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  • -2
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    What evidence do you have that resources are scarce?
    The only scarcity is forced scarcity in the interests of more profits.
    There are plenty of resources to provide food, clothing, and shelter to every human being and domesticated animal on the planet. If you had the money to pay for it it would be made available to you, correct?

    The alternative is working for a share of the work.
    Food, clothing, and shelter being the priorities and maseratis, et al, being the perks of the division of labor.

    A system that puts 50% of the resources in the hands of 1% of the population has issues for the bottom 10% that won't be corrected by shuffling the deck chairs around.

    Paradigm shift is the answer.
    Working because it is your social responsibility, along the lines of cutting your hair, shaving your face, mowing your lawn, and wearing pants in public, and not because you will starve if you don't is a much better management system than crapitalism.

    We have to have workers, we don't have to have dollars.
    We have to have somebody make the shoes, we don't have to grovel at the banksters feet to get them.
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  • -2
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    What a wonderful crapitaist success story!
    Wouldn't it have been better if you had mowed their lawns out of love for them and they in turn reciprocated your labor with a labor of love of their own, perhaps supper or that old bicycle in the garage?

    Forcing people into the market for currency is forcing them into slavery when the only commodity available to trade for currency is their time.
    What a wonderful father you had, he didn't drink up the money that paid for that lawnmower, do you figure that if your dad had done that you would have a less rosy perception of crapitalism and wage slavery?
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I'd automate and put them all out of work. Does that make me evil for providing all I can for myself and mine?

    Question do you deserve more in wages solely because you need? Do you determine your needs? If so, why should my money be given to you without me gaining something in return, the ability to dictate what you need or don't need?

    Wage slavery? LOL, thats an oxymoron.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    value for value...this makes people and their skills commodities. The only way an individual holds value in society is by what he/she brings to that society either in labor or intellectual property (you do believe in intellectual property?). If a person brings nothing to society he/she is a leech, a moocher, and is nothing but a drain on everyone and everything.

    Do you advocate the elimination of those not marketable?
    - Nope. I insist on people doing for themselves as I do. Problem?

    Crapitalism is the closest to nirvana that those with crapital can get, it is a nightmare of forced slavery if your dad drank up all his money and left you with nothing.
    - No one is entitled to anything from anyone - including parents. Do for yourself with the hand life has dealt you. There is always a way. I've never taken unemployment or welfare. I've created jobs and now create novels. Problem?

    Do you like living in a world where children have a market price and are marketable products?

    - do you mean like welfare recipients getting more money for sh*tting out another child? Last I checked I've never bought or sold a child or anyone. Please elaborate.

    Where the only choice is to submit to enriching somebody else already richer than you with the value that your work creates or starving?

    - Jobs pay wages. Skills provide the ability to get jobs. Logic = obtain skills/develop and get job.

    You cannot mandate charity (taxes) and have it be charity - this is not freedom its theft.
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  • -3
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    If the owners of crapital know that they can get workers to work at $15 an hour why would they pay more even when that work creates $100's per hour?
    The choice in this scenario is to submit to the prevailing wage or starve, even though your work creates exponentially more than $15 dollars an hour.
    And you are correct, no person forces me in person to submit, just hunger and the yearning to get out from under this bridge.
    However, paying me less than I create in value because I prefer to eat is forcing me to submit to your exploitation at the hands of crapitalism.
    Just because crapitalism has served you enough to keep you in favor of it doesn't change it's nature, just your perception of it.
    Wage slavery is slavery nonetheless.
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  • -2
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    How false is it, if I don't pay rent, or mortgage payments, I lose my place to live. Bridges at least keep the rain off and are mostly unoccupied.
    If I don't work for a wage, or create a business to exploit my neighbors' inability to provide the goods or sevices my business provides then I don't eat.
    The choice is to submit to crapitalism or starve.
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  • -3
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Sorry, but more armed thugs is the last thing I want, my proposal is freely adopted by knowledgeable people or it doesn't fly.
    I get enough guns pointed at me telling me 'you can't camp there' and 'you have to get a job or we will arrest you for vagrancy', I don't want to be the new boss, same as the old boss.
    What I propose is that the worker continue working but not for wages, but because if we don't work we starve.
    In return for the worker continuing to work she can order whatever products are available to be had at no additional cost.
    And just to prove that we are not crapitalists we will carry the bums because it is worse to enslave him than it is to carry him.
    His being a bum reflects badly on him, but my choice to enslave him, or starve her into submission, reflects poorly on me.

    Why do you figure that crapitalism is the preferred choice of dictators worldwide?
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  • -2
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Your advocacy of a market makes people commodities, only worth what the market will bear.
    What value does the severely autistic person have?
    Perhaps their perspective gives us humanity but no cash value.
    Do you advocate the elimination of those not marketable?
    Crapitalism is the closest to nirvana that those with crapital can get, it is a nightmare of forced slavery if your dad drank up all his money and left you with nothing.
    Do you like living in a world where children have a market price and are marketable products?
    Where the only choice is to submit to enriching somebody else already richer than you with the value that your work creates or starving?
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  • -2
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Try that link again, it took me to the right page.
    The story is Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy.

    I wouldn't advocate killing the people currently enslaving us, but I'd imagine that there will be line if you did want to do that once the monkeys figure out that they have been duped.
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  • -2
    Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    yeah, he says I have to start a new account. I'm not going to do that.

    What I said was perfectly true; he made it so I couldn't give thumbs up.

    And I been getting older, tyvm. That's pretty much it.

    Why am I worth talking about today?
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    FBA, the man in the society pages link needed to
    get up off his butt and provide value for his food.
    tricks? . if I organize the lackadaisical, it could be
    a value. . if I provide a map to the fruit, it could be
    a value. . value for value is capitalism. -- j
    .
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  • Posted by johnpe1 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    FBA, welcome! . I mowed lawns, and did it so well
    that -- in 1959 -- I was making five dollars an hour.
    the minimum wage then was about a dollar and a
    quarter. . now, the mower was provided by my folks
    as was the grinder where I sharpened its blade, but
    the fuel and the oil and the ice water I bought or
    scrounged. . I always had more lawns than I could
    easily handle, given the weather. . had to turn people
    down, who wanted me to do their lawn.

    taught me something. . still have the schwinn
    10-speed which I bought with my profits and rode
    to check lawns to see when they were ready for mowing.
    capitalism allows those with some initiative and talent
    to make a way for themselves, unimpeded. . I did. -- john
    .
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 1 month ago
    FreeBorn; I'm afraid I see your first two stories quite a bit differently.

    In the first case, the monkeys are voluntary slaves. They don't know any different and haven't used their minds to understand reality. They blindly accept their positions because they're just too mentally lazy to understand. Kind of like socialists. One mind, with rational thought seeing reality for what it is and applying logical reason to it can affect his entire community. What I don't understand is why the monkeys went back to the compound, had to tear it down, and kill the old man. Their understanding came to them while they were in the mountains.

    The second story is often referenced by libertarians to point out the worth of a free market society, freedom, and the concept of value for value.

    All I got from the third was the Guggenheim home page with no specific story referenced.
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  • Posted by SaltyDog 10 years, 1 month ago
    An interesting thread to be sure, Angel, but I think misguided. You seem to support anarchy, and that's the most direct road back into the jungle.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    What's the alternative? How do you get people to provide you food and shelter, which require work and scarce resources to produce, unless you provide something to them in exchange?
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    stop it. you know all you have to do. btw, how ya been? I'm going to talk about you tomorrow-your ears must have been burning
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Check your premise.
    There's a third option... start your own business.
    Why should anyone pay more for your skill set/experience than the minimum they are worth to that person?

    Do you commonly look for the most expensive products in the grocery store, even if they are of lower quality than cheaper products?
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    If I offer a job to someone at $15/hr. Its up to the individual who seeks me out by submitting a resume or application to accept the wage I'm willing to pay. No one forces that person to accept my wage or live under a bridge - thats free choice. Or that person can keep looking and find another job (even if he has to relocate to take it) outside is skill set that pays more to carve out a living. Or that person, like me, can create something that appeals to people, that people will buy to make his income.

    In this welfare state, one could allow himself to be collared by the slave master and accept public assistance, public housing, and public food allotment.

    There is always a choice. There isn't always individuals willing to truly live their lives.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually we don't have to have workers as we become more automated.

    We need a currency, dollars work just fine but better would be produce (perishable and needed) or gold/silver (coveted), to ensure there is a marketplace without having to carry a pig/cow to market to barter.

    The value of people is what they can do for me and I for them. Anything less than that I seldom offer payment. Capitalism is the closest thing to nirvana for a society - done properly its true equal opportunity for all.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    You are doing it wrong. You need to get the highest wage paid for your skill set/experience. If there aren't a lot of well paid jobs available, then maybe the fault is your skill set and experience. Fix that.

    If no one wants to hire you for a job, then maybe you should start your own. If that doesn't seem an option, then once again your skill set and experience might not be as great as you think it is.

    What you seem to want is the government, i.e. someone with a gun, to come along and make someone pay you more than they think your work is worth.
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  • Posted by sdesapio 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    RE: " the choice between submit to the lowest wage paid for your skill set/experience or live under a bridge"
    Is this not a false choice? We all have to start somewhere. Why not a choice between 1. accepting the lowest wage paid and 2. educating yourself to make yourself more valuable to potential employers? My first job was digging trees out of the ground. It didn't take me long to figure out that I needed to make myself more valuable.

    Edit: provided some context for clarity.
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  • -6
    Posted by 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I mean that the choice between submit to the lowest wage paid for your skill set/experience or live under a bridge is not a free choice.
    Starve or submit to the system is slavery, albeit wage slavery.
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  • Posted by sdesapio 10 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    RE: "Still getting the hang of this board"
    Take a guided tour: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/hot?walk...

    RE: "The end of crapitalism and it's inherent oppression of the worker."
    Can you please explain, in your own words, what you mean by Capitalism's "inherent oppression of the worker?" (Use the reply button directly below this comment to respond.)
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