corporatizing your life

[ccbatson]

Regulation is nothing compared to market forces and a purer capitalist system. This is our greatest hope looking forward.

[rb336]

bats, yet again you deny history

[ccbatson]

The Russian Communist Revolution, Post WWII East Germany, Cuba, North Korea, and Communist China...Who is denying history?

[ccbatson]

Checkmate Slim...Although, you weren't playing...were you?

[rb336]

Checkmate Slim...Although, you weren't playing...were you?

so now calling you out on your simplistic black or white view of the woorld is a victory to you?

Eastern Europe was NEVER communist. communism is where the workers control the means of production. in case you didn't notice, eastern europe fell because of LABOR strikes [[oh, you can't believe that because it flies in the face of your reagan worship) true communism has never been tried, the closest was the US in the 40s, 50s and 60s when unions held sway, and that was such a horriible time for working people. oh, wait -- that was when a single working person could support a family, own their own house and perhaps a vacation cabin up north, two cars and a boat without being saddled with unmanageable debt. Eastern Europe was an Oligarchy, where the Party simply took over the reins of the Romanovs

[otter]

RB,

I think your argument that Eastern Europe was never Communist is a wrong one. A socio-economic system like Communism is not just defined by an abstract theory - it is defined by how it is actually carried out in human societies. Communism's execution has been quite different in different states, even beyond the often significant differences between the dictatorial or otherwise undemocratic versions. One could just as well say that 'true capitalism has never been tried' but it would have just as little meaning - 'true' capitalism, or Communism, is a theoretical construct only - actual capitalism or Communism is what people actually execute and experience.

On a somewhat separate note, your final sentence is not really right either. Most Communist systems became effective oligarchies eventually, but only in Russia's case could you say that it had any connection to the Romanovs. It ignores the social movements throughout Europe in the 20s and 30s that created the groundwork for the takeover of Communist dictatorships in post-WW2 Eastern Europe. And that says nothing about how it came to power in other parts of the world, like India or southeast Asia.

O.

[East Detroit]

You are wrong. True Communism is the dissolution of the state - therefore, there can be no "Communist government", that is an oxymoron. All the nations of Eastern Europe were Socialist and saw themselves on the path to Communism. Therefore the Soviet Union had the Communist Party [[i.e. those who were striving for Communism) but the country was known as the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics.

You are also confusing economic systems [[Socialism, Communism, Capitalism) with political systems [[Democracy, Oligarchy, Dictatorship).

So, you are saying that Communism is an economic system that endeavors to dissolve the State?

Or could we have a nation that is both Democratic and Communistic?

[Detroitej72]

So, you are saying that Communism is an economic system that endeavors to dissolve the State?

Or could we have a nation that is both Democratic and Communistic?

I remember from high school government class our textbooks read that the Soviet's were working toward the goal of eventual, pure communism. Their government was vastly different from what Karl Marx had in mind. They essentially replaced one ruling class with another, since the government officials pretty much lived and oppressed the populace much the same as the old system of the Czars.

[mjs]

I've been told "Animal Farm" does a pretty good job explaining how the Soviets went from Marxism to Communism and why and how some of the revolutionary leaders were forced into exile.

Batson, since you called out rb on saying monopoly when you understood he clearly meant an oligopoly, I have to call you out.

I have worked for, and now own [[as a partner) a corporation [[or 2).

Listen Daddy Warbucks, don't you know how many corporations you own? Assuming you actually do own a corporation, you would be a shareholder. Partners and shareholders have an entirely different set of legal rights and responsibilities. I've worked for corporations and held shares in them as well, so what?

And FTC guidelines are based on market concentration which is determined by squaring the market share of each participant and adding them up. If a market has 100 companies with 1% each, the result is 100. If another market has two companies with 50% each, the result is 5000 and the second market is 50 times more concentrated. A very rough estimate of the market rb describes would be around 1200.

[ccbatson]

Communists erroneously label the state as a collective or the embodiment of all of the citizen workers [[Proletariot)...it is, in fact, and extremely oppressive Statist government, regardless of what they call it to cow the populace into their oppressed way of life.

[otter]

Shady,

I think you missed my point, which was that what 'true Communism' is on paper is almost irrelevant - what is relevant is what it has been in practice. I am also fully aware that Communism is an socio-economic system and not a political system, a point that I made in my last post. One can have a Communist social system within a democratic political system. Kerala would be an example of that. At the same time, inasmuch as the theoretical end state of Communism does lead to the dissolution of a State, it cannot be considered entirely apolitical in theory.

O.

[Detroitej72]

That is Stalinism, not Communism.

I was merely pointing out that the old Soviet Union wasn't really truly pure communism, even though the right has erroneously labeled it as such.

[otter]

Shady,

I too try to take care in the terms that I use, but I am probably more in the language-is-descriptive-rather-than-prescriptive school of thought about how we use terms than you may be. Not that Communism is whatever someone wants to say it is [[the kind of thing that leads to incoherent inanities like the "liberal fascism" that you mention), but that the practice and actual evolution in practice of ideas means at least as much as their theoretical meaning.

O.

[Omaha]

Thanks for your well parsed arguments. I am learning so much about communism and socialism in a discussion of corporatism of one’s life. Let me see if I can tie them together.

All three “isms� seem to do away with the kind of freedom, individual liberty, independence and individualism that Cc and I talk about. But for the most part, it’s only the communists and socialists that seem to really limit human independence and liberty.

As a Social Darwinist and a Colbert Conservative, I believe that a democratic government works as it should only when the electorate is composed of informed and involved citizens who are independent of outside influences. Unfortunately this kind of analysis is too often misread by radical liberals as advocating for a government being run by folks who looking out for only themselves in the most selfish ways. That is hardly the case. The enlightened thoughts of these two of our Founding Fathers couldn’t be more clear.

“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people…Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government.� Alexander Hamilton, First Secretary of the Treasury, major author of the Federalist Papers and advocate of a strong central government

“The people who own this country ought to govern it.� John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

If an informed and independent electorate wasn’t ordained by God, why else would our Founding Fathers created a nation where only white male property owners could vote?

White male property owners were self-employed and not dependent on others for their income. That made them more independent than women [[married and unmarried), more independent than the members of Indian tribes, more independent that slaves and indentured servants, and more independent than ordinary wage earners.

That kind of independence led them to create a great government made up of white property owning males who looked after the interests of everyone [[who was a white male property owner). Why else would they have had the foresight to enact a law in 1790 ensuring that only free white people could become naturalized citizens of this great country?

At least one of our Founding Fathers also worried about the influence that corporations were to have on our government into the future.

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.� Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States 1816 commenting on the lack of protection from corporate monopolies in our nation’s Bill of Rights

Jefferson must have been revolted by what he considered the undue influence that English companies had on Parliament when they said that the Virginia and Plymouth companies could develop land in the New World from “sea to sea.� Or maybe he was worried that, as we evolved from a national economy based on small independent farmers to one of larger farms and the beginning of a larger mercantile and industrial economic base, corporations might try to influence governmental decisions in ways that benefit owners [[stockholders) and disadvantage the average non-white non-property owning families.

Thank goodness that nothing bad happened in the U.S. as the result of corporate power. In my reading of U.S. history, I was a little worried about the growth of corporate power with the SCOTUS granted corporations citizenship under the 14th Amendment in 1886. But despite that irrational decision, our democracy has worked as intended, and there has been no undue influence of corporations on life in the U.S.

As a Social Darwinist and Colbert Conservtive, I’d argue that expanding the right to vote beyond white male property owners did more to hurt this great nation than giving citizenship to inanimate objects under the 14th Amendment ever did.




.

[mjs]

I agree with your main assertion that "a democratic government works as it should only when the electorate is composed of informed and involved citizens who are independent of outside influences" and that the aristocratic democracy you speak of may have been better informed on most issues. However, doesn't an egalitarian democracy provide a better voice to the minority and unfortunate? When you remove voting power from individuals, won't it lead to oppression of those individuals which leads to violence from those individuals? Doesn't the First Amendment allow for a balance? An egalitarian democracy where open debate improves the democracy by getting the citizens informed and involved.

[mjs]

Ohh! You got me! With some folks posts, its hard to tell.
If Colbert moved from Comedy Central to Fox, I don't think anyone at Fox News would notice a change.

[Omaha]

The term egalitarian is an anathema to any Social Darwinist. It implies equal outcomes to someone who follows Stephen Colbert’s rigorous political philosophy. Equal outcomes are an abuse of what made American GREAT.

Take CEO compensation in the U.S. Over time it grew from 12:1 [[1960) to 40:1 [[1980) to 400:1 today when compared with the wages of an average hourly worker. That is because the American CEO pulled himself [[or occasionally herself) up through hard work and innovation to deserve that compensation. What is interesting is that because the “market is never wrong� our CEOs also clearly outshone even CEOs of other large multinational corporations when using only compensation as a fair measure of comparison.

People like Cc and myself believe that the U.S. has enough of a level playing field that anyone with the self-discipline to apply themselves can rise to any height. Following that logic and looking at our current POTUS we are lead to conclude that white racism, dejure and defacto segregation are no longer barriers to high achievement.

No my friend, there is no need for egalitarian anything. We already have enough social and economic mobility as things are. People will continue to rise and fall on their own merits, and that is as it should be.

Working people are working people because they don’t have what it takes to make it. I am sure that the other well educated and articulate conservatives on this web site would join me in supporting the intent if not the words of this old quote.

“The laboring class is unfitted for self-government…master and slave is a relation as necessary as that of parent and child, and the northern states will yet have to introduce it.� North Carolina newspaper, 1840s

[rb336]

Take CEO compensation in the U.S. Over time it grew from 12:1 [[1960) to 40:1 [[1980) to 400:1 today when compared with the wages of an average hourly worker. That is because the American CEO pulled himself [[or occasionally herself) up through hard work and innovation to deserve that compensation. What is interesting is that because the “market is never wrong� our CEOs also clearly outshone even CEOs of other large multinational corporations when using only compensation as a fair measure of comparison.

People like Cc and myself believe that the U.S. has enough of a level playing field that anyone with the self-discipline to apply themselves can rise to any height. Following that logic and looking at our current POTUS we are lead to conclude that white racism, dejure and defacto segregation are no longer barriers to high achievement.

No my friend, there is no need for egalitarian anything. We already have enough social and economic mobility as things are. People will continue to rise and fall on their own merits, and that is as it should be.

Working people are working people because they don’t have what it takes to make it. I am sure that the other well educated and articulate conservatives on this web site would join me in supporting the intent if not the words of this old quote.

“The laboring class is unfitted for self-government…master and slave is a relation as necessary as that of parent and child, and the northern states will yet have to introduce it.� North Carolina newspaper, 1840s

ok, i'm reasonably certain you are being sarcastic

[Omaha]

How can you say that? Sarcasm is the refuge of fools! Stephen and I are not fools. He takes himself seriously and so do I! We are just trying to educate others so we can make this a better world. If I had only been able to make it to the May 24th gathering [[assuming you were there) you could have seen how serious I am.

Colbert Conservatives and Social Darwinists are men of the world. We know how it really works. Others may muse that the most important task someone has to undertake to be successful is to choose their parents well. Balderdash! The most important thing is working hard and taking the advise of well places elders. Let me give you an example.

“It is only greenhorns who enlist. You can learn nothing in the army. . . . Here there is no credit attached to going. All now stay if they can and go if they must. Those who are able to pay for substitutes do so and no discredit attaches. In time you will learn that a man may be a patriot without risking his own life� Judge Thomas Mellon writing to his son James about how to handle the Draft Act passed in 1863 where it was legal to “purchase� for $300 a substitute to enlist for you. James did as his father wished. His brother Andrew was too young to be drafted but he followed his father’s advice and became the self-proclaimed richest person in the U.S. and Secretary of the Treasury under three presidents!

[ccbatson]

Welcome back Omaha!! Please stick around.

[Omaha]

Cc, thanks for the encouragement. And I hope to both stick around and bask in the knowledge that YOU want me here. Unfortunately, I am not master of my schedule. But in my spare time I check on DY and wait by the phone for my hero Stephen Colbert to call in hopes that he needs yet another acolyte.

I can’t, of course, be as prolific as yourself, but I am wordier. I hope to continue periodically sharing the kind of Social Darwinian insights that both educate and amaze. Like agreeing with the late great Adam Smith when he hit the nail on the head and told it like it was regarding the role of government.

“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence [sic] of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.� Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations

The liberal cowards posing as conservatives who worked in the Reagan Administration never had the backbone to use this quote when they were promoting that great political economist.

[Pam]

ok, i'm reasonably certain you are being sarcastic

He used the little winking guy. What more do you need?

[Lorax]

Hey Omaha, before the election in November, your de facto party leader, Caftan Warlord Brush Lintball stated that Roosevelt was dead, that his policies live on, but we're doing something about that as well.

I say the same for Adam Smith- his ideas live on in the heads of a few social retards who wish to return to the 18th century, but would have a hard time making it in the modern world.

Wealth of Nations was indeed a seminal work for it's time, but was embraced, dare I say, too "liberally" by the moneybags of the industrial revolution, and spun to moderate effect under Reagan.

You got your wish, though- Tush, Cheney Paulson & Company raided the treasury on their way out the door last fall, fearmongering congress into giving them 350 billion bucks to bail out their buddies. Where's mine? I should petition to have my mortgage paid off for agreeing to foot the bill.

[Pam]

Hey Omaha, before the election in November, your de facto party leader, Caftan Warlord Brush Lintball

Hey Lorax, your sarcasm detector is broken.

[Bearinabox]

Hey Lorax, your sarcasm detector is broken.

Seems to be quite a common affliction in these parts.