How Do You Define Morality?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

I don't think there is a perfect political system or society. Human nature is too corruptible.

That and people have a different idea of what is a theoretical perfect political system as shown here with libertarianism and social libertarianism.

Originally Posted by UT

The game is over, and free markets won. It was a blowout.

The free market beat a heavily influenced state capitalist system, not a communist system. And communist system won't win a GDP contest with a free market system anyways, it focuses in other issues in the socio-economic spectrum that free market lacks.

That doesn't determine that the free market will win every time with economy either. I know a lot of people here don't like Venezuela, but their welfare state (social democracy) worked very well to keep their oil money in Venezuela so private enterprise could flourish. They might be moving towards democratic socialism if a change in the constitution get passed and that will be interesting to see what happens.

I think it is just silly to state that if you have two workers and one works harder and smarter than the other that you should not reward the worker that does better than the slacker.
If you invent something, it is yours.
If I spend all week chopping wood and my neighbor sits on his ass and their is a storm he does not get to steal my wood.
The idea of communism is stupid.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I think it is just silly to state that if you have two workers and one works harder and smarter than the other that you should not reward the worker that does better than the slacker.

How about a woman who marries a guy, has two kids with him, and leaves him because he beat her repeatedly. The argument for capitalism is always to point out the lazy people who would take advantage of the system. If the least able, or laziest people are provide a mere subsistence lifestyle, who would choose to live like that voluntarily?

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

If you invent something, it is yours.

Not in corporate America. Most companies force you to sign away the rights to anything you invent, while you are employed by that company. They own your invention.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

If I spend all week chopping wood and my neighbor sits on his ass and their is a storm he does not get to steal my wood.

Steal? Socialists don't steal. It's like living in a family. If your mother sat on her ass, and there's a storm, would she have to steal your wood, or would you offer it to her? Show some love.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

The idea of communism is stupid.

The "idea" is not stupid, IMHO. The execution has been poor. I'm not one of those people who have to "have it all". There's a point where a comfortable life is enough - there no need for private jets and islands. After a comfortable lifestyle, I would forfeit my excess wealth to those who were truly in need.

rk, you, more than anyone, should feel that we are all one. Those in need suffering is the same as you suffering.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage
I think it is just silly to state that if you have two workers and one works harder and smarter than the other that you should not reward the worker that does better than the slacker.

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

How about a woman who marries a guy, has two kids with him, and leaves him because he beat her repeatedly. The argument for capitalism is always to point out the lazy people who would take advantage of the system. If the least able, or laziest people are provide a mere subsistence lifestyle, who would choose to live like that voluntarily?

Originally Posted by rkzenrage
If you invent something, it is yours.

Not in corporate America. Most companies force you to sign away the rights to anything you invent, while you are employed by that company. They own your invention.

Only if you chose to sign the agreement in the first place for that job.
I have been working on an invention now. Some of it are registered now. Once it is done all of it will be mine. Why would I give it to anyone else?
I am the only person who invented it.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage
If I spend all week chopping wood and my neighbor sits on his ass and their is a storm he does not get to steal my wood.

Steal? Socialists don't steal. It's like living in a family. If your mother sat on her ass, and there's a storm, would she have to steal your wood, or would you offer it to her? Show some love.

If I give that is one thing. If someone takes without your permission it is stealing.

The "idea" is not stupid, IMHO. The execution has been poor. I'm not one of those people who have to "have it all". There's a point where a comfortable life is enough - there no need for private jets and islands. After a comfortable lifestyle, I would forfeit my excess wealth to those who were truly in need.

rk, you, more than anyone, should feel that we are all one. Those in need suffering is the same as you suffering.

You really don't know the difference between can't and won't?

There's a point where a comfortable life is enough

I am not ok saying that to someone else.
If they generate the income I am not ok stealing it. I am not ok dictating to others what is their level of "enough". My ego/hubris is not that large/complete.
To say "you only get what you need, fuck-off". This is why communist nations have to be prisons.
It is great that you would give what you don't need to others. I have always given a great deal of my time and much more percentage than the average of my income to charity. What I will never do is tell others that they HAVE to do it.
I believe in a flat-tax and some governmental regulation for those who CANNOT do for themselves.
For those who will not... nothing.

[limey]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I think it is just silly to state that if you have two workers and one works harder and smarter than the other that you should not reward the worker that does better than the slacker.
If you invent something, it is yours.
If I spend all week chopping wood and my neighbor sits on his ass and their is a storm he does not get to steal my wood.
The idea of communism is stupid.

It is more about the fact that 100% employment is a goal that has yet to be proved attainable in a capitalist economy and therefore those that cannot, or even would rather not, work are those best suited to be without work. (It would seem to cost more in health care and law enforcement if those that are unemployed are unhappily so).
It is more about asking whose work is more "valuable" the hospital manager or the hospital cleaner.
It is more about who "generates" the wealth, the guy putting in the mental effort in planning, or the guy putting in the physical effort in production.
And I repeat that as I understand it communism included a striing towards a "withering away of the state", via centralisation of the economy. I'm not saying that was the right path, but that was the intention, I believe.

[Undertoad]

Well now I have to use the ridiculous, horrible, and totally unfair phrase "people like you". I apologize in advance.


Dana. This whole notion of "but they weren't Communist" would hold a lot more water with me if people like you had said it just once before 1989.

All during the preceding 7 decades, people like you were holding up the U.S.S.R. as a model for a fine, functioning Communist society.

People like you went there, were taken on official government tours and came back raving about how much better their Communist system was. They have a great educational system! They have zero unemployment! There is no homelessness! The people seem happier there!

Only after glasnost and the opening of the society did it come out... that Stalin had effectively murdered and starved and purged so many people, that nobody could tell whether it was 20 million or 30 million. It was the only way he could keep his country, it turned out. The shit had been hitting the fan all along.

Meanwhile China was figuring it out. Maybe it was the experience of having capitalist Hong Kong boom right before their eyes. The Communists implemented free market systems and wham, they started booming. The Indians denationalized their farm system and suddenly they had enough food. South Korea outgrew North Korea by double every year. Until it was way too obvious... Communism always was an abject failure resulting in the deaths of millions. And it still is. You can't provide us with a single example of its overall success. Where it is implemented, people usually end up dying.

Meanwhile one of the biggest problems in free market nations is obesity amongst the poor. I repeat, the poor are obese. If Marx had foreseen that, which of course he totally didn't, he would have thrown away his writer's quill and taken up accounting.

The game is over, and free markets won. It was a blowout.

But I knew, in 1989, that people like you would start to say that this wasn't Communism. It was too much for the minds of people like you to face the total and obvious evidence. Nobody ever says "well that's it, I was wrong all along." There had to be another explanation. Up until 1989, those countries said they were Communist, you said they were Communist, we said they were Communist, everybody said they were Communist. The tag was proudly waved around and understood. So what the hell changed?

[queequeger]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

People like you went there, were taken on official government tours and came back raving about how much better their Communist system was. They have a great educational system! They have zero unemployment! There is no homelessness! The people seem happier there!

Only after glasnost and the opening of the society did it come out... that Stalin had effectively murdered and starved and purged so many people, that nobody could tell whether it was 20 million or 30 million. It was the only way he could keep his country, it turned out. The shit had been hitting the fan all along.

So what the hell changed?

You answered your own question, what changed was our knowledge of what the system was like. They took communist foreigners on official government tours, through pretend neighborhoods and parts of moscow that were constructed and occupied by, effectively, actors. I've got Polaroids of them at my parents' house.

The borders of Russia were incredibly tight and hid their dirty laundry for decades. 'People like that' didn't know what it was really like before they started saying it wasn't communism. The kremlin simply tricked the rest of the world into thinking they were something else.

I was young, but when I lived in Berlin, my pops would bring some Russian military members around (he worked with the whole nuclear drawdown) and these people were amazed that we had more than one kind of coffee in the states. They were like kids in a candy shop. That, I think, was the first time it occured to many people that maybe it wasn't so great over there, because it was the first time anyone got a real look inside the borders.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The game is over, and free markets won. It was a blowout.

Depends on what you mean by 'won.' We made the most money, drive the most cars, and have the most guns. If that's the important thing than fuck yeah we won. But if you're more worried about the increasing wealth gap, if you're worried about the urban decay in a lot of major cities, if you're worried about consolidation of media, etc. I would say we defeated the enemy, but maybe we didn't 'win.'

Final point: Communism and socialism aren't going to happen by revolution and they're certainly not going to happen in a barely industrialized nation like early 20th century Russia (Which, I think, was Dana's point, not some ridiculous idea that the Russian people can't live free... that's something someone would use as an excuse to... maybe leave Iraq?). I think it's going to happen in a slow slide. In fact, the western world has been getting more and more welfare-ish and socialized this entire century. It's just that the US is a little further behind. I think it boils down to a 'me and mine' centered opinion that the states glorifies versus the 'everyone' mentality that is necessary for socialism.

And stop saying 'it's just human nature.' It's also just human nature to kill your opponents and take whatever woman you find most suitable. We've got strong evolutionary drives, but we can ignore/overpower them with enough practice. (and hey! in evolution, if we do that long enough, it won't be our nature any longer!) Saying 'oh, well, it's a nice idea but it's just not in keeping with our bad sides.' is maintaining the status quo. If we're not trying to build a better mousetrap every time, and trying to flaunt our good sides, why bother?

[piercehawkeye45]

Humans basically lived in a communal system for all of our history besides the past 10,000 years. Hunter-gatherer tribes isn't communism because there is a hierarchy, but it was much closer to communism than anything else we've seen since we've left that way of living.

And to avoid a smartass comment, the early agricultural lifestyle was much harder and harsher than the hunter-gather lifestyle so it wasn't a progression, just a different way of living. We can still live that way without problems.

[Flint]

Human culture seemed to have worked well in small groups, so that each person could be personally aquainted with all members of the community. In fact, I wonder if our way of thinking isn't hard-wired into this kind of situation, so that our present lifestyle doesn't even make sense to ourselves.

In a smaller, intimate group, surely you are inclined to share with your extended family, in order to ensure the survival of those close to you. Of course, just across the horizon are "the others" and therein lies the ingrained "us versus them" mentality. Maybe larger societies attempt to overcome this through creating a large, homogenous family. But, it's anonymous; A merit-based leadership becomes harder to achieve in such large numbers. [/tangent]

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Flint

Of course, just across the horizon are "the others" and therein lies the ingrained "us versus them" mentality.

I just remembered to reference where I got this image:

Originally Posted by Rush - Killer Instinct (Album: Hold Your Fire)

Behind the finer feelings, the civilized veneer, the heart of a lonely hunter guards a a dangerous frontier.

It is more about asking whose work is more "valuable" the hospital manager or the hospital cleaner.

Depends on how you define value.
Supply and demand and bang for your buck makes the manager the clear winner here.
A better manager is going to give you far more profit and make your hospital far more valuable than just one good cleaner.
You can replace that one cleaner far more easily and one good cleaner will generate far less positive change than one good manager.
It has always bothered me when envious people gripe about CEO and sports figure's salaries.
Those salaries are a fraction of what they bring in profits to the business, if they do their job well they deserve it.
If the inventors and managers did not do their jobs well the laborers would not have jobs at all. Just because they put their hands on the end product does not mean they do the most "valuable" work.
Let them run the company for a month and see what happens, then get back to me.
Edit:
BTW, I have been on both sides and know it from both views... management deserves to make more money most of the time.

I'm curious.
If you do not pay management differently?
How do you motivate people to do the job for the same pay?
I would not go to school the extra time, do the extra continuing ed, do the extra hours per week, take on the extra stress, work from home, get called in, etc, etc, etc, for the same pay as a laborer who learned his skill in six-months to a year.
My answer to that would be fuck-you.
If told to do it... still would be fuck-you.
If told in grade school "you have aptitude for leadership we are going to put you in management training"... fuck-you.

[limey]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I'm curious.
If you do not pay management differently?
How do you motivate people to do the job for the same pay?
I would not go to school the extra time, do the extra continuing ed, do the extra hours per week, take on the extra stress, work from home, get called in, etc, etc, etc, .....
If told in grade school "you have aptitude for leadership we are going to put you in management training"... fuck-you.

That's where we differ, I think. I like to have a job that facilitates a lifestyle I want.
I did the $100,000/p.a management-thang to earn enough to buy a house where I want to live. I then did (and preferred) the $22,500/p.a job (care assistant in an old folks' home) to pay the bills here. I now sell soap for a living, which pays a little better than that; but if all jobs paid equally, I'd rather be providing personal care to old people in a residential home than doing what I'm doing now.
If all jobs paid equally, wouldn't it be glorious to have the freedom to choose what you want to do, rather than what you have to do for the bucks?

Originally Posted by limey

That's where we differ, I think. I like to have a job that facilitates a lifestyle I want.
I did the $100,000/p.a management-thang to earn enough to buy a house where I want to live. I then did (and preferred) the $22,500/p.a job (care assistant in an old folks' home) to pay the bills here. I now sell soap for a living, which pays a little better than that; but if all jobs paid equally, I'd rather be providing personal care to old people in a residential home than doing what I'm doing now.
If all jobs paid equally, wouldn't it be glorious to have the freedom to choose what you want to do, rather than what you have to do for the bucks?

Actually that sounds like hell to me. What do you do with the jobs no one wants to do?
What do you do with artists and inventors? Steal their products? They don't get to say what the value of their inventions are?

Originally Posted by DanaC

The two jobs are equally valuable as long as both are necessary. If two people do two jobs, one skilled, one unskilled but both are necessary to the company then why is one valued by the company more highly than the other? That doesn't mean both are equal in prestige though. It doesn't mean the skilled person can't be recognised and respected for their contribution.

And how, exactly, do you do that?

I can't help but see the denial of freedom as an illness. It is against nature.

If communism is so awesome someone would actually be doing it and people would be in line waiting to get into that nation, end of story.

[limey]

Originally Posted by limey

... if all jobs paid equally, I'd rather be providing personal care to old people in a residential home than [selling soap for a living].
If all jobs paid equally, wouldn't it be glorious to have the freedom to choose what you want to do, rather than what you have to do for the bucks?

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Actually that sounds like hell to me. What do you do with the jobs no one wants to do?

The jobs that "no-one" wants to do - you mean like washing faeces off a person who has no control over their bowels and suffered diarrhoea in the night? That is [part of] what I meant by "providing personal care". I can't say I relished that part of the job, but I accepted that it was part of what I should expect. Others would, and do, of course, refuse to consider such employment precisely because it can involve that sort of task. See also what DanaC said about her client who wanted to work at the town rubbish dump.

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

What do you do with artists and inventors? Steal their products? They don't get to say what the value of their inventions are?...

I also create hand-knit items. I have one for sale in a local shop. I don't get a say in what it's worth - the "market" values my skilled labour at around $2/hour, if that. No, of course, I have a "say" - sell it at that price or give it away ...

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

...I can't help but see the denial of freedom as an illness. It is against nature.

If communism is so awesome someone would actually be doing it and people would be in line waiting to get into that nation, end of story.

I repeat that communism is a great idea, but probably unworkable because of human greed. Doesn't mean I can't have a dream, does it?