Dude I'm sorry. But if you want me to reduce my argument without hominem atacks, then just answer this question:

Why do you justify capitalism when all the positive aspects of society Kontan and you have mentioned are those which are against capitalism, an obstacle to capitalism for the sake of socialist respect for human dignity?

Alan, your way of arguing is poor. Somebody presents a point and then you're like "Aight but ANSWER ME THIS", completely derailing the discourse that they were trying to approach so that you can manufacture the argument in your favour.

That's why I always end up losing my shit and getting personal when I argue with Alan - sheer frustration at the fact that he refuses to answer direct questions and cherry-picks from the answers given, instead of actually engaging with the issue as a whole.

I can't see how that is an issue here. Again, that's the whole point right now. There are good capitalists only in the sense that they are good people, not because they are good capitalists. What would you say is the issue here?

Jesus christ.

Now you're trying to to sidestep the issue. Seriously, come on.

The issue here is that you're not going to be convinced even by a polemic masterstroke of such gravity and intellectual breadth that Bakunin would rise from the grave and perform a tapdance extravaganza on the graves of Bolivian child workers, so argument is futile. You just stated that you see good actions as being in spite of capitalism, rather than being able to even acknowledge the possibility of a benevolent capitalist. This whole thread is pointless while you argue in it.

But when I argue that there are benevolent capitalists just as there were benevolent masters and benevolent feudal lords and benevolent dictators, NO, that's different! Right?

Uh... what? I'm not denying the possibility of a benevolent dictatorship.

And therefore we shouldn't complain against dictatorship? We should just hope that the dictator is good, and now dictatorship itself is salvageable? It's just a balance of dictatorial power and civil rights and then we can salvage it. The problem is not dictatorships, it's people?

I didn't say that I agree with benevolent dictatorships, but I understand that a dictatorship can be benevolent. Because of that, there is always the possibility that I can be convinced of its merits, no matter how unlikely. By the same token, I don't agree with benevolent capitalism, but I acknowledge that benevolent capitalism can exist. You, on the other hand, deny that benevolent capitalism can exist, and that all benevolence is in spite of capitalism, because you see capitalism as this overarching bogeyman that is the very antithesis of goodness rather than just being a theory on how best to produce and distribute. That's why this argument will always be entirely fruitless, you're not looking for a discussion, you're looking for prolix; you want to hammer your point home until people don't give a shit any more and stop arguing, then you can say you've won.

I would lose if people stop giving a shit. How exactly can a dictator be benevolent qua his position as dictator.

Because a dictatorship could be undertaken with the good of the community at heart, take the idea of proletariat dictatorship as an example of that. I'm not saying that would be justified, but it would qualify as a benevolent dictatorship.

I'm not asking you for an example. I'm asking why why this would be justifiable.

So you didn't read my previous posts at all, instead taking snippets and veering away from them so that you could ask a question with your own agenda for this discussion in mind? Well I'll be damned.

You really frustrate me sometimes Alan, and I'm not even arguing with you.

I was actually going to say the same thing.
This thread is called "what's wrong with capitalism"
I have argued about what is wrong with capitalism, and how it's not justifiable. I have repeated myself countless of times, saying how all these arguments simply defend capitalism by no virtue of capitalism itself.
I keep talking about how you people justify it, and yet you avoid that word. I tell you examples of benevolence that are still unjustifiable, such as that of a benevolent slave master, to which Desp bitched and called me a racist (but I'll be damned if I make an ad hominem).
And you sidestep the issue of benevolent people still not being an excuse to defend an unjustifiable system.

Tell me your understanding of how is it that I sidestep the question, when you blatanly even fucking lied, saying I don't believe there are benevolent people as capitalists - something that completely contradicts my fucking argument.

I think we broke Jillian.

This thread is boss.

You like the Series of Unfortunate events?

I don't read books that suck so that reference just went over my head.

You quoted Charles Baudelaire...

Aight so I've tried out like three or four different responses to that, all of them abusive in some kind but differing in tone, sarcastic, angry, restrainedly contemptuous, laconic. Each one I've had to delete because I'm pretty much lost for words here.

I googled the quote..
You were No.1 on the Google Search page.
Lol.

As now, thanks to Jillian, this thread has lost all intellectual credibility, I think we all need to take some time to appreciate the father of slavepunk Geroge Fitzhugh. This guy was awesome, check it out:
Something of a recluse? REALLY? I would never have thought that a crazy, self-educated old man living in a rickety, bat-infested mansion, exiting only occasionally to travel hundreds of miles to argue for universal slavery against a couple of people might be socially awkward!

I love this man:

Or if apparently nothing I said is right, we could simply re-ask the question.
No one here said there's nothing wrong with capitalism, so let's see the issue.

What's wrong with capitalism?
Is it the people?
It can't be the people. We agreed that people don't go about thinking "how can I fuck the lives of others all the better today"?
So what oh what could it be that is wrong with capitalism?

You're right, people don't say that; YODA says that.

I was reading through the BBC, and this article reminded me of this thread.

That is all.

Okay, so I KNOW this is pointless. I KNOW Alan is not a rational person, but I also know that he's going to continue to shit up this thread, so I figure, beyond regular mockery, I might show everyone how wrong Alan is mathematically.

Alan Claims:

While I do not agree with this, let's just pretend that he's right, Capitalism is hate and exploitation incarnate, and we have been unable to bring up any reasons to like capitalism yadda, yadda. A capitalist cannot ever be good, Therefore we must take it as a truism that all capitalists are bad.

This notion is of course ridiculous so to cover it up he THEN argues:
Thus Capitalism has the potential to be good, if and only if, the capitalist ignores capitalism and behaves well in spite of capitalism. Thus we have this claim:

capitalism is good, if and only if, it is not capitalism.

IE: A = B if and only if A /= A.

Therefore, logically, a benevolent capitalist/feudal lord/slaveowner cannot exist ever, period, even though Alan claims in the same statement that they do.

Now not only has he contradicted himself, but his assertion is obviously untrue.

Now, this epic fucking logicfail is, in essence very similar to the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Now I could also point out that equating an economic system with a political system and then also a moral system is shaky ground at best, but why bother? Jillian is running on his own definition of capitalism, and his mind is far too turned-in on itself to ever allow for the possibility that he is wrong. I might speculate that this is due to the fact that his political ideals are so closely tied into his own identity that it's impossible for him to separate "Alan" from "Anarchist" but that's really just idle speculation.

So I'm just gonna think about that crazy, crazy old man living in his rickety bat infested mansion, dreaming up a socialist utopia run on universal slavery.

It's really stupid to consider me "not a rational person" simply because you don't respect me.
You wanted me to stop with the ad hominems, you stop with the ad hominems. Don't be a fucking hypocrite.

And your argument is not valid. Seriously. Sounds all pretty, but that's not logic.
Your argument only works if you believe that people can be reduced to one sole role. A capitalist is ONLY a capitalist and cannot be a human being, nor a family man, nor a friend. Therefore, you say, he is evil all around.
That's fucking ridiculous.

I argue that all the goodness you people have mentioned come in spite of capitalism, and you conclude that then all the goodness does not exist?
What the fuck.

By the way, I never argued that capitalism is hate incarnate, you delusional dimwit. If you're going to ridicule m argument, then know it.
Capitalism is inherently exploitative and oppressive. It's not fucking based around human emotions and therefore cannot be based on hatred. If capitalism were hatred, you're once again legitimizing the idea that it allows for people to say "how can I fuck over my fellow human beings?" Something, I remind you, not even you believe.

And where do you get that socialism is universal slavery? Are you that deluded?
People, this is the person you side with? An idiot that believes capitalism is defensible if it's not profit-driven and socialism is absolute lack of freedom? Not even Deadman is that stupid. Congrats, JCC.

Uh... what?

I fucking love this thread - I want to buy it dinner and make sweet, tender, considerate love to it.

Is anyone else starting to wonder if Alan is actually Sir Helpmann and Jillian is tied up in a basement somewhere?

"dreaming up a socialist utopia run on universal slavery." - Despanan

"I was referring to George Fitzhugh:

"

-despanan

"sorry, I was so incensed by the intellectual bitchslapping I am receiving at your hands that I didn't actually read your posts"

-Alan

Actually yeah; that was the stupidest thing I have said in this thread by far. I apologize.
But now, if the above is still the biggest try at logic, then you're not really trying anyway and would rather take that I am all in all "not a rational person" so what's the point of even trying to talk about the real issue?

The typical accusations thrown at capitalism would be that as a system it depends on unlimited growth in a planet of limited resources and that it fosters redundancy in the arts etc.

But capitalism itself isn’t really the enemy. It’s that hard-line, no-limits, ‘ingrained in our blood and proud of it’ capitalism (read American) that fucks shit up. Hard-line capitalism fosters inequality between people and what you find over and over again is that almost everything you could consider to be a quality of life indicator (death rates by age, prison rates, obesity rates, homelessness etc.) are much worse than in more equal societies (America does badly in basically all indicators). More equal societies do better in almost every imaginable way than less equal societies regardless (and this is the important part) of each country’s respective wealth.

This is why capitalism should be reigned in and harnessed by socialist tendencies. Universal health care, high taxes (which are spent wisely), social welfare programs: these are all things that I support. Keep in mind that I don't advocate equality religiously or anything like that; I understand that all people are not born equal, but like I said, more equal societies are better whomever you are.

In any case I tend to think of capitalism as something mutable rather than a solid or determinate entity because the drive to look out for oneself and one’s own ahead of others has always existed as a physiological phenomena amongst men: the only thing that changes is the manner in which it manifests itself. I predict that capitalism will find a more benevolent and sustainable face in the coming 50 years with the rise of synthetic goods (goods with no packaging or physical by-product) as more and more stuff goes online and less stuff is paid for at inordinate prices (because middlemen and leeches are cut out). I believe that online piracy will have a communising effect on capitalism with many benefits.

Capitalism, in general, will exploit the workers. It's just the way the system is set up.

Secondly, as capitalists go, I like Keynesians like you far more than lasse faire capitalists.

Thirdly, online piracy is not a cumminising effect, it's a princple of capitalism called the black market.

Piracy will have a communizing effect on capitalism. When you download music, movies or games the only currency changing hands is in web traffic and most people can afford a service provider. Plenty of people however can’t afford 40 Euro for a video game. As it stands the ethos between capitalism and piracy is fundamentally at odds (sharing versus selling, redundant intellectual property laws versus free exchange).

But I only said that it would have a communizing effect not that it would turn capitalism into communism. There are always smart people who change with the times and will make money whichever way, but when you cut out all the middle men and leeches stuff starts to drop in price exponentially. It becomes more affordable for everyone.

Technology as a whole is moving more in this direction all the time. When you make music on your laptop you circumnavigate all the costs associated with the big record companies (recording, producing, mastering, promoting) and can sell your product for a lot cheaper and hence more people can afford it. It’s the same with the rise of cheap cameras, video recorders and editing software.

I know what you’re saying about the Black Market. But the way I see it, the Black market also has a communizing effect on capitalism. It’s just that capitalism can’t realistically do anything about it so it has to take it into account.

Piracy has nothing to do with the black market. The black market is about selling prohibited goods, piracy is about sharing prohibited goods.

Too much ignorance of economics floating around in this thread.

This one especially is a tired and used up cliche

"Capitalism, in general, will exploit the workers. It's just the way the system is set up."

I suppose that is why we have one of the highest median wages and auto workers that make $75 wage labor.


The problem is government intervention within the free-market.

Who is "we"?

Anyway, median wages are only a general indicator of what someone brings home after taxes. They don't take in to account things that the government pays for.

Take Canada, for instance. The median household income is $44,000, which is roughly $6,000 less than what the median household income in the United States. However, Canadians generally do not have to worry about medical costs, something the average American does have to worry about.

That difference in medical costs can easily take large portions of the $50,000 that the average American household has, while the $44,000 that the Canadian has will generally be left alone in a medical crisis.

We refers to Americans.

Well, yeah, they have labor unions, an anti-capitalist entity to which thousands of workers gave their lives in the beginning of the twentieth century for capitalism not to fuck them over.

Indeed, it is the very same unions that have brought down the American car companies.

So your example in the defense of capitalism wasn't beneficial for capitalism?

Not at all. It merely shows the effects of Capitalism. When the effects of union paralyze the business then it contributes to the business' demise in a capitalist system. The market punishes unadaptive companies.

You mentioned autoworkers' wages as an example of how capitalism doesn't exploit workers. Now you admit that those wages have to do with capitalism. That's the point here.

I'm not a businessman, car designer, or economist, so I could be way off on this. However, from what I understand, the unadaptive aspect came from the design of American cars. As far as I know, unions were not the ones who designed the cars, they merely built them. It was the availability of cheaper-by-design Asian cars that brought down the American car companies, and not the autoworker's union.

I'm sorry to retread this but I was thinking about it earlier and was hoping to get some feedback.

Firstly, when hit comes to majority rules, I think it was Desp who said that you only have to take a look at California voting to take away gay marriage rights to say that majority rules does not work.

I see how majority rules wouldn't work in capitalism because capitalism necessitates at least some kind of hierarchy, but in anarchy there would be no hierarchy. Lets assume we have a country that becomes an anarchist state, for this to happen the vast majority of the people have to agree to this, and would therefore have to agree to the anarchist principle that everyone is equal. This is in our constitutions but in practice today, we know that we are not all equal (gender and racial wage gap, gay couples are considered second class and unworthy of marriage). So in an anarchist state, the principle our countries today pretend to believe in would actually be in practice, that everyone is equal, no one is more equal than anyone else, everyone can decided how to live their lives provided it harms no one else to put it insanely simply. So there simply would be no vote in the first place to rob someone else of their rights. If we are all equal, we cannot say that a gay marriage between two consenting adults is in anyway wrong. We already know that there is no real moral argument against gay marriage anyway, its only the unreasonable hierarchy of heterosexuality over homosexuality that is hindering gay rights today. And secondly, to pick on that example marriage as an institution would probably not exist in an anarchist society anyway. Today you receive economic benefits for being married, but without capitalism, what economic gain is there? What state are you seeking recognition from? I can only see it existing as a personal ceremony out of sentiment or as a religious ceremony, which in anycase even in Canada religions are exempt from granting gay marriage.

As for a joe the plumber shouldn't have more authority than an expert on the subject that the vote is being voted on, well yeah thats true. There will always be authorities granted on expertise. A doctor is more of an authority on health than a lawyer, but thats where his authority ends, when he recommends a treatment its still up to the patient for the most part what to do. I don't think anarchy would break down simply to any majority rules, but there will largely be participation and discussion by the community as a whole to make decisions concerning the community based on the arguments and presentations by authorities on the subject. I don't think anyone advocates that everyone goes to the ballot every sunday to vote on whether to build a new hospital or whatnot, but the community as a whole deserves a say in what happens to the resources the community uses.

And finally, the point that it can't work on a large scale. But the organization of anarchy from what I know is that its always broken up in small sections. Its too fucked up that I in Newfoundland can control what happens in a community in BC, but it happens, since Alberta is largely Conservative thanks to them we have a prime minister 62% of the country didn't vote for. Thanks to people in Washington who should have no authority on the subject, even states that allow gay marriage cannot grant their couples federal recognition thanks to the DOMA, so even in those states gay couples are still second class. And what works for us here in Newfoundland wouldn't necessarily work for those in BC and might not be what they want, so why should i have any say in how those people on the otherside of the second biggest country in the world organize themselves? Not to say that every community would be completely independant, obviously a lot of trading would still have to go on, but a small group of people trying to make everyone in the whole country do as they say is already unrealistic.