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Morality of Socialism

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Post by Independent Thoughts Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:18 pm

Which side is right? Who makes the most compelling argument? Why?


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Post by Original Quill Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:49 pm

Moral?  Is the streetlight outside moral?  When it's green for you it's moral; when it's red, that's immoral.  That question makes about as much sense.

The question is, what do you like?  The guy is obviously self-centered regarding money.  Judging from the station being Fox Business, I speculate he is Republican.  Their view of politics is individualist and self-interested.

Socialism is just a more efficient way of organizing a political economy.  There are four elements to production: land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship (or motive).  Socialism takes capital out of the equation and gives it over to the political unit.  By eliminating the need for capital, you eliminate profit.  That's 25% fewer mouths to feed and in most cases, much more.

CNN points to a new report that "estimates that the richest 1% will have as much wealth as the other 99% combined by next year."  http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/wealth-inequality/  That is the result of individual self-interest, or capitalism.  Focusing on the collective society, it is far better for the government to own the units of production, than for a single person who is acting independent of the public good.

Perhaps the largest, most effective socialist organization on the earth is the US Military.  It is felt that it is imperative that the military be owned, and operated for the benefit of the political unit.  Were we to rely on a million small business units to go off to war for us, I'm thinking the small businesses would each/all go off in the direction of their own self-interest...and the nation would lose the war.  Some things just need concerted, coordinated effort.

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Post by veya_victaous Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:00 pm

the guy is a fool
that is not how it works
it is stop giving it in Tax breaks to Already Ultra rich and Corporations. It is fund health care and basic services so your fellow citizens are not dying in the street. It is the Idea that Citizens are more than ‘animals’ that we are more than a herd that leaves it weak members to die.
It is not taking any more off anyone it is just not wasting it like it currently is.
the USA has a major issue with the gap between the haves and the have nots.
 
Morality is that YES he should be paying to support the society that has allowed him to obtain such wealth.
And I am not a poor person, I pay a lot of tax, Multiple times the dole payment every week and the Australian Unemployment dole payment is on par with a 40 hour a week minimum wage job in the USA.  Even here where we have a $16/h min wage, I pay more in tax than the average factory worker earns.
A good person has no problem paying forward the benefits they have received for a society they love and WANT to succeed.
The only way to hold the position of the Guy in the Video is to Hate Your fellow citizens and to Not want a strong cohesive society that is competitive globally.
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Post by Original Quill Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:10 pm

veya wrote:The only way to hold the position of the Guy in the Video is to Hate Your fellow citizens and to Not want a strong cohesive society that is competitive globally.

Which is another way of describing individual self-interest.

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Post by Andy Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:19 pm

The first human settlers on undiscovered islands needed to be cooperative socialists.
As will the first human settlers on a new planet in hundreds of years time.
A brand new planet will not be a good place for an extremist or right wing entrepreneur.
Socialism is here to stay, and needs to stay.
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Post by Victorismyhero Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:23 pm

agreed, but a balance must be struck, or you risk losing one of the 4 elements to production ....

vis entrepreneurship (or motive)

it either withers and dies as folks "give up", (becasue the reward of mere self improvement isnt sufficient reward), OR as happened in russia, it moves underground as a black market and becomes criminal in all aspects...

this is why I say a mixed economy comprising of both state and private venture is needed...

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Post by Victorismyhero Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:27 pm

Handy Andy wrote:The first human settlers on undiscovered islands needed to be cooperative socialists.
As will the first human settlers on a new planet in hundreds of years time.

right up to the point someone invents something that merely adresses a comfort issue as opposed to a survival issue
whereupon he is NOT (even morally) obliged to make it freely or even cheaply available to all
and
some folks will be willing to pay the extra for it, be the payment "credits", power cells or whatever


A brand new planet will not be a good place for an extremist or right wing entrepreneur.
Socialism is here to stay, and needs to stay.
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Post by Andy Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:36 pm

A rocket ship filled with right wing entrepreneurs settling on a new planet.
Hypothetical as it would never happen nor would it happen for hundreds of years.
But how long before a war started?
Most wars start over religion, greed debt or landgrabbing.
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Post by Ben Reilly Tue Feb 23, 2016 11:02 pm

I've always answered the question of the morality of socialism with the following scenario:

Which is more moral? For the government to take money from those who have a lot and redistribute it to help those who don't have enough, or for the government to do nothing as a few people hoard all the money and a vast number goes without the basic necessities of life?

That question is why you see right-wingers saying things like, "Well, if they just worked harder ... well, if they'd gone to school ... well, if they'd lived within their means ..." and similar song and dance routines.

I actually encountered a guy one time whose father ran a successful small business and had taught him since childhood how everything worked. Now he was grown and running his own business, and he wanted to know why everyone couldn't do that Smile
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Post by Victorismyhero Tue Feb 23, 2016 11:30 pm

Ben_Reilly wrote:I've always answered the question of the morality of socialism with the following scenario:

Which is more moral? For the government to take some money from those who have a lot and redistribute it to help those who don't have enough, or for the government to do nothing as a few people hoard all the money and a vast number goes without the basic necessities of life?

That question is why you see right-wingers saying things like, "Well, if they just worked harder ... well, if they'd gone to school ... well, if they'd lived within their means ..." and similar song and dance routines.

I actually encountered a guy one time whose father ran a successful small business and had taught him since childhood how everything worked. Now he was grown and running his own business, and he wanted to know why everyone couldn't do that Smile

there fixed it for you partly

we also have the problem of what the L/W consider suitable use for that money
like spending it on foreigners whilst ignoring the plight of our own (not that OUR current crop of cons is any better )
like expecting US (all) to pay into a system that then goes to support the world and its dog. (like our NHS)
like spending it on services for foreigners that we cant and dont expect to get when we go abroad

like translation services into nearly every language known to man at NO cost to the user in the NHS, councils etc (though the ONE i do think is right and proper is within the courts system, I agree it is a fundamental human right to have any legal proceedings made in a language you can understand....)

like spending taxpayers money on supporting "minority interests" (not of necessity minority support) councils are the worst for this

we have effective laws here now , so why does every council need an "equality manager" plus attendant retinue, why does every minority need to have a representative in these mad houses? All paid for at the taxpayers expense...???

why do we need "diversity departments" if a minority is gettting shit, then why cant they, just like everyone else, go to law for a resolution...?


We are trapped between madness and stupidity

the R/W think anyone who can grab it should keep it all

(if you steal a grouse of the moor they will hang you, if you steal the moor they will make you a duke ......
old saying)

the L/W think no one but the state (and thus themselves as the ruling power) should have anything but the least amount

I have hears lefties saying everything from "everyone regardless should be paid the same"
to
no one should "own" anything....

socialism will always have its beak into things, but wherever it has been tried, it has required force and the destruction of civil liberty to maintain...

yes quill , even your socialist military.

It is in reality hardly a system that is ever going to work, human nature being what it is, but we would all be the worse off if it dissapeared....it serves if nothing else as a reminder of what we should be aspiring to...

unfortunately it has no idea of how to acheive it in the first place, AND then maintain motivation and drive...so it ALWAYS runs out of money, out of favour ......

I mean look at it this way...why should "I" (the generic "I" ) flog myself half to death, inventing/developing something, when my reward will be no greater than that of the guy out there contentedly shovelling shit? who has no "deadlines" no stress, save what he makes for himself, and few if any concerns about what his boss thinks he's doing????










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Post by veya_victaous Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:07 am

@victor
umm are the Lefties you know about Sassy's age???
You suggest lefty ideals that have not been in lefty vogue for like 2 decades.
 
The 'pay everyone the same' shit died with the USSR. Limit the deviation between the highest paid and lowest paid and ensure everyone can earn a living wage has been the mantra since I have been eligible to vote (15 years)
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Post by Original Quill Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:13 am

Victor wrote:vis entrepreneurship (or motive)

it either withers and dies as folks "give up", (becasue the reward of mere self improvement isnt sufficient reward), OR as happened in russia, it moves underground as a black market and becomes criminal in all aspects...

I've given the element of entrepreneurship some thought over the years.  That is why I reinterpret it as motive.  I think in a socialist system, other elements will incentivize innovation and management.  

Keep in mind, what a capitalist infuses is capital.  Although inert capital (or value) is what fills an enterprise, and gives it muscle and legitimacy, the enterprise still can only thrive on the imagination and energy of someone outside.  The entrepreneur, while he may dream of owning the factory, usually loses out to the provider of capital.  Venture capitalists can lock in inventors as easily as they do labor.

The assumption of capitalism is that the entrepreneurship person will only be there when there is incentive...and that incentive must be ownership.  Ownership in a capitalistic society has always translated into power.  But if ownership is not available as an incentive, other things will move in to fill the role of power.  The incentive factor will be fulfilled in other ways. Indeed, the creator/entrepreneur might not even need incentive, just outlet.


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Post by Victorismyhero Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:17 am

Original Quill wrote:
Victor wrote:vis entrepreneurship (or motive)

it either withers and dies as folks "give up", (becasue the reward of mere self improvement isnt sufficient reward), OR as happened in russia, it moves underground as a black market and becomes criminal in all aspects...

I've given that element some thought over the years.  That is why I reinterpret it as motive.  I think in a socialist system, other elements will incentivize innovation and management.  

Keep in mind, what a capitalist infuses is capital.  Although inert capital (or value) is what fills an enterprise, and gives it muscle and legitimacy, the enterprise still can only thrive on the imagination and energy of someone outside.  The entrepreneur, while he may dream of owning the factory, usually loses out to the provider of capital.  Venture capitalists can lock in inventors as easily as they do labor.

The assumption of capitalism is that such person will only be there when there is incentive...and that incentive must be ownership.  Ownership in a capitalistic society has always translated into power.  But if ownership is not available as an incentive, other things will move in to fill the role of power.  The incentive factor will be fulfilled in other ways.

such as?

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Post by Original Quill Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:24 am

That's the question.  Compare the entrepreneur to the artist.  Both are creators.  Both have the need to take something inside, and put it out there.  What incentivizes the artist?

Perhaps that's why inventors, like artists, end up selling their intellectual property.  And if you build it into the infrastructure, maybe that's what R&D departments are.

There's a book by Derek J. de Solla Price that deals with this...it's called, Big Science, Little Science. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=big+science+little+science

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Post by Victorismyhero Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:28 am

veya_victaous wrote:@victor
umm are the Lefties you know about Sassy's age???
You suggest lefty ideals that have not been in lefty vogue for like 2 decades.
 
The 'pay everyone the same' shit died with the USSR. Limit the deviation between the highest paid and lowest paid and ensure everyone can earn a living wage has been the mantra since I have been eligible to vote (15 years)

who and where are you going to set the deviation> 1:10 , 1:100, more?

who's going to enforce it and how...

how will you deal with "backdoor payments"

who says who sits where on this arbitrary scale

it wont work anyway...you will NEVER get the whole world to agree, so folks will simply go where the money is...


what you going to do when folks in high pressure jobs decide ...you know what ...stuff it this job isnt worth (whatever limit you may say) for the aggro ....

ultimately....how can you decide how much more valuable is a surgeon over a dustman or , more accurately,( since it can be argued that one is as valuable as the other) how do you properly reward the surgeon for the years of study and experience he has and the level of dedication he shows in his work.....




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Post by Victorismyhero Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:37 am

Original Quill wrote:That's the question.  Compare the entrepreneur to the artist.  Both are creators.  Both have the need to take something inside, and put it out there.  What incentivizes the artist?

Perhaps that's why inventors, like artists, end up selling their intellectual property.  And if you build it into the infrastructure, maybe that's what R&D departments are.

There's a book by Derek J. de Solla Price that deals with this...it's called, Big Science, Little Science.  https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=big+science+little+science

mmm....most folks I know that have developed ideas or solutions to problems have done it, not becasue they have some sort of intellectual geas that requires them to do so, but becasue someone was paying them BIG bucks to do just that.

you dont think the likes of Steve Jobs, and the rest of em, including Branson, did what they did becasue they were driven to benefit humanity or merely for some ephemeral sense of stisfation...did they hell, they smelled big money and dived right in
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Post by Victorismyhero Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:55 am

moreover are we not now merely discussing an aspect of socialism.
Its supposed morality is another matter

I would suggest that history teaches us the indeed it the reality (as opposed perhaps to the idealistic theories)HAS no especial morality

let us not forget that NOWHERE has socialism been significantly adopted within a nation without the imposition of a regime that is in fact as terrible, if not worse for its underlying mendacity, than any R/W regime.


face it, in theory at least a socialist society should have the edge on any other system in terms of competitiveness, and should therfore "win" the selling game

yet as china found out it doesnt work like that...even they have had to bow to the inevitable market pressure, simply because, when you pay peanuts...you get monkeys, and with little or no incentive for excellence all your factories produce is crap...



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Post by Eilzel Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:20 am

I think when global capitalism inevitably collapses and the world with it, be that in 50,100 or 500 years times (but it will); whatever is left will come to realise that some of socialism is the only way the human population can be sustained indefinitely.

What doesn't work, sadly, is having a few nations try out socialism when they are undermined constantly by developed capitalist nations.

As to morality. No ideology can really call itself moral; morality is subjective and ever changing. It can't really be fixed.
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Post by veya_victaous Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:36 am

Lord Foul wrote:
veya_victaous wrote:@victor
umm are the Lefties you know about Sassy's age???
You suggest lefty ideals that have not been in lefty vogue for like 2 decades.
 
The 'pay everyone the same' shit died with the USSR. Limit the deviation between the highest paid and lowest paid and ensure everyone can earn a living wage has been the mantra since I have been eligible to vote (15 years)

who and where are you going to set the deviation> 1:10 , 1:100, more?

who's going to enforce it and how...

how will you deal with "backdoor payments"

who says who sits where on this arbitrary scale

it wont work anyway...you will NEVER get the whole world to agree, so folks will simply go where the money is...


what you going to do when folks in high pressure jobs decide ...you know what ...stuff it this job isnt worth (whatever limit you may say) for the aggro ....

ultimately....how can you decide how much more valuable is a surgeon over a dustman or , more accurately,( since it can be argued that one is as valuable as the other) how do you properly reward the surgeon for the years of study and experience he has and the level of dedication he shows in his work.....






simple, the good people wont.
and you are not defending the surgeon, the surgeon is still higher under socialism because they provide more real wealth to a society.

You need to Justify why Trump has more money than even top surgeons will earn in a life time.
Why should Kanye West be paid 10 times more than a brain surgeon?


Allowing the market to decide has clearly not worked it is clearly not fair and it is clearly Massive wasteful. to place citizens on a scale based on how much value the add to a society is much fairer.

Also don't need to get everyone to agree just enough of us need to agree, just like capitalism would end the same day enough people ceased to accept the fraudulent concept that profit is moral. plus lets face Capitialsm has been spread by the point of a gun that's why there is the cold war.
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Post by veya_victaous Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:39 am

Lord Foul wrote:moreover are we not now merely discussing an aspect of socialism.
Its supposed morality is another matter

I would suggest that history teaches us the indeed it the reality (as opposed perhaps to the idealistic theories)HAS no especial morality

let us not forget that NOWHERE has socialism been significantly adopted within a nation without the imposition of a regime that is in fact as terrible, if not worse for its underlying mendacity, than any R/W regime.


face it, in theory at least a socialist society should have the edge on any other system in terms of competitiveness, and should therfore "win" the selling game

yet as china found out it doesnt work like that...even they have had to bow to the inevitable market pressure, simply because, when you pay peanuts...you get monkeys, and with little or no incentive for excellence all your factories produce is crap...




the UK, Australia, France Just to name a few

IF the goverment owns the hospitals then it is socialist. Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes Rolling Eyes

China is not socialist, never has been, it is communist. they are not interchangable ideals even if they are more like each other than like capitalism
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Post by Eilzel Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:19 am

Veya I wouldn't say a country has significantly adopted socialism just because it has government owned healthcare. It has some socialist aspects, but hs not significantly adopted socialism.
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Post by veya_victaous Wed Feb 24, 2016 4:03 am

Eilzel wrote:Veya I wouldn't say a country has significantly adopted socialism just because it has government owned healthcare. It has some socialist aspects, but hs not significantly adopted socialism.


Well it cannot be capitalist
Central to the meaning of socialism is common ownership
So by taxpayer owned hospitals schools etc they are socialist
as the major resources for production (education and health) have common ownership

I would say unlike the USA or Canada nations like UK Australia or France are Socialist there is a major difference in the economic infrastructure of our nations, the way resources are allocated and the way public services are funded.
Our Nations are more in line with socialist methodology with 'institutions being funded to provide services' (subsequently the ownership of hospitals etc by these public institutions) as opposed to 'services being funded' and following the capitalist process of bidding and outsourcing to private enterprise .
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Post by Original Quill Wed Feb 24, 2016 4:12 am

Lord Foul wrote:
Original Quill wrote:That's the question.  Compare the entrepreneur to the artist.  Both are creators.  Both have the need to take something inside, and put it out there.  What incentivizes the artist?

Perhaps that's why inventors, like artists, end up selling their intellectual property.  And if you build it into the infrastructure, maybe that's what R&D departments are.

There's a book by Derek J. de Solla Price that deals with this...it's called, Big Science, Little Science.  https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=big+science+little+science

mmm....most folks I know that have developed ideas or solutions to problems have done it, not becasue they have some sort of intellectual geas that requires them to do so, but becasue someone was paying them BIG bucks to do just that.

you dont think the likes of Steve Jobs, and the rest of em,  including Branson, did what they did becasue they were driven to benefit humanity or merely for some ephemeral sense of stisfation...did they hell, they smelled big money and dived right in

They were small potatoes compared to da Vinci, Monet, Spinoza, Rousseau and Locke.  You want to get into creativity?  Ya gotta come at me with more than Jobs and Branson.  There's nothing about entrepreneurs that doesn't fit into greater walks of life.

Entrepreneurship is just the self-motivated man with a good idea.  We're not talking economic theory when we start looking at creativity.  It's much bigger.

So let's get back down from the clouds. We were talking about comparing capitalism to socialism, and you were suggesting that entrepreneurship cannot be duplicated in any other economic system than capitalism. I think you over glorify the role; entrepreneurship is just a motive to initiate an enterprise or idea. There is no necessity to have a special environment.

In a socialist system the role of entrepreneur can be fulfilled by any bright, motivated person, given the freedom to create. During the banking explosion in the last decade, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Financial Services Modernization Act created an environment in which every banker became an entrepreneur within his own employment. These bankers weren't Jobs or Branson, they were just employees. Without restraint, they were flying around dreaming up ideas to make money...each one, a little entrepreneur in his own right. They proved that entrepreneurship can exist within a preexisting organization, and not just out on the street.


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Post by Eilzel Wed Feb 24, 2016 4:15 am

Quill, the UK is 'more socialist' than the US for sure- but that does not make us a significantly socialiat nation by any stretch. I wish it were the case that it was.
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Post by Original Quill Wed Feb 24, 2016 4:40 am

Eilzel wrote:Quill, the UK is 'more socialist' than the US for sure- but that does not make us a significantly socialiat nation by any stretch. I wish it were the case that it was.

I know Les. Vic and I were having a discussion about the theories of capitalism and socialism. I was saying in another economic system, one could extrapolate to a more abstract level and find the same essential function as entrepreneurship--one of the four elements of production--as one finds in capitalism.

That's all. Although western Europe went through a socialist revolution from 1848 on, which the US missed, I don't believe for a minute that socialism was complete or absolute there.

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Post by Victorismyhero Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:03 am

Original Quill wrote:
Lord Foul wrote:

mmm....most folks I know that have developed ideas or solutions to problems have done it, not becasue they have some sort of intellectual geas that requires them to do so, but becasue someone was paying them BIG bucks to do just that.

you dont think the likes of Steve Jobs, and the rest of em,  including Branson, did what they did becasue they were driven to benefit humanity or merely for some ephemeral sense of stisfation...did they hell, they smelled big money and dived right in

They were small potatoes compared to da Vinci, Monet, Spinoza, Rousseau and Locke.  You want to get into creativity?  Ya gotta come at me with more than Jobs and Branson.  There's nothing about entrepreneurs that doesn't fit into greater walks of life.

Entrepreneurship is just the self-motivated man with a good idea.  We're not talking economic theory when we start looking at creativity.  It's much bigger.

So let's get back down from the clouds.  We were talking about comparing capitalism to socialism, and you were suggesting that entrepreneurship cannot be duplicated in any other economic system than capitalism.  I think you over glorify the role; entrepreneurship is just a motive to initiate an enterprise or idea.  There is no necessity to have a special environment.

In a socialist system the role of entrepreneur can be fulfilled by any bright, motivated person, given the freedom to create.  During the banking explosion in the last decade, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Financial Services Modernization Act created an environment in which every banker became an entrepreneur within his own employment.  These bankers weren't Jobs or Branson, they were just employees.  Without restraint, they were flying around dreaming up ideas to make money...each one, a little entrepreneur in his own right.  They proved that entrepreneurship can exist within a preexisting organization, and not just out on the street.



except for the fact that they were not motivated by some "common good" or indeed vague notion of "self improvement" these "micro entrepreneurs" were motivated by, as always ...greed
they saw the possibility of making $$$$$$$ if they took excess risk etc...

nothing very socialist about it...

Now artists are a "breed apart" the creation of a work of art is in many ways different to "inventing something".

have to go now...bbl.
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Post by Original Quill Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:52 pm

Victor wrote:except for the fact that they were not motivated by some "common good" or indeed vague notion of "self improvement" these "micro entrepreneurs" were motivated by, as always ...greed
they saw the possibility of making $$$$$$$ if they took excess risk etc...

Yes—not to say I agree with it—but that is the conservative presumption: all humankind is fundamentally selfish.  They believe that, and they become that.

Victor wrote:nothing very socialist about it...

I don’t know what you mean by that???  Socialism is an economic theory—a construct designed to formulate a system.  You are putting the cart before the horse when, in a discussion about human motivation, you say “nothing very socialist about it…”  

I guess the proper response is, we haven’t got there yet.

Victor wrote:Now artists are a "breed apart" the creation of a work of art is in many ways different to "inventing something".

You seem reluctant to delve into the matter any more deeply than just "greed".  That is a rather superficial and not very curious approach.  It could as easily be the result, as it could be the start of the inquiry.  I only mention artists because they have that element of creativity that seems to be essential to entrepreneurship.  The other element I would add—especially since I now have the years—is energy.  Entrepreneurs have an idea and they apply energy to developing it, and voilà, you have that fourth part of the theory of production that puts it all together...literally, as well as figuratively.

However I think you hit the nail on the head when you identified ‘greed’ as the core of at least the conservative philosophy.  Conserve selfishness, or greed, is only an ideology, and there are other philosophies that disagree with it.  Notably, socialism presumes that the fundamental nature of humankind is not greed, but a will toward cooperation--man is a social being.  If you look at all of these political debates, they begin with one side or the other framing a question according to either greed, or need.  The liberal or progressive wants to fulfill a social need, using social resources to do so, and the conservative frets about how it will detract from his avaricious little pile.

That difference…that crux, is the difference between conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives build all of their institutions not only predicating greed, but fulfilling greed…a descriptive statement becomes normative.  Conservatives posit that the world is selfish, and they end up embracing selfishness as their ideology.  The predicate becomes the product.

The progressive builds all of his institutions on a presumption that we are a social animal, and thus we proceed progressively with a spirit of cooperation.  Liberals are problem solvers, while conservatives are hoarders.  That is why you see progressive liberals designing solutions, and conservatives are doing...well, building walls.

To return to the example, the video clip, when I see someone screaming about being taxed by 60%, I know I am looking at a conservative.  I see a person who is not only acting selfishly, but justifying himself by the presumption that selfishness is the ‘way of the world’.  As veya suggests, this is a person who has filtered away all of the goods and services that his social reality has given him.  He simply does not recognize them.

That’s what ideology does to you.  That’s what I mean when I say, the descriptive becomes the normative.

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