Comrade Chavez At Climate Summit

[Socrates]

[quote name='Mark of the Cross' date='20 December 2009 - 03:07 PM' timestamp='1261339667' post='2023524']
Most poor people in capitalistic countries are not happy with the fact that a tiny percentage of the population have most of the wealth. I was being cynical I guess because I am very happy having been born in Oz. God has been generous to me and given much more than I really need or deserve.
[/quote]
Most poor people in capitalistic countries live beyond the dreams of the poor in non-capitalistic countries. Most of them have food, a roof over their head, a car, and tv, while in other parts of the world, the poor are literally starving to death.
The countries with the freest economies are the most prosperous and have the highest overall standard of living. Countries where the government has great control over the economy are two-bit banana republics where the few live in luxury while the rest starve.

The government taking from the rich doesn't make anyone else better off. Just as bureaucrats taking from prosperous countries in the form of "emissions" taxes won't make poor countries better off.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='Winchester' date='20 December 2009 - 02:58 PM' timestamp='1261335536' post='2023494']The philosophy of capitalism does not account for just wage agreements and the actual worth of human labor. Supply and demand is not enough to set just prices.[/quote]

What is the actual worth of human labor? How are prices set, and how can you tell if there just? Is it possible to have just prices without the use of coercion from one institution or another?

[Winchester]

[quote name='King's Rook's Pawn' date='20 December 2009 - 05:04 PM' timestamp='1261346657' post='2023632']
What is the actual worth of human labor? [/quote]
I would guess it to be a percentage of the profit from that labor, but I don't have a hard number for you. It's also what such a percentage would yield. Employers and employees have mutual responsibility to each other.

[quote]How are prices set, and how can you tell if there just? Is it possible to have just prices without the use of coercion from one institution or another?
[/quote]
One would have to balance needs and efforts. A luxury would have a much higher price. People who whine about how expensive cable (clearly a luxury) is have no real basis for their complaint. How badly people want it or need it is not a good reason to raise a price.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Socrates' date='20 December 2009 - 04:29 PM' timestamp='1261344557' post='2023570']
Most poor people in statist corporate-welfari[st] [states] which are really more like socialism dressed up as "capitalism."
live beyond the dreams of the poor in statist corporate-welfari[st] [states] which are really more like socialism dressed up as "capitalism.". Most of them have food, a roof over their head, a car, and tv, while in other parts of the world, the poor are literally starving to death.[/QUOTE]


fixed it.


[QUOTE]The countries with the freest economies are the most prosperous and have the highest overall standard of living. Countries where the government has great control over the economy are two-bit banana republics where the few live in luxury while the rest starve.[/quote]

Somolia is actually pretty beaver dam poor.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Hassan' date='20 December 2009 - 05:27 PM' timestamp='1261348048' post='2023661']
fixed it.
[/quote]

Let's all move to North Korea. All hail Dear Leader!

[quote]Somolia is actually pretty beaver dam poor.[/quote]
Obviously suffering from capitalism.
I'm sure a good dose of socialism will fix all their problems.

[Nihil Obstat]

According to the Index of Economic Freedom, the most economically free countries are:
Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, Iceland.

I don't think you can properly rank Somalia. Lol.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Socrates' date='20 December 2009 - 05:31 PM' timestamp='1261348293' post='2023663']
Let's all move to North Korea. All hail Dear Leader![/QUOTE]

That has nothing to do with my point about your inconsistencies in definitions and judgments regarding the status of western state-economy relations


[QUOTE]Obviously suffering from capitalism.
I'm sure a good dose of socialism will fix all their problems.
[/quote]


Does Somalia have a high level of government control in its economy?

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Hassan' date='20 December 2009 - 04:35 PM' timestamp='1261348555' post='2023667']
That has nothing to do with my point about your inconsistencies in definitions and judgments regarding the status of western state-economy relations





Does Somalia have a high level of government control in its economy?
[/quote]
Index of Economic Freedom refuses to classify Somalia because of its status as a Failed State. Kinda like... you can't have an economy if you're busy not getting killed.

Interestingly, Singapore and Hong Kong, which are ranked highest, have rather large amounts of government control over social matters. Singapore is even somewhat less than democratic. Hong Kong is a weird case though, of course.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='20 December 2009 - 05:35 PM' timestamp='1261348513' post='2023666']
According to the Index of Economic Freedom, the most economically free countries are:
Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Luxembourg, Iceland.

I don't think you can properly rank Somalia. Lol.
[/quote]


Somolia doesn't have a free market because a free market economy cannot exist in absence of a stable system of laws and regulations which a need a coherent state to impose. This is what China has spent the last few decades figuring out. A free market can only exist is certain political contexts. To just pretend that a free market is the absence of government and that there is a necessary connection between less government and greater economic performance is incorrect. deregulation only works to a point.

I find it interesting that none of the worlds largest and most productive economies are on that list.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Hassan

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Hassan' date='20 December 2009 - 04:39 PM' timestamp='1261348756' post='2023672']
Somolia doesn't have a free market because a free market economy cannot exist in absence of a stable system of laws and regulations which a need a coherent state to impose. This is what China has spent the last few decades figuring out. A free market can only exist is certain political contexts. To just pretend that a free market is the absence of government and that there is a necessary connection between less government and greater economic performance is incorrect. deregulation only works to a point.
[/quote]
We were posting at the same time.

[Hassan]

[quote name='King's Rook's Pawn' date='20 December 2009 - 05:04 PM' timestamp='1261346657' post='2023632']
What is the actual worth of human labor? How are prices set, and how can you tell if there just?[/QUOTE]

I think Aloyius gave a pretty good response a while back. The basic worth of human labor is human sustenance.

[QUOTE]Is it possible to have just prices without the use of coercion from one institution or another?
[/quote]

Possible? Sure. Not very likely though.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='Winchester' date='20 December 2009 - 06:20 PM' timestamp='1261347627' post='2023651']
I would guess it to be a percentage of the profit from that labor, but I don't have a hard number for you. It's also what such a percentage would yield.[/quote]

There is no such number. Since employment is a mutual trade agreement, it's determined by whatever terms both the employer and employee choose to agree to.

[quote]Employers and employees have mutual responsibility to each other.[/quote]

A legal responsibility or a moral responsibility?

[Winchester]

[quote name='King's Rook's Pawn' date='20 December 2009 - 09:26 PM' timestamp='1261362360' post='2023826']
Since employment is a mutual trade agreement, it's determined by whatever terms both the employer and employee choose to agree to.[/quote]
Since I am Catholic, I disagree with that.

[quote]
A legal responsibility or a moral responsibility?
[/quote]
The primary is moral. The legality comes after that.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='Hassan' date='20 December 2009 - 06:27 PM' timestamp='1261348048' post='2023661']Somolia is actually pretty beaver dam poor.[/quote]

Somalia's a red herring. Somalia is a third-world country that was not influenced by such things as classical philosophy, English Common Law, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, or the development of international trade and finance, . It went from tribalism to imperial colonialism to a totalitarian communist dictatorship, which collapsed suddenly and violently twenty years ago. It's also suffered with various incursions from other countries, martial harassment from Ethiopia and US, trade barriers in Saudi Arabia, and ships from Europe dumping poisons into its fisheries.

And despite all this, according to many indicators, it's still better off than its third-world neighbors.

[King's Rook's Pawn]

[quote name='Hassan' date='20 December 2009 - 06:44 PM' timestamp='1261349077' post='2023681']The basic worth of human labor is human sustenance.[/quote]

What if the laborer is laboring to dig holes in the ground and fill them back up? Would you pay him three square meals a day to do that for you?