Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Capital gain
Obviously we will post many current events and what not, but before i started discussing anything going on or not, i feel the need to bring up capitalism, i was reading Johnny's myspace, and saw his disgust with capitalism, i didnt really need to read that to know, i could of assume he had some displeasure with it, i am going defend such economic system...obviously i will get feedback so i will take into account the comparison of socialism...
I will start by breaking down socialism
as you know it is as a general, characterized by the public ownership means of production. central planning, and the distribution of goods without a profit motive
capitalism is an system in which there is private ownership of means of production, the pursuit of profit, and free market competition..
living in our society, you do not understand its basic tenets, capitalist believe that market forces should be determined by both product and prices, profits are good for humanity, peopel will strive for profits, it stimulates them to produce and distribute goods efficiently as well as to develop new products..
in contrast you feel profit is immoral, the only way to show profit is to pay workers less than their labor, profit therefore is the excess value that has been withheld from the workers, you feel that the government should protect workers from exploitation, to do so, it should own the means of production, using them not to produce profit, but to produce items that match peoples needs, not their ability to pay..
your primary argument is that it leads to social inequality, that there is a tiny top layer cusp of wealthy, powerful people who exploit the masses, (poorly paid workers), you state that this top layer wields vast political power, those few own the means of production and reap huge benefits, and in turn are able to get legislation passed usally against pulbic good..
in turn..
socialism does not respect the individuals right, a govermental body controlling the peoples lives, deciding where there is work, where schooling, i.e china decides how many children may bear. Central planning is so grossly inefficient and that there is really poor chance of producing much wealth, not only (GDP) but in the sense of stimulating the economy
i fall somewhere in between these lines..obviously Johnny and Mike (wherever they are) are upstanding citizens and are only lying to themselves if they say they do not exist among a free interchanging capitalistic society, and that their own profit pursuit is euqally shared..i feel that the convergence theory is essentially what makes most sense on an off paper, if you were to look at the last century of failed communist states its not hard, in a sense i can sit here and list miserable failed communist regime in which millions were killed, and exploited, soviet union, vietnam, cuba, china...and so on, these regimes were not what mr marx/engels had envisioned obviously..it is a fantasy economical system that cannot freely exist in this world, yes you can look at states that have had favorable chance, such as Sweden ,Denmark but these socialistic states are democratic in nature but are converged, Vladimir Lenin, an example of a successful marxist run, russian revolution (2nd one), was successful..yes, but once things were moving throughtout, Lenin had to establish a New Economic policy mixing capitalistic ideals into, China is doing the exact same thing so it will not choke itself...
i feel the ideals expressed by socialism are very favorable and i agree with them, but if were trying to establish what will work with reality it is impossible its pretty on paper but fails in reality...yes yes things are bad in the united states and i can go on for hours about our medical system that needs more than a facelift, but we encorporate many mixes, medicaid, food stamps, welfare, unemployment compensation, subsidized housing, social security, a mininum wage, a hybrid mix is perfect..china and russia in the 1980s and 1990s were producing shoddy goods and lagged behind the west, they had to reinstate market forces, they made private ownership of property legal, they auctioned off state own industries. Even Vietnam has embraced it..it is impossible not to understand its potential, yes there will be poors, people underpaid, a rich elite, the poor establish many jobs for people, just by being poor..i know weird right? i can give you a whole peice on that, or you can read Herbert J. Gans paper on the poor, not explaing their sitation or proposing reform, but the uses of poverty: the poor pay all, what i am saying is that realistically, to prosper, to make profit, to have the freedom to do what you want with business or the pursuit of capital, is left in a capitalistic society.
i lean to many of socialism beliefs, but its failed time and time again, and will, men cannot avoid free will, jealousy, loss of motivation and there greed...a hybrid mix would do a better job aiding society, yes we have many problems but if we can move on from our current healthcare system i feel things may improve...
much love
I will start by breaking down socialism
as you know it is as a general, characterized by the public ownership means of production. central planning, and the distribution of goods without a profit motive
capitalism is an system in which there is private ownership of means of production, the pursuit of profit, and free market competition..
living in our society, you do not understand its basic tenets, capitalist believe that market forces should be determined by both product and prices, profits are good for humanity, peopel will strive for profits, it stimulates them to produce and distribute goods efficiently as well as to develop new products..
in contrast you feel profit is immoral, the only way to show profit is to pay workers less than their labor, profit therefore is the excess value that has been withheld from the workers, you feel that the government should protect workers from exploitation, to do so, it should own the means of production, using them not to produce profit, but to produce items that match peoples needs, not their ability to pay..
your primary argument is that it leads to social inequality, that there is a tiny top layer cusp of wealthy, powerful people who exploit the masses, (poorly paid workers), you state that this top layer wields vast political power, those few own the means of production and reap huge benefits, and in turn are able to get legislation passed usally against pulbic good..
in turn..
socialism does not respect the individuals right, a govermental body controlling the peoples lives, deciding where there is work, where schooling, i.e china decides how many children may bear. Central planning is so grossly inefficient and that there is really poor chance of producing much wealth, not only (GDP) but in the sense of stimulating the economy
i fall somewhere in between these lines..obviously Johnny and Mike (wherever they are) are upstanding citizens and are only lying to themselves if they say they do not exist among a free interchanging capitalistic society, and that their own profit pursuit is euqally shared..i feel that the convergence theory is essentially what makes most sense on an off paper, if you were to look at the last century of failed communist states its not hard, in a sense i can sit here and list miserable failed communist regime in which millions were killed, and exploited, soviet union, vietnam, cuba, china...and so on, these regimes were not what mr marx/engels had envisioned obviously..it is a fantasy economical system that cannot freely exist in this world, yes you can look at states that have had favorable chance, such as Sweden ,Denmark but these socialistic states are democratic in nature but are converged, Vladimir Lenin, an example of a successful marxist run, russian revolution (2nd one), was successful..yes, but once things were moving throughtout, Lenin had to establish a New Economic policy mixing capitalistic ideals into, China is doing the exact same thing so it will not choke itself...
i feel the ideals expressed by socialism are very favorable and i agree with them, but if were trying to establish what will work with reality it is impossible its pretty on paper but fails in reality...yes yes things are bad in the united states and i can go on for hours about our medical system that needs more than a facelift, but we encorporate many mixes, medicaid, food stamps, welfare, unemployment compensation, subsidized housing, social security, a mininum wage, a hybrid mix is perfect..china and russia in the 1980s and 1990s were producing shoddy goods and lagged behind the west, they had to reinstate market forces, they made private ownership of property legal, they auctioned off state own industries. Even Vietnam has embraced it..it is impossible not to understand its potential, yes there will be poors, people underpaid, a rich elite, the poor establish many jobs for people, just by being poor..i know weird right? i can give you a whole peice on that, or you can read Herbert J. Gans paper on the poor, not explaing their sitation or proposing reform, but the uses of poverty: the poor pay all, what i am saying is that realistically, to prosper, to make profit, to have the freedom to do what you want with business or the pursuit of capital, is left in a capitalistic society.
i lean to many of socialism beliefs, but its failed time and time again, and will, men cannot avoid free will, jealousy, loss of motivation and there greed...a hybrid mix would do a better job aiding society, yes we have many problems but if we can move on from our current healthcare system i feel things may improve...
much love
Things to become aquainted with (if you haven't already)
Presuming you are an active user of the Internet, there are a few things that I have come across that prove very useful and productive towards the end of building a more communal structure online. To make you feel like you are a part of something, because we all make up this network called the Internet.
Well that should hopefully keep you busy for a while, if not then post something yourself!
- Browsers: This is number one because in order to reap any benefits from the Internet, you must have a good, legitimate browser. And that browser is Firefox. Or it simply is anything other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which for those of you who don't know is a disgrace to the web. IE makes life very difficult for people who design web sites because it is not compliant with the standards of the web, so you can't design a site the right way without IE displaying it incorrectly. Not to mention the fact that you are much more likely to get virus' on your computer by using IE in comparison with the alternative browsers, who offer better protection for you while you browse the web. So if you have and use Internet Explorer, stop. Now. Moving on...
- Social Bookmarking: When you visit a site you find interesting, what do you do? You bookmark it. But this can turn the toolbar on you're browser into a gigantic, multicolumn list of unorganized sites. A list where it is very unlikely you'll find what you want if you ever want to revisit a bookmarked site. Enter social bookmarking. These are sites dedicated to not only holding your bookmarks, but also sharing them with others. Sites like del.icio.us (pronounced delicious) allow you to place two little icons on the top of your browser, and whenever you want to save a site you click one, and whenever you want to look at all your bookmarks you click the other. Moreover, it allows you to put tags on a site when you bookmark it, so you can sort all your saved sites by subject (which makes finding something you saved two months ago a breeze). Theres also a search bar you can use that looks through everyones bookmarks and lists sites other people saved that match your request. There are many of these sites, I happen to use del.icio.us but feel free to check out others. These sites are a great way to stumble onto pages you might not have by just searching google, plus by making your own bookmarks you are allowing others to find things they might not have otherwise.
- Wiki: I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard of or used Wikipedia. This site has put the term wiki on the map, but wiki does not mean wikipedia. A Wiki is simply a piece of software placed on a server that creates an environment where anyone can create and edit web pages. Wiki's are commonly used for the documentation of open source software, where lots of people are working on the same project and can update the documents with their added features or input. Chances are you haven't really come into contact with these because they aren't really used in commonly visited sites, but its still a concept and technology you can use for whatever you want. TiddlyWiki allows you to create your own Wiki without the server software.
- Open Source Software: This is a topic in and of itself so for now I'll be brief. Open Source software is free, in the sense that anyone can take the original code and modify it however they want and all that is required is that they send their modifications to the person they took the code from. Most of the time it is also free in the sense that it costs no money to obtain, but this isn't always the case. Definitely check out sites like SourceForge and Open Source Alternative for cool, free software.
Well that should hopefully keep you busy for a while, if not then post something yourself!
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