A MODEST PROPOSAL

You expect a rebuttal? Write something worth my time besides the usual anti-Bush BS and haughty remarks. Your incessant need to end each posting with some sort of thinly-veiled insult is tiring and infantile.

When I see something requiring my attention, I will post accordingly.

There is no "anti-Bush BS" in taking notice of a soaring national debt which is enslaving us financially to his good buddy China. It is not a haughty remark to observe that billions in taxpayer dollars go to a Halliburton contract, unbid--a corporation for which Cheney was CEO before the current admininstration took office.

You certainly are an expert in infantile, you show it constantly. You show it here, by not addressing the topic, but trying to make it a sniping fest.

I will give you the attention henceforth which you require, which is none.

Like any dog, sometimes you just have to rub their nose in it to get their attention.

I for one think that rampant bureaucracy is one of the biggest dangers in all First World countries.
If we manage to get rid of it (IMHO quite impossible) much more efficient forms of government could (not saying they would, just implying they could) more effectively control 'corporate freeloading'.

Naj

Debate would entail a demonstration on your part that your "leader" was successful in business on the basis of his own skills. It is meaningless when you make contentions which you fail to support.

I did not specify any leader purposefully. I spoke in general terms to belabor the point that while some may call America a "plutocracy", it is lead only by those elected into office. I do not foresee a time when a person that can not or will not get a job, be able to maintain a bank account and has a history of poor decisions leading them to be montarily challenged will ever be elected.

Do you agree with that?

No, i don't, because it ignores that, for example, that the current President, a "dry drunk," has a history of questionable dealings in business (both with joint-stock companies and with savings and loans), got his start in life with his daddy's money, and only fails to have a history of poor decisions leading him to be monetarily challenged because daddy was there to bail him, and to assure that he was never up in court on charges for his savings and loans chicanery and his insider stock trading.

You are attempting to suggest in disingenuous terms that i claim this is a plutocracy because of the character of those who are elected. Far more government employees are appointed than elected, and even more are simply hired, and are interviewed by those who were appointed, or those who are employed by those who were appointed. This nation is becoming a plutocracy because the influence of elective office is for sale to the highest campaign contribution bidders. I did not say that it was a plutocracy because rich boys can afford to get elected--that's just a symptom.

So, i have never advanced the proposition which you are feebly attempting to make me argue.

The legislative and executive branches of governemnt are elected. The judicial branch is appointed and confirmed by those elected.

That is the government. All the other jobs appointed, hired etc, are there to support those elected.

If those that are elected choose to take "bribes" or campaign donations from wealthy individuals and corporations, we have laws that bind the amounts. If inpropriety occurs, and it does, then hopefully it is discovered and the full penalty of the law is administered to those elected individuals.

You say wish to fetter capitalism to move humanity ahead. I say it can't be done until more of the worlds societies embrace the ideals and freedoms associated with capitalism and democracy. There are far too many "hotspots" in the world to start worrying about subduing capitalism and until those countries enter a more people-friendly form of governance, we need to continue to have the more advanced countries lead by example and encourage the down-trodden to seek better lives for themselves.

redistribution of wealth will not help that.

I do not for a moment accept that capitalism entails "ideals and freedoms." In fact, capitalists have typcially worked diligently against social progress, and have whined about being obliged to pay for it--although they've never demonstrated that they have necessarily been unduly, financially burdened. The dodge about capitalists "working" to get where they are won't float, either. If you invent a better mouse trap, but haven't the funds to produce it in quatities which will assure you a decent livelihood, you need investment capital or a loan. In either example, someone else profits from your work simply by having that capital to loan or invest. They may or may not have worked to accumulate that capital--but it is not axiomatic that they did. That capital could have been inherited, and originally the product of theft, or strong-arm oppression, for which the current possessor of the capital is not held accountable.

Like aristocracy, the state of being a capitalist is more inherited than merited. If a capitalist works hard and prospers as a result, it is coincidental to being a capitalist.

I did not for a moment call for the redistribution of wealth. You need to stop trying to set up arguments based on implications for which you cannot provide evidence in what i've posted.

The examples you give are quite the minorty of wealth creation. Far more have worked for the wealth they have then have inherited through crime.

If not a call for wealth distribution, what did you mean by "The last great injustice in human society is economic inequity. Nations which starve or suffer, defenseless, the ravages of disease, do so because they cannot afford the remedies of their disasters."

First, we were discussing plutocrats. People rarely amass immense fortunes in their own lifetimes, unless they do so strictly through investment capitalism or large loans with short terms and high interest rates, and for that they need a good deal of capital in the first place. Andrew Carnegie might do well in today's world, be he wouldn't become the richest man in the country with no grub stake. Examples of such success in recent years have been very rare, such as Sam Walton and Bill Gates. Both are justifiably accused of at least unethical business practices, if not actually illegal. My reference to sources of capital which is inherited--"old money"--is not necessarily the proceeds of actual crime (although it might be, such as old Joe Kennedy's prohibition era smuggling income--but even he started with considerable capital), but those whose "crime" was the exploitation of the weak or defenseless, in terms of society's laws. Capitalists in the 18th and 19th centuries could become very rich indeed, because the law actually forbad workers from organizing to bargain collectively, and even limited how many employees of any one business could meet together in a group away from the place of their employment. Those are ill-gotten gains, even if technically legal at the time. Others inherit money from arms merchants and those who profit from war (the Bush clan is a prime example).

What i meant in my statement about economic inequity is that many nations are saddled with the debts of irresponsible predecessor regimes, or have had to start from square one in the 1960s or -70s to build up national capital from the resources or agriculture which were until then exploited by colonizing powers. Even after independence, those same irresponsible regimes arose which spent borrowed money on weapons of war to oppress their own people or to fight their neighbors. Given that the maps of Africa and Asia represent not the rational tribal and ethnic boundaries of those continents, but the arbitrary boundaries drawn on maps by Europeans, many nations are futher hampered by internal strife.

Debt forgiveness would go a long way. But no true economic equity will exist so long as multinational corporations hold nations hostage to their investment, blocking meaningful labor laws, occupational health and safety laws, environmental protection laws, and employment benefits laws. American businesses have been shipping jobs overseas since the Reagan era or earlier, because they can thereby avoid being responsible members of the communities in which they make their money. That is why it is ludicrous to speak of capitalism and ideals.

BBB
McG wrote: "You say wish to fetter capitalism to move humanity ahead. I say it can't be done until more of the worlds societies embrace the ideals and freedoms associated with capitalism and democracy."

Capitalism and Democracy? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Today's capitalists are quite different than our grandfather's Robber Baron Capitalists. They are largely Transnationals with little or no loyalty to their country and it's citizens.

BBB

That point is well taken. Even the "robber barons" only had a national loyalty because it were the market they felt was their legitimate hunting preserve, and the people their legitimate prey. There is a basic tenet of conservative political philosophy that capitalism is part and parcel of our "freedoms" and our "ideals." The Constitution of the United States is mute on the subject, other than the financial powers given to the government and the injunction to promote the general welfare. That's general welfare, not the welfare of my capitalist buddies who bought me this shiney new elective office.

Bm, (don't I'll have time to participate, though).

Set, I understand what you are saying and agree to a certain extent. However, the purpose of businees is to be successful. If labor is plentiful and cheap at another location, it would be foolish of a company to not take advantage of that so as to create a healthier profit. I see no evil in that even if I dislike the practice. The company I work for is closing the doors on my facility and moving all of our operations to Ohio right now because they can save 1.7 million dollars. Despite the fact that we profitted 6 million a year. It is a business decision.

I now have the choice to transfer to a new location or look elsewhere for employment. Just like anyone else is similar circumstances. That's business.

I have a friend that started a business in his garage in the 80's. It is now a multi-million dollar international business. He treats many of his hourly employees like crap in my eyes, but they also have good benefits and steady employment. They have the choice to look elsewhere if they are unhappy...

That what capitalism is about.

Being loyal to ones country... what does that have to do with business? Business is about profit, not loyalty. That's harsh, but it's the truth.

That "that is what capitalism is all about" is no good reason to allow it. A point i have been making all along is that the economic inequities of the world can be addressed by fettering, by circumscribing capitalism. Capitalists in the 19th century howled about being made to adhere to safe working conditions, about putting a ceiling on hours and a floor on hours, about the end of child labor, about the end of piece work in large-work-force factories. They predicted dire consequences and the ruination of themselves and their respective nations.

That not only did not happen, in fact, the reverse happened. The only one of the old robber baron style of capitalists who seems to have "gotten it" was Henry Ford. He was, in many ways, a sonuvabitch to employees, as you describe your acquaintance. But with the Model T and Model A Fords, he introduced the radical notion of making consumers of his own workers. They had agitated for (often illegally, in the terms of what was law then) better wages, and he produced automobiles which they could afford. Auto plants began to built with huge parking lots, a concept which would have been complete ludicrous to auto manufacturers a decade earlier.

The Roman empire in the west disintegrated in large measure because the huge slave-driven latifundia ran ordinary farmers and small tradesmen out of business. When the empire no longer expanded, and in fact began to contract, the Patrician classes and the Equites class agents had no one left to whom to sell the production of their slave enterprises. Just because all many capitalists can conceive of is the bottom line doesn't mean that either nations should accept that as definitive, nor that it is the best way of doing business. When all workers in every country have a decent living wage, and health care, and safe working conditions, the world economy will actually take off in a way it cannot do now because old-fashioned, brain-dead capitalist exploitation theory is the norm.

By the way, my remarks about loyalty seem not to have gotten through to you, which may be because i did not make sufficiently clear what i meant. Capitalists are not loyal to the societies in which they operate, so why should the governments of those societies do them any favors? Of course, many capitalists are careful to purchase as many politicians as possible. But society has no obligation to cater to capitalists (as opposed to hard-working people in the community; capitalists are not by definition hard-working people, they may be, they may not be), and the old whine about the cost of doing business is just a version of "i'll take my toys and go home." Bullshit--capitalists will always do business if they can make a profit, no matter how much they howl about the cost of doing business.

The point is that a society without rules, laws or regulation, returns to the law of the jungle like in the movie "Lord of the Flies". The French Revolution was an act to place some boundaries to a monarchy which is basically the rule of might, the king and aristocracy being inheritors of the band of warriors that captured the land of France. They extended their benefit being extorting the french populace. The American Constitution is also a document to prevent any form coercion by any traditional group from usurping power that was perceptible the Founding Fathers who however never foresaw the arrival of Transnational corporation or the industry-wide unions. The use of God as Creator of 'inalienable rights' by the common people was to counter the 'Divine Right' argument set forth by monarchies the world over and accepted by the churches. The Constitution places boundaries on branches of government itself knowing that monarchies have used the government to oppress their subjects.

The point is that a society without rules, laws or regulation, returns to the law of the jungle like in the movie "Lord of the Flies". The French Revolution was an act to place some boundaries to a monarchy which is basically the rule of might, the king and aristocracy being inheritors of the band of warriors that captured the land of France. They extended their benefit being extorting the french populace. The American Constitution is also a document to prevent any form coercion by any traditional group from usurping power that was perceptible the Founding Fathers who however never foresaw the arrival of Transnational corporation or the industry-wide unions. The use of God as Creator of 'inalienable rights' by the common people was to counter the 'Divine Right' argument set forth by monarchies the world over and accepted by the churches. The Constitution places boundaries on branches of government itself knowing that monarchies have used the government to oppress their subjects.

Sorryof double post. My computer is being bombarded with pop-ups.