SOCIALISM FOR AMERICA....ITS TIME!!!

@Amigo,

Amigo wrote:

Our representatives are elected by a system perfected by corperations on the idiocracy/marketing subjects. The masses are Pavlovs dog.

This system mainly involves Media monopoly, Lobbying to name just two. In a capatalist society do you serve the people or the Capital?

So, what do you suggest to do about it? Genoves's question is apt: how do you introduce Socialism without substantially altering the constitution? If you answer that you will substantially alter the constitution, in what way are you going to alter it, and how are you going to get it done?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

The American constitution was drafted to the best of the founding fathers ability to sucure the natural rights, natural law or INALIENABLE RIGHTS.

You ask me what I will do. I am doing it, I am presenting my case to you.

I don't know what to do. But I have the intelect and moral compass to know that we are losing our spirit and humanity in a ideology that is for apes.

1 Reply

@Amigo,

Amigo wrote:

You ask me what I will do. I am doing it, I am presenting my case to you.

So far, you don't seem to be very effective at it. I don't see you convincing anyone. And, now speaking strictly for myself: Although I'm generally happy to listen to people with convictions other than mine, I'm not seeing any reason to give up my generally neoliberal persuasions.

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@Thomas,

What percentage of SURPLUS VALUE do the "neoliberals" consider fair to collect from the worker?

I wonder if the neoliberal even works? The "neoliberal" sounds like some piece of **** that has found a new way to be the good guy and do the same thing.

I think I remember you feeling like social programs should pay for everybodys lunch except for you. The "neoliberals" will take care of us, pay us shitty andf give us charity that we pay for.

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@Thomas,

Heres one article (I haven't read yet) by Noam Chomsky I found on neoliberalism.

GEE, I WONDER WHAT IT SAYS?

It says the same bullshit any ************ says to justify exploiting another man. COLLECT SURPLUS VALUE!

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@Thomas,

One of the things that would help is to start calling political contributions what they really are which is graft. And to controll all the lobbiests in washington. This will happen about the time that the big money people ask for a tax increase so they can pay thier fair share of government. Never happen.

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@Amigo,

Amigo wrote:

What percentage of SURPLUS VALUE do the "neoliberals" consider fair to collect from the worker?

The term surplus value, and the claim that capitalists collect it from workers, depend on Marxist assumptions about what value is. Neoliberals don't share those assumptions. No non-Marxist does. Hence, if you cannot accept any measure of fairness not based on Marx's Mehrwert, you will never have any meaningful discussion with anyone except Marxists. If that's what you want, be my guest -- I won't bother you any more.

If not, I suggest that we talk instead about the measure closest to Marx's Mehrwert that carries meaning independent of ones political ideology. That measure would be the value added by the firm. It's defined as the firm's revenue from the goods it sells, minus its spending on the raw materials it buys.

On the fairest distribution of value added, different neoliberals have different opinions, the most prominent being the following two:

We don't care. Fairness is a concept we apply to the economic process, but not to its outcome. A fair process relies on free bargaining in competitive markets: Let firms hire as many workers as they want to, at whatever wages they can negotiate with workers in a competitive labor market. Also let firms raise as much capital as they want, at whatever interest rates they can negotiate with lenders in competitive bond markets. But after the bargaining is finished, we're fine with whatever income distribution may emerge. Again, fairness applies to the process, not the outcome.

An alternative view among neoliberals is this:
For each factor of production, the fair share of the value added is proportionate to their marginal product. The particular split will vary from firm to firm, depending on whether it's in a capital-intensive industry or a labor-intensive industry. On average, in today's developed economies, the value added usually splits 70:30 between labor and capital.

As it happens, the wages, interest rates, and dividents that emerge in the competitive markets important in the first view lead to the distribution desired in the second view. Hence, both views are mutually compatible.

2 Replies

@Thomas,

A reasonable & rational reply -- though I don't fully understand the alternative view you outlined and its convergence with #1 (though I agree that the labor/capital returns are about right).

I doubt that it will move Amigo, who appears to be beyond reason, facts, influence, or persuasion.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I doubt that it will move Amigo, who appears to be beyond reason, facts, influence, or persuasion.

well yeah.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I don't fully understand the alternative view you outlined and its convergence with #1

That's understandable. I was giving a one-paragraph outline of an idea whose proper treatment requires a whole chapter in an economics 101 textbook. One textbook chapter that's available online and would give you the full treatment is David Friedman's Price Theory -- an intermediate text. (Usually David Friedman needs to be read with a grain of salt, as he's a bit of a wingnut. More precisely, he's an anarcho-capitalist, someone who would prefer to privatize all government functions, including the courts, the police and national defense. This textbook, though, is just standard neoclassical microconomics.)

As for the convergence, there isn't much to write home about. I was merely saying that there's no conflict between the two views. If you care about competitive markets but not their outcomes, there's no conflict because you don't care. If you care about compensation according to each factor's marginal output, there's no conflict because competitive markets in labor, loans, and equity give you that kind of compensation.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

The term surplus value, and the claim that capitalists collect it from workers, depend on Marxist assumptions about what value is. Neoliberals don't share those assumptions. No non-Marxist does. Hence, if you cannot accept any measure of fairness not based on Marx's Mehrwert, you will never have any meaningful discussion with anyone except Marxists. If that's what you want, be my guest -- I won't bother you any more.

You can call it whatever you want. You can call it "Neoliberalism" or "The new peace and love economics" But THE POLICY OF EXPLOITATION NEVER CHANGES AND THE POLICY IS TERRORISM

Right and Wrong are totally in independent of Marx. You can have an extremely meaningful conversation using the concept of surplus value without being a Marxist. The concept has the same meaning in any context.

The goal is to get the maximum surplus value by any means possible. There is no nogotiation. If the workers or people of Handuras say "No Thanks" to the Neoliberal then terrorist from the School of the Americas are sent in.

http://www.soaw.org/sub.php?id=25

And the maximum surplus value is secured for the Neoliberal. In the context you are using surplus value exploitation and terrorism do not exsist. You have no use for these terms in fact thay are extreme taboos in the rolls they play in profit to the peaceful capitalist. It can not be acknowledged. It would cause to much of a conflict.

It would be very bad PR.

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Oh well, I should have listened to georgeob1.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Oh well, I should have listened to georgeob1.

Yes, listen to georgeob1. You guys can make yourself a little club.

From 1970 to 1980 the flow of investment capital from the U.S. to the third world amounted to about $8 billion. But the return flow from the Third World to the to the U.S. in the form of dividends, interest, branch profits, managment fees was $63.7 billion.

Together, all the multinational corperations and banks in the world take as much as $200 billion every year Third World nations.

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@Thomas,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FElp4V5YRi0&feature=related

Here is John Stockwell speaking on the methods of "negotiation " the Neoliberal uses to "develope" the poor backward people of the Third world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stockwell

0 Replies

Socialism needed

Deseret News, Salt Lake city July 16

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705317104,00.html

I've got some questions for those who've been calling President Barack Obama a socialist.

Don't you realize that what we've been living under for the past 30 years has been corporate socialism?

I believe people matter more than profit, and it's about time that our government's policies, after 30 years, reflect that reality.

A demand for this is justifiably growing across the nation and it's because the people have at last snapped out of their acceptance of what Reaganomics did, not for us, but to us.

Materialism leads to debt and confuses priorities. That's how they like it because it's how they survive. The private sector has proven that it cannot be trusted to handle our necessities.

Health care, education, public transportation, banking, the monetary system, food production, water and all forms of energy must be socialized, some of them federally and some locally. For when any public necessities are driven by a profit motive, only the controllers will benefit.

What I'm describing is called a mixed economy, not dominated by the private sector or the government.

This is the real way forward. Government isn't the problem. Corporate control of it is.

1 Reply

@Amigo,

Uhhh, central planning does not work, in case you still might think so. The Soviet Union collapsed. Millions of soviets died of starvation. If you want a good comparison of systems, compare North Korea and South Korea.

1 Reply

@okie,

Quote:

Uhhh, central planning does not work, in case you still might think so. The Soviet Union collapsed. Millions of soviets died of starvation. If you want a good comparison of systems, compare North Korea and South Korea.

Ok, then ditch the central planning.

1 Reply

@Amigo,

Amigo wrote:

Quote:
Uhhh, central planning does not work, in case you still might think so. The Soviet Union collapsed. Millions of soviets died of starvation. If you want a good comparison of systems, compare North Korea and South Korea.

Ok, then ditch the central planning.

Great, then lets get a president that will ditch it next election. Lets go back to believing in individual freedom and responsibility, to make the decisions for themselves. It has worked wonderfully in the past, lets do it.

1 Reply

@okie,

Quote:

Great, then lets get a president that will ditch it next election. Lets go back to believing in individual freedom and responsibility, to make the decisions for themselves. It has worked wonderfully in the past, lets do it.

SOCIALISM FOR AMERICA....ITS TIME!!!

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