Poverty Has Always Accompanied Capitalism

Discussion in 'Socialism' started by BladeOfGrass, Jul 4, 2016.

  1. pensfan13

    pensfan13 Senior Member

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    Poverty has been around before capitalism.
     
  2. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    And, unfortunately, despite all the talk nobody has been able to eliminate it yet. However, capitalist societies are now leading the charge to eliminate destitute poverty sometime this century.
     
  3. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    A few months ago I was watching a woman on a discussion panel advocated strongly and passionately for re-distribution of wealth and seizure by the people of all means of production.

    As she stood there on the the stage I noticed the very sleek modern microphone she was using in front of the camera..
    It occurred to me to ask, if all industrial assets were turned over to this woman and her colleagues, could she produce even the metal alloy of which that microphone was constructed? Could she and her associates produce the electronics within that microphone? What about the TV cameras and associated electronics with which her discussion was being broadcast? Could they operate the electric power generation plants that supplied the studio?

    Looking at her discoursing in her fervent passion to seize the wealth she did not create, and having myself a lifetime of working to create production systems and facilities, the answer seemed clear.

    Not to stereotype or paint everyone with the same broad brush, most of those I've known over the years with socialist leanings wouldn't know where to begin. If not for those members of society driven by a profit motive to build and produce, most socialists I've known over the years wouldn't manage a subsistence lifestyle, never mind creation of the modern production systems we enjoy today.

    I agree that an extremely large portion of the wealth today is in the wrong hands, but killing the 24/7/365 goose laying the golden eggs will result only in a shortage of those shiny eggs.
     
  4. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    Within twenty years commercial fishing will no longer be possible, there simply won't be enough wild fish left in the oceans. Within fifty, every wild animal larger than a dog will either be extinct or only exist in zoos. All is not gold that glitters, all is not pure that shines, and robbing Peter to pay Paul is no more the solution than eating the rich, but what comes around goes around and around and around.
     
  5. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    There is a cost to everything.
    Human beings are the only animal on earth not naturally suited to our environment.
    It's necessary to use natural resources to survive.
    We lack the ability to live without shelter, clothing, and the production of food.
    That's just the hard facts of life as human beings, do with it what you will.

    That does not say that our survival must mean the destruction of the natural world, but without some exploitation we would not have to ability to have this discussion.
    Computers and networks require a vast industrial infrastructure and are the result of years of evolution of that industrial production.

    I don't tend to use terms like "capitalism" to describe what we do economically, but the profit motive is the only thing that ever, ever, ever, drives human progress in the ongoing effort to use natural resources to survive.
    Production based on and driven by the profit motive enabled the vast expansion of the human race to today's level.

    Are there too many of us? That remains to be seen.
    I for one though am not ready to forfeit my life to minimize the impact on the natural world in order to make space for you.

    Poverty is the state of not having the means to live and survive without suffering privation. Profit-driven production has provided the means to feed more people, to produce more shoes, more of the necessary goods to sustain life. There may perhaps be a better way, but I don't see what it could be and we as humans have yet to devise it.

    Simply re-distributing the wealth generated by profit-driven motivation solves nothing because it does not increase the means of production.
     
  6. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    Poverty is living beyond your means and destroying the entire planet insisting there is no alternative and that capitalism is not about redistributing the wealth to the chosen few. It is the poverty of mind and spirit that refuses to recognize it has become self-destructive and only maintains its dominance by threatening the survival of the entire human race at the end of the barrel of a gun.
     
    1 person likes this.
  7. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    Wow.
    I don't really know what you mean, but you state it very eloquently.
     
  8. pensfan13

    pensfan13 Senior Member

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    You can't just make up definitions for words.
    Well I guess you can but you end up looking like an idiot.
     
  9. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    That doesn't seem to bother many people when over half I've talked to online prefer making up their own definitions for words without even realizing common dictionaries merely contain popular definitions.
     
  10. pensfan13

    pensfan13 Senior Member

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    Well welcome to the Internet where lots of people don't mind looking like an idiot.
     
  11. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    You know someplace where they actually mind?
     
  12. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    How very true.

    I dislike words used as if they are definitive when they are not.

    "Liberal" and "conservative" are two often-used examples.
    Those words in a social and political context are abstractions.
    Useful as such, but when used to convey a shared meaning they are too easily manipulated in a presumption of specificity.

    .
     
  13. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    Words only have demonstrable meaning according to their function in specific contexts which is why dictionaries contain multiple definitions because, otherwise, we would already all agree on a literal interpretation of a dictionary or all be speaking our own private languages.
     
  14. tumbling.dice

    tumbling.dice Visitor

    How about a negative income tax?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

    We could do away with food stamps and welfare and people could spend as they please. Requirements can include such things as having an income to begin with (else people would just quit their jobs and live off the government), working a certain number of hours per week or month, buying health insurance (goodbye ACA) and other common sense measures.

    The politicians in Washington will argue over what the shortfall amount of income should be of course. In my opinion it should be tied to the cost of living and either rise and fall based on that alone, otherwise it becomes a political football. I also favor a flat-tax, with no exemptions, and doing away with all loopholes that allow individuals and corporations to "hide" income from the government.

    Opinions?
     
  15. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    How about no income tax?
     
  16. pensfan13

    pensfan13 Senior Member

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    Well either way people would be buying from major corporations so the money would go back to taxes in the form of income tax and supporting jobs for said corps. So NIT is OK with me in theory. Only problem is it invites people not to work as much.
     
  17. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    A corporation is a tax-collection agency.
    That's at the core of the legal definition of incorporation.


    Lack of an income tax would discourage work?
    How?
     
  18. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    They're all franchises these days and all shuffling the deck does is support different franchises. Right now, whoever has the most money can buy whatever franchise rights they want with Wall Street and the banks having almost no constraints. Reshuffling the deck would only be used by them to impose constraints on their competition which is the real problem we are already struggling with. So long as the American people refuse to demand real change and the rule of law and order this train ain't stopping until she derails.
     
  19. RickIsHere

    RickIsHere Visitor

    Banks have many restraints.
    That doesn't prevent them from benefiting beyond the dreams of Croesus by being (through the Federal Reserve Bank) the issuer of the nation's currency.

    There lies the source of poverty in the midst of plenty.
     
  20. Wu Li Heron

    Wu Li Heron Members

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    When corporations are legally considered people, yet, nobody goes to jail when they commit widespread fraud they have far fewer restraints than your average citizen.
     

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