/philosophy/ - Philosophy

>>2192

Think about the classic dilemna carefully: Cooperation or Competition? Sharing knowledge or holding onto proprietary secrets? Copyleft or Copyright, Linux or Microsoft, Folklore or the Mickey Mouse Act?

How often are resources squandered to cannibalistically sabotage rival companies under Capitalism? How often is unflattering information that would be useful to the consumer covered up to make a buck, while deceptive advertising claims Walmart products are 'Made in America?' Gross income inequality creates waste because the rich love to blow money on luxury products, and hire maids to clean their mansions; these maids might otherwise have cultivated their mind and contributed more meaningfully to society on a fair playing-field.

Which economic system should allow more economic progress and technological development if implemented fairly?

>>2212

>Less often than they are used by the government to sabotage, well, just about anything.

We can look for ways to manage government better. Picture a direct democracy, where issues were transparent, people were informed, and people were trained to care about the collective.

>They also blow their capital on keeping the economy going, and I can't see many people complain about that.

You've seen government Request for Proposals, stocks and crowdsourcing? They are more democratic equivilants of capital generation that don't simply let a handful of people dictate where the funds go. In each of these the lowly. taxpayer or funder should have a say in how money is spent.

If people are also educated (meaning problems are trasparent), they should on the whole make rational decisions for their collective best interests. The good thing about government is that is highly regulated - you can have a "Sunshine Act" which turns over information to taxpayers, unlike with businesses. You can also give whistleblower protection, and simply transfer a whistleblower to another department rather than throwing them on the street with a reputation for disloyalty.

>You want to have your cake and eat it, too. Let the capitalist do with his money as he sees fit, but ONLY if it suits us.

A great philosopher said, "With great power comes great responsibility." His name was Spiderman.

>Who would pay them to do this?

The fact is the funds are wasted under the rich. They have the potential to be better managed with less frivilous waste. Whether or not that happens, there is no potential for agency for certain individuals under the current situation. Give the maid free time and she might tinker with toys and become an engineer or programer. Restrict her and she'll know little except how to clean needlessly large homes, for someone who has stopped appreciating the extra rooms, but who builds more simply because he can. No God or government will put a foot down and say, "You've have more than enough already, now start giving back to society."

Here is what America looks like today. Since the recession, the shrinking of the Middle Class has Accelerated, because our quasi-capitalist government policies favor giving more of the pie to the man who has most of the slices.

>>2217

This is getting too long. I don't like having to repeat this argument with every American when half the country are programmed to hate Socialists, so I'll keep it short. Socialism is a goal. Until you accept that it's a better goal than Capitalism, you won't look for a solution. Capitalism has failed, and if you don't agree with these premises, this conversation won't go anywhere.

>How in the fuck will you ever make an issue like vaccination or nuclear safety transparent to the public?

You don't. Experts are always there to provide advice and to lead. Hopefully you make it common sense not to vote on things they're ignorant about.

>Lots of regulation is not actually a good thing.

It can be, for safety. Adam Smith himself admits governments should be in charge of certain long term projects such as road maintenance. Or do you want potholes, and contaminated Chinese milk marketed as 'Made in America?'

>So, what is the collective best interest and why the hell should I care about the collective when the collective doesn't give a shit about me?

It's like having stock options in a company. You work for the collective because it benefits you, or because of a sense of duty. It keeps the streets free of litter in Japan, and if you live with individualists that want to remain litter bugs, your culture has room to improve.

>That's why we have the internet, media, word of mouth and - when things go south - the courts.

Companies are not free to reveal their secrets in the way a government would. For a corporation every scrap of information is a potential trade secret to be tightly guarded. Moreover, the smaller ones can lack the infrastructure to comply within reason. You cannot call a company and demand for them to turn over a brick of information in the way you can through the sunshine act.

>And this is where you're wrong. Everyone has agency

Full stop. Total naive bullshit. I bet you just graduated from High School Economics, and never heard of Nickel and Dimed. When you get around some more, and read the biographies of the richest men, you will realize that you almost definitely will never get anywhere near the top unless you already had the cards going for you from the start. Wealth, connections, and mentorship are cultivated. If you do rise above the pack, it will be by stepping on the throats of other people rather than rising with them, as per old village societies.

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

It basically says here that if you're anywhere near the bottom, you're probably fucked. You need to go to a rich university, mingle with rich people, and have rich friends and family to invest in you or you'll probably end up scrapping by with a few thousand in savings.

> Why should I "give back" the riches I acquired by becoming awesome while the poorfags were wondering what the Kardashians were up to?

Because you never got the riches legitimately in the first place. Maybe by birthright, or maybe by chance you happened to be in the right place at the right time to make more than you deserve. If you're earning millions a year in management, and your bottom workers are getting 20-40 K a year while working overtime, you're like most American leaders - a manipulative asshole.

If you strike it lucky, and truly believe you deserve it, you've deluded yourself. You have no empathy, not even for the other businessmen who weren't so lucky. Just because you don't see identical people failing miserably and suffering, doesn't mean it's not happening. Please shoot yourself so your genes won't hold back my socialist future.

>At which point becomes material wealth unnecessary, in your eyes?

How about when my stingy aunt has 5 houses, votes against progressive taxation, and still thinks she is too poor to fairly pay her taxes?

>...and you fail to take into account that America is far removed from laissez-faire capitalism.

You haven't given a solution to fix the problems with capitalism either. Mainly because you refuse to acknowledge that poverty is a major ill that deserves to be fixed. You also haven't acknowledged that the rich tend to be parasites that got wealthy by plundering labor and natural resources, especially if they grew up in the third world. What this boils down to is: Should a thief or a mugger be obligated to return the money he stole from a farmer?

>>This is a naive and simplistic view

Have you even fairly considered both Socialism and Capitalism? If you haven't done the thinking, you're naive.

>>2223

>This is getting too long. I don't like having to repeat this argument with every American when half the country are programmed to hate Socialists, so I'll keep it short.

I'm German, but nice try anyway.

>Socialism is a goal. Until you accept that it's a better goal than Capitalism, you won't look for a solution.

In other words, I must accept that socialism is better than capitalism, then I'll seriously look into it and realize that it's better than capitalism... why, that's not circular at all!

>Capitalism has failed, and if you don't agree with these premises, this conversation won't go anywhere.

Not laissez-faire capitalism, but I don't expect a know-it-all like you to understand it.

>You don't. Experts are always there to provide advice and to lead.

And what if the experts themselves are divided? I don't see any scientific consensus on whether nuclear power is worth it or not, and there's even less of a consensus on that if we take into account the opinions of philosophers, whose opinion the public may be interested in, too.

>Hopefully you make it common sense not to vote on things they're ignorant about.

And then teach the public that it's just ignorant about certain topics? I see no way of this ever going wrong.

>It can be, for safety. Adam Smith himself admits governments should be in charge of certain long term projects such as road maintenance.

Adam Smith was wrong.

>Or do you want potholes, and contaminated Chinese milk marketed as 'Made in America?'

Fraud, bodily harm and attempted murder are things, and in the case of the Chinese milk, you'd have all three of these things. Again, apply the criminal law to cases like that - which is what is NOT being done nowadays - and you have solved the problem.

>It's like having stock options in a company. You work for the collective because it benefits you,

That's a cop-out. If it did benefit, you'd work for the collective even if you were an egoist. If it didn't, this reasoning does not apply. I honestly have no clue why you mention it, then.

>or because of a sense of duty.

A false sense of duty, because you own a bunch of robbers exactly shit.

>It keeps the streets free of litter in Japan, and if you live with individualists that want to remain litter bugs, your culture has room to improve.

Individualism is all about littering, sure. :^)

>>2223

Continued:

>Full stop. Total naive bullshit. I bet you just graduated from High School Economics,

For a condescending asshole, you sure are a condescending asshole.

>and never heard of Nickel and Dimed. When you get around some more, and read the biographies of the richest men, you will realize that you almost definitely will never get anywhere near the top unless you already had the cards going for you from the start. Wealth, connections, and mentorship are cultivated. If you do rise above the pack, it will be by stepping on the throats of other people rather than rising with them, as per old village societies.

Funny thing is, I wasn't even thinking of poor guys becoming the 0,00001% all of a sudden, and I'm the filthy, evil capitalist here. Nope, what I had in mind was people becoming good at something because they were passioned, ambitioned and talented enough. If you read the biographies of the best athletes or scientists, you'd know many of them didn't arrive at their position through ill means. Apparently, we have other definitions of success.

>It basically says here that if you're anywhere near the bottom, you're probably fucked.

And how exactly is laissez-faire capitalism responsible for this when it hasn't even been implemented?

>Because you never got the riches legitimately in the first place. Maybe by birthright, or maybe by chance you happened to be in the right place at the right time to make more than you deserve. If you're earning millions a year in management, and your bottom workers are getting 20-40 K a year while working overtime, you're like most American leaders - a manipulative asshole.

There's something in between "starving to death" and "literally worse than Pablo Escobar", you know?

>If you strike it lucky, and truly believe you deserve it, you've deluded yourself.

What if I don't strike it lucky, but were simply more skilled? Checkmate, commies.

>You have no empathy, not even for the other businessmen who weren't so lucky. Just because you don't see identical people failing miserably and suffering, doesn't mean it's not happening.

I'm not a businessmen, you dumb fuck.

>Please shoot yourself so your genes won't hold back my socialist future.

You mentioned both suicide and eugenics in one sentence. I'm impressed.

>How about when my stingy aunt has 5 houses, votes against progressive taxation, and still thinks she is too poor to fairly pay her taxes?

What if she has just a small house, but three smartphones? Is that too much already?

Counterexample, what if she has a small house, voted for Bernie Sanders, eats only dry bread and rice, but there's a statue of her in every city? That too much?

>You haven't given a solution to fix the problems with capitalism either.

Implement laissez-faire capitalism. Apply the general law to all equally. Reduce the state to a purely defensive role, or abolish it outright.

>Mainly because you refuse to acknowledge that poverty is a major ill that deserves to be fixed.

It is a major ill. It should be fixed. I don't want any dirty red bastard to hold a gun at my face and share my wealth with some poor guy who may or may not deserve to be poor, as well as with ten bureaucrats who manage the money and are most certainly not starving.

>You also haven't acknowledged that the rich tend to be parasites that got wealthy by plundering labor and natural resources, especially if they grew up in the third world.

I acknowledge this. What I don't acknowledge is your unspoken assumption that you can plunder labor by having people voluntarily work for you, if some business major in America thinks you're not paying them enough. What I also don't acknowledge is that natural resources belong to all. They totally can, but if I homestead a coal mine, then it damn well belongs to me.

>What this boils down to is: Should a thief or a mugger be obligated to return the money he stole from a farmer?

Yes. This is not what it boils down to for you, though. You want to take money from the wealthy and give it to the poor, no matter why anyone is in the position he's in. The real crime, it seems, is to be wealthy, for commies like you.

>Have you even fairly considered both Socialism and Capitalism? If you haven't done the thinking, you're naive.

I have done the thinking, and my conclusion is that you're a cunt. Please fuck off.

>>2226

>Implement laissez-faire capitalism.

Yeah this argument isn't going to go anywhere.

Laissez-faire is what led to the current system. It doesn't last, because companies always act in their best interest try to create monopolies.

You frankly don't know as much as me about the history of business, and have no idea how little you know by comparison. If you had, you would have given better counter-examples, empirical ones, or even ones that I hadn't heard. We won't see eye to eye, so I'll end this because it's not going anywhere new.

>Apply the general law to all equally. Reduce the state to a purely defensive role, or abolish it outright.

I sort of agree with this part, but Rule of Law simply doesn't last whenever there is gross income inequality. You end up with the bad behavior of Chinese princelings.

The problem is in the income inequality, and you can't "fix" Rule of Law, capitalism, or democracy without fixing this. You seriously have no idea how fucked up and abusive the existing system is. You simply haven't thought it through as much as you think you have, or seen the facts.

I've studied income inequality and management for years, and if the link I gave you didn't reach your gut, you're going to remain a brainwashed conservative hack for the rest of your life, stuck believing the stupid lies you were taught. Work hard and you'll become rich! Cut tax rates to 5 percent and trickle down economics will help everyone! Yeah, whatever. Keep on listening to the debunked propaganda of the rich, and be content with your bread crumbs, and sign up for the lotto, because maybe you'll still get lucky. And if you do, it's all because of your hard work, not because you took advantage of the less fortunate!

Social welfare is only evil until you get into an accident and need government assistance. Regulation is only evil until an Enron wipes out your savings, or a Love Canal poisons your kids. Socialism is only evil until the rich carve their niches, and laissez faire slips into oligarchy. If you're not using your brain to search for a solution to income inequality, you're only making the problem worse.

Okay, I've said enough. Someone else want to argue with me?

>>2227

>Laissez-faire is what led to the current system.

It isn't. The US was doing pretty damn well whenever it didn't try to restrict trade or personal liberty. Poor people even had affordable healthcare before the government stepped in and prohibited for doctors to be paid a flatrate for providing services. Since then, doctors have to be paid for each service performed, which is a nightmare for poor people, who used to be able to share the costs for one doctor with the entire neighborhood: Everyone paid him a little, and he had to perform services on whoever asked. The system worked pretty damn well.

>It doesn't last, because companies always act in their best interest try to create monopolies.

Name me one company that achieved a lasting, stable monopoly without considerablehelp from the government. Just one.

>You frankly don't know as much as me about the history of business, and have no idea how little you know by comparison. If you had, you would have given better counter-examples, empirical ones, or even ones that I hadn't heard. We won't see eye to eye, so I'll end this because it's not going anywhere new.

You proclaim victory all the time. This is a cheap tactic. You're not enlightening anybody here, you're just being a pretentious fuck.

>I sort of agree with this part, but Rule of Law simply doesn't last whenever there is gross income inequality.

It lasts even less when you abolish individual rights, you dumb fuck. Besides, you have not substantiated your claim at all. Why shouldn't strong competition lead to a pressure to conform to the law? If you break it, your competition can attack you.

>The problem is in the income inequality, and you can't "fix" Rule of Law, capitalism, or democracy without fixing this. You seriously have no idea how fucked up and abusive the existing system is.

Well, then tell me how fucked up and abusive it is, comrade. Also, pic related.

>You simply haven't thought it through as much as you think you have, or seen the facts.

God, just shut the fuck up already. TELL ME how I'm naive and stupid, instead of just constantly proclaiming it and calling it a day.

>I've studied income inequality and management for years

Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard and Walter Block studied it longer, I believe, and unlike you, they even gave actual arguments.

>Social welfare is only evil until you get into an accident and need government assistance.

Private insurance companies. Read above.

>Regulation is only evil until an Enron wipes out your savings, or a Love Canal poisons your kids.

Fraud. Bodily harm. Compensation claims. Enough said. Now fuck off.

>Socialism is only evil until the rich carve their niches, and laissez faire slips into oligarchy. If you're not using your brain to search for a solution to income inequality, you're only making the problem worse.

My solution: Don't put rich, powerful people in charge of redistributing the income. Just how fucking stupid are you.

>Okay, I've said enough. Someone else want to argue with me?

Yeah, someone else want to argue wtih this dumb fuck?

>>2228

>Ayn rand

>>2229

Do I need to say it?

>>2284

>my Business degree

>This argument is a silly waste of my capacity.

Dat ego.