Is this the end of the Western World Golden age ?

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**Rosebuddy**

Luciferian wrote:
and that is a corrupt oligarchy created by the marriage of government and corporate powers.

Yes, capitalism. Those who own have used the wealth and de facto power of this ownership to purchase political and legal power, protected by the violence of the state monopoly.

A "marriage of government and corporate powers" is inevitable under a system of private ownership of the means of production. If you think that you can have government and corporations somehow eternally at odds with eachother without either ever gaining the upper hand and achieving victory, you're naive.

**thekingofkings**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Luciferian wrote:
and that is a corrupt oligarchy created by the marriage of government and corporate powers.

Yes, capitalism. Those who own have used the wealth and de facto power of this ownership to purchase political and legal power, protected by the violence of the state monopoly.

A "marriage of government and corporate powers" is inevitable under a system of private ownership of the means of production. If you think that you can have government and corporations somehow eternally at odds with eachother without either ever gaining the upper hand and achieving victory, you're naive.

yeah its a pretty bad system, unfortunately the alternatives are far worse.

**Luciferian**

Rosebuddy wrote:
Luciferian wrote:
and that is a corrupt oligarchy created by the marriage of government and corporate powers.

Yes, capitalism. Those who own have used the wealth and de facto power of this ownership to purchase political and legal power, protected by the violence of the state monopoly.

A "marriage of government and corporate powers" is inevitable under a system of private ownership of the means of production. If you think that you can have government and corporations somehow eternally at odds with eachother without either ever gaining the upper hand and achieving victory, you're naive.

No, not capitalism. It's only possible with the interference of the government. If you think you can skip the in between and hand the means of production directly over to the government, with its violence of state monopoly, and have that turn out any better, you're naive.

**Xenomancers**

You can't look at the futures economics in the same way as you look at them now. In this century we will see a rise of automation and computerized intelligence that is going to increase humanities abilities beyond anything we can imagine.

**Rosebuddy**

Luciferian wrote:

No, not capitalism. It's only possible with the interference of the government. If you think you can skip the in between and hand the means of production directly over to the government, with its violence of state monopoly, and have that turn out any better, you're naive.

Capitalism does not exist outside of a government that can guarantee private ownership.

**Luciferian**

It also doesn't exist within a government that engages in selective protectionism and anti-competitive market practices.

**Easy E**

Luciferian wrote:
It also doesn't exist within a government that engages in selective protectionism and anti-competitive market practices.

Look, no true Scotsman!

**Luciferian**

What defense does socialism have except no true Scotsman?

Every socialist or Marxist-Leninist economy ever has either resulted in failure, or evolved to incorporate aspects of market economies. History has soundly refuted Communism and socialism time and time again.

**oldravenman3025**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Why do you refuse to believe that massive wealth inequality exists?

It exists. But for a reason.

In any society, there will always be "haves" and "have nots". There will always be the successful and the failures. And there will always be those who experience 'good times" and those "down on their luck".

It's the way of the world. And barring any utopian fantasies of "post scarcity" or "real communism", it will always be that way.

Nobody is entitled to wealth. But those who think that people are entitled to such are the same ones that have rejected the egalitarian notion of "equality of opportunity", for that bit of class envy known as "equality of outcome". They tend to confuse the two, unfortunately.

**Galas**

Luciferian wrote:
What defense does socialism have except no true Scotsman?

Every socialist or Marxist-Leninist economy ever has either resulted in failure, or evolved to incorporate aspects of market economies. History has soundly refuted Communism and socialism time and time again.

Yeah but the USSR hymn was the best one in history.
Take that, capitalists.

**Luciferian**

Touche.

**Vaktathi**

Luciferian wrote:
What defense does socialism have except no true Scotsman?

Every socialist or Marxist-Leninist economy ever has either resulted in failure, or evolved to incorporate aspects of market economies. History has soundly refuted Communism and socialism time and time again.

To be fair, by this same token, every capitalist market driven economy has failed or evolved to incorporate Socialist aspects as well.

Every developed nation has totally or extensively socialized aspects to large sectors of the economy, such as healthcare, education, the military, emergency services, transit and transportation, scientific research and exploration, etc, and incorporate a significant Public presence in things like housing, the arts, food provision, utilities provision, telecommunications, and more, while at the same time being a significant consumer of almost everything.

**Rosebuddy**

oldravenman3025 wrote:

It exists. But for a reason.

In any society, there will always be "haves" and "have nots". There will always be the successful and the failures. And there will always be those who experience 'good times" and those "down on their luck".

It's the way of the world. And barring any utopian fantasies of "post scarcity" or "real communism", it will always be that way.

Nobody is entitled to wealth. But those who think that people are entitled to such are the same ones that have rejected the egalitarian notion of "equality of opportunity", for that bit of class envy known as "equality of outcome". They tend to confuse the two, unfortunately.

You can huff hot air like this all you want and it won't do a single thing about the fact that once the "have nots" reach sufficient numbers there will be too many people with nothing to lose for the "haves" to handle. Aside from the moral arguments of societies having responsibilities towards their inhabitants, there is the very deeply practical argument that a society that creates growing numbers of the deprived will one day reach the point where its rulers get their heads lopped off.

Luciferian wrote:
What defense does socialism have except no true Scotsman?

Every socialist or Marxist-Leninist economy ever has either resulted in failure, or evolved to incorporate aspects of market economies. History has soundly refuted Communism and socialism time and time again.

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

**Luke_Prowler**

Maybe we should, I don't know, return to the topic at hand rather than getting bogged down in the weeds about capitalism/communism?

Regardless of what we should do in the future, in the present a lot of current western counties ARE flailing about and we should be doing SOMETHING abut that, but as this topic shows we'd rather just swing our ideological dicks around than coming together to solve the problems. We've put "being right" above "doing good".

**Big Mac**

I don’t know about capitalism enough to bash or praise either way. I do know I lost the job I love(ceramics prof) due to corruption. I worked as an adjunct prof for 5 Years, then they brought in a guy who is lesser than my skill level, I know this because he came in visiting doing demos showing what he is capable of, the dept decide to let me go and hire him, then they move him to assistant prof after a year. A year or two later the university(UTRGV) was put on notice by the board, a few other tenured prof sued the university as they were let go without just.

Worked for frontline gaming painting minis for a year before doing it on my own as we had some miscues, they being the middleman do not allow any direct contact with the client. A disapproval I was not aware of was withheld, mishap in shipping cause delay. I think the true reason we parted was due to my inexperience in airbrush.

I live fine, I share a condo with a friend, my income does not allow me to buy the typical house with picket fences. I have been applying for other assistant ceramics prof jobs, but am unlucky, then I see the places I applied for a year later seeking the same position, I laugh as they definitely didn’t hire the right person. Too many job hirings are based on who you know(connections) rather than your abilities.

**Luciferian**

Rosebuddy wrote:

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

Now that's no true Scotsman.

**bouncingboredom**

In a word, no.

**Easy E**

Luke_Prowler wrote:
Maybe we should, I don't know, return to the topic at hand rather than getting bogged down in the weeds about capitalism/communism?

Regardless of what we should do in the future, in the present a lot of current western counties ARE flailing about and we should be doing SOMETHING abut that, but as this topic shows we'd rather just swing our ideological dicks around than coming together to solve the problems. We've put "being right" above "doing good".

Well said.

No one can catually decide what that SOMETHING should be though.

**thekingofkings**

Luciferian wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

Now that's no true Scotsman.

conspiracy theory to mask the abject failures of socialism and communism, oddly enough socialist/communist countries are often the most repressive and aggressive regimes. generally the scandinavian countries are not (since the running joke here is with socialism they are docile, without it they go viking again) but they are also the likeliest targets for russian aggression.

**Iron_Captain**

thekingofkings wrote:
Luciferian wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

Now that's no true Scotsman.

conspiracy theory to mask the abject failures of socialism and communism, oddly enough socialist/communist countries are often the most repressive and aggressive regimes. generally the scandinavian countries are not (since the running joke here is with socialism they are docile, without it they go viking again) but they are also the likeliest targets for russian aggression.

What? I am not sure if Poe's law is in effect here or not... This thread is weird.

**thekingofkings**

Iron_Captain wrote:
thekingofkings wrote:
Luciferian wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

Now that's no true Scotsman.

conspiracy theory to mask the abject failures of socialism and communism, oddly enough socialist/communist countries are often the most repressive and aggressive regimes. generally the scandinavian countries are not (since the running joke here is with socialism they are docile, without it they go viking again) but they are also the likeliest targets for russian aggression.

What? I am not sure if Poe's law is in effect here or not... This thread is weird.

this is OT thread, weird is a requirement

**Peregrine**

thekingofkings wrote:
I dont agree here at all,. machines break, people will need to build them and repair them, machines are not all terrain nor all weather, the nature of employment will have to change,.

Those are engineering obstacles, nothing more. Machines will continue to improve, and jobs that are currently done by humans will continue to be replaced by machines. But yes, there will still be some jobs. That's why I mentioned 95% of the population being literally unemployable, not 100%. There will still be a few jobs for things like product design engineers, robot operators, etc. But that factory full of human workers? Replaced by a bunch of machines, and one guy watching over them in case anything goes wrong. All those truck drivers? Replaced by self-driving trucks with one "driver" in a central location keeping an eye on them. Etc.

what you are basically advocating is the enslavement of humanity from the "evil captalist" to the "good socialists".

Calling any form of government "enslavement" is a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?

while I dont believe you are "Threatening" with this last I have noticed that almost every time this comes up, it is violence that socialists have to threaten to get their way, doomsday scenario and all (I am used to your "belligerent" sounding tone so generally wont take offense) but if this system is so good, why is it always accompanied by force?

It's (potentially) accompanied by force for the same reason that it took a war to end slavery: there are people who benefit from the system, and don't care how many people have to suffer as long as they're on top. And it's not a threat, it's a simple statement of what will inevitably happen. If the vast majority of people are unemployed, have no hope of ever being employed, and do not have enough of a welfare system to survive, they will inevitably choose violent revolution over starving to death. The only way to avoid a violent revolution is to voluntarily fix the problem and avoid having hundreds of millions of people with nothing left to lose. And the only solution that can possibly fix the problem is a socialist/communist state.

the mint prints the physical currency, thats not the same thing, the govt taxes its citizens it does not just print what it wants.

I don't think you understand how the money system works. The government can and does print whatever money it wants.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

oldravenman3025 wrote:
In any society, there will always be "haves" and "have nots". There will always be the successful and the failures. And there will always be those who experience 'good times" and those "down on their luck".

Yes, but that's not the issue here. There will always be people who do better than others, but the magnitude of the inequality is not some inevitable truth. A CEO making 10x what the lowest-paid worker in the company makes is still living a pretty comfortable life. Why do they need to have 100x, or 1000x that salary? Why do we treat it as some kind of inherent human right to hoard vast amounts of wealth, well beyond what any one person can reasonably gain any meaningful satisfaction from?

**Khornate25**

Xenomancers wrote:
You can't look at the futures economics in the same way as you look at them now. In this century we will see a rise of automation and computerized intelligence that is going to increase humanities abilities beyond anything we can imagine.

Humanity or humanities ?

**skyth**

The money for UBI is there.

Get rid of Social Security and Welfare.
Get rid of EITC and child tax credit
Get rid of standard deduction
Get rid of minimum wage (hey look...corporate profits went up thus higher taxes).
Plus raise taxes a bit. They are at a historic low as a % of GDP and are set to overall go down.

Plus money in the hands of the lower class multiplies more than money in the hands of the rich since the lower class spends it and the rich save it. (Spending is good for the economy. Saving is bad for it Recessions are caused by money not being spent thus not being multiplied).

**Steve steveson**

thekingofkings wrote:
Luciferian wrote:
Rosebuddy wrote:

Every single socialist country has been marked for destruction by the capitalist powers. Every single socialist country has been marked for death squads, assassinations, invasions, bombings, sanctions and sabotage.

The defence that socialism has is that it, unlike capitalism, does not discourage the reproduction of the species.

Now that's no true Scotsman.

conspiracy theory to mask the abject failures of socialism and communism, oddly enough socialist/communist countries are often the most repressive and aggressive regimes. generally the scandinavian countries are not (since the running joke here is with socialism they are docile, without it they go viking again) but they are also the likeliest targets for russian aggression.

You know that most European countries are pretty socialist? Socialism has been no more or less successful than capitalism. There are no pure, free market capitalist countries, and capitalism may not end in state aggression or repression, but does end up with poorer countries being used and the poor being neglected. Does it really matter if you live in misery and die because your government is too controlling or because they don’t care and you live in abject poverty open to exploitation and abuse? The result is the same. There is not much difference between being poor in China or India. The only difference being that in China the state will abuse you, in India it is the rich.

**John Prins**

skyth wrote:

Plus money in the hands of the lower class multiplies more than money in the hands of the rich since the lower class spends it and the rich save it. (Spending is good for the economy. Saving is bad for it Recessions are caused by money not being spent thus not being multiplied).

Even money sitting in a normal bank account contributes to the economy - banks can loan money based on deposits, after all. The real problem lies in the offshore bank accounts where the very wealthy simply 'park' money. This money doesn't get loaned out, in fact, it costs money to park it there, but the very wealthy can afford that loss in order to put it out of reach of governments they fear might take it away - often because it's money that evaded taxation in one manner or another. It's cheaper for them to evade taxes and pay negative interest on that money.

**skyth**

Money that is borrowed and used counts as money spent and not as saving. However, there is also saving by buying non-IPO stock. Saving isn't just putting money in the bank.

**Prestor Jon**

skyth wrote:
The money for UBI is there.

Get rid of Social Security and Welfare.
Get rid of EITC and child tax credit
Get rid of standard deduction
Get rid of minimum wage (hey look...corporate profits went up thus higher taxes).
Plus raise taxes a bit. They are at a historic low as a % of GDP and are set to overall go down.

Plus money in the hands of the lower class multiplies more than money in the hands of the rich since the lower class spends it and the rich save it. (Spending is good for the economy. Saving is bad for it Recessions are caused by money not being spent thus not being multiplied).

Even all of your proposals together wouldn’t slash Federal expenditures by $3 trillion or increase federal tax revenue by $3 trillion you would t even get to $3 trillion combining revenues and decreased expenditures. $3 trillion equals 100% of current federal revenues and 75% of federal expenditures.

If you removed welfare, minimum wage, child tax credit and EITC and replaced them with an annual lump sum payment or monthly payments totally $15k you’d be leaving millions of people worse off. How do poorer people spend more money to help the economy?

$15k isn’t a living wage it’s what you’d make working a full time job at $8/hr which is about what people earn at places like Ealmart. Of course currently those low paid employees qualify for state and federal assistance programs and tax credits to make their income a livable wage. You want to eliminate those programs in order to pay them $15k annually. If those people are receiving greater than $15k worth of assistance then eliminating the benefits makes the UBI payment affordable for the govt but leaves the people worse off. If those people receive less than $15k in assistance then eliminating the assistance payments and tax breaks won’t cover the cost of UBI.

$15k a year isn’t enough to live on so you still have to find a job to earn an income to survive which leaves us back where we are now people working low wage jobs that are difficult to move up from and can only survive on this jobs with the addition of govt assistance.

**Dandelion**

Steve steveson wrote:

You know that most European countries are pretty socialist? Socialism has been no more or less successful than capitalism. There are no pure, free market capitalist countries, and capitalism may not end in state aggression or repression, but does end up with poorer countries being used and the poor being neglected. Does it really matter if you live in misery and die because your government is too controlling or because they don’t care and you live in abject poverty open to exploitation and abuse? The result is the same. There is not much difference between being poor in China or India. The only difference being that in China the state will abuse you, in India it is the rich.

European countries are not socialist, they are still driven by capitalism they just have more government intervention. But it is true there have never been "true" socialist or "true" capitalist societies. The USSR devolved very quickly into an oligarchy, same with China, led by their respective communist parties (Stalin and Mao were not the ones farming were they?). On the other side, the US is not completely free market since there are regulations on businesses (notably monopolies) but even then we are still plagued by elites and corporations running the show. Basically corruption will always ruin a good system and Socialism is just easier to abuse since everything is centralized. (Monopolies are already bad, giving the state a monopoly in everything is even worse)

Lastly, you say that the only difference is that in China the state abuses you whereas in India it's the rich. But in China, the state is run by the rich so now you have the rich using the state to abuse you.

**Formosa**

thekingofkings wrote:
Peregrine wrote:
thekingofkings wrote:
Quite simply because its nothing more than a cute buzzword to scam people into believing that somehow those "evil greedy rich people" are to blame for everything and not paying their fair share or the even more ridiculous notion that because i work for a company that somehow entitles me to a share of its profits.

No, it is indisputable fact. There is no disagreement allowed here, the division of wealth in this country and in the world in general is massively unequal. It's a question of simple numbers, not your opinion of how the world should work.

It is really simple, you agree to work for someone and they agree to give you a wage for your work, companies do not owe their workers any more than that.

That's a rather cold-blooded way of looking at things. Personally I think that people should not be left to starve to death, even if they fail to negotiate for sufficient wages to survive. We, as a society, owe a basic standard of living to everyone.

burger flippers deserve burger flipper wages

Wait, I thought we were talking about a situation in which there is nothing more than an agreement between an employer and an employee. Why are you talking about what someone "deserves" to have?

the idea that working a minimum wage job is a career is also nuts.

You're right, it's nuts that people are trapped in minimum wage jobs for their entire working lives. But that's the reality of the situation, and it's only going to get worse as improvements in automation and AI make more and more jobs irrelevant. More people will be limited to working jobs that are barely sufficient to survive and of limited value to society, and vast numbers of people will be literally unemployable. The idea that you can simply will yourself to advance in life by sheer hard work and determination needs to die. There are not enough good jobs for everyone, and the situation is never going to get better.

that the rich get richer is not a problem, inherited wealth is not evil, bad, wrong or whatever and noone is entitled to simply take that from them.

Of course it is bad. Even setting aside the moral questions it's bad from a practical point of view. Being able to inherit large amounts of wealth discourages innovation and progress. If all you have to do to be rich is have rich parents and tell your financial advisor to keep the money coming you have no incentive to work. Money gets concentrated in people whose sole contribution is to have been born into the right family, while the workers and innovators of society are left with a smaller share of the wealth. Stagnation is not what we want, even if you argue that it's morally ok to have the vast majority of society's wealth concentrated in a few families.

The reality is that govts do not produce money, everything they give to someone must be taken from someone else.

Finally, something we agree on. Something must be taken from someone else, and we can start with the people who are way past the point of diminishing returns on being able to enjoy the wealth they are hoarding. The wealthiest people can settle for having a single private jet and a couple of vacation homes instead of a dozen billion-dollar mansions, and people who are currently struggling just to survive can improve to a more secure and stable life.

no i most certainly can disagree on the first point, I completely reject this notion and yeah you are giving me your opinion of how the world should work. I earn money, it is therefor mine, if you dont earn as much that does not give you any right to take from me. the rich invest more, they take the risks, they should get the reward for their risk. It does not mean you get to take from others simply because they have more than you, or at least be honest about being a thief.This absolutely is in dispute, thats why we have such vehement disagreement and two pretty much diametrically opposed political parties.

The poor people of the world are far better off than the peasants and serfs of before.Sure there are people who are fabulously wealthy, whether they deserve to be or not is not up to us. some of the countries current richest people came up with their ideas as college students, innovation can come from anywhere, most of our best inventions have come from the poor or crazy trying to make things easier. as for inherited wealth, its their money and again noone has the right to take it from them just because they want to. There is word for this forced "redistribution of wealth" its called thievery. By all means if you find out and can prove in court that the wealth was illegally gained, confiscate it, by law. But if they get wealthy working the system legally, well good on em. while i dont like to quibble about words to make semantic arguments, I noticed you said "societys wealth" its not society's wealth, its their wealth, society has no claim on it.

the idea that socialism or communism can fix or change any of this is simply saying to trade one overlord for another. I will gladly keep the ones I have now. It is unjust to covet the wealth of people like zuckerburg who simply made something everyone seemed to want and it made him amazingly wealthy and then want to take it from him, simply because he has it. I dont care that he may have dozens of mansions, that really doesn't affect me and my crappy little house. Hwe came up with a brilliant idea. good job! enjoy the rewards of your labor.

You cannot disagree with the first point, there is no opinion in maths, only right and wrong, they have a disproportionate amount of your countries money, this is a fact, how they spend that money and where they get it does not matter, 38% of the US's Wealth is owned by the top 1%, while the bottom 90% of the country owns 78% of its debt, the richest 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, I dont care about your opinion on the morals of this, you cannot argue with the facts.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dandelion wrote:
Steve steveson wrote:

You know that most European countries are pretty socialist? Socialism has been no more or less successful than capitalism. There are no pure, free market capitalist countries, and capitalism may not end in state aggression or repression, but does end up with poorer countries being used and the poor being neglected. Does it really matter if you live in misery and die because your government is too controlling or because they don’t care and you live in abject poverty open to exploitation and abuse? The result is the same. There is not much difference between being poor in China or India. The only difference being that in China the state will abuse you, in India it is the rich.

European countries are not socialist, they are still driven by capitalism they just have more government intervention. But it is true there have never been "true" socialist or "true" capitalist societies. The USSR devolved very quickly into an oligarchy, same with China, led by their respective communist parties (Stalin and Mao were not the ones farming were they?). On the other side, the US is not completely free market since there are regulations on businesses (notably monopolies) but even then we are still plagued by elites and corporations running the show. Basically corruption will always ruin a good system and Socialism is just easier to abuse since everything is centralized. (Monopolies are already bad, giving the state a monopoly in everything is even worse)

Lastly, you say that the only difference is that in China the state abuses you whereas in India it's the rich. But in China, the state is run by the rich so now you have the rich using the state to abuse you.

Hmm, I live in the UK, the UK is pretty Socialist, let me check my map..... yep UK is in Europe, so got to say, yep, this European country is Socialist for the most part, would be pretty hard to hide our free healthcare and benefits system