to stop fucking, you're going to have population preesures. The only thing Marxism achieves is spreading the misery around so that everyone feels the pain of overpopulation by making everyone equal(except the party leaders of course). This is exactly what the global warming marxists want to do blame it on capitalism instead of overpopulation, then spread the misery around.

Since I read Marx, why don't you read Malthus and give us your analysis. Why did Marx dispise Malthus so much?
 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Beyond Saving wrote:Because

Beyond Saving wrote:


Because most of the first world not only feed their own populations, but also a large portion of the rest of the world.


But not affordable food. The cost of healthy food is still too high for the poor. Working familiy often have a hard time paying the grociery bill. And it still due to shortages of natural resources like land, oil and water. This is what you get with capitalism. There is only so many properties on the monopoly board, so some win big others end up with nothing.

It seems like your belief is that because wealth redistribution is so uneven in the USA, we don't have population pressures. We don't have a population problem until you're the one that is hungry or homeless. The population pressures are actually causing the wealth redistribution to get worse. Those that have take advantage of scarsity to get even more. As population pressures increase more are moved from the middle class to the poor.

Of course factors like education, infrastucture, technology, hoarding all play a role in poverty. I think what your missing is that fixing these are only short term gains.

Suppose a technology is invented that allow farmers to grow twice as much grain on a given piece of land. Great, food prices go down when this is used. But then a generation later, population goes up. You're back where you started. Also in a case like this water and oil become the critical resouse to grow more food instead of land.

According to Mathus, we're just running on a treadmill unless you fix the population problem. Invent technolgy to grow more food, population grows then you have a housing crisis.

Beyond Saving wrote:

He claimed that population would grow to outstrip resources, it hasn't. So unless I am mistaken about his claim, he was wrong.

He said if you have constaints, the catastrophies of resource shortages could be avoided. Obviously constraints like birth control pill, women's choice have helped. Still poverty and stress due to lack of natural resources.


In the absense of any contraints, populations increase arithmetically. This is an obvious fact of biology. There is always going to be some resource shortage to stop the growth of any species. Humans can do growth control ourselves with birth contol or let nature do it for us.

Take oil for instance, there is pleanty of it still in the ground. But the easy stuff has all been depleted. It costs a lot to get more out. Who suffers when prices go up?



Beyond Saving wrote:

Irrelevant. I know many more people who had children they weren't planning on. Even in a day and age where it is theoretically possible to plan the timing of every baby, many are born completely unplanned. In this case, anecdotal evidence isn't sufficient because plenty of examples can be found on both sides... you yourself are the one who routinely rants about the welfare queens with bunches of kids.

So impulsive, naive, irrational and irresponsible people have many kids, the rest have few. And this will result in what? I thought the role of goverment was to force people to behave in responsible ways? Why this glarring excepting of, total libertarianism?
Why don't we just allow drunk driving amoung teenagers, because they are just young, impulsive with lots of hormones?


Beyond Saving wrote:

Exactly, and that "catastrophe" hasn't appeared, is in no immediate danger of appearing

Tell that to the family standing in line at the food bank. Tell that to the people living in their car because there is no place to build affordable housing.

Beyond Saving wrote:

There is no doubt that over the last several generations, 1st world countries have pursued social policies designed to provide economic support to the poor, and overtime those policies have gotten increasingly generous. Using your (and I presume Malthus') logic, that should have led to continued increases. Instead, growth rates have slowed to the point where some countries are below replacement levels if you don't include immigration (and some even if you include immigration).


Again you are confusing cause and effect. The population and birth rates must first come down before you have any wealth to redistribute. You have to first be a 1st world country before you have any wealth to redistribute.

Before the advent of the pill, Europe controlled its population growth via Malthusian catashtrophies like famine, war and plagues. Now it is done by poping a pill. But why don't they want large families? Cost due to population pressures. Other factors like women in the workforce also play a role. And the capitalists still want to bring in cheap immigrant labor to keep up the pressure on the labor market.

Suppose you became dictator of Haiti. How do you get it out of its current situation? I suppose you could let people starve to pay for infrastructure projects. So you cause a catashtrophe or you wait for the next one to happen.
 


Beyond Saving wrote:

Yet our infrastructure hasn't grown at a linear rate, nor is there any reason to expect it to grow linearly in the future. Hence, the mistake of Malthus.

What are you talking about? As US population grows, we build more roads, neighborhoods and grow more food. Infrastructure and technology to support more people is being developed. The problem is population grows arithmetically in the absense of any contraits. But, you can't build infrastructure fast enough to keep up with growth, hence you'll always have poor until you get the birth and immigration rate down, assuming also you keep up the death rate.

Beyond Saving wrote:



Yet obviously people don't always follow those restraints. Back then, it was also much more common for a married couple to have a dozen or more children. None of the laws that Malthus suggested were necessary to prevent the catastrophe were passed, yet the catastrophe hasn't happened.



What are you talking about? All the horrible things that Dickens and Marx wrote about did come to pass in England.

The Irish potato famine happened a decade after he died. Sure, the greedy English landlords made things worse and got rich off the misery. But what is supposed to happen when you have a growing population on a small Island?

That is why China made it mandatory. Volutary restraints don''t  always work well.


Beyond Saving wrote:

Correlation is not causation. Other countries facing starvation problems have reduced them without significant population controls. Prove that the one child policy was a significant factor and not the mass construction of factories, modernization of agricultural practices, construction of modern infrastructure and preferential trade agreements.

So people stop fucking because the government builds a bridge?

Or does the govenment have money to build a bridge because they don't have to spend it all on keeping the population from immediate death?

Beyond Saving wrote:

 At least in China, they have a large enough population that it is rational to discuss population pressure issues. In a country like the US with a small population and great productivity, it is delusional.

Please remember that next time your in a traffic jam or can't find parking. It's population relative to the infrastructure and capital that can support it.

In capitalism, the pain of population preasures is paid by the lower classes. In socialism/communism, the pain is spread around(except for the party leaders and their cronies).

Beyond Saving wrote:

Although the main problem in China wasn't too much population overall, it was too many people moving to the cities to work in factories in hopes of making money. Much of China remains sparsely inhabited and as they continue to improve their agriculture and their infrastructure, within a few generations it will be a net exporter of food whether they maintain the one child policy or not.

The US has the same problem, $20K house where there are no jobs. Housing crisis in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Why? The infrastructure, expertice and capital to make money from computers and investment exist in these places, but not others.

Over a billion people could comfortable exist in the US. But the infrastructure to support this would have to be built up first. According to Malthus, in the absense of any moral or legal contraints, the population will grow faster than you can build this infrastructure. That's why you sit in traffic, that's why gasoline will often be expensive.

One could say Mars has population pressures. Because there is currenly  infrastructure to support zero human life. A population of one would cause a micro-catastrophie. It's population relative to the resouces and infrastructure to support it all.
 

Beyond Saving wrote:

No, not that it is any of your business, but if you must know, I despise using condoms, have only used them a couple of times in my life.

Yes. I know what goes on in anyone's bedroom is none of my business until the baby is born and someone must pay all the bills. Then they're our children, so I must be forced to pay for them. I'm also forced to pay for heathcare that pays for your VD treatments. It is your business,  my bill. How convenient.

I should be OK to let you carry on with your sociopathic ways? Fine, if we lived in a totally libertarian society. But no one seems to be proposing that.

Whenever a politician decides to cut school lunch or food stamps, we alwayes get the leftist psychoanalysis about the conservatives being sociopaths. But we don't we get an analysis of the parents of these kids?

BTW, Bill Gates may be saving humanity(and your problem):

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/bill-gates-progress-made-new-super-thin-condom-article-1.1945616

Beyond Saving wrote:

Lol, we had sex because we were young, horny, stupid and fueling our decisions with chemicals. To think that economics were even in the formula is absurd. You put a bunch of coed teenagers or 20 somethings together and fucking is going to ensue. I'm pretty sure there are a few reality tv shows based on that concept.

I wish men were the deciders for having sex. The fact is you met these women in college(not an unemployment line) and you talked to them about your studies and carrer prospects. You looked like a good provider to them just by going to college, the loan provided you with this illusion, drugs helped impare their judgement so the illusion worked. Economics totally in play.

The women on these shows are just hoes. Economics in play as well.

The biggest factor that determines if a society or family is wealthy is how high women set their price. I'm sure you've noticed that women from wealthy families and cultures are much harder to bed than those that are not.


Beyond Saving wrote:

And immediately before WWII there was a huge spike of "war babies", women having kids when their future economic situation was completely unknown.

The great depression ended in 1939 with the beginning of all the spending on building up arms. The US was isolationist and the public didn't believe we would go to war. There was a lot of pent up desire after 10 years of catastrophe.


Beyond Saving wrote:

You are assuming that people make their decisions on a purely economic level, they don't.

Ultimately what determines the size of any population plant, animal or human is the amount of resoures that can sustain it. So man pressures nature and nature pressures us back. And remember there is also a sexual marketplace that works like the monetary one just with a different currency. So it does all boil down to economics.

Suppose a women in the USA decides not to have a child for non-economic reasons. So with less population, less reserve labor pool. So some in Mexico decides to cross over to meet the labor demands, the population in Mexico goes down. So someone there decides they can afford another bambino. It's all economics in the end.

I think since the advent of birth control, population growth is controlled more by decision to use birth control rather than a catashrophe reducing population, especially in countries where women have a choice. But the population limit is still nature and our ability to build infrastructure to support population. A lower birthrate in the USA just means more immigration because the Capitalists pretty much have their way.



Beyond Saving wrote:

And you haven't shown anything to support the cause and effect. Using China as an example doesn't help, since we have dozens of other countries that also see a decreasing birth rate today, are growing in wealth and don't have national policies to limit birth rates.


What these countries have in common is women deciding(or being allowed) to have carrers and remain childless. China may get to the point where women are liberated enough that they don't need a one child policy to remain prosperous.

In the US, we only need to cut off immigration and stop a relatively low number of religious nuts and welfare queens.
 

Beyond Saving wrote:

It is so ridiculously absurd to even discuss the US as an example of population pressures. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind and we have more vacant land than most. We could easily support 10 times our current population.


At what cost? Close down nature parks to build more and farm more. Force people out of their cars to conserve oil? Dam every river so we have enough water? Do you want everyone living in a little box with our food grown in a laboratories in skyscrapers?

We invent more and build more but live doesn't get better for everyone but the top 1%, thank you population pressures.
 
Beyond Saving wrote:

Food is ridiculously cheap in the US. It takes a lower percentage of a person's income than in any country at any time in history.

Yes at the cost of it being very unheathy. Why do you think organic costs more? It uses more land, water, oil and workers.


Beyond Saving wrote:


I don't think Marx ever discussed immigration at any great length or detail. Although, I do occasionally have fun poking at right wing anti-immigration nuts that they are Marxists, because the one thing I've read of Marx on immigration sounds a lot like the American right wing.


You know when I talk to right wingers they think I'm a Marxist because I don't support private land ownership for private profit.

Another thing I don't think Marx or Engles would support is minimum wage under a capitalist system. Obviously the Capitalist would just eliminate the job rather than pay a higher wage.
 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote:Don't the rich pay

EXC wrote:
Don't the rich pay off the politicians and lawyers to keep them off their back?

Some certainly try. A good number of them succeed. That's capitalism for you. Wouldn't be possible in a well structured and sustainable socialist nation.

EXC wrote:
Don't the 1% get the politicians to not pass any laws againt wealth hoarding?

I dunno. Don't see that it makes any difference to the topic. It's a capitalist system, what did you expect?

No you are the one showing naivete. You're so naive you didn't even refute me like you apparently think you did, and so I have no reason to respond.

EXC wrote:
In the US you have to go to the welfare and social security office.

Nope lots of people can't travel and they come to you in those circumstances, even in the US. Also, cherry picking services requiring a modicum of effort doesn't alter your instant access to other services for which no effort on your part must be made; thus the original analogy still fails.

EXC wrote:
Another thing, I bet if you lived in Al Capone's neighborhood, kids could play in the streets and parks without constant adult supervison.

I bet they also all worked for him, thus they were in fact supervised. You obviously haven't any idea how criminal organisations function.

EXC wrote:
But kids can't do this in the US or Canada. We just pay all this money for our security and what do we get for it?

Bullshit they can't. There are kids outside right now playing in the snow without any adults in sight. Maybe you should get out more.

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Burnedout wrote:You are

Burnedout wrote:
You are dodging and attempting to get out of having to defend a position.

Projection.

Burnedout wrote:
Please explain how the functional mechanics of collecting income tax and property tax are functionally different than than what Al Capone did to collect protection money from his vicitms,

I did that already. YOU explain how they are identical. Quit dodging.

Burnedout wrote:
NOT how the money is used or who it is used for, but the way it is collected.

The way it is collected is irrelevant. But since you ask, Capone would have sent thugs to cut off body parts or killed you and your friends and your family. The government will just imprison you for awhile. Pretty big difference.

Burnedout wrote:
You can try to turn it around and get into a pissing match, but I am not letting you off the hook.  I will keep coming back to this.

Go ahead. I love watching broken records fail repeatedly.

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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
You are dodging and attempting to get out of having to defend a position.
Projection.
Burnedout wrote:
Please explain how the functional mechanics of collecting income tax and property tax are functionally different than than what Al Capone did to collect protection money from his vicitms,
I did that already. YOU explain how they are identical. Quit dodging.
Burnedout wrote:
NOT how the money is used or who it is used for, but the way it is collected.
The way it is collected is irrelevant. But since you ask, Capone would have sent thugs to cut off body parts or killed you and your friends and your family. The government will just imprison you for awhile. Pretty big difference.
Burnedout wrote:
You can try to turn it around and get into a pissing match, but I am not letting you off the hook.  I will keep coming back to this.
Go ahead. I love watching broken records fail repeatedly.

 

TELL me and everyone reading HOW FUNCTIONALLY (the mechanics of) are not a form of extortion and theft.  Here try a dictionary definition.

The government send you a bill telling you that you owe a certain amount of money.  If you don't pay it, and you resist long enough, they come WITH GUNS and will take you against your will.  

 ex·tor·tionhttps://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+extortion 
ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/noun 
  1. the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

     

     

    \\\

 IF you or I do what was described in my response above, we would go to jail.  In other words, if you or I, come to someone's house after demanding pay and then take them out at gun point, and ultimately take it, that is theft.  YET the government does it, well now, that is OK.  Taking something that does not belong to you is wrong, and is thus theft.

 

 

 

 

 


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 Link and quote posted in

 

Link and quote posted in this one because this sucky format does not want to allow two quotes for some reason......ARGH!

 

https://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+ThefttheftTHeft/noun 
  1. the action or crime of stealing."he was convicted of theft"
    synonyms:robbery, stealing, thieving, larcenythieveryshopliftingburglary,misappropriationappropriationembezzlement;

 

Just because government doing the act may be "LEGAL" does not make it right.  Hell, the Nazis made murder legal with a vote of the Reichtag.  Does that make it right?  The only difference between forced taxation and what the Nazis did was the severity of the action on the victims.  

 

Congrats Vastet, you just aligned yourself with the Nazis.  


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Vastet wrote: That's

Vastet wrote:
That's capitalism for you. Wouldn't be possible in a well structured and sustainable socialist nation.

Yes. I know we need to take out the capitalist gangsters so we can be ruled by the socialist gangsters.

Vastet wrote:

It's a capitalist system, what did you expect?

Under Socialism the labor unions will be the ones to pay off the politician. Big improvement there.

Vastet wrote:

No you are the one showing naivete. You're so naive you didn't even refute me like you apparently think you did, and so I have no reason to respond.

Now you're showing what damn liar you are.

You stated that goverment is not a scam because they pay out benefits. I could go on all day showing you definitions and examples of scams where the scammer will payout something to try to make it not look like a scam. It's called a pyramid scam because the early investors get something back. That is how a shell game works. You build confidence in the people being scammed by paying out something. That is the only way it could grow.

Now are you going to admit this statement  was wrong?

 

 

 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Burnedout wrote:TELL me and

Burnedout wrote:
TELL me and everyone reading HOW FUNCTIONALLY (the mechanics of) are not a form of extortion and theft.  Here try a dictionary definition.

The government send you a bill telling you that you owe a certain amount of money.  If you don't pay it, and you resist long enough, they come WITH GUNS and will take you against your will.  

 ex·tor·tionhttps://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+extortion 
ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/noun 
the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
 

 

\\\

 IF you or I do what was described in my response above, we would go to jail.  In other words, if you or I, come to someone's house after demanding pay and then take them out at gun point, and ultimately take it, that is theft.  YET the government does it, well now, that is OK.  Taking something that does not belong to you is wrong, and is thus theft.

 

I already answered your question, in more than one way. You have failed to demonstrate they are at all comparable. Accept your failure, move on

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EXC wrote:Yes. I know we

EXC wrote:
Yes. I know we need to take out the capitalist gangsters so we can be ruled by the socialist gangsters.

In socialism everyone would be roughly equal in terms of power. Merit would take some further, which is much better than accident of birth or luck. So no gangsters, sorry.

EXC wrote:
Under Socialism the labor unions will be the ones to pay off the politician. Big improvement there.

Under socialism politicians won't have enough power to be worth buying, so again you fail.

EXC wrote:
Now you're showing what damn liar you are.

You're the liar. You've been lying since I first met you, suggesting you've always been a liar, and will always be a liar.

EXC wrote:
You stated that goverment is not a scam because they pay out benefits.

And you've failed to refute that fact.

EXC wrote:
I could go on all day showing you definitions and examples of scams where the scammer will payout something to try to make it not look like a scam.

Which would merely be more evidence of your stupidity. Every scam out there eventually collapses under its own weight. The longest running scams, (christianity, etc.), are starting to fray rapidly. Governments have been delivering an increasing number of services since before those religions existed, and show no sign of failing. Some specific nations have collapsed, but in general things have been consistently improving overall for more than 3000 years. You have NOTHING. Your entire position from the foundation up is literally pure bullshit. You are a lying, moronic, scum sucking, shit-for-brains loser.

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 How about neither Ayn Rand

 How about neither Ayn Rand or Marx? How about an economy that adjusts and allows for economic diversity without huge gaps between the top and bottom? How about more direct giving by business so that workers don't have to fight business? How about business do the right thing on its own without being forced to do it? How about anti monopoly concepts where no one segment of the population, public or private gains too much power?

It does not have to be all or nothing. It does not have to be Cuba or Koch Brother monopolies. 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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EXC wrote:But not affordable

EXC wrote:

But not affordable food. The cost of healthy food is still too high for the poor. Working familiy often have a hard time paying the grociery bill. And it still due to shortages of natural resources like land, oil and water. This is what you get with capitalism. There is only so many properties on the monopoly board, so some win big others end up with nothing.

Prove that food is unaffordable today compared to what it was when our population was much smaller. 

 

EXC wrote:


It seems like your belief is that because wealth redistribution is so uneven in the USA, we don't have population pressures. We don't have a population problem until you're the one that is hungry or homeless. The population pressures are actually causing the wealth redistribution to get worse. Those that have take advantage of scarsity to get even more. As population pressures increase more are moved from the middle class to the poor.

We don't have population problems because our population is very small compared to what we are capable of supporting. Our poorest cities actually have the opposite problem, their populations are leaving and causing large gaps in their economy where basic services simply no longer exist- Detroit exhibit A, Chicago working on being B. 

 


EXC wrote:

Of course factors like education, infrastucture, technology, hoarding all play a role in poverty. I think what your missing is that fixing these are only short term gains.

So? That is what happens when you have a complex problem caused by hundreds and thousands of factors. No single solution is going to be magically make it disappear. Reducing the size of the population in most modern countries would actually aggravate the problem- humans create value, if they disappear (or never existed) you lose real wealth. In dense countries, worrying about population pressure might be worthwhile, but certainly not a blanket answer everywhere. 

 

EXC wrote:

Suppose a technology is invented that allow farmers to grow twice as much grain on a given piece of land. Great, food prices go down when this is used. But then a generation later, population goes up. You're back where you started. Also in a case like this water and oil become the critical resouse to grow more food instead of land.

We have, and the rate of population increase didn't go up, it went down. We produce approximately 10 times per acre that we produced in the early 1900's, our population is only about 2.1 times what it was, despite large amounts of immigration, and our birth rate is falling. Hence the mountains of evidence that Malthus' base assumptions were wrong. He assumed the population would double every 25 years without population controls. He assumed that a population would quickly expand if it had the boom in agricultural production that the US experienced, it didn't happen. Solely increasing the food supply doesn't have anywhere near the effect on population levels he predicted.

 

EXC wrote:

In the absense of any contraints, populations increase arithmetically. This is an obvious fact of biology. There is always going to be some resource shortage to stop the growth of any species. Humans can do growth control ourselves with birth contol or let nature do it for us.

Take oil for instance, there is pleanty of it still in the ground. But the easy stuff has all been depleted. It costs a lot to get more out. Who suffers when prices go up?

You mean exponentially, but the fact is that they don't. Look at current population growth rates, they don't grow anywhere near the rates Malthus predicted despite our poorest of the poor living more comfortable lives. HIS idea of someone above poverty was someone who could "afford a piece of meat once a week". Virtually all Americans eat meat every meal, or at least daily. Even the poor unemployed dishwashers. There is no doubt that the poverty in his time was far more severe than we see in any developed nation today, possible exception for the rural areas of China, which remain very impoverished (while the cities with all the population pressures are experiencing the lowest levels of poverty they have ever seen, albeit still impoverished compared to our lavish lifestyles)

Populations haven't grown as fast as he predicted, and yeah, a lot of that is due to factors he couldn't forsee. No doubt the much easier access to birth control is a factor and we know for certain that education dramatically lowers birthrates. Also, there is pretty significant correlation evidence that a social system guaranteeing retirement care lowers birth rates- thge theory as to why is that one of the reasons that people continued having many kids late was to ensure that some of them survived to take care of them when they were old and infirm. 

Meanwhile, food production has grown exponentially and there is good reason to believe that it will continue to throughout our lifetimes and possibly beyond. We farm far less acreage, with far less human labor and we produce far more than we need. Groceries have become a commodity that acts more like what Malthus termed "wrought commodities", in that we can increase or decrease production to meet demand. Applying Malthus' analysis of wrought commodities to food and his predictions are much more noteworthy. 



EXC wrote:

So impulsive, naive, irrational and irresponsible people have many kids, the rest have few. And this will result in what? I thought the role of goverment was to force people to behave in responsible ways? Why this glarring excepting of, total libertarianism?
Why don't we just allow drunk driving amoung teenagers, because they are just young, impulsive with lots of hormones?

In case you haven't noticed over the years, I am a libertarian. 


EXC wrote:

Tell that to the family standing in line at the food bank. Tell that to the people living in their car because there is no place to build affordable housing.

I've lived in my car and have gone to food banks. Money was an issue, food never was in terms of actually facing starvation. I do prefer to be able to afford lobster. Stay on topic. You are claiming a Malthusian catastrophe, not just people living below societal standards. 


EXC wrote:

Again you are confusing cause and effect. The population and birth rates must first come down before you have any wealth to redistribute. You have to first be a 1st world country before you have any wealth to redistribute.

Before the advent of the pill, Europe controlled its population growth via Malthusian catashtrophies like famine, war and plagues. Now it is done by poping a pill. But why don't they want large families? Cost due to population pressures. Other factors like women in the workforce also play a role. And the capitalists still want to bring in cheap immigrant labor to keep up the pressure on the labor market.

Without a population you have no wealth. Humans create wealth. America is America because we had a ridiculously fast growing population that was quickly put to work creating wealth efficiently and effectively. It made us the richest country in the world by far. An argument could be made that one of the reasons that our growth in wealth slowed is because we started restricting legal immigration. There is certainly a correlation, proving the cause would probably be difficult, but easier than you trying to prove your baseless claims. 

 

EXC wrote:


Suppose you became dictator of Haiti. How do you get it out of its current situation? I suppose you could let people starve to pay for infrastructure projects. So you cause a catashtrophe or you wait for the next one to happen.
 

How does starving people pay for infrastructure? Do you even understand why money has value?

 

EXC wrote:


Beyond Saving wrote:

Yet our infrastructure hasn't grown at a linear rate, nor is there any reason to expect it to grow linearly in the future. Hence, the mistake of Malthus.

What are you talking about? As US population grows, we build more roads, neighborhoods and grow more food. Infrastructure and technology to support more people is being developed. The problem is population grows arithmetically in the absense of any contraits. But, you can't build infrastructure fast enough to keep up with growth, hence you'll always have poor until you get the birth and immigration rate down, assuming also you keep up the death rate.

Yet our road system didn't exist anywhere close to what it is now 100 years ago. Until the 60's only a couple generations ago, the interstate system was zero roads. Airports were non-existent. The Internet, which while not capable of transporting physical goods, improved our infrastructure exponentially by allowing it to be radically more efficient at getting goods to where the demand is quickly. We HAVE built infrastructure fast enough. Perhaps the only place we aren't building it fast enough is electricity, though that is due to political barriers more than practical construction problems. Indeed, in the area of housing, we built infrastructure too fast! that is what the housing bubble was and why we have a ton of empty houses sitting around a lot of the US. 

In the future, it is forseeable that we will have drones, self driving cars, 3d printers and other innovations which will allow continued improvements to the efficiency of our infrastructure. And that is just what is coming in the next few decades. 


EXC wrote:


What are you talking about? All the horrible things that Dickens and Marx wrote about did come to pass in England.

The Irish potato famine happened a decade after he died. Sure, the greedy English landlords made things worse and got rich off the misery. But what is supposed to happen when you have a growing population on a small Island?

Famine is a huge risk when you are mostly dependent on one crop. There would have been a famine if it was one family with one field of potatos that was wiped out. You know how you solve that problem? A larger population with more farmers growing multiple different types of crops so that if potatos fail, you have corn or soy and vice versa. It didn't occur because there were too many people in Ireland. It would have occurred regardless of how large or small the population was. If it was small, it might have been wiped out completely. One of the reasons Ireland remained very poor for so long after the famine (although your logic they should have been rich because they had a much lower population and the agricultural production the size they had with a larger population) was because such a large portion of their population died or emigrated and that really fucks with an economy. 

 


EXC wrote:

So people stop fucking because the government builds a bridge?

Or does the govenment have money to build a bridge because they don't have to spend it all on keeping the population from immediate death?

The government only has money if there are people paying taxes. The more people, the more of them pay taxes, the more money government has for things like building bridges. That is why large cities have huge budgets that allow them to build all sorts of things that you don't get in rural areas. If I wanted a bridge to be built, I would probably have to build it myself because my local government doesn't have anywhere near the funds for any such large project.

 

EXC wrote:

Please remember that next time your in a traffic jam or can't find parking. It's population relative to the infrastructure and capital that can support it.

Traffic jams only happen in the rich areas of my state. 

 

EXC wrote:


In capitalism, the pain of population preasures is paid by the lower classes. In socialism/communism, the pain is spread around(except for the party leaders and their cronies).

Nice vacant slogan. The poor don't sit in traffic jams, they don't have cars. 

 

EXC wrote:

The US has the same problem, $20K house where there are no jobs. Housing crisis in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Why? The infrastructure, expertice and capital to make money from computers and investment exist in these places, but not others.

Over a billion people could comfortable exist in the US. But the infrastructure to support this would have to be built up first. According to Malthus, in the absense of any moral or legal contraints, the population will grow faster than you can build this infrastructure. That's why you sit in traffic, that's why gasoline will often be expensive.

One could say Mars has population pressures. Because there is currenly  infrastructure to support zero human life. A population of one would cause a micro-catastrophie. It's population relative to the resouces and infrastructure to support it all.

And again, Malthus was wrong. We have been able to build our infrastructure fast enough in general. The housing crises was an example of too much infrastructure- more houses built than people to live in them. That is why they are sitting empty and not being rented. One of the solutions has been to actually tear down the houses to remove the excess. Gasoline was expensive, now it isn't. Why? Because production increased and is now at a point where it is much higher than we need. Although applying Malthusian catastrophe to things like roads is very anti-Malthus. Malthus believed that the market could and would provide anything manmade to keep pace with population growth. He made an exception for food because he thought that food was inherently limited. Understandable given his time, but now we know better. 
 
 

EXC wrote:

I wish men were the deciders for having sex. The fact is you met these women in college(not an unemployment line) and you talked to them about your studies and carrer prospects. You looked like a good provider to them just by going to college, the loan provided you with this illusion, drugs helped impare their judgement so the illusion worked. Economics totally in play.

I did? I'm sure you remember it much better than I do. Isn't it easier when everyone in the world just acts like a character in your little fantasy play?

 

EXC wrote:

The biggest factor that determines if a society or family is wealthy is how high women set their price. I'm sure you've noticed that women from wealthy families and cultures are much harder to bed than those that are not.

More pure unsupported conjecture, and conjecture that runs directly contrary to your previous unsupported conjecture where you claimed that poverty limited population. 

 

EXC wrote:

Ultimately what determines the size of any population plant, animal or human is the amount of resoures that can sustain it. So man pressures nature and nature pressures us back. And remember there is also a sexual marketplace that works like the monetary one just with a different currency. So it does all boil down to economics.

At most, the amount of resources sets a ceiling. A ceiling may or may not be binding. For us in the US, the ceiling is currently nowhere near a binding one, so worrying about it is foolish. The same thing can be observed in nature. Animal populations have some limit where they will be overpopulated, but they don't necessarily expand to meet that limit. If they did, every ecosystem in the world would constantly be at or near 100% capacity. The reality is that there are many other factors that come into play and some ecosystems are so plentiful that there is no real danger of ever approaching the ceiling. 

To put it in economic terms, suppose the government decided to cap wealth to lower the population of the evil rich. If they declared that no one needed more than $1 billion in assets and seized anything above that, the ceiling would be binding and the government would force the population of the rich all below $1 billion in value. Suppose instead that someone opposed to the plan edited the law and made it $1 trigintillion, in that case, the ceiling wouldn't be binding and in no danger of being binding now or anytime in the forseeable future. It would be meaningless to worry about it. Just because the ceiling is in place, doesn't mean that suddenly rich people are going to be making decillions of dollars. Other existing factors will hold their wealth well shy. 

 

EXC wrote:

What these countries have in common is women deciding(or being allowed) to have carrers and remain childless. China may get to the point where women are liberated enough that they don't need a one child policy to remain prosperous.

In the US, we only need to cut off immigration and stop a relatively low number of religious nuts and welfare queens.
 

Show that immigration has been an economic negative for the US. 

 

EXC wrote:

At what cost? Close down nature parks to build more and farm more. Force people out of their cars to conserve oil? Dam every river so we have enough water? Do you want everyone living in a little box with our food grown in a laboratories in skyscrapers?

We invent more and build more but live doesn't get better for everyone but the top 1%, thank you population pressures.

Virtually everyone in the US lives much better today than they did decades ago. Again, you have absolutely no basis for your claims. You are just making shit up. 

 

EXC wrote:

Yes at the cost of it being very unheathy. Why do you think organic costs more? It uses more land, water, oil and workers.

More ignorance. Organic has absolutely nothing to due with the nutrients in the food. That we are so wealthy that some people are willing to pay twice the price for produce that was inefficiently grown is evidence that we have no real supply problem with our food. You don't find people worrying about organic or non-organic when there is an actual shortage. American diets are unhealthy because americans like convenience and unhealthy food tastes better. 

 

EXC wrote:


Beyond Saving wrote:


I don't think Marx ever discussed immigration at any great length or detail. Although, I do occasionally have fun poking at right wing anti-immigration nuts that they are Marxists, because the one thing I've read of Marx on immigration sounds a lot like the American right wing.


You know when I talk to right wingers they think I'm a Marxist because I don't support private land ownership for private profit.

Another thing I don't think Marx or Engles would support is minimum wage under a capitalist system. Obviously the Capitalist would just eliminate the job rather than pay a higher wage.
 

Of course they wouldn't, Marx and Engles supported the complete overthrow of the capitalist system so they wouldn't support any policy in a capitalist system at all. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
TELL me and everyone reading HOW FUNCTIONALLY (the mechanics of) are not a form of extortion and theft.  Here try a dictionary definition. The government send you a bill telling you that you owe a certain amount of money.  If you don't pay it, and you resist long enough, they come WITH GUNS and will take you against your will.    ex·tor·tionhttps://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+extortion  ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/noun  the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.     \\\  IF you or I do what was described in my response above, we would go to jail.  In other words, if you or I, come to someone's house after demanding pay and then take them out at gun point, and ultimately take it, that is theft.  YET the government does it, well now, that is OK.  Taking something that does not belong to you is wrong, and is thus theft.  
I already answered your question, in more than one way. You have failed to demonstrate they are at all comparable. Accept your failure, move on

 

So...if the government in Ottawa decides to double your taxes over night, then that's OK becaue they are the government.....

And HOW is it not theft for government to use guns to collect taxes from you? 


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Burnedout wrote:Vastet

Burnedout wrote:

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
TELL me and everyone reading HOW FUNCTIONALLY (the mechanics of) are not a form of extortion and theft.  Here try a dictionary definition. The government send you a bill telling you that you owe a certain amount of money.  If you don't pay it, and you resist long enough, they come WITH GUNS and will take you against your will.    ex·tor·tionhttps://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+extortion  ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/noun  the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.     \\\  IF you or I do what was described in my response above, we would go to jail.  In other words, if you or I, come to someone's house after demanding pay and then take them out at gun point, and ultimately take it, that is theft.  YET the government does it, well now, that is OK.  Taking something that does not belong to you is wrong, and is thus theft.  
I already answered your question, in more than one way. You have failed to demonstrate they are at all comparable. Accept your failure, move on

 

So...if the government in Ottawa decides to double your taxes over night, then that's OK becaue they are the government.....

And HOW is it not theft for government to use guns to collect taxes from you? 

This is a democracy. We'll vote in a different party in the next election who will bring taxes back down. Idiot.
I already covered your other question, and you STILL have failed to legitimise your claim that taxes are theft.

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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
TELL me and everyone reading HOW FUNCTIONALLY (the mechanics of) are not a form of extortion and theft.  Here try a dictionary definition. The government send you a bill telling you that you owe a certain amount of money.  If you don't pay it, and you resist long enough, they come WITH GUNS and will take you against your will.    ex·tor·tionhttps://www.google.com/#q=Definition%2C+extortion  ikˈstôrSH(ə)n/noun  the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.     \\\  IF you or I do what was described in my response above, we would go to jail.  In other words, if you or I, come to someone's house after demanding pay and then take them out at gun point, and ultimately take it, that is theft.  YET the government does it, well now, that is OK.  Taking something that does not belong to you is wrong, and is thus theft.  
I already answered your question, in more than one way. You have failed to demonstrate they are at all comparable. Accept your failure, move on

 

So...if the government in Ottawa decides to double your taxes over night, then that's OK becaue they are the government.....

And HOW is it not theft for government to use guns to collect taxes from you? 

This is a democracy. We'll vote in a different party in the next election who will bring taxes back down. Idiot. I already covered your other question, and you STILL have failed to legitimise your claim that taxes are theft.

 

But what if you fail to elect new party or the new party does not change the higher tax structure, is that OK?  OH...and you are still dodging my question.  Besides that, you are still using the logical fallacy of using an Ad Hominem attack....

Quote:
Idiot.
 See the link for reference:  

 https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem  (can a mod please fix this GOD DAMNED FORMAT, I cannot get the link to work.  Thank you.)


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Burnedout wrote:

Burnedout wrote:

 https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem  (can a mod please fix this GOD DAMNED FORMAT, I cannot get the link to work.  Thank you.)

You can either click on the button with the chain symbol almost in the exact middle of the top row, or you can click source and manually code it with <a href="http://www.mylinkaddress.com">any text you want blue and clickable here</a> 

 

 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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EXC wrote:iwbiek wrote: EXC

EXC wrote:

iwbiek wrote:

EXC seems to me a much more fanatical malthusian than i ever was a marxist.

Not at all.  I just think he was somone with common sense and insight. What he did that Marx and a lot of other so called brilliant economist won't do is tie sociology and human biology with economics.

He was a clergy member and he thought this was all just part of God's plan. So obviously he was wrong on that one. He saw population catastrophies as moral failures. I would say they are rational failures. He called abstainence a moral restraint, I would call mandatory birth and immigration control a rational constraint. I don't agree that it is all the poor overpopulating, it is also the rich hoarding natural resourses. This is more in line with Marxism, the rich take advantage of scarce natural resouses by monopolizing them.

Also he needs to be updated because population preesures isn't just famine. It's nearly all the ills of the modern world(low wages, traffic, homeless, etc..).

You often see brilliant and insightful in one area just lack total common sense in others. This seems to be what Marx and a lot of other lintellectual leftist do. Just ignore common sense to push a political agenda that benefits only themselves short term.

You know Malthus was a great source for Darwin:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html

I think a rational understanding of the causes of poverty and wealth disparity should include some Marx some Malthus and others. Neither was totally right or totally wrong.

 

 

 

Here is what all  economic views miss. No matter what you set up, the top can game it because they are the ones with the most resources. It was much easier in the past to divide humans along political ideologies, but not now. I am sick of humans treating "capitalism" as a form of government. It is merely and act of a government bringing in income. Open society vs closed society are mistakes to focus on because both friend and foe alike seak resources. Gadaffi was a billionaire who owned stock in GE. The Saudi Royal family owns oil companies and invests in banks and weapons. China makes it's money selling cheap crap to the rest of the world. There is not one government that does not invest in the global market. I am quite sure Un's family has bank accounts too.

Centralized wealth can be monopolized by any aspect of a society public or private. But I do agree it is hording wealth. Globaly speaking what makes me sick is 85 of the word's richest people have the power to relieve alot of poverty and create more global stability. 

Fascist states like North Korea and Saudi Arabia's population have more wealth oppressing them. But the wealth in more free societies are doing a reall shitty job at creating more global stability and reducing poverty. My problem isn't wealth itself, my problem is that it has become a global race to the bottom.

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 When humans talk of

 When humans talk of political parties are religions or business models all of it is the same stupid refusal to understand all of it is an act of communcation to replicate what we think works for us as a species. Evolution is diverse and any idea that tries to slap that on diversity is fucking bullshit. Long before humans settled in cities and set up boarders we saught resources. I value western ideas more because they take into account that diversity. Some in the west however have taken our open system as license to make class an automatic morality.

Anytime you see an imbalance in a society you will see instablilty, shifting from a more open socity or a more closed society is not the fucking issue. Starve enough people to death evolution kicks in. Nick Hanauer a BILLIONAIRE understands this.

Beyond and Ibweik are right in that economic views are complex. They are only important to humans to undertand, not to make excuses for them, but to detangle them so that humans can understand the core is the same no matter what humans set up.

FUCK CHE FUCK AYN, it still amounts to making excuses to take advantages of reasources, and humans have always needed resources. BALANCE not parties, diversity, not monopolies. Ultimately whatever humans set up it is still the same rock we all live on.

I really could give a shit less how much people despise me, but my hope for this imperfect world would be that more people understand Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. The world is natural, and part of that nature is our ability to cooperate. None of us are bound by law to like each other or only say nice things about each other, but in the end we still need resources.

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Burnedout wrote:But what if

Burnedout wrote:
But what if you fail to elect new party or the new party does not change the higher tax structure, is that OK?

Then they'll get booted too. Is your understanding of democracy as bad as science and media or something? lol

Burnedout wrote:
See the link for reference:  

Read it yourself, it applies to you.

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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
But what if you fail to elect new party or the new party does not change the higher tax structure, is that OK?
Then they'll get booted too. Is your understanding of democracy as bad as science and media or something? lol
Burnedout wrote:
See the link for reference:  
Read it yourself, it applies to you.

 

You NEVER answerd the question....SO WHAT if you elect a new party in place, what if they don't repeal the tax increase on you or at least lower it, does that make it OK?  Are you ever going to answer?  OR...are you just going to keep insulting me as usual?  


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Burnedout wrote:You NEVER

Burnedout wrote:
You NEVER answerd the question....

A lie.

Burnedout wrote:
SO WHAT if you elect a new party in place

So EVERYTHING.

Burnedout wrote:
what if they don't repeal the tax increase on you or at least lower it, does that make it OK?

Sure. Just like it's ok they don't get re-elected and the next party does repeal the taxes.

Burnedout wrote:
. Are you ever going to answer?

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, apparently.

Burnedout wrote:
OR...are you just going to keep insulting me as usual?  

Unlike you I have the intelligence to do both simultaneously.

Now why don't you get to my questions? LOLOLOL

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 Give it up Brian, you

 Give it up Brian, you don't even know what capitalism is, you can't tell the difference between capitalism, marxism, mercantilism, feudalism or any other major economic system ever in place or theorized. Let alone get into any serious discussion about any of the main schools of economic study. There are chimps who have a better grasp of basic economics than you do and parrots that have more to say.  

You don't have a fucking clue what Che, Ayn, Marx or any other historical figure believed. Hell, I'm willing to bet that you can't even talk intelligently about what your butt buddy Nick Hanauer believes, you probably didn't even bother to actually watch his TED talk that got him in the news. All you know is that he had a couple of one liners that you liked and read in HuffPo and the Daily Kos and now he is your ctrl-v. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote: Prove

Beyond Saving wrote:

Prove that food is unaffordable today compared to what it was when our population was much smaller. 

Food prices have only gone down as a percentage of income, thanks to better technology at the cost of unhealthy processed foods. Another factor is smaller family sizes.  But taxes, housing have gone way up making up for any gains. People now have to buy a car and education just to survive. So putting food on the table is still a big deal and it is why we keep spending more on welfare just to feed the population.

I think if proves Malthus correct, we have massive improvements in farming technolgy, but still massive food insecurity.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Detroit exhibit A,

Detroit is an example of the catastrophie that inevitable follows a population boom.

You had an economic boom at the beginning of the auto industry. So,  you had massive migration of poor people from all country and world. The employers demanded cheap immigrant labor and the government let them have it from overpopulated places overseas. The workers didn't benefit much because with a population boom, prices go up especially housing. There was massive stress on the infrastructure due to population increases. Schools were overcrowded and teachers couldn't afford to live there.

Only a small group of investors and landlords benefitted from the economic boom. As always, the workers were screwed. So they formed labor unions to get their share. Then capitialists figured they could take advantage of cheap labor elsewehere better than Detroit. If they had carefully managed population growth and the US government not flooded Detroit with immigrant labor, they would not be in the mess they are now.

You see the same cycle happening now in Silicon Valley. The employers can bring in all the immigrant labor from overpopulated 3rd world they please. The workers income is largely taken away with taxes and housing. Only the wealthy investors get richer. It is where Detroit was 60 years ago.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Reducing the size of the population in most modern countries would actually aggravate the problem- humans create value, if they disappear (or never existed) you lose real wealth. In dense countries, worrying about population pressure might be worthwhile, but certainly not a blanket answer everywhere. 

That is the arguement for allowing more tech worker visas. But they need space for housing and other necessities. They put preesure on our already overburdened infrastructure and schools, Later they'll demand retirement benefits. And keep wages down now. Who benefits? The 1% only.

 

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Solely increasing the food supply doesn't have anywhere near the effect on population levels he predicted.

I think you're misreading his point. In the absense of any constraints, poplulation growth with create a catastrophie. What has happened in the USA is the liberation of women. Now women decide not to marry or have children instead of being men's property. We now have birth control and abortion. So we've avoided a major catastrophie, but we have subsistence wages thanks to excessive immigration.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Virtually all Americans eat meat every meal, or at least daily.

For now, thanks to food stamps and borrowing from China to pay for it.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Meanwhile, food production has grown exponentially and there is good reason to believe that it will continue to throughout our lifetimes and possibly beyond.

But how will workers pay for the technolgy to grow more food, without a high paying job? If wages ever start to go up, more immigrants will come in to drive wages down. So much of this technology to grow more food will never be built until we control immigration.

For an economy to function there does not just need to be demand there needs to be demand from people with wealth.
 

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

In case you haven't noticed over the years, I am a libertarian. 

Totally disagree with this delusion of yours. You support land ownership. What is that? The government grants a special group of people a right at everyone elses expense. A no trespassing sign on your property is an infringement of everyone else's liberty.

No different than leftists. They claim food, shelter, healthcare and education are human rights. To deny them these rights means infringing upon their liberty.

So the so called libertarians and convervatives have their welfare state for the privledged classes. Things like water, drilling and mining rights are also welfare for the moneyied class. The Federal reserve is basically a welfare agency for banks and wall street.

So you're the same as any leftist socialist, you just want different free stuff for a different class of people.

 

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Without a population you have no wealth. Humans create wealth. America is America because we had a ridiculously fast growing population that was quickly put to work creating wealth efficiently and effectively. It made us the richest country in the world by far. An argument could be made that one of the reasons that our growth in wealth slowed is because we started restricting legal immigration. There is certainly a correlation, proving the cause would probably be difficult, but easier than you trying to prove your baseless claims. 

Let me set you strait on American history. We had a vast continent that was sparcely populated(compared to Europe) to begin with. Much of the remaining pouulaiton was reduced via disease war and forced relocaton. There has been this continuous cycle of economic/population boom and bust in various parts of the country. But overall we've been more prosperous thanks to having a lot of resourses relative to population.  But We've now reached now a point of population saturation and teeter on becoming another 3rd world country.

Wealth for the wealthy is slowed by giving them less access to cheaper labor. Is that what we need more income inequality?

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

How does starving people pay for infrastructure? Do you even understand why money has value?

 

Haiti gets foreign aid and they have a modest tourist and export business. So what do you do with this money? Pay so people dont' die now or invest in infrastructure?



Beyond Saving wrote:

we built infrastructure too fast! that is what the housing bubble was and why we have a ton of empty houses sitting around a lot of the US.

If there were jobs in these areas, the homes would have all been sold and filled. People flock in droves to any place with affordable homes and a job to pay for it. So foolish capitalists(aided by government policy) built homes but we didn't build any  industry nearby. This is just a case of building the wrong kind of infrastrucure. They should have built more business parks and education centers.

Beyond Saving wrote:

One of the reasons Ireland remained very poor for so long after the famine (although your logic they should have been rich because they had a much lower population and the agricultural production the size they had with a larger population) was because such a large portion of their population died or emigrated and that really fucks with an economy. 

Things slowly got better until they become one of the most prosperous in Europe. Their prosperity matches the decline in population. Then they decided to let cheap labor immigrants in. Now, Ireland is having an affordable housing and recessions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Population_of_Ireland_and_Europe_1750_to_2005.svg/450px-Population_of_Ire...

Beyond Saving wrote:

The government only has money if there are people paying taxes. The more people, the more of them pay taxes, the more money government has for things like building bridges. That is why large cities have huge budgets that allow them to build all sorts of things that you don't get in rural areas. If I wanted a bridge to be built, I would probably have to build it myself because my local government doesn't have anywhere near the funds for any such large project.

Children don't pay taxes. They require resources. So you first need to get the birthrate down so there are extra resouces to build a bridge.

How do you get tax revenue from poor people? People with large families to support don't have extra income that can be confiscated without causing massive hardship.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Nice vacant slogan. The poor don't sit in traffic jams, they don't have cars. 

The poor are often working these days. So they commute a long way to find affordable housing in a bus or car.

Beyond Saving wrote:

I did? I'm sure you remember it much better than I do. Isn't it easier when everyone in the world just acts like a character in your little fantasy play?

Millions years of evolution where women looked at men to be providers before having sex. You were the first guy to ever break that chain. Sorry, I didn't know how incredible unique you are.

Beyond Saving wrote:

At most, the amount of resources sets a ceiling. A ceiling may or may not be binding. For us in the US, the ceiling is currently nowhere near a binding one, so worrying about it is foolish. The same thing can be observed in nature. Animal populations have some limit where they will be overpopulated, but they don't necessarily expand to meet that limit. If they did, every ecosystem in the world would constantly be at or near 100% capacity. The reality is that there are many other factors that come into play and some ecosystems are so plentiful that there is no real danger of ever approaching the ceiling. 

So your argument seems to be becauce it is possible to support more population why worrry about it? Even though it causes everyone but the wealthy''s life to suffer, as long as we don't see tons of people running around with pot bellies from starvation,  population doesn't contribute to our problems. I shouldn't complain if I'm forced to live in my car as long as I got some highly processed unnatural food I can afford?

I'm sorry but I don't want to scratch out my survival just so capitalists can get wealthier exploiting imported 3rd world labor.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Show that immigration has been an economic negative for the US. 

Stagnant wages, lower labor rate participation, rents rising fast., wealth disparity, more traffic, pollution, more taxes, more debt,  What has gotten better? With new technolgy things should be cheaper and better. So why is life not better for anyone but the wealthy? Do you have an alternative theory?

You should see the show, Last Man on Earth. When he is all alone, he basically lives in a totally libertarian world. Then as more people come into his world, he is forced to give up his liberties.

A  rise in regualtion, taxation, more stressful living  accompanies population growth.

 

The first American Civil war was caused by allowing wealthy capitalists to exploit the land and imported foriegn labor to get even richer. I'm sure this will be the root cause of the second civil war as well.

 

 

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
You NEVER answerd the question....
A lie.
Burnedout wrote:
SO WHAT if you elect a new party in place
So EVERYTHING.
Burnedout wrote:
what if they don't repeal the tax increase on you or at least lower it, does that make it OK?
Sure. Just like it's ok they don't get re-elected and the next party does repeal the taxes.
Burnedout wrote:
. Are you ever going to answer?
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, apparently.
Burnedout wrote:
OR...are you just going to keep insulting me as usual?  
Unlike you I have the intelligence to do both simultaneously. Now why don't you get to my questions? LOLOLOL

 

Folks...see...He has NEVER answered my questions, but rather, he just dodges and uses an homs.  He cannot bring himself to admit that there is no difference in the force used by government to collect taxes vs the force used by criminals to extort money from their victims.  


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Burnedout wrote:Vastet

Burnedout wrote:

Vastet wrote:
Burnedout wrote:
You NEVER answerd the question....
A lie.
Burnedout wrote:
SO WHAT if you elect a new party in place
So EVERYTHING.
Burnedout wrote:
what if they don't repeal the tax increase on you or at least lower it, does that make it OK?
Sure. Just like it's ok they don't get re-elected and the next party does repeal the taxes.
Burnedout wrote:
. Are you ever going to answer?
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, apparently.
Burnedout wrote:
OR...are you just going to keep insulting me as usual?  
Unlike you I have the intelligence to do both simultaneously. Now why don't you get to my questions? LOLOLOL

 

Folks...see...He has NEVER answered my questions, but rather, he just dodges and uses an homs.  He cannot bring himself to admit that there is no difference in the force used by government to collect taxes vs the force used by criminals to extort money from their victims.  

Everyone's already written you off as a deluded crack pot. Even butter isn't responding to you now, though that's probably more to do with you ignoring him than anything.
In other words, not only are you lying about my not answering your question as well as continuing to fail to provide any answer to my question, you're now also begging for help from an audience so much smarter than you that they aren't paying attention to you.
I love chewing up weak minds, which is the only reason I'm not ignoring you also.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


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Vastet wrote:Burnedout

This comment has been moved here.


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Vastet wrote: Even butter

Vastet wrote:
Even butter isn't responding to you now, though that's probably more to do with you ignoring him than anything.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/34904

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/34847

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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EXC wrote:Beyond Saving

EXC wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

Prove that food is unaffordable today compared to what it was when our population was much smaller. 

Food prices have only gone down as a percentage of income, thanks to better technology at the cost of unhealthy processed foods. Another factor is smaller family sizes.  But taxes, housing have gone way up making up for any gains. People now have to buy a car and education just to survive. So putting food on the table is still a big deal and it is why we keep spending more on welfare just to feed the population.

I think if proves Malthus correct, we have massive improvements in farming technolgy, but still massive food insecurity.

Ok, so you admit your earlier claim about food being expensive is false. And no, it doesn't prove Malthus correct, because he argued quite convincingly that wrought commodities weren't an issue because humans would always create what was needed. He made a very clear distinction between food and wrought commodities. He saw food as a problem, because he saw it as inherently limited, and no matter what humans did, they couldn't force extra production from mother Earth. While wrought commodities- things like roads, houses, tools etc. weren't an issue because the materials are plentiful and we can always make more to meet population needs. He actually argued against Says Law. So if you are right (which you aren't) then Malthus was not only wrong about food (which I would argue has reached the point of being a wrought commodity in a Malthusian context) he was wrong about everything.

 

EXC wrote:

Detroit is an example of the catastrophie that inevitable follows a population boom.

Except that "inevitable" catastrophe hasn't hit other cities with population booms. 

 

EXC wrote:

You had an economic boom at the beginning of the auto industry. So,  you had massive migration of poor people from all country and world. The employers demanded cheap immigrant labor and the government let them have it from overpopulated places overseas. The workers didn't benefit much because with a population boom, prices go up especially housing. There was massive stress on the infrastructure due to population increases. Schools were overcrowded and teachers couldn't afford to live there.

Except teachers did live there and their population was doing very well relative to the rest of the country. Many a blue collar worker had a retirement that was remarkably luxurious compared to other blue collar workers. 

 

EXC wrote:

Only a small group of investors and landlords benefitted from the economic boom. As always, the workers were screwed. So they formed labor unions to get their share. Then capitialists figured they could take advantage of cheap labor elsewehere better than Detroit. If they had carefully managed population growth and the US government not flooded Detroit with immigrant labor, they would not be in the mess they are now.

If by "small" you mean a few million people. However they "managed" their immigration, Detroit still would have been headed downhill when the people who maintained their infrastructure left for greener pastures. Infrastructure requires people to run, when people leave- in Detroits case because of jobs in Chicago's case because of gang violence- everything falls apart. It isn't because the infrastructure was insufficient in raw materials to provide for the population, it was because the people who provided it no longer had an economic incentive to put in the human labor necessary. Malthus wasn't talking about the economics of distribution systems, he was talking about actual physical shortages of food. IOW, no matter how perfect your distribution system was, there wouldn't be enough food. That was his disagreement with Marx, because Marx believed that there was enough food for everyone with an improved distribution system, while Malthus argued that food shortages was an inherent and unchangeable reality of society, which poverty and vice were tools that humans used to limit their populations, preventing massive famines. 

 

Quote:

That is the arguement for allowing more tech worker visas. But they need space for housing and other necessities. They put preesure on our already overburdened infrastructure and schools, Later they'll demand retirement benefits. And keep wages down now. Who benefits? The 1% only.

There are many arguments for immigration from every school of economic thought. 

 

EXC wrote:

I think you're misreading his point. In the absense of any constraints, poplulation growth with create a catastrophie. What has happened in the USA is the liberation of women. Now women decide not to marry or have children instead of being men's property. We now have birth control and abortion. So we've avoided a major catastrophie, but we have subsistence wages thanks to excessive immigration.

Yet the only constraints we have are voluntary. He argued that the constraints on population growth occurred BECAUSE of food shortages. We clearly don't have a food shortage-if anything we have massive food surpluses- yet we have many constraints on our population growth still being practiced and not being enforced by laws. He had two main premises in his original essay:

P1. Population grows exponentially while food production grows arithmically.

P2. Populations will grow to match the maximum food production of a society.  

Question: In most societies population growth doesn't exceed their maximum food production, why?

Conclusion: Misery, vice and morals act as limiting factor on population growth and therefore, population growth approaching the physical limits of food production is the main cause of misery and vice. Therefore, it is impossible to eliminate misery and vice.

 

P1 is proven false, food production has grown exponentially.

P2 is proven false, the US population as well as many other modern countries has not grown to exceed physical food production capabilities or even to approach the limit. We can have a major drought as we did just a few years ago and we still produce more than our country eats- and our country eats way more than strictly needed to survive.

So that leads to a false conclusion, our population growth has slowed and obviously we still have misery and vice and there are still plenty of right wingers banging their moral fists on the pulpit. The only possible conclusion is that there are factors at work beyond mere food shortages. (Although his main assertion that society is not "perfectible" or that it is impossible to get rid of misery and vice, is probably still true for other reasons- it was a question of whether it was possible to eliminate poverty that was the inspiration for the essay)

 

EXC wrote:

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Meanwhile, food production has grown exponentially and there is good reason to believe that it will continue to throughout our lifetimes and possibly beyond.

But how will workers pay for the technolgy to grow more food, without a high paying job? If wages ever start to go up, more immigrants will come in to drive wages down. So much of this technology to grow more food will never be built until we control immigration.

For an economy to function there does not just need to be demand there needs to be demand from people with wealth.

It is being built you fucking ignorant idiot. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta have spent billions of dollars on research and development. The newest release is a drought resistent corn that was planted on some half million acres last year and increased yields in dry areas almost 10%. How do they pay for it? By getting corn at about half the price they paid for it two years ago. Better technology= better yields = lower prices. Agriculture biotech is currently one of the best funded and immensely profitable fields out there. One of the few industries that grew consistently through our most recent recession as crashing land prices met with global turbulence in the grain markets.

 

EXC wrote:

Totally disagree with this delusion of yours. You support land ownership. What is that? The government grants a special group of people a right at everyone elses expense. A no trespassing sign on your property is an infringement of everyone else's liberty.

No different than leftists. They claim food, shelter, healthcare and education are human rights. To deny them these rights means infringing upon their liberty.

So the so called libertarians and convervatives have their welfare state for the privledged classes. Things like water, drilling and mining rights are also welfare for the moneyied class. The Federal reserve is basically a welfare agency for banks and wall street.

So you're the same as any leftist socialist, you just want different free stuff for a different class of people.

 

I'd be terrified if you agreed with me. 

 

EXC wrote:

Let me set you strait on American history. We had a vast continent that was sparcely populated(compared to Europe) to begin with. Much of the remaining pouulaiton was reduced via disease war and forced relocaton. There has been this continuous cycle of economic/population boom and bust in various parts of the country. But overall we've been more prosperous thanks to having a lot of resourses relative to population.  But We've now reached now a point of population saturation and teeter on becoming another 3rd world country.

Wealth for the wealthy is slowed by giving them less access to cheaper labor. Is that what we need more income inequality?

All I can do is facepalm. I haven't the energy to go down that rabbit hole with you, let's stick to Malthus.  

 

EXC wrote:

Haiti gets foreign aid and they have a modest tourist and export business. So what do you do with this money? Pay so people dont' die now or invest in infrastructure?

It isn't an either or choice. 

 

EXC wrote:

Children don't pay taxes. They require resources. So you first need to get the birthrate down so there are extra resouces to build a bridge.

How do you get tax revenue from poor people? People with large families to support don't have extra income that can be confiscated without causing massive hardship.

 

You do know that all adults have to be children first right? Kids grow up, get jobs and pay taxes. 

 

EXC wrote:

So your argument seems to be becauce it is possible to support more population why worrry about it? Even though it causes everyone but the wealthy''s life to suffer, as long as we don't see tons of people running around with pot bellies from starvation,  population doesn't contribute to our problems. I shouldn't complain if I'm forced to live in my car as long as I got some highly processed unnatural food I can afford?

I'm sorry but I don't want to scratch out my survival just so capitalists can get wealthier exploiting imported 3rd world labor.

If you are "forced" to live in your car in US today it isn't the fault of the Mexican mowing lawns. Indeed, from a Malthusian standpoint, Mexican immigration is a savior to us since they account for a very disproportionate amount of our agricultural labor, and thus directly and immediately increase our food supply- which according to Malthus is a very positive thing. Before you go touting someone, you should probably make sure you actually agree with them. 

 

EXC wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

Show that immigration has been an economic negative for the US. 

Stagnant wages, lower labor rate participation, rents rising fast., wealth disparity, more traffic, pollution, more taxes, more debt,  What has gotten better? With new technolgy things should be cheaper and better. So why is life not better for anyone but the wealthy? Do you have an alternative theory?

What isn't cheaper and better than 20-30 years ago? Yeah, short term we had a recession that sucked- it also caused a huge drop in our immigration. During the 90's when immigration was extremely high and we saw the largest increase in immigrants as a percentage of our population of any decade since such numbers were tracked, our economy boomed and damn near everyone was better off. It doesn't matter how you twist the numbers, immigration is greatly beneficial. There are dozens of better theories, but you have already decided that population is the only lens you will look through. You didn't arrive at your conclusion carefully analyzing data, you created your conclusion and you attempt to figure out how to justify it. 

 

Quote:

You should see the show, Last Man on Earth. When he is all alone, he basically lives in a totally libertarian world. Then as more people come into his world, he is forced to give up his liberties.

A  rise in regualtion, taxation, more stressful living  accompanies population growth. 

The first American Civil war was caused by allowing wealthy capitalists to exploit the land and imported foriegn labor to get even richer. I'm sure this will be the root cause of the second civil war as well.

Perhaps that is the problem, you get your information from movies. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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iwbiek wrote:...because i

iwbiek wrote:

...because i still believe marx's surplus value theory to be the best explanation of how capitalism perpetuates itself.

Since this thread is in major need of intellectual salvation, I submit to you that Marx's largest flaw was the assumption that an objective value exists. Value is completely subjective, and sometimes (maybe even often) arbitrary. I think value is an illusion that Marx and many other great economists have fallen for. My argument is that surplus value rarely exists. Where the capitalist makes their money is by either directly selling the value of a laborer to the demand, or by matching that labor with the labor of another (or multiple others) to create an end product that meets a demand. The theory of surplus labor suggests that the labor alone has value, in most cases it does not.

For example, take our favorite unemployed dishwasher, he can sit around washing dishes all damn day, and it isn't worth shit on a shingle. His labor is only valuable when it is paired with cooks, waiters, waitresses and bussers along with some sort of advertising scheme to bring in customers. Alone, his physical labor leads to a pile of clean dishes which can be purchased brand new at Walmart for less than his wage. The capitalist isn't profiting from surplus value inherent in the labor itself, he/she is profiting from establishing a combination of the dishwasher and other laborors that creates a demand from the public. The surplus only exists within the framework of the combined parts. Individually, labor is inherently worthless. What you produce is only worth what you can find someone to pay you. Often, the capitalist can pay a higher value than you could possibly receive independently through connections, capital and matchmaking. But that excess value isn't independent, it is dependent on the structure created by the capitalist- and will succeed or fail based upon that structure.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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Beyond Saving wrote:It is

Beyond Saving wrote:
It is being built you fucking ignorant idiot. Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta have spent billions of dollars

Asshole, low wage workers are not paying for it. How the fuck does a dishwasher pay the high salary of a Monsanto scientist?

These 3 companies you mentioned are some the biggest corporate welfare queens out there. It is taxpayers and money borrowed from wealthy places China. The USA is on debt death spiral.

So do you think 60+ million people on food stamps is sustainable? Is ever increasing taxation on the middle class to pay for Monsanto's corporate welfare sustainable? Is government debt sustainable?

So is your vision of the future a small group of lazy wealth capitalists get richer, while all the workers are kept alive on cheap high fructose corn syrup and live in their cars cause all the land to build affordable houses is owned by the Monopoly game winners? And we keep bringing in all the cheap labor immigrants the capitalists want cause there's now way they compete for jobs, housing, space on the road or food?

You're only rebuttal seems to be denial that workers are not being squeezed or make this ridiculous claim that low wage workers are funding advanced research, not massive government borrowing.

You also seem to think illegals don't cost anything even though they compete for jobs, housing, space on the roads. The use our hospitals and schools for free and don't pay any taxes. Seems obvious to me we're paying for the cheaper food in other ways, but I'm just an idiot.

Thanks to all the visas for people with Masters and PhDs., you can't get a decent jobs without massive spending on education. This immigration is also a big reason the working middle class is on a downward spiral.

I've explained my position ad nausem. So why don't you explain your theory on why despite all the technological advances and additional infrastructure, live for the poor still sucks and the middle class gets squeezed harder and harder. All the benefits go the bourgeoisie.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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Beyond Saving wrote: he/she

Beyond Saving wrote:
he/she is profiting from establishing a combination of the dishwasher and other laborors that creates a demand from the public. The surplus only exists within the framework of the combined parts. Individually, labor is inherently worthless. What you produce is only worth what you can find someone to pay you. Often, the capitalist can pay a higher value than you could possibly receive independently through connections, capital and matchmaking. But that excess value isn't independent, it is dependent on the structure created by the capitalist- and will succeed or fail based upon that structure.

Have you ever heard of supply and demand? You seem to be in denial that this exists(flood our markets with immigrant laborers and consumers, but no negative effects).

Business makes a profit when the commodities you need to produce your product are in oversupply and the product you sell is in undersupply. The successful capitalist simply brings these two elements together.

So for example a restaurants depends on cheap labor and food suppliers. Then on the selling side they must have something unique like the location, ambiance or style of cooking. Something that is not easily repeated so they are a unique supplier. Therefore, a wealth restaurant owner benefits greatly from cheap labor and high land prices near his business.

Also, successful businesses create demand for their product and not the other way around.

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen


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EXC wrote: Asshole, low wage

EXC wrote:
Asshole, low wage workers are not paying for it. How the fuck does a dishwasher pay the high salary of a Monsanto scientist?

Is that a serious question? They employ maybe 100,000 people between the three of them across the entire world and their products are sold to billions. Every time a low wage worker buys a hot pocket they are paying the salary of a scientist. 

 

EXC wrote:

These 3 companies you mentioned are some the biggest corporate welfare queens out there. It is taxpayers and money borrowed from wealthy places China.

Prove it.

 

EXC wrote:

The USA is on debt death spiral.

A completely different issue. We aren't talking about the US budget. 

 

Quote:

So do you think 60+ million people on food stamps is sustainable? Is ever increasing taxation on the middle class to pay for Monsanto's corporate welfare sustainable? Is government debt sustainable? So is your vision of the future a small group of lazy wealth capitalists get richer, while all the workers are kept alive on cheap high fructose corn syrup and live in their cars cause all the land to build affordable houses is owned by the Monopoly game winners?

What does any of this have to do with the issue at hand? As a portion of our budget, food stamps are a rounding error, although I would contend that people wouldn't starve to death if they were eliminated. A lot of people on food stamps have smart phones. But that has nothing to do with Malthus except to prove his theory even more wrong. We have 60 million people on food stamps, and it is nearly impossible to starve to death in the US, yet our population growth rate has slowed significantly. We can argue about how food should be distributed, but the bottom line is that we produce more than we need and can continue to do so certainly for the next few hundred years.  

 

Quote:

And we keep bringing in all the cheap labor immigrants the capitalists want cause there's now way they compete for jobs, housing, space on the road or food? You're only rebuttal seems to be denial that workers are not being squeezed or make this ridiculous claim that low wage workers are funding advanced research, not massive government borrowing.

I have only asserted that population pressures are not the sole cause of all our problems. Malthus was wrong that population growth would exceed our ability to produce enough food. We produce enough food, period. And we will for the forseeable future. Whether our system of distributing those resources is just, fair or effective is a completely different question. Marx argued that the capitalist system was unjust. His big disagreement with Malthus was because he saw Malthus as an apologist making the argument that poverty wasn't the result of an unjust system, it was a natural and unavoidable result because the population would always grow to bump against the maximum capacity of food production and misery and vice would then be the restraints that would prevent catastrophe. On this point, Marx was right and Malthus was wrong. With our 20/20 hindsight, we can see that food production has grown exponentially and population growth is nowhere close to meeting our food capacity.

 

EXC wrote:

You also seem to think illegals don't cost anything even though they compete for jobs, housing, space on the roads. The use our hospitals and schools for free and don't pay any taxes. Seems obvious to me we're paying for the cheaper food in other ways, but I'm just an idiot. Thanks to all the visas for people with Masters and PhDs., you can't get a decent jobs without massive spending on education. This immigration is also a big reason the working middle class is on a downward spiral. I've explained my position ad nausem. So why don't you explain your theory on why despite all the technological advances and additional infrastructure, live for the poor still sucks and the middle class gets squeezed harder and harder. All the benefits go the bourgeoisie.

Being poor today is a fuckton better than being poor 100 years ago (or even 50 years ago). Immigration and the cheap labor that comes with it has almost always been a net benefit for our society and improved the lives of all the poor. We can thank much of our infrastructure that makes being poor in America so much better than being poor in Mexico to the African, Russians, Irish, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants in the past that came over and worked for low wages or sometimes actually slaves, that allowed us to expand rapidly and take advantage of our natural resources. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


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EXC wrote:Beyond Saving

EXC wrote:
Beyond Saving wrote:
he/she is profiting from establishing a combination of the dishwasher and other laborors that creates a demand from the public. The surplus only exists within the framework of the combined parts. Individually, labor is inherently worthless. What you produce is only worth what you can find someone to pay you. Often, the capitalist can pay a higher value than you could possibly receive independently through connections, capital and matchmaking. But that excess value isn't independent, it is dependent on the structure created by the capitalist- and will succeed or fail based upon that structure.
Have you ever heard of supply and demand? You seem to be in denial that this exists(flood our markets with immigrant laborers and consumers, but no negative effects). Business makes a profit when the commodities you need to produce your product are in oversupply and the product you sell is in undersupply. The successful capitalist simply brings these two elements together. So for example a restaurants depends on cheap labor and food suppliers. Then on the selling side they must have something unique like the location, ambiance or style of cooking. Something that is not easily repeated so they are a unique supplier. Therefore, a wealth restaurant owner benefits greatly from cheap labor and high land prices near his business. Also, successful businesses create demand for their product and not the other way around.

I'm not talking about how the wage of employees is determined. Marx would agree that supply and demand are the main drivers of wages. He in fact was one of the first economists to really go into great detail on the subject. What I am talking about is Marx's concept of value- if a worker built a widget from two commodities, Marx saw the value as capital costs (the amount of depreciation of the equipment caused by building the widget, cost of energy consumed etc.), the combined cost of the commodities, plus the value of the human labor put into it. So when the widget sells, you can subtract all the non-human costs and the remaining is the value of the human labor. The extent that the worker was being paid less than that difference is the extent to which the worker is being exploited. That is a ridiculously short version of it, but the basic idea that I dispute is that Marx saw human labor as inherently adding value. 

I argue that objective value doesn't exist. Even a built widget has no value until it is actually exchanged to someone. Marx did make the distinction between value and price (or realised value), but I think that misses the point. Even money has varying values within the same person throughout the same day. People don't make even exchanges of value for value, they make exchanges where what they receive is more valuable than what they part with. And it is very common that both parties in the exchange believe they came out ahead. They both DID come out ahead because value is completely subjective. The widget, and indeed the money, have no value at all until the agreement to trade widget for money is made and at that point, each is more valuable than the other. It was Marx's insistence that there was some kind of real objective value that existed in objects and was imparted into objects by labor that was to core of his mistakes. The capitalist makes a profit by identifying, predicting or creating differences in subjective values and matching them up. 

 

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X