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Is "hard work" a virtue?
- Thread starter Alceste
- Start date
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
What part do you want me to explain? Socialists believe in hard work as much as anyone. They just don't believe hard work is the end-all-be-all of existence. Also, nothing in socialism is against or counter to hard work. All socialism does is make sure everyone is taken care of. The biggest problem is that those hardcore capitalists don't even understand what socialists want. They produce strawmen to argue against socialism.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
Its my opinion that socialism has been so demonized due to Russia, the cold war etc etc etc
That most americans don't even know what socialism IS, or that there is an alternative to what America has.
I think a far greater number are even unaware fo what the difference, the fundamentals between right and left wing...
the fundamentals being arguably that right wing feeds the rich...and screws the poor....
While the left takes care of everyone, at a fundamental level that IS....
Of course there are extremes on both sides...
I however dont really consider democrats to be left wing.
But I grew up in europe, shrug
Alceste
Vagabond
If you want a demonstration of mball's point that hardcore capitalists do not understand the aims of socialism, you can just reread what you typed here, and compare it to everything I (a socialist) have typed regarding socialism since the beginning of this thread. See if you can spot any overlap at all, because I sure can't.
What socialists want is to ensure nobody goes without the basic necessities of life, which includes, in order of significance, clean water, adequate nutrition, some form of shelter, access to health care services, education, and worker wages that are adequate to provide for all these necessities plus a few luxuries, such as children, retirement and / or the occasional holiday.
When it comes to "how", the answer is regulation and taxes. By "regulation" I of course mean things like minimum wages and laws that protect the common wealth from damage by private interests. Think "water quality regulations", not "planned economy." I know that for a free market advocate, regulation is ALWAYS bad, and taxes are ALWAYS bad, but as I said before, when you look closely at specific issues, those absolute beliefs just don't hold up. Do you want to deregulate water quality standards? If so, I recommend you try sucking on a Guatemalan ice cube.
This is an example of the imaginary world free market capitalists base their arguments on. Look around you. America is the most deregulated business arena in the world. How robust is your economy these days?
I agree, but how can that happen when capitalists are making billions of dollars from steadily increasing America's population of captive, domestic, cheap labour? Decriminalizing drugs would empty America's private jails practically overnight, and bankrupt hundreds of honest businessmen like yourself in the process. The economy would be noticably less robust.
Heh - funny, cuz I've been falsifying your assumptions all along. You make pretty fuzzy, vague, general claims, so it's a bit like shoving a stick into a cloud of smoke, rather than batting a ball out of the park, which I prefer. How about you make a specific claim, or go nab one from the Cato institute, and I'll debunk it for you with sources provided.
Ha, yeah, she has a reputation for being a bit mental because she thought the solution to all the world's social troubles is pure free market capitalism. She thought that all the exceptional, intelligent and ethical people would naturally rise to the top of a pure free market system, and from there they would be in a position to fix everything by doing nothing about anything.
Ha, oh yeah, and she thought that if all the big wig corporate CEOs snuck off to live on a secret mountaintop utopia for successful capitalists, the rest of us would howl and gnash our teeth as the whole world collapsed around us. :biglaugh:
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What a narrow minded viewpoint!
Who will suffer? Higher utilities and gas prices will shift hardship on the poor.
As a business man, I can tell you that higher utilities will absolutely kill manufacturing in the U.S. A. Who will suffer?
Business will not find cleaner energy, they will export jobs to China and India. Those countries will pollute the planet just the same as the U.S.A.
Pollution is a world problem. Addressing one country will have no affect world wide.
Go ahead and promote your cap and trade. The rich will continue to set their thermostats where they are comfortable and simply stroke a bigger check each month unlike the poor who will genuinely suffer.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
OK, I guess that's it then. I guess we can't beat 'em, so we have to join 'em. I guess since businesses can just use other countries like that, we have no choice but to conform to their desires.
Oh, wait a minute, no we don't! We could just put taxes on that kind of thing to make it more expensive to use other countries like that. We could do all kinds of things to make sure they didn't get around the rules, so that we are actually helping the environment.
I guess that took a little too much thinking for you, though, huh, Rick?
Wandered Off
Sporadic Driveby Member
It's not always that simple. Often, such taxes are viewed as protectionism and invite foreign retaliation from countries that would benefit.
I personally think one of the sources of our current economic woes is that our costs (labor, taxes, environmental regulations, ...) are far out of line with those in lower-cost nations. Companies send jobs overseas for exactly this reason. I don't think you can simply tax your way out of this by making that expensive. Companies will decide that doing business in the US is too expensive relative to the profits and leave altogether. This becomes a vicious cycle as a shrinking economic base reinforces the exodus by drying up demand.
Rather than adding more taxes, I think maybe providing tax breaks specifically tied to keeping jobs here would be a better solution, because it could offset some of the costs of environmental regulation.
As to the actual topic, I think whether hard work is a virtue is an individual question, not a general one. Virtues aren't any more absolute than morals.
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Jackytar
Ex-member
You want to redistribute wealth, right? To take from one group and give to others in a way that you see fit.
So what if I did nothing but BS on my computer all day? Would I be entitled to all of that stuff? Why would I become an engineer, or a surgeon, or a business owner? Why would I work hard to acheive anything if society simply takes it away to give it to somebody else? I think the incentive would be to game the system, no? To get all I can with the least amount of sacrifice.
Your world already exists. I lived there. I grew up in Newfoundland, Canada. I have relatives who work 10 or 12 weeks a year and collect unemployment insurance for the remainder. This is a way of life for them. Whole communities operate this way. They stress about getting their weeks in at the fish plant or some government make work project to qualify for unemployment because it's better than welfare. They are actually admonished by others in the community if they do more than that because you may prevent another person from getting their weeks.
I worked a union job one time where they negotiated a rule that if a person was called to work from the casual list then that person was entitled to sick benefits if they were ill. I went to work one Saturday night and the supervisor told me that I was the thirteenth person she called. They paid thirteen persons to work one shift. That was exceptional but 3 or 4 or more was commonplace. We had sick leave and vacation leave and family leave and bereavement leave and other leave that I forget. All well intended things. But I'm here to tell you that every one of those days off were considered an entitlement by the staff. You would not dare let a day off go by unused. We even had some individuals physically injuring themselves to get the summer off on workman's compensation. My wife's father has done this.
The wages were pretty good in that job. We were young and enjoying the beer money. My father forced me out of that position and into college. The other folks I worked with are all still there, now married and with children and struggling a bit. They saw no need to do anything else until it was too late.
When I went to college in Ontario my roommate had a neice who got pregnant at 14. Come to find out that she was one of several in her class. What the heck is going on? Turns out that the Ontario government thought, correctly, that it was a bad thing for teenage mothers to drop out of school. So they started a program that gave them a place to live, a check for their needs and free daycare if they remained in school. Don't like being under mom and dad's thumb? Think it would be cool to have a place of your own? I know a way!
I can go on and on about this stuff....
This is a profound and alarming mischaracterization of free market economics. Capitalism does not defend the right of one individual to harm another. Period.
Fine, thank-you. My wife and I both have many skills that are in high demand if the business fails. This is not by accident. And we have borrowed nothing to finance the business. We worked extra, saved and sacrificed and lived well below our means for many years. We always live well below our means. This would be true no matter how much we make. Money in the bank gives me a good night sleep. I still work almost full time outside of the business. I don't have to but, you know, work is a virtue..
How so? Imprisoning people is not a productive activity. It's just the opposite. It is a drain. Besides, the idea of the economy as a pie that we have to divide up is only partly accurate, and the idea that we have to protect a segment of the pie is outright dangerous. Capitalists like to say "We can make the pie bigger". It's not a zero-sum game.
Show me.
Now you're talking! Debunk this ---> link
Or this ---> link
You choose. I believe in choice.
Jackytar
Alceste
Vagabond
No, I want to limit how much personal wealth private citizens can extract from the common pool in order to ensure there is enough left that nobody has to go hungry.
The attitude of entitlement maintained by the free market advocates never ceases to astound me - you speak as if you believe the rich have already made next year's money, and that even a modest tax increase amounts to stealing their property.
Because you care about people, maybe? Because you don't like the idea of children sleeping in cars and going without breakfast? I don't know, why would you give something to somebody else?
Christmas at your house must be boring.
As I said earlier, anecdotes are the free market propagandist's best friend. If your current business doesn't make it, you're a natural at this kind of thing. There is serious money to be made at it too.
But a pure free market economic model does. No regulation. Period.
Minimum wage standards don't apply to prison populations. Private prisons are in fact VERY productive, with huge profit margins. A capitalist used to have to go outside the country to find a 20 cents per hour labour market.
They can't make the pie bigger. I know they like to say it, but they can't. We simply have a limited amount of resources on our planet, and I've yet to see any capitalist demonstrate that this is not the case.
I will get back to this later - it's time to leave work (day job), and I have to get to work (music in exchange for beer).
No, it is you that is not thinking. Lets say you prevent me from manufacturing. Then I will close up shop and lay people off. Now, you always say someone else will come along..... OK, but that person will live in India or China and you can't regulate them. Mean while back in America, someone will try to compete here in the states with this new clean energy product, but as long as you allow cheap imports to come across our border creating an unlevel playing field, people will buy the cheap foreign dirty energy produced goods.
I'm serious here, how are poor people going to pay their electric bill when it is triple?
Global warming is a hoax. It has not got warmer since 2001. Scientists say it is pausing, but we keep on spewing pollution every day. Can it really be the cause? Where is the effect? The seas are not getting warmer, nor the deserts or plains.
With all the Atheists poo pooing faith on this forum, the scientists are requiring us to take it on faith that the planet will resume warming again, but it has almost been 10 years without warming.
Lets say for a minute they are right. Even if the United States could stop polluting altogether, as long as China and India continue their path of "global destruction" how can we justify putting an undue burden on the less forunate in our country? How are they going to afford to stay warm?
With all the Atheists poo pooing faith on this forum, the scientists are requiring us to take it on faith that the planet will resume warming again, but it has almost been 10 years without warming.
Lets say for a minute they are right. Even if the United States could stop polluting altogether, as long as China and India continue their path of "global destruction" how can we justify putting an undue burden on the less forunate in our country? How are they going to afford to stay warm?
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Great points, Jackytar, thanks for the excellent examples.
So let's consider those examples to be some of the down-sides of (relative) socialism.
The question is, what are the up-sides, and do they outweigh the down-sides? After all, some people will abuse any public welfare program, from public restrooms to unemployment. This problem is unavoidable, but is it outweighed by the benefits of the public welfare program? I suppose the answer lies in the details.
So for example, you would be right to point out that some people abuse the food-stamp system in the U.S. They blow their money on personal luxuries, then rely on food stamps to feed them. On the other hand, (presumably) because of the food-stamp system very few people in the U.S. starve to death. So the real question is, does the good outweigh the bad?
Mr Spinkles
Mr
That may be true. But that is only 8 years of data. That is not a long enough timescale to see any clear trends. Trends are noticeable over timescales of 100 years or more, as you can see here:
I remember when the scientists said we where headed for another ice age. Let's not get side tracked here. The point I was making is, if every plant we close here in the States just moves to another location, we have accomplished nothing.
Let's face it, people completely ignore China and India.
Are we really ready to pay higher utility bills?
Why on earth is Nuclear off the table? There is cheap clean energy we all can afford.
Let's face it, people completely ignore China and India.
Are we really ready to pay higher utility bills?
Why on earth is Nuclear off the table? There is cheap clean energy we all can afford.
rojse
RF Addict
Something about a PC game...
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
Of course it's not that simple. I wasn't trying to imply it was. What I was implying was that the answer is not to just give up and keep polluting as if we had no other option. The answer is to come up with a solution that cuts down on pollution. Mine was just off the top of my head. You gave another good option. The point is that there are ways to solve most problems, rather than going the Rick route of "Oh well, we should just keep things the way they are because if we change them, it'll ruin everything".
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
How would I prevent you from manufacturing? In your scenario, I'm assuming "prevent you from manufacuring" means "raise your taxes", even though they're not equivalent terms. In that case, you could always raise the taxes on the imports that are also offered in the U.S.
Of course, Wandered Off had an even better idea, being lower taxes for businesses who do comply with green standards, or something along those lines.
As far as poor people, if you raise their pay (via higher minimum wage), they'd be able to afford more.
It depends on what you mean. If every plant we have in America that runs on cheap energy that's destroying things closes and is replaced by new plants that are more environmentally friendly, I'd say we've accomplished something.
rojse
RF Addict
Clean? Cheap? :biglaugh: Reverend Rick said nuclear energy was clean and cheap. :biglaugh:
There's all of that radioactive waste that is a byproduct of the nuclear reaction process to consider, some with a half-life of hundreds of thousands of years. Storing the waste properly, so that it will not be disturbed, stolen, or leak and contaminate ground water supplies, is an extremely expensive proposition.