Topic: New Epic Fail Currency? 'Occcu' - page 3. (Read 8255 times)

Fascist dictatorship and socialism aren't mutually exclusive.  One is a system of governance and the other an economic model.  If you want to get meta then pain is the currency of hell and it will be shared equally.

Isn't hell more of a fascist dictatorship?  How is it socialist?

That seems like a pretty disturbing collective view.

Even if it were true that most modern "rich people" (however you choose to define that) become wealthy through unethical means, it doesn't mean they all did. What about the guy who invented something great and had people throw money at him for it? What about someone who inherited wealth that was generated 150 years ago by some ancestor he barely knows about? What about me, should the value of my bitcoin holdings skyrocket?

To try to lump the innocent in with the guilty isn't going to achieve anything good.

That said, I still agree, in that NO ONE should be trusted to make decisions "for the many." Everyone should make their own decisions, and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences accordingly.

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err."
     - Mahatma Gandhi



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I find it funny when people link making money to freedom, money is the slave whip that keeps you all in line.

"Free your mind ... and your ass will follow."
 -Funkadelic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1xmGK8PEJw

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
      - Janis Joplin

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
     - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ah. Freedom of the mind. Deep. Of course there are always conjugal visits unless you work in the laundry.

Please give an example of such a people.

Your thinking is kinda dualistic here. I'm surprised. Is the world that black and white? I never, in any of my posts, push for a state. Democracy doen't require a state.

So unaccountable people who didn't earn money will via bureaucratic processes more efficiently aggregate capital and match industrial needs with available resources.  Maybe with a utopian artificial intelligence but not with humans.  Modern states destroy wealth via inefficiency.  The solution isn't giving the state more power.

I have managed to acquire wealth so by your definition I am unethical.  Kinda a broad brush you are painting with.

Still I am glad you posted it.  You statements show you are a statist.  Your belief is the state can be the answer to all problems.  Even when the state itself is the source of the problem, the "solution" among statists isn't freedom but instead building an even more powerful, infringing, wealth destroying state. 

Sad ... but then again i am unethical so my disdain of your solutions is to be expected right?

Democracies aggregate capital through taxation and choose progressive commons based on the best information available to improve the (theoretical) quality of life for the many. I'll defer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs to point out the usefulness of a baseline of equality. Besides, the system is broken and there are few ethical occupations where one can aggregate any personal wealth anymore. It follows then that individuals that do manage to acquire capital are not ethical and should not be trusted to make decisions for the many.

You can't say: "I need some money, so I will produce a briliant idea now." Revolutionary ideas just happen. But most inventions need a lot of work and research done. For instance, where would you find thousands of people to do some boring laboratory work to invent a new drug? Where would you even find people to produce laboratory equipment, to start research in the first place. And where would you find people to dig raw materials from the ground to use them to make the equipment?

We can't just sit around and wait for a great mastermind to be born every 100 years to invent a few things. We have to force as much people as possible to be productive and work on the things that benefit others.

I agree of course; socialism is simply persuading poor people that the only reason they aren't rich is because of all the rich people.

However; that's not the point.  The point is that if there were no cheating socialism would operate.  It is sustainable.  Why?  Because it would end as exactly the same as a free market.

Now: people of different talents and skill are paid differently for the same number of hours work.

Inevitable end point of socialism: people of different talents and skills will work different numbers of hours for the same pay.

It's obvious why socialism would result in lower GDP, the productive would put less effort in.

For the sake of argument I will say your right (although I disagree).  Without capital most ideas go nowhere.  How does one acquire capital ... by working harder (or having a ancestor who worked harder).  Yes even people who acquire wealth through fraudulent or dubious means had to work at it.  A system where acquisition of wealth is impossible because everyone's share of the pie is equal means no rich greedy investors to "exploit" inventors by bring products to market.

Even when inventor is "exploited" by Capitalists the system is made stronger.  Quality of life for the aggregate population improves due to access to new and improved products & services.

Most great inventors don't give a damn about money. They tend to be easily exploited by Capitalist hippies that sit around the pool collecting dividends. The real hard work of Capitalism is the lawyers that sue startups over patent infringement.

Sure, some innovation is done by greedy inventors, but original ideas tend to come from people not interested in money itself.

Even if there is no cheating, no corruption, no flawed human behavior I would argue that the above goal is beyond stupid.

I work hard, someone else sits around making hippie songs nobody gives a shit about.  We both should be compensated equally.  Well if that is the case, fuck the 50 hour work week, fuck the continual skill development on my part, fuck the stress of managing an enterprise database.  I will write hippie songs nobody gives a shit about (and likely do a worse job than the guy in the comparison).

Multiply that by billions and global GDP declines on a massive scale. 

People shouldn't be compensated equally because talents, skills, productive capacity vary.  Capitalism is horribly flawed but it is the best system to match the needs of the population with the talents/assets/capital of the population.

It works because it doesn't require you to look out for the common good, nor does it expect you to.   Companies engage in brutal "combat" and to emerge victorious requires a better product, or better marketing (which is another product), or better prices (= production efficiency).   The entire system is made stronger because talents, resources, and capital flow to where they have the most benefit.

Sure division of that "pie" is uneven but Capitalism makes the pie bigger.  The "poor" today have a far better quality of life than say as a poor serf in the Middle Ages.  Their slice of the pie is smaller than say Donald Trump but the pie is magnitudes larger.

TL/DR version:
You build a system (even perfect) where the "slices" are even and you have broken the linking of work/assets/capital and reward.  There is no reason to be better because even if you are your slice isn't going to get any bigger.

What is a business owner supposed to do with OCCCU? Trade it for gold? Then what will the gold dealer do with it?

Agreed.  Bitcoin has solved that problem, which is nice.

I shouldn't have called it "community based"; it's not accurate enough.  I meant "economic systems that work to keep everyone identically wealthy".  The reason they fail is exactly as you say: lack of transparency.  Unfortunately it's inherent.  There are always going to be people who "run" things.  They will always claim they are doing it "for the good of the people".  While it's possible to benefit from cheating... someone will cheat.  The guy at the top can always cheat.

That's essentially why I was sarcastically asking "who gets to issue it?".