EN, your contentions aren't borne out by the facts. These studies aren't limited to Scandinavia and the USA. They cover the gamut of industrialized democracies from Asia, Europe and North America. Japan actually has the greatest income equity followed by the Scandinavian states and then the rest of Europe and Canada. The point is they're all in the mix and yet the results on these criteria are consistent and manifest over a broad range of genetics and geography to boot. It speaks volumes that the performance on these criteria also remains consistent among US states according to their relative income inequality. That pretty much rules out your Scandinavian "special case" rebuttal.
Well there we have it. You don't consider income equality (or moderation of the gap between rich and poor) to be an accomplishment
and I don't consider progressive taxation to be economic authoritarianism.
All structure, I suppose, embodies an element of authoritarianism as you define it. Expropriating a portion of your income to pay for the roads you walk or the police who keep you safe or the fire department that saves your neighbour's home is all so horribly authoritarian.
Beyond Burgers And Computers
Dell Wikipedia: Theory of Conflict Prevention
The theory is that, with war becoming very expensive for nations in the 21st century, and global supply chains becoming an very important part of economies, nations can't afford to go to war with each others any more, to not interrupt business.
Examples are the China-Taiwan situation and the India-Pakistan conflict in 2001.
This is from The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, I will probably do a review in the Book Review section.
# Tom Friedman has a theory: Two countries invested in a business together by being part of the same global supply-chain are less likely to go to war, as they are now heavily invested in the success of the business venture. Any interruption to that supply chain would be critical.
# Supply chains have evolved and they have effected politics the stability of countries, such as Asian countries. These countries are part of many supply chains and are good business.
# The price of war is dramatically higher than it used to be and many countries must consider the economic effect of a war on their country.
# For example, the China-Taiwan relations and India-Pakistan. These are two examples of how the globalization and supply-chains have caused countries to think rationally about the cost of war and have arrived at a solution.
So I'm looking forward to a bright and interesting future for mankind. All of the world producing and consuming is a win-win situation for everybody. People in poor nations get a better standard of living. But it will not be a matter of charity for those in rich nations as we will have to improve ourselves to keep up with the competition. Which is the best thing that can happen for a person.
I do see some potential problems:
- Lack of resources could pose a problem. But I think new technology can solve that, both on the energy as on the materials side.
- The education systems of most western nations is in the hand of liberals, that teach rejection of capitalism as evil.
- Stability is essential. Forces that wish to destroy it can have huge detrimental effects with little effort, trust can easily be destroyed.
- It is human nature to rather want others to have less than to have more themselves. This was tested in a study.
- We would have to restrain from government restrictions of capitalism for the sake of special interest, in the name of whatever - probably under the guise of equality.
- What I just named the "1984 Factor". Which means that with total equality of opportunity, one can only be "better" than others through effort and talent. If an oligarchy doesn't want that, it would keep others in poverty and ignorance through an Orwellian government.
Well, EN, from what you've said it seems that you accept the violent expropriation of your property for purposes you support. That is valid. But the same form of levies for purposes the many support that you don't support are offensive or wrong?
The one thing that defeats your claim of injustice is that no one, absolutely nobody, makes you choose to live in the society that so besets you. To the contrary, you elect to accept the bargain and, having done that, does it really lie in your mouth to complain of taking at gunpoint? It's more than curious you would choose to live in such an awful environment.
It strikes me that you chose to accept your bargain when you opted to acquire your land. That is, of course, unless you predate your social order. Odious references to hunting down Jews aren't helpful to your argument. From what I've read of the Holocaust I don't think many Jews were given the option of moving away. And in any event there is a clear distinction between expulsion and voluntary leaving.
I find these considerations more and more meaningless. We figured out how it all works in a free market, but it doesn't matter how the free market works. Things are not controlled by free market mechanisms, they are controlled by an oligarchy. We might as well debate how fast horses were if they could fly, it has no application to reality.
Free markets are impossible, unless you somehow magically manage to get a large segment of the unwashed masses to grasp economic principles and demand free markets, instead of caring about amateur singing contests. Which the commies in the media and school system are doing a great job of preventing.
Recently Glenn Beck had on his program that all nations combed have a GDP of 50 trillion Dollars (that includes the "value" of the bubbles), the shadow economy is 600 trillion Dollars. The people in control of that money run things. Many people think that our politicians are acting the way they do (i.e. in anti-capitalistic ways) because they are bought by big corporations, the unions and lobbyists. But those lousy millions and billions only matter on a small scale compared to the trillions of the shadow economy.
I remember some old movie, where the rich guy only had to show his huge-Dollar-bill to get hotel rooms and dining for free. The hotel owner knew that if he pisses off that rich guy, the rich guy might just buy his hotel and put him out of work. It's like that; at some point great wealth means that you don't have to spend your money to buy things any more, because you get everything just because of the power that follows from having all that money.
That's what runs things, which means that all our free market and small-scale political considerations are meaningless.
I understand what you mean Nero, the ideology (both real or imagined) of leading politicians and the subjects of economic propoganda (the 'credit crunch,' 'green shoots,' the 'jobless recovery,' etc.) are irrelevant in the sense that they are not causes of anything, but rather are effects of what you're calling the shadow economy. And you're right, we can't follow that shadow economy directly, because the trading is usually between private institutions and in unique products that can't be generalized as can stocks, bonds etc. However, we can get a good sense of general movements in the shadow banking system by understanding the players and their objectives and then observing the macro-economic trends, which are their effects.
This is what I was trying to talk about before; i.e. noise about 'protectionism' in the media is silly and propogandistic, but it nonetheless is a reaction to very real things happening in the world, driven by huge global capital flows. The basic aim of finance capital has always been to open markets, which sounds great, but in reality it means opening otherwise independent markets to its own manipulations. International banking would rather have every nation buy its food, for instance, from some other nation, even though that costs more for all involved and wastes capital, simply because such a situation ensures that all those nations and all those people are under the control of the biggest capitalists - who control the international markets for food. Rinse and repeat for every important resource and you'll find the real explanation for most of our propoganda and public policy.
Beyond Burgers And Computers
Dell Wikipedia: Theory of Conflict Prevention
The theory is that, with war becoming very expensive for nations in the 21st century, and global supply chains becoming an very important part of economies, nations can't afford to go to war with each others any more, to not interrupt business.
Examples are the China-Taiwan situation and the India-Pakistan conflict in 2001.
This is from The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, I will probably do a review in the Book Review section.
# Tom Friedman has a theory: Two countries invested in a business together by being part of the same global supply-chain are less likely to go to war, as they are now heavily invested in the success of the business venture. Any interruption to that supply chain would be critical.
# Supply chains have evolved and they have effected politics the stability of countries, such as Asian countries. These countries are part of many supply chains and are good business.
# The price of war is dramatically higher than it used to be and many countries must consider the economic effect of a war on their country.
# For example, the China-Taiwan relations and India-Pakistan. These are two examples of how the globalization and supply-chains have caused countries to think rationally about the cost of war and have arrived at a solution.
I'm currently reading this book, and i think its brilliant with regards to globalisation in terms of business and economics, but not so much in politics. This claim was also the basis of Fukuyama's book 'The End of History', however his hypothesis has been proven quite flawed. It is true that in the West we have found peace and stability among ourselves, and that the liklihood of war breaking out again in Europe is next to nothing. But the fact is, that countries such as China and Russia have managed to integrate an open market capitalist system into a closed political system, with thoroughly different values to the West. Though the West may have renounced the power politics of the 19th and 20th centuries, the new great powers - China and Russia - have yet to do so. Therefore there is always the possibility of war with China and/or Russia arising from a 21st century Sarajevo.
And then there is Africa; which seems to be moving further and further away form capitalism and democracy in some places, and in which war is still a part of day to day life. This huge continent is so often forgotten in our analysis of world politics, and although it may not have much power, it is still a huge land mass with a large proportion of the global population.
Overall, I think it would be wise to save the unrestrained optimism about the future for centuries in which democracy and capitalism have taken hold in almost every state, and all of the most powerful ones. Until then, though we can still have hope for a better future, focus should still be on managing the minefield which is 21st century power politics.
You should definitely read Kagan's book - The Beginning of History and the End of Dreams - its short and a really good read, really gets you up to date on modern international relations.
:nonooo: Modern international relations do not differ from historic one's. It's base is cumulating wealth for it's population. Usually it is un-just distributed in society.
As long as nations have dual standards for internal behaviour & international behaviour a capitalistic does not work without militairy power to enforce the will upon another country.
:Glasses:PS
I would have to disagree with you here, modern international relations differ qualitatively from the power politics of previous years. Your argument is part of the realist doctrine within international relations which basically says that international relations resemble human relations, and are therefore subject to human behaviour - which is ultimately selfish - and they do not change over time. However, if you really look at international relations today you will see some very different patterns starting to form. Firstly, international relations today, especially in the West, are normative, and countries are reluctant to go against international norms and standards of behaviour, which is thoroughly different to the highly anarchic situation of, say, the nineteenth century. Secondly, there are several institutions created in order to maintain stability, for example the UN, and although they do not have much practical power, they do play a large role in international relations which is often underestimated. And finally, the political systems of the 21st century - as stated in this thread - do play a part in determining relations between states, and these political systems are thoroughly different to previous ones, though this is often overestimated - which is clearly the case in Fukuyama's book, the end of history.
But its not because of capitalism, its in spite of it. We have learned that uncontrolled capitalism eventually leads to corruption and eventually protective wars. The result of capitalism, is imperialism and the rising capitalist stars will have desires for empire at any cost. Capitalism has the opposite effect of peaceful trade, it encourages aggression.
I'm currently reading this book, and i think its brilliant with regards to globalisation in terms of business and economics, but not so much in politics. This claim was also the basis of Fukuyama's book 'The End of History', however his hypothesis has been proven quite flawed. It is true that in the West we have found peace and stability among ourselves, and that the liklihood of war breaking out again in Europe is next to nothing. But the fact is, that countries such as China and Russia have managed to integrate an open market capitalist system into a closed political system, with thoroughly different values to the West. Though the West may have renounced the power politics of the 19th and 20th centuries, the new great powers - China and Russia - have yet to do so. Therefore there is always the possibility of war with China and/or Russia arising from a 21st century Sarajevo.
And then there is Africa; which seems to be moving further and further away form capitalism and democracy in some places, and in which war is still a part of day to day life. This huge continent is so often forgotten in our analysis of world politics, and although it may not have much power, it is still a huge land mass with a large proportion of the global population.
Overall, I think it would be wise to save the unrestrained optimism about the future for centuries in which democracy and capitalism have taken hold in almost every state, and all of the most powerful ones. Until then, though we can still have hope for a better future, focus should still be on managing the minefield which is 21st century power politics.
You should definitely read Kagan's book - The Beginning of History and the End of Dreams - its short and a really good read, really gets you up to date on modern international relations.
Okay, xris, no rhetoric.
What I think is important is your view of humanity. You see the evils of the world caused by foolish and immoral choices. We should do things for the right reasons, not for psychological or economic rewards. And the objective of government is to act more morally in order to inspire these better moral values in their citizens. Is that more or less accurate?
