Forcing a theory?

That's PH45 talk for providing opportunity.

Nice!

Yet, the US has very low social mobility compared to other industrialized countries, which all seem to go more left than the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=ht...mes.comQ2F2007 (for some reason it won't let you see it but if you copy paste parts of the article you can see that it is there)

Here is another source that says the same thing:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pre...ust_report.htm

Capitalism and communism are socio-economic theories.

What I see in that quotation is anticapitalistic propaganda, with this specious yelling about "cuts in essential programs like Head Start or Medicaid." This sort of thing is simply lessening the government's presence in the service sector -- these are not things only government can provide. The writer doesn't recognize that. You can see how strongly the writer favors socialism -- while living very well in the most deeply capitalist society in normal experience. Socialism always tries to replace prosperity-making initiative with official service rationing, and therein it fails to either provide service or improve prosperity.

I regard this as fundamentally unwise, and its proponents examples of unwisdom.

Note his repeated statements that the government should supply this, that, or the other. Then bring to mind what H.L. Mencken said about what would happen to sand supplies were the government in charge of all the sand. H.L. had a considerable body of observation backing him up.

The anticapitalists insist that capitalism must oppress. That is false, and their persistence in the falsehood brands them liars, evil bastards, commie rats, and other perfectly true and applicable names delivered in a very loud voice. It gives cover to the oppressive practices indulged in by socialists -- why, those Socialistic Old Bastards.

Capitalism and free-market economics aren't forced on anyone at all. They are what free humans will do with each other absent gross interference. The core and essence of it is mutually beneficial transactions: swappings, however the string of details of these exchanges, of something that each trader values of the other more than the thing he has available for exchange. Each party gets the thing he values more than the thing he had. That's all there is to it. There's a lot about mutually beneficial transactions on the 'Net.

Where "forcing" may come in, and indeed the only place it really can, is in the forcing of those who hitherto interfered grossly to cease their interference with a free market. That's anything from "You stop that now," and he does, to lethal force. Once the gross interference is stopped, the win-win, and even win-win-win and more, begins.

Only people utterly without faith in human common sense think otherwise. Those schooled in human common sense tend to sound like me.

Horseshit, the American dream is not to become a millionaire. The American dream is to not skip any meals, not to watch your children die, to have a job so you can provide for you and yours, to be able to send your kids to school, and maybe own a home but at least have shelter. That's why all those immigrants came here.... because they couldn't get those basic things at home.

The American dream is not a 102 inch plasma TV.

Even most of the poor here can achieve the American dream.

Just because it has a leftist viewpoint doesn't mean that the facts aren't right. It explains very well why other countries have higher social mobility than the United States. The only flaw I see is what xoxoxBruce said, some people have different ambitions than just becoming rich.

The problem is that human beings in general will never try to keep the free market free, especially in a capitalistic society, where eliminating your competition will make you more money. Theoretically, the free market can be very good and provide everyone with benefits but humans lust for power will always take control of the system and use it for individual pleasure and reasons.

You have a point but I don't think there is an agreed upon "American dream". Some people will go with what you said, others will say economic prosperity, and there are many others.

What I described IS economic properity, and I'll add more than most of the people in the world have.

Applause, Bruce.

Pierce, what you're hearing from Bruce is the sort of view that comes of getting out of college and making adult money, and especially having made adult money and gone through the annual chore of figuring your income tax. Remembering repeated tax bites of various sizes tends to leave at least a bit of sourness about the whole thing, id est, "This is money I made that I'm not getting and can't use." While there are rationalizations aplenty for not getting especially ticked about it, that's still the bottom line, and it's enough to make looking for ways to reduce the tax bite, say by insisting on fewer services by government and elimination of an entitlement structure or six, of permanent and perennial interest.

So you figure the evolution of a free market is toward monopoly? I don't. How is a monopoly created?

It's never happened without the force of the government.

It is not part of the natural evolution of a free market, where the interests of the consumers undercut any sole-source provider of a good or service -- the way to carve out market share being essentially to offer better value for price, either for example a better product for the same price or the same quality product for a lesser price. It is instead interference with a free market by shutting out other entrepreneurs by force majeure.

Ringer's Paradox is seen in this arena too: in patent law. The intent in patent law is that the creator should have first crack at the benefits of his creation, and this seems quite tolerable.

Too bad every adult doesn't think like you do or everyone except a few college kids would be Republicans. A lot of people don't mind taxes if they go to the right things.

I have a question. Do you think capitalism and the free market is the same thing? If you do, I think that is where the misunderstanding is.

Capitalism is just one form of the free market where businesses try to make as much money as possible and buyers usually go for the lowest price, reinforcing the practice. If we had a green free market then businesses would try being as environmentally friendly as possible and buyers would buy from the most environmentally friendly business to reinforce the practice.

As you said, the free market does not embrace monopolies but capitalism, a form of the free market, does. If a monopoly can make the most possible profit, then the company will strive to get a monopoly. It is that simple.

I don't know where you get the government from except when free market doesn’t exist. Laissez Faire capitalism or more extremely anarcho-capitalism is where most corporate monopolies form, government breaks up monopolies, and will only start them when it takes control of the system, which means that the free market in that area doesn't exist.

A government monopoly would be like gas products where I live or the single-payer health system. This has its goods and bads. The good is that because the main point is usually not to make as much profit as possible but to help the people so the bad effects of capitalism can (emphasis can) be eliminated. The bad effects is usually a lack of investment for more improved products and if the government gets lazy or becomes extremely corrupt, where the people are screwed since that is the only choice people get for that product since there is no free market in that area.

A corporation monopoly works a little differently. It does still exist in the free market but the monopoly will try to eliminate all other competition by either buying them off or out completing them. The good is that the free market does still exist so if the people do get too tired of that corporation, they can make and choose something else. The bad is that they will usually ignore environment and human rights issues and won't invest in better technology since those will most likely result in them losing money.

Both kinds of monopolies are usually bad, government monopolies can be the best possible solution but that is usually unrealistic, so we either have to resort to the free market or pick the lesser of two evils, which there is no definite because the government monopolies can be a lot better or a lot worse than corporate monopolies.

I'm just wondering why people are so dead set against the very idea of communism when it's very clear that democracy isn't working that well.

What does how well, or poorly, democracy, or any other system, works have to do with how shitty communism is?

There are no democracies on the planet, and good thing... mob rule is insane. I don't ever remember hearing about one.
I have to say, the one system that is worse than communism is a democracy, I will give you that. Pure elitism/gangism (my word). True.

That is an incorrect statement.
There is too much that goes with it for it to be stated that simply.
A business is about staying competitive, keeping customers, maintaining market share, and many other things.
If it only cares about the largest profit it will become extinct is a very short period of time.
All the above ensure that a company does things that are good for all, not just the pure interests of the company.
Did you ignore the earlier statement that there have been no monopolies in which government has not participated?
That is not part of a capitalist system.
I am not saying it is my favorite pure model, but that is the truth.
In a capitalist system where the government stays out of it, companies keep each other in check.
Monopolies don't happen.

Of course there is some give or take but most of it does come back to profit. Just because a company loses money on the surface doesn't mean that it won't get it back in the long run. Give a better example.

Yes, because people like you and UG just make a statement and do shit to back it up. I know why you make that statement and how it is true, but it is just a play on words.

In a free market system, a true monopoly can never happen because a new business can always start up. That is true but if one company still has dominance over the market, the effects are very close to the same.

The other explanation is that a company can not keep control over a single area of the market. That only works for some examples, the ones I've heard is wheat and barley, but that is much different from telephone service or oil. Massive amounts of money are needed to start up either of those and the probability of the free market breaking them are very slim.