Leo Gura

Koch Brothers - Libertarianism In Practice

132 posts in this topic

The flip side of Libertarianism would be Authoritarianism.

Socialist = Empiricist. Capitalist = Rationalist.

Right Libertarianism. Patriarch.
Left Libertarianism. Matriarch.

Left Authoritarian. Despot.
Right Authoritarian. Dictator.

Left & Right Libertarianism. Spiritual Leader.
Right & Left Authoritarianism. The Fuhrer(Father) Principle.

Centre Elitism. 

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19 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

The problem I see here that people get to vote how to redistribute someone else' money to themselves. It is just a theft made look nice.

Yes, at the extreme end that becomes a concern. Yet we are super far away from that extreme. We are at the other extreme in which wealth/power is extremely concentrated toward corporations. It's like being in a room that is 120 degrees and people ask if we can turn down the heat and someone objects and says "if we turn down the heat, we will all freeze to death!!". Yes, that can be a concern - yet it is not the immediate concern at hand. . . . If we were currently shifted to the extreme of socialism, I would be arguing to shift more toward capitalism - yet that is not the current state of affairs.

As well, capitalists want to frame the debate as binary: either capitalism or socialism. That framework will hinder progress and maintain the status quo. Nobody is arguing for 100% socialism. Progressives are arguing for a balance between democratic socialism and capitalism, yet believe that the balance is currently shifted too far to corporatism. Warren wants to balance this inequality, while Bernie wants to shift the balance toward the people.

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8 minutes ago, Ero said:

@Andrew Rogers

It looks like this from your current POV, shaped by propaganda and conditioning. To put into context, the corporations are currently stealing from you and you fail to see that. Who do you think pays the tax cuts? Where do you think go the money for pharmaceutical R&D? Why do you think you pay so much for Healthcare?

One more thing. I really hope your perspective evolves, where you're actually concerned about people. I'm currently running a business and I'm willing to pay more for the wellbeing of others. So is Leo. So are other people. But not the corporations and the corrupt politicians. They're only for the profit.

A rather lame manipulation - if my pov differs from your, therefor I was shaped by propaganda and conditioning. ;)

How can a corporation be stealing from me? Via corrupt politicians, who force me to by "green electricity" at a higher rate. Or by corporations stiffing competitors and, therefor, being able to keep the prices high. Solution - more free marker and less government involvement.

I don't see how paying extra taxed would automatically result in a better wellbeing of others.

Edited by Andrew Rogers

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Warren wants to balance this inequality, while Bernie wants to shift the balance toward the people.

Could you maybe name a specific example that we can dissect?

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2 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

Could you maybe name a specific example that we can dissect?

Warren: Boards would be composed of 40% social and 60% capital

Bernie: Democracy dollars

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Just now, Serotoninluv said:

Warren: Boards would be composed of 40% social and 60% capital

Bernie: Democracy dollars

Could you be more specific. What board, who would be the 40% social, how would they be elected, etc?

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Just now, Keyhole said:

If wealth is not redistributed fairly, that is what people will eventually do out of desperation.  There is no need for people to be hoarding massive amounts of money while others suffer.  When someone has more power than they need, eventually people rise up and take that power back.  And good on them.  One greedy billionaire's life is not equal to that of millions of suffering people.  It never will be.

You are looking at wealth as if it is finite. As if 100 gold coins have fallen from the sky onto 100 people, yet one person took 90 and the rest got 0.1 coin each. I don't think how it works in real life, where wealth is not static. It is created and it also diminished all the time, so you have to recreate it to stay at the same level. So if you shoot all the billionaires, steal their wealth, squander it and now you're dirt poor, as it happened in the soviet union.

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8 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

How can a corporation be stealing from me? Via corrupt politicians, who force me to by "green electricity" at a higher rate. Or by corporations stiffing competitors and, therefor, being able to keep the prices high. Solution - more free marker and less government involvement.

You seem to have a very narrow definition of "steal". For example, pharmaceutical companies base their drug manufacture on publically-funded academic drug research and design. The pharmaceutical companies then sell the drug back to the public at huge profit motives. The concentrated power in the pharmaceutical company allows them to *steal* public money and to sell the drug back to them at high prices - due to corporate influence in politics. 

That is a form of theft and an example of toxicity when power becomes to concentrated. 

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The pharmaceutical companies then sell the drug back to the public at huge profit motives. The concentrated power in the pharmaceutical company allows them to *steal* public money and to sell the drug back to them at high prices - due to corporate influence in politics. 

Yes, that's certainly a valid point. Maybe the patent laws should be reevaluated, for example granting not a 20 year, but a 10 year patent.

On the other hand, if you would abolish patents all together, companies would not have a motive to invest in any drug development.
Look at CBD, since it can not be patented, companies are not doing research on it and are not trying to register it as a drug.

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10 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

Could you be more specific. What board, who would be the 40% social, how would they be elected, etc?

This is a common tactic to obfuscate and dismiss. Priority is primary to implementation. We would first need to agree on priority.

Imagine a current distribution is 5% social and 95% capital. Do you believe a better distribution would 40% social and 60% capital? What would be your ideal balance?

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I am not sure I understand what you mean by "social and capital" distribution.

 

Quote

This is a common tactic to obfuscate and dismiss.

Yes, I know this tactic of asking minor, irrelevant questions in an attempt to show your counterpart as incompetent.
Yet in this case your suggestion was really very wage, so asking for clarification seemed reasonable.

Edited by Andrew Rogers

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2 minutes ago, Ero said:

@Andrew Rogers "Winners take all""The rich keep getting richer and the poor - poorer "Have you heard of that? 

I heard of that as a socialist talking point, yet I do not think that's how it works in real life, if we are talking about free market capitalism, i.e. where wealth is created by offering people goods and services, rather then crony capitalism, where the oligarchs are in cahoots with the politicians, that force people to buy their stuff involuntarily.

Edited by Andrew Rogers

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3 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "social and capital" distribution.

Imagine there are 100 members on the board for Walmart. How many seats to you think should be from the employee side and how many seats should be from the CEO/stockholder side?

3 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

I know this tactic of asking minor, irreverent questions in an attempt to show your counterpart as not competent.
Yet in this case your suggestion was really very wage, so asking for clarification seemed reasonable.

That's not what I was referring to. I was referring to placing implementation over prioritization. Quite often, people will argue for the impracticality of implementation to obfuscate and derail prioritization. 

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I think it should be left for voluntarily negotiations. But usually employees are payed for their work and don't get a say in how to run the company, while shareholders have bough their shares and, therefor, are partial owners of the company, so they do have a say in how to run it.

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9 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

Yes, that's certainly a valid point. Maybe the patent laws should be reevaluated, for example granting not a 20 year, but a 10 year patent.

On the other hand, if you would abolish patents all together, companies would not have a motive to invest in any drug development.
Look at CBD, since it can not be patented, companies are not doing research on it and are not trying to register it as a drug.

I think you are seeing this from an unbalanced corporate perspective, such that corporate profit becomes excessively valued.

For example, pharmaceutical companies placed profits over people as the pushed opiods into the midwest. They misrepresented the harm and risks. They were aware of the damage they were causing and that addiction rates, suicides, homelessness was skyrocketing. Yet they didn't care because profits were also soaring and CEOs/shareholders were happy. This is an example of excessive emphasis on corporate profits.

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7 minutes ago, Andrew Rogers said:

I think it should be left for voluntarily negotiations. But usually employees are payed for their work and don't get a say in how to run the company, while shareholders have bough their shares and, therefor, are partial owners of the company, so they do have a say in how to run it.

The problem with this is that power/wealth becomes hyper concentrated in corporations and becomes toxic.

I am not advocating the opposite extreme. yet, I think your view is way off-balance and leads to extreme power/wealth inequality.

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Just now, Keyhole said:

So then why is this not happening, do you know?
If we can create more wealth, why are there so many poor people?

Check the UN poverty statistics, it is happening, or at least compare how you live and how your great grandfather did.

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We need to rebuild the system.  (I am a political neophyte so keep that in mind with my posts here, I'm practicing.)
How do we do this in a way where the maximum amount of people are happy and healthy?

Maybe listen to Milton Friedman? - "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."

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Just now, Andrew Rogers said:

Maybe listen to Milton Friedman? - "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."

This is Orange looking at red/blue and assumes a low level of consciousness. You haven't seen or embodied Green yet. It is a higher level of consciousness.

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Just now, Ero said:

@Andrew Rogers the spendings of the country and the different policies that get supported helps

Corrupt politicians sure have a big say in this.

Quote

2 years ago I was alt-right. Think about it. That's all there's to it. 

So was I ! Got swayed to the center by the right's stupid 'war on drugs' thing. Currently I see that both left and right are equally crazy and corrupt.

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