Topic: A Resource Based Economy - page 31. (Read 288384 times)

Ha ha.  You think China's wage growth has nothing to do with govt intervention?

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

Obama kills relatively few people, and they are worth relatively little. Relatively few hamburger outlets are forbidden, you see relatively few of those. Freedom of press is relatively good, relatively few journalists are harassed...

Yeah, this is something I never agreed with the 'pillars of the community' here about; Heck, even Hal thought Ayn Rand was somehow not a psycho.  I'm okay with disagreeing about that.

Let's just say there are limits to how far you want to push any ideology.  If the word 'absolute' appears in your political agenda, whether it's on the left, right, top, or bottom of the political spectrum, I kind of don't want to live wherever you're in charge.

I'm optimistic that we'll find a good way to do things and that a lot of what now seem to be intractable problems of human nature will be diminished by progress just as what had seemed to be intractable problems of human nature have been diminished by progress in the past.  I'm confident that neither absolute Laissez-faire capitalism as espoused by the wealthy elite, nor absolute revolutionary socialism as espoused by the ignorant and oppressed, nor absolute anything else, is the right answer.   

I think we probably need a lot less complexity in our legal system, because the question today is more 'whom do you want to prosecute?' rather than 'who has broken the law?'  Laws so numerous and complex that you must choose which to enforce and in what cases are merely tools for extortion and bribe-seeking rather than a solid basis for a rule of law.  But that would be true no matter in what political direction we wanted to reform our laws.

So, American Libertarians are Libertarians, who believe in the free market, including believing that the free market will be enough to raise wages to sustainable amounts without the need for government intervention (which, ironically, is how China wages have increased from practically nothing, to relatively good wages they have now), and Hong Kong Libertarians are not libertarians, but are pro-democracy socialists?


Ah, so the difference is that Hong Kong libertarians actually have gripes with regards to freedom of speech and assembly, and American libertarians are free enough, and should shut the fuck up about it and not protest (or, put another way, America should become like Hong Kong in regards to libertarian protestors). Okay.

America has freedom, yes freedom, compared to China. These people have big balls and are feed up of the situation, they are taking a big risk.

They are taking a big risk. Unless the protests evaporate, it will be met with violence. The game is to  covertly introduce provocateurs to escalate tension until violence breaks out. The first victim may be a policeman (sacrificed by the government to mislead the public). If my kids were there, I would beg them to stay away.

Specifically?

I'd say that the American libertarians, as a movement, have mostly been "captured" by monied interests who are cynically using the libertarians to promulgate policies beneficial to those monied interests - with no regard whatever for whether the policies are also beneficial to the libertarians being used. 

The American libertarians, as the mouthpieces of corrupt monied interests,  mostly wind up speaking out in favor of the right of employers to pay as close to nothing as the labor market will bear, to provide nothing in the way of benefits, etc...  to make a 'race to the bottom' in terms of compensation for labor.  Most of them aren't employers, and would not benefit at all from such policies; in fact most of them would do substantially worse under those policies.  On the liberties that they would actually benefit from - free speech, freedom from surveillence, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of religion, right to fair and speedy trials, and so on....  they are silent because agitation in favor of *those* liberties would not serve those who have captured their movement.

The movement in Hong Kong is much younger, and this kind of "capture" hasn't yet had time to take place.  Further, with the Beijing government much less responsive to speech in general and the Chinese labor market already deeply buried in that same kind of 'race to the bottom' for compensation, it's not clear that that kind of capture would be as beneficial for the corrupt money in China as it has been for the corrupt money in the USA.

So, what are the specific differences between those in Hong Kong and those in America? (Besides the difference in how dangerous the governments are in each place)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69h_pWoLpHk

Ye gods, that bitch who had the hots for sociopaths and mass murderers?  If anybody took her seriously they need their heads examined.

Do you know the difference between liberty and libertarianism? Ok, I know there are many loose interpretations, but when you say: it seems you think they are synonymous. You can have liberty without being libertarian. Perhaps the term was simply tarnished by Ayn Rand followers.

I've been watching the Hong Kong protests, and those people are committed to libertarian ideals in a way that is profoundly needed and even heroic.  It's very moving, and also WEIRD, to hear a thousand voices singing "Do You Hear The People Sing" from Les Miserables, in Cantonese!  The personal risks and self-sacrifice they are undertaking for the sake of their libertarianism are just stunning.  In a lot of cases you can see the fear on their faces or hear it in their voices, but they are there anyway, even knowing that it means they'll get hunted down like dogs later, or at least blacklisted from every possible profession, if they fail to get international support. And maybe even if they do, since the Chinese government is kind of like that.

And then I look at the irrelevant, stupid greedy crap that American libertarians are worried about, and how most of it seems driven (or at least co-opted) specifically by corporate wealth and greed and complete disregard for the society and people around them. The contrast is like night and day. 

This is kind of like the difference between labor unions in the 1890's "rail barons" era where the US was run by a tiny oligarchy of monopolists that viciously oppressed the laborers, and the people were driven to form unions out of desperation, and then in the 1970s in the US when labor unions had *BECOME* the inescapable monopolies and you couldn't even get a job without paying extortionate "union dues" that did nothing for you, and they had become the instrument of oppression by which the Mafia was sucking American business dry.   

You take the same rhetoric, some sort of version of the same ideals at work on the individual level, and completely different context and driving forces, and it makes it heroic in one instance and just venial in another.  And the venial corrupted versions always try to assert the moral authority earned by the heroic people who were driven to it by desperation and did it even though they faced harsh personal consequences for standing up for their beliefs when nobody else had the courage.

Nothing is the right thing all the time, in every context.  You've got to look around yourself and see the whole picture and decide what's right and wrong right where and when you are.

RBU, no money and no private property makes sense. What can you gain if there is nothing to gain (everything can be lended) and properties have no value.

They believe in a magic man that is firm and strong and always stands for principles. Then they also believe the principle of selfishness means you will vow to be non violent even if it's in your own selfish interest. I think libertarianism is a fetish.

This is exactly the point Joseph makes in the Molyneux discussion.

Of course.  But parents who feed their children have legally sanctioned power (at least in most societies) to force their children's cooperation.  The children are not permitted to undertake adult responsibilities.  Decisions are made for their welfare by other people. 

When all human beings are treated the way we now treat children, there will be no further obstacle to feeding, clothing, and housing them all.  Whatever agency is capable f treating them as children is capable of forcing them to cooperate.  And like a good parent, we presume that agency will feed, clothe, and house humans because it chooses to.  We could be wrong about this, but that's the optimistic view at least.

Government agencies don't force parents to feed their children. They choose to. It's just amazing to me how living in a developing nation opens your eyes to how generous poor people can be, especially with food. Maybe the world needs to be beaten back to the stone age in order to find their humanity.

Oh, well, that's much easier.  All that would require is for there to be some agency capable of forcing all human beings and nations to cooperate whether they want to or not. 

We'll probably have that problem solved within another 70 years at the outside.  Could be within 30 if we're "lucky."

work on your reading comprehension

No, the things that are not scarce need not be governed by the market mechanism, precisely because they are not scarce. Sea water, sunsets, daylight. Scarce means they are wanted in greater quantity than what is available. The free market makes sure that those resources are channelled to the places where they are most wanted by everybody, not just the governments and wannabe government types.