This is of course what you get in a "pure" state of capitalism without any restrictions to exploitation, which Marx consciously assumes in his theory for the sake of getting to the logic behind the system. Legislation in itself was born as a reaction to these kind of tendencies. Marx deals extensively with the legal restriction to the length of the working day (in his time the so called 10 Hour Act was introduced, restricting the length of the working day to 10 hours).
In general, regulations do not tend to last and over time they tend to weigh heavy on companies, not to mention the fact that companies find ever new ways of dodging them. In fact, OECD countries have witnessed a process of deregulation over the last 3 decades, and workers have lost the many social protections granted to them in the "golden years" of post-WW2 prosperity. Moreover, companies can avoid the regulations imposed on them by moving their operations abroad where labor is cheaper and less covered by regulations.
I don't really believe in the force of regulation. Sure, sometimes it works, but it tends to result in temporary and fragile compromises between two fundamentally opposed interests. So, I remain anti-capitalist and do not believe in the social-democratic utopia of a regulated capitalism. I'm for the abolition of the labor/capital opposition and look towards attempts like co-operatives.
Precisely. It is an endless game where the government and businesses play catch up with each other.
My knowledge of capitalism is based on my personal experience with it, not theory. I work a non-capitalist government sector job that most people would find adequate to meet their needs. Aside from that I make at least 200%per month (and often more) than my job's salary working for myself in highly competitive markets.... and still have time for a life.
I've found out some things that have made this easy for me.
1. Find areas in which I will have no immediate competition and dive into them.
As soon as competition (usually from larger companies) comes, sell out to one of them at a profit before the market becomes overwhelmed with competitors and reduces the prices of the services.
2. Look for means to circumvent closed markets.
I've started buying locally produced material at prices higher than local buyers will pay and regularly carrying the material to markets where I can get higher prices than locally.
3. Property.
I partnered with a guy to buy a small empty shopping center into which we selectively recruited small single owner businesses that would have no direct local competition that would add to the economy of our town. We gave the businesses low rents for the first year and none complained when rents went up 50% the next year. It's been 2 years now and they're all doing GREAT! 24 hour locksmith/wrecker/auto parts service, small motor repairs and sales, a great little bar and a kick ass oriental restaurant. One vacancy waiting on the right business.... We need a pet grooming shop if anyone wants to move here.
4. Targeted markets.
I run a strictly seasonal 8 maximum occupancy bed and breakfast for tourists in my house that is advertised through direct marketing to motorcyclists (gay and straight) and doesn't openly compete with existing hotels and bed and breakfasts. This time next year it will expand to 16 occupancy with an addition of apartments on the property.
And I still find time to go to school 9 months a year, do some traveling, piddle in forums, do volunteer work and do most of the housework! If I think of another way to be making money you can bet I'll jump on it!
And by the way, it's not all about money. It's about the sense of accomplishment that comes from doing these things.
^yep, Salon is so reputable, objective and unbiased....
the article is a complete joke.
omg....the whole retarded debate about communism, capitalism or socialism is such a tired pile of steaming bs.
Look, to put it simply, all it boils down to is giving someone else control over your life.
You either live under the tyranny of a corporation or live under the tyranny of a government; a dictatorship run by an elite few.
They all suck and do nothing for the people but use them to further the pursuits of whoever is in control.
At least under capitalism I have the freedom to tell the corporation to go burn in hell when I have had enough of their abuse and then form my own corporation to live out and practice my own principles of fairness and equality and impart those values onto any people who will work with me to better themselves and their lives for their families.
I am very anti-corporation and very anti-government.
The mixed economy that the US has now is bad enough already and I do not trust the government. I sure as hell would not trust any government that is a full communist one, that's even worse than what the US has now...
Marx himself wrote that communism/socialism could not survive without a 'slave form of capitalism' built into it. To my knowledge no one supporting capitalism has ever said it couldn't survive with Marx's teachings.
Funny there was so much criticism of capitalism being nothing but theories... and when theories rooted in nothing resembling reality are tossed out no one even whispers to question some of the absurd things said against free markets and for socialism.
Personally I intensely dislike Ayn Rand's Pholosophy, it basically advocates being selfish, I believe in socialist states like they have in Scandinavia, they say in Sweden you can medically examine two children, analize everything about them and not know what social class they belong too.
I realize that this is probably an exageration, but here in the U.S. you can basically figure out a child's socio-economic status with one look at them.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, it's a statistical fact (I assume you're all acquainted with the 1% statistics)
Ayn Rand has no solution for that and her type of government would make it worse!
She believed that no money should be spent on special education for developlmentally disabled and retarded children (and those with learning disorders) because they won't contribute much to society.
Her views on Palestinians were downright racist!
The ironic thing is that when Atlas Shrugged came out it got terrible reviews and people saw her philosophy for the elitist trash that it was, only later did conservatives like Ronald Reagan start implementing policies that she advocated like deregulation.
It was deregulation which caused the 2008 financial crisis
And Paul Ryan the second top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives (and failed vice presidential candidate) is a devout follower of hers and has every member of his staff read Atlas Shrugged.
Person66 Wrote:Personally I intensely dislike Ayn Rand's Pholosophy, it basically advocates being selfish, I believe in socialist states like they have in Scandinavia, they say in Sweden you can medically examine two children, analize everything about them and not know what social class they belong too.
I realize that this is probably an exageration, but here in the U.S. you can basically figure out a child's socio-economic status with one look at them.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, it's a statistical fact (I assume you're all acquainted with the 1% statistics)
Ayn Rand has no solution for that and her type of government would make it worse!
She believed that no money should be spent on special education for developlmentally disabled and retarded children (and those with learning disorders) because they won't contribute much to society.
Her views on Palestinians were downright racist!
The ironic thing is that when Atlas Shrugged came out it got terrible reviews and people saw her philosophy for the elitist trash that it was, only later did conservatives like Ronald Reagan start implementing policies that she advocated like deregulation.
It was deregulation which caused the 2008 financial crisis
And Paul Ryan the second top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives (and failed vice presidential candidate) is a devout follower of hers and has every member of his staff read Atlas Shrugged.
Interesting you'd show up with a name like Person66 One of Rand's books is about a society in which none of the people have names, just numbers....
On that 1% thingie, try to find a revolutionary communist government that didn't kill off all the existing 1% and then become the new 1%.... USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia under Pol Pot. I still wonder how people can support their favored way of eliminating poverty.... killing off enough poor people to fill every sports arena on earth... China and the USSR killed off between 50 and 80 million... Pol Pot, 5 million... But it raised the standard of living for the lucky survivors!
Deregulation caused the 2008 financial crisis?
Yep... That's what happens when governments get involved with economies and try to manipulate them in the best interests of their f**k buddies, regardless of capitalism, socialism, communism.
What Ayn Rand said about Palestinians was racist?
Hmmm okay... So Palestinians teaching kids in school that Jews are descended from interbreeding of monkeys and pigs is just fluffy sweet talk I guess.
memechose Wrote:Interesting you'd show up with a name like Person66 One of Rand's books is about a society in which none of the people have names, just numbers....
OK so I wasn't very original with my screenname this has nothing to do with anything
Quote:On that 1% thingie, try to find a revolutionary communist government that didn't kill off all the existing 1% and then become the new 1%.... USSR, China, Cuba, Cambodia under Pol Pot. I still wonder how people can support their favored way of eliminating poverty.... killing off enough poor people to fill every sports arena on earth... China and the USSR killed off between 50 and 80 million... Pol Pot, 5 million... But it raised the standard of living for the lucky survivors!
What on earth makes you think I'm for communism?
I'm not even anti-capitalist.
Yes communist leaders like, Slalin, Pol Pot and Mao were mass-murderous sociopaths so were right-wing leaders like: Adolfo Hitler, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, the Brazilian Junta, and the leaders of Argentina's dirty war.
Bringing up Hitler speaks for itself, the last three were responsible for countless, torturing, killing, and forced dissapearences ("disaparacidos") and were propped up by the American government.
Quote:Deregulation caused the 2008 financial crisis?
Yep... That's what happens when governments get involved with economies and try to manipulate them in the best interests of their f**k buddies, regardless of capitalism, socialism, communism.
Yes, it allowed banks to use complicated financial tools like credit default swaps to defraud customers, and that's just one example.
Care to explain what a "credit default swap" is?
I guarantee you can't, and if it's impossible to explain,without a degree in economics, you just have to go by what your your stockbroker says, the perfect setup for fraud.
Quote:What Ayn Rand said about Palestinians was racist?
Hmmm okay... So Palestinians teaching kids in school that Jews are descended from interbreeding of monkeys and pigs is just fluffy sweet talk I guess.
Does the fact that a lot of Palestinians are racist themselves give people the right to be racist towards them?
Person66 Wrote:OK so I wasn't very original with my screenname this has nothing to do with anything That was nothing but an observation of a convenient irony.
What on earth makes you think I'm for communism? I went back looking for what I said that made you think I thought you were a communist. All I did was bring them into the conversation to call bullshit on the popular propaganda the only people who are nice to working people are communists.
I'm not even anti-capitalist.
Yes communist leaders like, Slalin, Pol Pot and Mao were mass-murderous sociopaths so were right-wing leaders like: Adolfo Hitler, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, the Brazilian Junta, and the leaders of Argentina's dirty war.
Bringing up Hitler speaks for itself, the last three were responsible for countless, torturing, killing, and forced dissapearences ("disaparacidos") and were propped up by the American government.
Yes, it allowed banks to use complicated financial tools like credit default swaps to defraud customers, and that's just one example.
Care to explain what a "credit default swap" is? You're right I can't explain what a credit default swap is. I can tell you it was invented by the same person whose 'brilliant and much acclaimed" economic leadership led to a financial crisis in the 1980s and almost got him in prison. He went on to start the Chicago Climate Exchange which collapsed once people were shown, that like all his other great economic visions, what a scam Carbon Trading was. His name's Richard Sandor.
I guarantee you can't, and if it's impossible to explain,without a degree in economics, you just have to go by what your your stockbroker says, the perfect setup for fraud. [COLOR="Blue"] I agree with you. The same has happened to our legal system, tax system and legislative bodies. Back in the 1950s Ayn Rand made vivid predictions of exactly this..... and people tried to marginalize her.
About what you said on having an intense dislike for Rand's pholosophy (sic) and it's advocating selfishness. Since this entire debate began I've been investigating on my own to get a grasp on everyone's concept of selfishness. I've come up with a better understanding of selfishness, not as defined in the dictionary, but defined by practice.
When a person uses the word selfishness it is ALWAYS in reference to the character of others and NEVER applied to themselves. The unspoken rules of the use of the word selfishness say that selfishness does not apply to anything the speaker uses with the prefix MY... MY new car, MY 9 ft wide flat screen, MY vacation to Belize, MY investments, MY sex life, MY bank account, MY house,.... I actually got a face to face lecture about Rand being wickedly selfish from a uber wealthy guy who owns houses in Florida, South Dakota and France, wagging a BIG diamond ring in my face while he was unpacking bottles of wine he said cost $50 and up....
soooo.... honestly Person66, I bet if I was invited to your house and into your life for one afternoon I'd find out that you're just as hypocritical about applying the word selfishness as everyone else is. If you're not selfish then go provide sex for the needy instead of the people your selfish desires draw you towards. Cut back on all the things you've selfishly bought yourself... or you can justify them by saying you deserve them because you worked for them.... which means you'd be pilfering lines right out of Ayn Rand's philosophy that you so intensely dislike.
I'm feeling myself more and more inclined towards Rand's philosophy as I've explored it and found out that everyone who's expressed a negative opinion about it is just blowing out 2nd or 3rd hand ass wind they've heard repeated by others. Her philosophy is consistent, rational and most of all ---- natural. I may change my mind as I explore it some more. [/COLOR]
Does the fact that a lot of Palestinians are racist themselves give people the right to be racist towards them?
I had a feeling when I wrote that someone would pick up on that fallacious logic. Rand said something to the effect that Palestinians (and maybe all arabs) are primitive barbaric and incompatible with modern culture and should be treated like it. For saying things like that she was labeled a racist even though THEY ARE TRUE!!! She never stopped to the levels of racism that comes off the printing presses of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who furnishes text books to the arab world about Jews being descended from monkeys and pigs.
Ayn Rand
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