508 replies to this topic

[thefirstimmortal]

Government is a powerful tool. But it’s far easier to put it in motion than to control it. When government is involved, nothing ever seems to work out as intended.

Discussions about a new government program always focus on those who “need help”, the people who will benefit immediately. They may be the intended recipients of government checks, or employees whose pay will be boosted, or companies whose markets will be enhanced. This is the stuff of great dreams.

But the dreams, of instant riches or social reform, lead inevitably to disappointment, and sometimes to nightmares.

The plans almost always ignore the inevitable complications:

The people you want to help get past a difficult predicament will decide it’s easier to continue receiving the help than to move onward.

The people you believe need help will be joined by people who would rather receive help than give it.
The people whose lives must be turned upside down for the program to succeed, those who must be coerced to make the program work, will do what they can to avoid complying.

The people who are kept from doing what the reformers don’t like will find something worse to do instead.

For example, a program to serve meals to 1 million children who aren’t getting nutritious lunches will need 6 million meals per day, because the children’s families will decide they need breakfast and supper as well, and because the parents of 1 million other children will see no reason to continue paying for something others are getting for free. And that’s just to start with. Over time, the program will need 10 million meals a day, and then 20 million, as more people learn how to qualify.

A government program goes astray as well because little forethought is given to the people who must be coerced. These are thinking, feeling human beings, just like you and me, and they have no more desire to have their lives turned inside out than we do.

If they must pay for the service, they will seek ways to avoid making full payment, meaning there will be less revenue available for the service than expected. Or if they are forced to do something, they will look for every possible way to avoid doing it without getting into trouble. Or if they’re prohibited from doing something they want to do, they’ll use their creative energy to find ways to continue doing it without running afoul of the law.

[thefirstimmortal]

Medicare provides a good example. It was created in 1965 to make it easier for the elderly to get health care. But by reducing the patient’s out-of-pocket costs, it increased the demand for doctors and hospitals. And it reduced the supply of those services by requiring doctors and other medical personnel to use their time and attention handling paperwork and complying with regulations, and looking for ways to circumvent these things. So the price of medical care rose sharply as the demand soared and the supply diminished.

As a result, the elderly now pay from their own pockets over twice as much for health care (after adjusting for inflation) than they did before Medicare began. And most older people now find it harder to get adequate medical service. Naturally, the government points to the higher costs and shortages as proof that the elderly would be lost without Medicare, and that government should be even more deeply involved.

[thefirstimmortal]

When people set up a program for themselves, most of them act as they agreed to. But when a program is based on coercion, everyone involved changes his behavior, and the outcome is far different from what was intended. Government programs promoted by well-intentioned citizens are almost always derailed by unforeseen consequences:

Poverty programs don’t reduce the number of poor people. On the contrary, they encourage more people to qualify as poor
and get on the gravy train.

Rules and regulations don’t reform society as expected. People respond by looking for ways around the rules they don’t like.

Human action is always unpredictable. But you can count on government programs to produce results quite different from those promised by their sponsors. You would think this alone would cause people to shun government as a way of solving problems.

[thefirstimmortal]

The bad consequences of a government program usually don’t show up immediately. And the delay may be long enough to hide the connection between the program and its results.

So government never has to say it’s sorry, never has to take responsibility for the misery it causes. Instead, it can blame everything on personal greed, profit-hungry corporations, and the “private sector.” And the government’s cure for the problems is to impose bigger programs, more regulation, and higher taxes.

So politicians tell us the high cost of Medicare is due to doctors, hospitals, and drug companies charging too much, not that Medicare inflated costs by running up the demand for health care and hindering the supply of it. And, even though government controls over 50% of the money spent on medical care, politicians freely refer to the high cost of a hospital stay as a “failure of the free market.”

Each government program carries within it the seeds of future programs that will be “needed” to clean up the mess the first program creates. No matter how much mischief it causes, government always shows up in a cavalry uniform, riding in to rescue us from the problems it created.

Government runs a deposit insurance program that begs savings & loans to speculate freely, and then spends billions of our dollars to clean up the mess.

Government regulates drug companies into near paralysis, and then spends billions of our dollars to subsidize drug research.

Government cripples American companies with punitive taxes and mountains of regulation, and then spends billions of our dollars trying to find foreign markets for those crippled companies.

By preventing people and companies from taking care of themselves, government feeds its own growth.

[thefirstimmortal]

Government grows, too, because the subsidy given to one group inspires others to demand the same benefits. And when government protects one company or industry from competition, others wonder why they shouldn’t demand the same protection.

That’s why no government program ever stands still. No matter what the stated purpose or limit when implemented, it inevitably expands to cover more and more people, and wider and wider areas. Everyone who comes to the government asking for favors has a plausible request.

Once it’s considered proper to use government force to solve one person’s problem, force can be justifled to solve
anyone’s problem.

Over time, fewer and fewer requests seem out of bounds. And the grounds for saying “no” become more and more eroded. The pressure on politicians to use coercion to grant favors becomes overwhelming.

But, in truth, very little pressure is needed. Lawmakers, bureaucrats, and judges all rejoice in a government that grows and grows and grows. Big government gives lawmakers the power to make or break companies and individuals. People must bow and scrape to obtain favors, or just to keep government from destroying them.

So government gets bigger and bigger:

Because the failure of each program leads to demands for new programs;
Because everyone wants the special privileges he sees others getting; and
Because “public servants” seize on every problem as an excuse to expand their powers.

[thefirstimmortal]

Government grows because well-meaning people like you and me believe it should do certain things that seem beyond controversy, find a cure for cancer, stop air pollution, keep violence off television, hold back an aggressor in the Middle East, something that everyone seems to agree should be done. Whatever the goal, it’s easy to imagine that a single-minded government could achieve it.
I called this in a past post, the "Mangala Syndrome." You see suffering or danger, and in your imagination you see a government program eliminating it. But in the real world the program would operate as you expect only if you were an absolute dictator-having at your disposal all of government’s power to compel everyone to do things your way.

Just for a moment, think about something you wish the government would do and that nearly everyone would like to see happen, teach children right and wrong, furnish health care to those who don’t have it, bring peace to Bosnia, or whatever. Imagine a goal so important that it seems to justify using government’s power to coerce.

And now, consider what will actually happen to your program.

To get it enacted you’ll need political allies, since alone you have only limited influence. But other people will support your plan and work for it only if you modify it in dozens of ways that further their goals and satisfy their opinions.

Suppose you make the necessary compromises and amass enough support to pressure the politicians to vote for your revised program. Who will write the actual law? You? Of course not. It will be written by the same legislators and aides who created all the laws, programs, and problems you may object to now. Each of them will compromise your program still further to satisfy his political supporters.

And if the law passes, who will administer it? You? Of course not. It will be implemented by bureaucrats, many of whom will use it to pursue goals quite different from what you had in mind. They won’t care what your purpose was. It’s their law now, and they’ll use it to suit their objectives.

And, lastly, the new law probably will generate many disputes, cases that must be settled in a courtroom. Who will decide those cases? You? Of course not. It will be the same judges who today rule according to their own beliefs, rather than by reference to the written law. A judge may even rule that your law means exactly the opposite of what you had intended.
By the time your program has run this gauntlet, it will be far bigger and far more expensive (in money and disrupted lives) than you had imagined. And it will have been twisted to satisfy many factions. In fact, your program may end up being the opposite of what you had intended.

In any case, you will have provided a new tool by which others can use government for their own ends.

[thefirstimmortal]

To see how the political process turns idealistic dreams inside out, look no further than the civil rights laws passed in the last 40 years.

For almost a century before 1964, governments in many southern states forced segregation on the people. Government prohibited companies from providing racially integrated facilities for their employees or customers. Whites and blacks were forbidden by government to sit together in restaurants or to use the same rest-rooms and drinking fountains, and in many cases were forbidden to shop together or work together.

Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state Jim Crow laws, but they failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But this didn’t simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It prohibited racial segregation, voluntary or otherwise. Overnight, what had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about whom they would associate with.

The civil rights movement wasn’t opposed to coercion by government. It merely wanted the government to aim its force in a
new direction.

Although the activists believed coercion served the noble objective of bringing the races closer together, it was coercion none-the-less.

[thefirstimmortal]

Coercive laws never stand still. No matter what a law’s backers say at the time of passage, the law always stretches in surprising directions. The expansion occurs on at least two fronts:

1. The law almost always is enforced more broadly than intended;
2. When government benefits one group, other groups are encouraged to seek similar benefits.

And this is what happened to the civil rights laws.

In the first regard, the bureaucrats and courts set out to enforce the law zealously, seeking to root out any kind of discrimination..... even though ending segregation, not discrimination, was the motive behind the original law. Companies were ordered not to consider race in any way when making hiring decisions. But usually the reasons for a business decision are hard to prove. Unless a businessman was a noisy bigot, who could say whether racial discrimination had affected his decision to hire someone?

To avoid having to read minds, the enforcers treated results as proof of discrimination. If you didn’t have a suitable racial mix in your workforce (or even among your customers), you were assumed to be discriminating, and the burden of proof was on you to prove otherwise. So an employer could avoid charges of discrimination only by, in fact, discriminating, by using quotas to assure that he hired the right number of people of the right races. The law against segregation had been transformed into a law requiring discrimination.

The law also encouraged other groups to demand similar Coverage. Once it was established that government should punish racial discrimination the door was open to using government to punish anything similar. If it’s wrong for an employer, landlord, or organization to discriminate according to race, it must be just as wrong to discriminate according to gender.

So the coercion expanded to prohibit discrimination against women, and then religious believers, and then the elderly, and then people with children, and then the handicapped.

[thefirstimmortal]

Civil rights laws feed lucrative lawsuits. So every imaginable group wants to be covered by the laws, to be eligible for generous settlements. There’s pressure to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, weight, looks, drug use, illness, criminal record, citizenship, and many other categories. Everyone wants to become part of the aristocracy.

And it is an aristocracy these groups are trying to join.

Once they’re on the “A-List,” they have special powers. They can sue anyone who refuses to hire them, to rent an apartment to them, or to sell his services to them, and maybe force him to pay thousands or millions of dollars in punitive damages. No company can risk such a disaster by offending someone in the aristocracy, since almost any mistake might be considered evidence of discrimination.

[thefirstimmortal]

In 1993 six U.S. Secret Service agents sued the Denny’s restaurant chain, complaining they received poor service because they’re black. And how do they know their color was the reason for the poor service? Because a group of white people entered the restaurant at the same time they did, and the white people finished their meals before the blacks received their first course. To many people this was proof of discrimination.

Now, if you happen to be a white male, you’ve probably never felt such an insult. It’s true you may have endured dreadful service in a coffee shop, perhaps many times. A waiter may have refused to give you the time of day, lost your order and forgotten you were even in the restaurant, spent all his time flirting with a waitress, or refused to take care of you until he had phoned his bookie. The family at the next table may have eaten an entire meal before anyone even asked for your order. And so you passed the time counting the designs on the wallpaper. But it isn’t called discrimination if you aren’t part of a group that’s been certified as oppressed. So you have to blame it on a bad-tempered waiter, an overcrowded restaurant, or poor management.

Since you aren’t part of the aristocracy, there’s no chance you were insulted because of your race (or your religion, handicap, or any other recognized status). You were insulted just because you’re you. And your only recourse is to find a coffee shop that will treat you better.

The Denny’s customers, however, could file a law suit, and they did. To avoid a long, expensive trial and months of unfavorable news coverage, Denny’s settled out of court and paid them $54 million dollars.

Neither you nor I was in the Denny’s restaurant that night. And we aren’t mind readers. So we don’t know whether the waiter mistreated the Secret Service agents because of their race. But we do know that if it’s possible to get an enormous payoff for claiming discrimination, many people will do it, whether or not they actually suffer discrimination.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that so many accusations are made. And with such rewards available for insults, it’s not surprising that more and more groups demand to be covered by the law.

[thefirstimmortal]

The civil rights laws are supposed to end discrimination and segregation, and to promote harmony.

But coercion never produces harmony. How harmonious are people who are being forced to act against their will? Most likely, those who are coerced will resent those who benefit from the coercion. This sets group against group; it doesn’t bring them together.

And if we accept coercion for one purpose, we’ll be asked to use it for others. Even if you can say “No” to the other uses, some people will say “Yes,” and others will say “Yes, please, and make mine a double.” The noble cause will be stretched further and further until it eventually becomes farce.

For example, a Chicago company was hauled before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to explain why it failed to promote a woman who claims she was discriminated against because of the microchip in her tooth that allows her to communicate with others.

A 220-pound woman has sued the Minnesota National Guard, claiming that its 155-pound limit discriminates against her eating disorder.

In 1993 a married couple was ejected from an airliner (before takeoff) because they had screamed a string of obscenities at other passengers. So they sued the airline, claiming it had discriminated against them as sufferers of a disease that makes them utter profanities.

Has the law really been stretched so far? No, it has been stretched even further.

In fact, it has been stretched all the way inside out. The civil rights laws originated to end segregation of the races in the South. But in 1992 a Florida court used these laws to award a white woman permanent disability benefits, ruling that her employer should have provided a segregated workplace to accommodate her fear of blacks.

Although the decision seems absurd, something of the kind was inevitable. If coercion is used to protect the feelings of black people, eventually it will be used to protect the feelings of white people as well. Once government coerces on behalf of one group of “victims,” it will eventually swing the club on behalf of almost every imaginable group. You can’t limit coercion to the uses you think are right.

So don’t think of any of these cases as an example of a government program gone wrong. Each is an example of a government program-period.

[thefirstimmortal]

I’ve used the Civil Rights Act as an example of the way a well-intentioned government program grows and causes far more problems than it solves. But it is just one example. All government programs expand to encompass the political demands of people who want to take advantage of its benefits. And almost all government programs eventually do the opposite of what their original backers had asked for.

Whatever social reform you may envision, the version the government implements will be something completely different. However lofty your purpose, it will be debased by compromises in the legislature, in the administration of the program by thousands of government employees, and in the settling of the inevitable disputes.

Not only that, the program is likely to grow far bigger and more complicated than what you wanted. And someday it will evolve into a force opposite to your intentions.

You aren’t a dictator. You can’t control the actions of politicians, bureaucrats, and judges.

[thefirstimmortal]

The Dictator Syndrome affects people in all political camps-left, right, and center.

On the left, some reformers imagine how the government could spend money in intelligent and clearly defined ways to eliminate poverty. They’ve forgotten that the trillions of “War on Poverty” dollars already wasted sprang from plans that once seemed just as intelligent and clear-cut to their well-meaning proponents. Today’s reformers can’t control the outcome of their programs any more than yesterday’s could.

On the right, other people say the government should spend more on police and prisons to fight drugs or crime. They don’t stop to notice that trillions of “tough on crime” dollars have already been spent without making a noticeable difference in the level of crime or drug use.

In the middle, some “moderates” think the government can make health care easily affordable for everyone by forcing a few simple reforms on insurance companies. They fail to see that today’s problems stem from previous reforms that seemed just as simple and helpful, but forced doctors to handle enormous paperwork, forced hospitals to treat anyone who shows up, and forced insurance companies to ignore important differences among people when setting their rates.

It’s easy to ignore the failures all about us as we imagine that the next scheme will operate efficiently and fairly, whether that scheme be a hard-headed welfare reform, an effective tough-on-crime campaign, a practical health-care reform, or whatever inspires our enthusiasm.

[thefirstimmortal]

You don’t control the government. And your dreams of what government can achieve are just that, dreams. They bear no resemblance to what government will really do if your program is enacted.

No one can control the government. Most people who tug at it end up disappointed, even if, for a while, they seem to be succeeding.

If government, the agency of coercion, is a tool that can achieve your worthy ends, why shouldn’t other people see it as the tool to achieve their purposes, including people who are thieves, bigots, politicians, mass murderers, bureaucrats, and judges?

If government is going to do someone’s bidding, is it likely to be your bidding, or that of people far more determined, far wealthier, and far more influential than you are?

The government that’s strong enough to give you what you want by taking it from someone else is strong enough to take everything you have and give it to someone else.

The government you want to suppress your enemies can be used as easily by your enemies to attack you.

[darktr00per]

You better change the system with force. All the people getting filthy rich off current conditions will not give it all up willingly.

[AgentNyder]

You better change the system with force. All the people getting filthy rich off current conditions will not give it all up willingly.

Changing the system by 'force' would encourage violence and be unnecessary. Plus you would be using tactics on the same level as the system that you are trying to fight. Government has a monopoly on force and so such tactics are not liable to work and may even further entrench the loss of freedoms.

No, there are much better ways of controlling Government. Firstly, and intellectual wave of opinion must be engendered towards classic liberalism/libertarianism. People must see the benefits of deregulated markets and free trade. Globalisation and new technologies such as the internet are opening up new markets like never before and thus goods and capital are shifting around the world against the political tide. Government mis-management is now being held more accountable as poor fiscal or monetary responsibility will lower the tax base by driving funds out of the country and stemming the flow of direct international investment.

However, that's not the end of the story. Our freedoms are still very much under threat from bureacracies.


.............I'll elaborate if anyone asks me nicely. [lol]

[bacopa]

I can't possibaly have the time to read all of this but I will say that I believe that Capitalism and Socialism can work together in the sense that one can be driven to compete as well as driven to work with others.

There was a point made I think by Sophianic not sure, about the lack of a need to compete or try if jobs are shared between people. Well the counter to that is if money wasn't an incentive than the status of being a doctor or lawyer would speak for itself! Just because the doctor might also have to share the wealth doesn't mean he can't feel great being who he is. The flip side to this is simply the fact that once a person reaches a goal like becoming a doctor he/she would hardly want to go back to manual labor. But the laborer working immensley hard as a farm hand couldn't possibaly become a doctor with out the experience, again this was talked about. but the doctor wouldn't want to go from his hard work in the prestige, which comes naturally with higher end professions, of being a doctor to a laborer? So assuming we get robots to do the manual labor. Than what? Assuming that people do "what they love" such as film making, aren't there going to be hierarchies that arise naturally of not just prestige but also intellect? And for this reason I cannote imagine a socieity being very fun without groups or cliques of differnet types of people because that is what makes life so exciting in the first place!

So Capitalism does seem to be a more "natural system" in many many ways than Socialism. Where is that feel good attitude in Socialist world that are in Capitalist world? Where else but Capitalism can a person really think he is better than another person! (of course I'm being fecetious) but that great feeling of "making it" and being a WINNER does seem to be hard wired into our brains like BJ mentioned earlier.

Perhaps Capitalism was meant to "be" simply because as mere mortals, soon to be immortal heh heh..., we seem to thrive on reaching a certain status and reaching certain prestige, one only needs to think of celebrities. However the flip side is that I'm surrounded by a Capitialist country so I may have been conditioned to think this way like Mangala said earlier. But I try to picture a Socialist state of sharing the wealth and such and it seems to be simply a paradoxal dillema. Because I know when a person trains to be anything his/her natural human emotions tell them to become bigger and better and it seems natural to "want things." If you give a child an electic guitar he/she feels cool and simply enjoys the attainment of material wealth!

As a child I was a spoiled ass who craved bigger, better....and this is someone supposedly enlightened coming from a hippie like family. But maybe I was brainwashed to "want" cool things from watching too much television! So I agree with BJ that our brains are hard wired to always want more and I also agree that a big incentive for the human being is to want to be "cool" and better than the next guy or at least the very least "unique." this view seems to fit a Capitalist paradigm so in my mind Capitalism is at least more natural a system to occur once again. Captialism 4 Socilism 2! One more thing before I forget a filmmaker is probably the ideal of a socialist type of profession. They often don't even get paid and they do what they love! And the only thing that sets them apart as unique is simply themselves as individuals and the very unique job they can do. If you dress unique, think unique, live a varied and interesting life and are CREATIVE, than you will feel 100% great without the attainment of vast riches or even prestige for that matter. Instead you are your own entiity someone who stands out simply for what they do without the attachemnt of status.

Now if people value intellgence and creativity without valuing being "higher up" financially than that is a way to justify a Socialist lifestyle. So Indie filmmakers do live a very different life than Hollywood filmmakers, and indeed what they "do" not what they "earn" sets them apart. But I cannot fathom a world where people aren't defined by atleast their own individuality which seems to be more a Captialist memetic...In closing I PROPOSE A WORLD WHERE PEOPLE ARE RESPECTED FOR WHAT THEY DO AND NOT HOW MUCH MONEY THEY EARN, HOWEVER IF THEY WANT TO EARN MORE THAN THEY CAN STRIVE TO. SO BASICALLY I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE GETS AT LEAST ENOUGH TO LIVE WELL ON, ROBOTS WILL DO THE MANUAL LABOR, AND THOSE WHO WANT TO CAN EARN, DO, LIVE MORE! There I've combined a socialist and capitialist society I'm a f***ing genius. [lol]

Edited by dfowler, 12 November 2003 - 11:56 PM.

[bacopa]

http://imminst.org/f.....&st=0entry394

Originally Posted By Kyle65uk

Also while you prefere to concentrate on some CEO's getting large, and often unfair amounts of money, for comparativly little work, what about the other ones that do far more work than many of there employees, and also much middle managment, which is made up even more of people who have spend most of their lives working to get where they are, areyou going to simply say, 'sorry' everything you've ever done is worthless now, and your on the same wage as someone else who does hardly any work while you are working late each night. They'd all quite, and get an easier job, and while a manager can do rubbish desposal for a few weeks a year OK, what would happen if an assembly line worker was suddenly put in charge of an entire corporate devision, after all someone would have to take their place. it would be complete chaos.

[tbeal]

fowler clearly the idea of everyone being able to earn more money but still have enough but it's not feesible att he current time espcially with all the greedy rich people

[imminstmorals]

Scientific/Engineering Utopia Government

Motto, "Creation, individuality, stability"
scientists need to own manufactured factories to issue rewards to the people
scientists use science any mean to reinforce stability
scientists are true humanist

$$ is a bad example of self-motivation and monopoly!, but it works in short term

Corporate state vs scientist/Government !~~ =D
LOL, let's see how this is gonna put into work !~~


CEO is more lazy in the end, they make money they don't care and scientists have to fix it like always!~~

Noone wants a unfair, monopolic captalist society!~~
When is first time we ever realised how reality/life really differs from our childish nature?
Doesn't everyone wants a learning, playing field? Who can manage that? Scientists , engineer and humanist!~~ Trust me man, their genes have got it all ~~

= D

Edited by imminstmorals, 13 December 2003 - 11:02 AM.

[imminstmorals]

put this way

government/scientists issue some food coupon points and reward points to fellow workers.
and government/scientistss owns manufacturing units since they are self assembly, replication in nature and trade products with award points!

Reward points determine which type of products to purchase!~~ Since scientists make more more better products.................

food coupon points that can only buys food, books, training experience, certificate, software tutoring and farmer, they collect all the coupon and return some to scientists for products/equipments!~~, farmer, education facility is owned by government

You are not allowed to trade reward points with food coupon point because they are both bank transaction! if you urgently need more food go to farm and work!~~~

Healthcare unit is government, and it is free or cost little award point

To balance this system with current captalist society!~

We can issue rich people/shareholders with lots of food coupon, so they are given time for transition for re - learning, training, tutoring, and they should really re-work up! For private manufacturing units, they can either close down or the owner can transfer its ownership to scientists, and scientist will send owner to schooling, after he's graduated, he can return as manager position for a while.
This doesn't mean manager gets paid the most !~~

=D, this sounds work for me!~~~~, the more educated someone is, the more awardpoints they should receive but less food coupon point
, easier and less educated job is issued more food coupon point, less award points!

Edited by imminstmorals, 13 December 2003 - 10:59 AM.

[imminstmorals]

dfowler lol,

you can't transform monopolic shareholder ownership to the new nano dollars, neither can you transform private company ownership to new one, neither could you establish a idealist government that supports both development and stability!! LOL


[B)]

Edited by imminstmorals, 13 December 2003 - 11:11 AM.

[ex_banana_eater]

Sorry to jump in blindly, but has anyone ever thought about a fairly socialist system being provided to those under 18, with high standards of equal education and health care because these people cannot go out and work for it themselves like the average worker? Past this point, a rather unrestricted and libertine economy could take place with the exception of supporting the children through tax dollars, since one has the option to become a labour commodity at this point in their life.

[eternaltraveler]

Socialism is what I believe the American society is moving towards.

You are absolutely right on this one Mangala, and it scares the living crap out of me.

I believe Marx was absolutely right when he wrote about how democracy inexorably leads toward communism(socialism) because people vote themselves benefits.

Why should people of ability be made into slaves of those without?

Why should the weak become leeches bringing down the strong?

Why should I provide your healthcare/education/food/clothing/etc.?

What is right about this?

Oh, I'm all for helping other people when I can. When it is my choice. But when someone tells me if I don't help them I will go to prison then it is not me helping out of the goodness of my heart. It is instead you, using that system of yours, to steal from me. Pure and simple.

This divides our society into two camps. The thieves, and the victims.

If you have your own personal resources you want to devote to "helping" people (which really tends to be teaching them how not to help themselves, but that's a whole separate discussion) then that is fine, and your choice. But if you intend to force me to follow your causes by threatening (and backing up) prison and worse, I will fight you. I will fight all that you represent and I will keep on fighting until you kill me and all those like me, which is exactly what you will have to do. And then, the joke will be on you. Because the ones that produced everything that you and your vaunted "society" needed will be dead, and you will be left to the ruin of your own design.

People talk about shades of grey in so many aspects of life. Funny. I see pure black and white.

[scottl]

You are absolutely right on this one Mangala, and it scares the living crap out of me.

I believe Marx was absolutely right when he wrote about how democracy inexorably leads toward communism(socialism) because people vote themselves benefits.

Why should people of ability be made into slaves of those without?

Why should the weak become leeches bringing down the strong?

Why should I provide your healthcare/education/food/clothing/etc.?

What is right about this?

In the words of John Adams, "there was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

One of the ways that happens is that the majority vote themselves money from the public treasury [sorry, don't remember where this came from]

Ya I know this country...isn't a democracy....still applies.

I wonder how long we have....

[outsider]

I don't know if this has been discussed here since this thread is so big and didn't read everything but we are all in to taste what capitalism is all about when China and India gets more and more of the jobs we are doing right now. It has already begun right now and we are felling the effect.

In China they all want the american dream and they would do anything to get there meaning that they would patiently endure low paid jobs.

That means multinationals are transfering the capitalist jobs to china making a big blow to our economy. That is how capitalism work. Competition.

I'm not saying capitalism is bad but I don't think it's perfect either.

[immortal]

I'm a Capatalist. I love Capatalism. I established my company for one express purpose. And for the purpose that every single contirbutor here has forgotten : these experimental technologies are going to be expensive. Now name me one way that a Joe Sixpack will be able to afford Immortality. By supressing the ability of somebody else with the same desires to achieve the things you as an Immortalist want to achieve. And how is that accomplished : by making them work for peanuts.

And if anybody pisses out Socialism or hippy communes filled with nano- and bio- engineers, remeber, all forms of structure have been tried before and Capatilism won.

In another website I have been discussing the possiblity of a "wealth equals votes" system of government to replace the modern democratic institution everyone takes for granted. The whole point of this sytem is to educate Joe Sixpack into making smarter voting decisions. Smarter voting decisions equal smarter governing process. And the only way to educate him to make more informed choices is to reward him with privileges. Those previleges are monetary. The harder Joe works, the more money he has, the more votes he is entitled to at election time. Whole stratums have been designed based on occupation, level of education, income status, capital acquistion, age, I.Q etc. We believe that the station where Joe jumps off the societal responsibility train determines his value to society and therefore the extent of his say within it.

I'll undoubtedly be resoundingly derided for my views because they run contrary to every tenent Immortalists hold sacred. But wake up. If you can't afford the tech, you won't become your beloved Transhuman. If you can't afford the tech, don't riot out the front of my scyscraper. I won't feel any sympathy for you. Every single one of you have had the same oppotunity I have. I just decided to realise the inevitable. The coffee smells really fucking good this high up.

[halcyondays]

immortal I think that you are forgetting something. The entire social structure which is socialist based is what allowed you to get where you are. Don't kid yourself that it was all you and you didn't get any help in getting where you are. Too many people who are rah rah Capitalism and free market forget to take an honest look at how they got where they are and the history of their own country. Society is about helping those who are less fortunate. You know, the whole "with great power comes great responsibility". The idea of I want mine and screw everyone else is a selfish human instinct that needs to be removed before humanity can truly better itself. I loath the day that you have a since person or corporation claiming ownership over an entire star system or galaxy for that matter.

There are many solutions for solving the issue of cost. Firstly you have the fact that as a technology becomes popular it becomes cheaper. Look at the countless inventions Cars, Planes, and Computers that were extremely expensive to start with to even use let alone own.

I also believe that you can have development of these technologies under a socialist government, there is nothing that says that people under a capitalist system are smarter or have more ideas then those under a socialist government.

outsider: I don't think people necessarily want capitalism, but they want the goods and services offered under capitalism, which can be offered under other economic forms. I think we need to remember that Capitalism does not equal democracy. You can have a capitalist state that has a dictatorship quit easily, just look at Iraq pre gulf war.

I know for a fact that Drug companies have come up with some cures for rare cancers and have decided not to sell them because they won't make back the money they used to develop the drug. So those several hundred people with this rare form of cancer are going to die. I would argue that any economic system that would allow those people to die when there is a cure is immoral.

Tranhumanism is about transcending human nature, about becoming something better . That includes putting life above everything else. Why bother trying to live forever if your system condemns people to death because profit margins won't be met? Seems like an immoral system to me.

I would also argue that the reason why Capitalism works as an economic system is due to human nature. It appeals to the selfishness and self centered parts of human nature. To the me vs the we. That being said none of us live in a purely capitalist economic system (thankfully). We live in a hybrid system that is part socialist part capitalist, and that seems to work fairly well as long as you don't stray too far one way or the other.

I think we will see an end to capitalism as it now works in the next couple of hundred years, if mature nanotech and indefinite lifespans are realized in our lifetimes. The economy will no longer be about what we have, but what we know. Knowledge is power, and knowledge will become the new currency of the future. When you can create whatever you want or need for essentially no money then money loses its value.

[mitkat]

immortal I think that you are forgetting something. The entire social structure which is socialist based is what allowed you to get where you are. Don't kid yourself that it was all you and you didn't get any help in getting where you are. Too many people who are rah rah Capitalism and free market forget to take an honest look at how they got where they are and the history of their own country. Society is about helping those who are less fortunate. You know, the whole "with great power comes great responsibility". The idea of I want mine and screw everyone else is a selfish human instinct that needs to be removed before humanity can truly better itself. I loath the day that you have a since person or corporation claiming ownership over an entire star system or galaxy for that matter.

There are many solutions for solving the issue of cost. Firstly you have the fact that as a technology becomes popular it becomes cheaper. Look at the countless inventions Cars, Planes, and Computers that were extremely expensive to start with to even use let alone own.

I also believe that you can have development of these technologies under a socialist government, there is nothing that says that people under a capitalist system are smarter or have more ideas then those under a socialist government.

outsider: I don't think people necessarily want capitalism, but they want the goods and services offered under capitalism, which can be offered under other economic forms. I think we need to remember that Capitalism does not equal democracy. You can have a capitalist state that has a dictatorship quit easily, just look at Iraq pre gulf war.

I know for a fact that Drug companies have come up with some cures for rare cancers and have decided not to sell them because they won't make back the money they used to develop the drug. So those several hundred people with this rare form of cancer are going to die. I would argue that any economic system that would allow those people to die when there is a cure is immoral.

Tranhumanism is about transcending human nature, about becoming something better . That includes putting life above everything else. Why bother trying to live forever if your system condemns people to death because profit margins won't be met? Seems like an immoral system to me.

I would also argue that the reason why Capitalism works as an economic system is due to human nature. It appeals to the selfishness and self centered parts of human nature. To the me vs the we. That being said none of us live in a purely capitalist economic system (thankfully). We live in a hybrid system that is part socialist part capitalist, and that seems to work fairly well as long as you don't stray too far one way or the other.

I think we will see an end to capitalism as it now works in the next couple of hundred years, if mature nanotech and indefinite lifespans are realized in our lifetimes.  The economy will no longer be about what we have, but what we know. Knowledge is power, and knowledge will become the new currency of the future. When you can create whatever you want or need for essentially no money then money loses its value.

All I can say is... [thumb] Right on the money, 100%.

[AaronCW]

immortal I think that you are forgetting something. The entire social structure which is socialist based is what allowed you to get where you are. Don't kid yourself that it was all you and you didn't get any help in getting where you are. Too many people who are rah rah Capitalism and free market forget to take an honest look at how they got where they are and the history of their own country. Society is about helping those who are less fortunate. You know, the whole "with great power comes great responsibility". The idea of I want mine and screw everyone else is a selfish human instinct that needs to be removed before humanity can truly better itself. I loath the day that you have a since person or corporation claiming ownership over an entire star system or galaxy for that matter.

Dead wrong, Capitalism is directly responsible for the economic success of this country. Capitalism is also the only economic system compatible with principles of the US constitution. The last 80 years of US history have been an unfortunate series of steps in the wrong direction, beginning with the New Deal and the abandonment of the gold standard. These government programs fly in the face of individual rights, and are responsible for the stagnation of the standard of living for all classes (which was on an unprecedented rise previously).

There are many solutions for solving the issue of cost. Firstly you have the fact that as a technology becomes popular it becomes cheaper. Look at the countless inventions Cars, Planes, and Computers that were extremely expensive to start with to even use let alone own.

The only means by which such technologies can be developed and become available to everyone is by adhering to the laws of supply and demand, and allowing unfettered competition. The only way this natural progression can be stifled is by government interference.

I also believe that you can have development of these technologies under a socialist government, there is nothing that says that people under a capitalist system are smarter or have more ideas then those under a socialist government.

I'm sorry, but where is the motivation for developing such technologies? It doesn't exist, either in the individual or the government. The Socialist government has no motivation for improving the lives of its citizens, except in the realm of international politics, and the individual has no motivation to work amitiously as a slave.

outsider: I don't think people necessarily want capitalism, but they want the goods and services offered under capitalism, which can be offered under other economic forms. I think we need to remember that Capitalism does not equal democracy. You can have a capitalist state that has a dictatorship quit easily, just look at Iraq pre gulf war.

I know for a fact that Drug companies have come up with some cures for rare cancers and have decided not to sell them because they won't make back the money they used to develop the drug. So those several hundred people with this rare form of cancer are going to die. I would argue that any economic system that would allow those people to die when there is a cure is immoral.

Tranhumanism is about transcending human nature, about becoming something better . That includes putting life above everything else. Why bother trying to live forever if your system condemns people to death because profit margins won't be met? Seems like an immoral system to me.

I would also argue that the reason why Capitalism works as an economic system is due to human nature. It appeals to the selfishness and self centered parts of human nature. To the me vs the we. That being said none of us live in a purely capitalist economic system (thankfully). We live in a hybrid system that is part socialist part capitalist, and that seems to work fairly well as long as you don't stray too far one way or the other.

I think we will see an end to capitalism as it now works in the next couple of hundred years, if mature nanotech and indefinite lifespans are realized in our lifetimes. The economy will no longer be about what we have, but what we know. Knowledge is power, and knowledge will become the new currency of the future. When you can create whatever you want or need for essentially no money then money loses its value.

A morality that considers the 'we' as more important than the 'me' is incompatible with individual rights, with freedom, and thus with Capitalism. This is the morality of altruism, it is a remnant of religious philosophy, and it is utterly irrational.

Your understanding of economics is extremely misguided. Yes, as technology progresses (as it will and can only under Capitalism) goods will become cheaper and manual labor will become less valuable. Money does not lose it's value when material products become cheap, it gains value.