Topic: Solution to poverty - Socialism or Capitalism? - page 27. (Read 30782 times)

Welfare is an indirect method to reduce crime. The cost of putting someone into prison for stealing and robbing to buy food is more expensive than just paying them a welfare check.

Without welfare the job market would be better. Those 4-6 people they don't hire now, they would have to hire if not for government subsidies in the form of free labor. That's thousands, maybe tens of thousands of extra jobs in the country. And this is a very small country.

I mean would you rather not be on the public teat and broke?

I was. "I was on the public teat at the hardware store" means nothing when looking for actual work. It's just a way to keep people busy - at the taxpayers expense.

But would you have preferred to be unemployed?

I made up that, that's why I said luckily we are not at this point yet.
But this is what happens in other industries sadly.

When we examine the root cause of what caused any need for a subsidy, we often find another regulation. (be it price regulation, wage, or any other commodity)
Then it becomes like a license : you can then do business in the industry only if you can get the subsidy that make it profitable, which is at the good will of the bureaucrates and politicians.

I briefly worked in a hardware store. I was on the public teat, as described in the post above. The state sent us there to work as free labor (from the perspective of the store). There was a huge turnover but no shortage of people to send so they just kept replacing us every few months and in doing so saved maybe 4-6 job positions they would otherwise have had to pay for. It's no different from if the state had given them a bag of money to hire those 4-6 people for, this just keeps more people busy and makes the system more convoluted so people who are not part of it can't see through it.

Emotion can justify and rationalize anything. Money is ultimately about the movement of resources, a very fact-driven thing.

My take, after some thought: In a healthy economy money goes to those who produce or otherwise perform a useful function for society. The more productive the more money, the more useless the greater the poverty.

In a society where survival depends on maximizing the use of available resources this is obviously the case. We live in a time of abundance, so we no longer seek to maximize the use of resources. But it would still be desirable to do so, because everyone would be wealthier in real terms, if not in relation to eachother, which would make it possible to work fewer hours and spend more time on self-actualization which according to one school of thought is the way to happiness. It would also reduce the risk of economic collapse, ensuring that it is not a bubble-period of wealth but a sustained one far into the future.

Thus, in a healthy economy where the use of resources is maximized poverty is a good thing for society but a shitty thing for the individual; but it is also fair. Likewise, wealthy people would have earned their wealth so that too would be fair. And charity is always available for those of a socialist mindset, so there is nothing stopping you from giving your money away. But it would be voluntary, and not enforced at gunpoint as it is presently.

In a society where there is little or no relation between personal ability/use to society and the amount of money one has, poverty is a problem for wider society and wealthy people become villains. It also creates what some people call perverse incentives. I live in one of the biggest welfare nations in the world (Denmark). People who can't or won't work are paid enough every month to live a pretty decent life in exchange for little to no work. The more useless and difficult you present yourself the less is demanded of you. Thus, the optimum effort to income ratio is to be unemployed and unemployable, and as difficult to deal with as possible within the bounds of the rules.

Are you sure about this?  Is there a Socialist country that does this, or are you making things up to serve your political agenda?

Self interest and choice are the ultimate driving force of our society. It is not coincident Adam Smith who wrote "The wealth of Nation" also wrote "The theory of moral sentiment".

That's an interesting question.  But how can you remove the emotional component when one of the most fundamental goals in life is happiness?  If you want to completely remove emotions from the equation, then please explain to me why we should care about atrocities like the slaughter of innocent children.

It occurs to me that a solution requires a problem. Why is poverty a problem? Someone define it in clear and non-emotional terms.

Yes, but I was more referring to people that move out from their country because they want goods to consume or sell their labors at highest price than at their home country.
This is the same reason why Japanese went to USA, or colon of Europe came to USA.

I say that if law recognize intellectual property, then it is normal that state protects it from violation.
Like for the taxi. A Taxi License is a personal property, and so it should be protected against violation.

But this is not to say, I believe the invention of "Taxi Licence" or "Intellectual Property" is a right thing to do, because I think it limits free market.
But once invented, the goal of state is to protect the owner, and I can't blame for that.

I just blame such inventions.
But taking them away is difficult, because it would be considered as a violation of property by the owner, even with an arbitrary "fair price" offered by the government against it, and they would be right.
Sadly, I don't know how it is possible to take away those inventions, even if we recognize it as harmful. (Which, I personally believe harmful but this may not be shared by all libertarians)


Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkivn_3zn5I
The big difference between a libertarian and socialist is the way they define wealth.
The socialist thinks money is wealth and so, is limited and should be distributed. And to increase wealth, one way is to increase money supply. (inflation)

The libertarian thinks wealth is created every times two persons trade with each other without coercion.
In the libertarian mindset, if I decide to exchange you a gold ingot for a pencil on my free will, then wealth is created for both of us.
I valued my gold ingot less that your pencil, and you valued your pencil less than my gold ingot, so we are both winning.
Employment is also a kind of trade, with two differents good labor against money.

The libertarian mindset induce a capitalist society, because the wealthier, by this definition, are the one that trade the most, that is, companies that invested into labor and technology .
And we are against anything that can slowdown the speed of trade.

If you don't think money is wealth, then, you are not socialist.

In the libertarian mindset, MC Donald is god send, because low skilled people can finally trade their labor against money without any coercion from government.

In the socialist mindset, they would say Mc Donald exploits low skilled people, and union would coerce Mc Donald to raise wages.
Diminishing the number of low skill people that would be employed, and the price of hamburger would raise, and consequently their demand drops. (Luckily we are not at this point yet)
Then they would pass a bill so they can give subsidy to Mc Donald for their loss... But that would be advertised the "Food for everyone campaign".
Strings are in place, making everybody, customers ,employees, employers dependent of government for no added value.
Do you want to compete now ? yes just beg for the mandatory subsidy of gov to be economically profitable because of these artificially raised wages.

It's simple.
Social(ism) is making all of us equal.
Capital(ism) is splitting people on rich and poor.

Social4life.

I don't think regulations has to be so black & white.  Legal framework always adapt with the times.  However, I think its extreme to argue no regulations at all.  Thats de-evolution

Also, I don't trust Cato Institute.  Well known Libertarian think tank connected to Koch Brothers.

How can you recognize personal property but not intellectual property?  Isn't that contradictory?

I would call that semi competition to be honest
Its more like an Oligopoly where a few large companies together control the market and set the price

At least that's what you get when you compare mobile phone prices with other countries around the world.
http://www.therichest.com/luxury/most-expensive/countries-with-the-most-expensive-average-cell-phone-bill/
With increases still going

That said at least the US has Republic.

You are right about technology, but absolutely wrong about type of economy! USSR had comparable military technology level to the U.S. (and even exceeded in some areas).
Also modern weapons will be available almost to everyone when metal 3D-printers will become more advanced and cheaper. Size of army again will have big importance.

Mercenaries always fight less passionately than idea-motivated people!

USA is actually more socialist than most European countries.   EBT doesn't exist in most countries.  If you can't afford food in most countries then you goto a food bank and eat near-expired beans or stale pasta (or you starve if that's not an option).  

 A lot of US states will pay for your rent, utilities (including smart phones) and automobile through poor assistance plans. There's been studies going back a decade where, if a person knows how to exploit the various programs, they can make something like $50K-$70K in untaxed benefits without having to work a fulltime career.  They can also work under the table in restaurants or construction as some bureaucrat in an office can't stalk people to find out what they're doing during the day.

After all those people in Chicago just got put into a $3K a month apartment for free, get EBT on top, automobile assistance, phone assistance, if they have kids then the kids get free meals at school and scholarships, et cetera.

Right, and what I say is that microsoft did not get kicked out because of it.

But Bell, is an interesting case because it appears to be unchallenged natural monopoly.

We can believe that Bell got a natural monopoly, permitted by the network effect.
They gained monopoly because people went to AT&T because more people were connected to the network as opposed to later competition as the story goes. And it makes sense.

One objection I would have is : How is it possible that Facebook killed MySpace ? Why MSN Messenger died ? these are example of product that benefited of network effect and thus natural monopoly... for a while.
One point we can have, is that the entry cost in the software industry is marginal, so it lowers barrier of entry.
Also the cost of change is not the same as switching proprietary phone network was. Point taken.

So now, I'll argue why I don't think it is a natural monopoly. And that state exclusively helped Bell to develop at the beginning.
The complete argument can be found here http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/1994/11/cj14n2-6.pdf

1876—94 : Bell develops unchallenged, protected with patent.
One question at this point is to ask whether patents are a good idea at all. One move to prevent monopoly that can benefit from network effect is to not recognize intellectual property at all.

1894—1913 : This period see the rise of competition, with price reduction, and ROI felt from 46% to 8%. "It seems competition helped to expand the market, bring down costs, and lower prices to consumers".
One question here is why this had come to a end ? economy of scale did not prevented competition of entering on this period, as the fairy tale tell us.

1913—21 : "Kingsbury Commitment", AT&T acquired competitors, as well as Western Union. Anti-trust law kicked in, asking to sell 30% of western union, stop buying competitor, and allow competitor interconnection.
However, AT&T could  buy system from independant competitor, as long as it sold an equal number.
There was finally a small number of competitor each geographically restricted by the phone system they bought... so there was no competition after all, but several, local monopolies.

Then here is the regulators kicking in. Regulators thought wise to remove waste.
"There is nothing to be gained by local competition in the telephone business"
"Competition resulted in duplication of investment.... The policy of the state was to eliminate this by eliminating as far as possible, duplication."
"Many state regulatory agencies began refusing requests by telephone companies to construct new lines in areas already served by another carrier and continued to encourage monopoly swapping and consolidation in the name of “efficient service” (Lavey 1987: 184—85)"
Anti Trust is here to break 1 big guy to 5 other big guy, but they want to kill the small fish and erects walls around the big fish.

I will not copy paste everything, then came nationalization of AT&T, with the result of regulatory control of long distance Rates, which was above natural rate "to provide a subsidy to rural area", which killed competition in zone not covered by AT&T, not able to match the subsidy.
At the end, "universal service" vision of Vails, A&AT president, were in place thanks to the action of federal and state regulators.
It was not a natural monopoly far from it.

I am not talking about the dying children, but for the lower income class.
The slums stay like that because we are forbidden to give them wealth by trading their labor against money.
Milton Friedman pointed out that we never had immigration policy until minimum welfare services.
This is not a coincidence. Immigration was seen good as long as they brought labor, but once you can't use them as such, it becomes a liability.

Give me more specific information so I can know what you are talking about exactly.
Anyway, our laws were erected only once we were already richer. Not before. Wealth is to be made before confiscated.

Libertarians are not anarchist. The state has to protect property rights.
However, sending to prison someone that sold Cannabis ? This is a waste of money because no property rights were violated.
And also, those prison would not be so crowded if people in crappy district were legally permitted to trade their labor against money.

Send me 100 people with anything but bows, and I will send you a tank.
You can't produce as efficiently as in a capitalist country. At this point, war is not about number but about technology.
Anyway, if the capitalist country lacks labor, its door are open to buy it from outside. There is nothing to protect anyway. (No welfare)
As Friedman said, Immigration was a blessing before welfare services.

What is doing Scandinavian country for education ?
The state of private schools, as public, are for the most part disastrous in France, but I know Finland and Sweden are among the best.

Actually countries like Norway have a long paternal leave