An experiment in socialism

Originally posted by apacheman

. . . . . The only way I see is to CAP WEALTH....mandatory economic retirement and removal from all economic activity when wealth hits the trigger point.

Go find a different game to play.

Aaaand ladies and gentlemen, this is our future.

If we're not careful and vigilant.

reply to post by beezzer


Excuse me? Your post makes no sense. What I'm saying is that many wealthy people haven't "earned" the money they have, they've taken it...big difference.

Taking from those people isn't theft, since they didn't earn what they took. Bernie Madoff is a good example. Prior to him getting busted, you'd have defended him to the death, claiming everyone who wanted to tax his income at a higher rate would be stealing from the poor, hard-working man. Turns out he was simiply a high-class thief. He wasn't alone in his scam: lots of his friends benefited, not everyone lost money. How do you feel about their wealth? Did they "earn" it?

Too many of the wealthiest in this country accumulated their wealth in similar ways, using the government to redistribute the wealth upwards, but that seems ok with you, as long as it goes up, not down.

All your objections to "redistribution" ring very shallow, merely a cover for theft and shirking of responsibility by wealthy people who wouldn't know hard work if it surrounded them (which it does). I've known a lot of wealthy people, and the only thing they work hard at is bugging other people to work harder for them. Most of their "hard work" was verbal, usually cutting a deal over drinks or golf.

reply to post by beezzer


What's wrong with capping wealth?

Didn't you learn in kindergarden to leave something for someone else?

Excessive wealth concentration has always destroyed the civilization that allowed it.

Trust me, a wealth cap won't effect you negatively, unless you are already a billionaire, and even then how the hell would you notice? Is there something a billionaire can't buy because they can't afford it? After the first half-billion it is all purely ego.

Give me a valid, genuine reason why a wealth cap is bad.

I'm pretty sure a few people would go into a funk and refuse to work anymore, but I'm also pretty sure there's a few thousand willing to take their place. The wealthy aren't irreplaceable: they are just people with a lot of money, not genetic superiors.

reply to post by apacheman

This just goes back to what I was saying about justifying theft. YOU don't think they earned it, therefore you are allowing yourself to steal.

Paint it how ever you want, but stealing from those who have more can never be justified.

But being in a collectivity, a society, means supporting each other. Otherwise, if you do not wish to be part of that interdependance then you should stay out of the society, and away from all that it offers (roads, electricity, plumbing, education, military protection, etc.)


An interesting side effect of this extreme independance value system has been the rise of extreme religious groups in the US. The social animal in us all will find other ways of forming groups that agree to support each other when the nation is not open to being one.

In the long run, this attitude is self destructive for the nation because the splintering off into so many groups (many religious) means the country is not unified and will fall. But we all pretty much are aware that is where it is going, so whether or not the people all decide to change and start thinking in terms of "we" for their own countrymen, instead of "Us" and "them" doesn't really matter at this point.

You can deny reality, but you cannot deny the consequences of denying reality, I think Ayn Rand said?
Only, though she had witnessed the consequences of socialism gone too far and become destructive, she hadn't yet witnessed capitalism when it goes too far and becomes destructive.... so didn't know it could. Now we are seeing the consequences, and will continue for the next few years.

Being selfless and and sacrificing self in the name of the collective is just as stupid and destructive as being selfish and sacrificing the collective in the name of the individual..... for both are interdependant lead back to each other.

reply to post by beezzer


Depends on how they got more. It isn't stealing if they stole it in the first place, it is redressing wrongs and returning it to the rightful owners.

I notice not once have you addressed a single specific example I've offered, just spouted right-wing ideologies and mantras.

Do you really think impound yards aren't stealing? I can only hope sometime that your vehicle gets towed over a holiday weekend and you have to fork over a thousand or so to reclaim it. Then we'll see if you think they've "earned" your money or are just stealing it.

There's lots of ways to get rich, but most aren't very ethical or moral.

The wealthy pollute our rivers, aquifers, and lands gaining their wealth, then walk away from the problems they've caused and expect others to pay for fixing them. Corporate farms poison the workers by spraying them with pesticides while they work, then balk at providing healthcare for the people they've harmed. BP destroyed the Gulf of Mexico, and is walking away from the disaster they've caused, demanding the victims pay for their screwup.

If we force them to take personal responsibility for the damage they've caused, you call that theft.

Strange world you live in.

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by apacheman

 

This just goes back to what I was saying about justifying theft. YOU don't think they earned it, therefore you are allowing yourself to steal.

Paint it how ever you want, but stealing from those who have more can never be justified.

Never justified?

That's just not logical...

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus


Blues, I know of a young woman who went to France for a time, and while visiting there, she was hit by a vehicle and broke her leg. She was taken to the hospital and they worked on it. She was a co worker of mine and she explained how she was still having problems with this leg, and she said they didn't do it right, and after she got home, they had to "re-break" the leg to get it right. So ask me if I have confidence in French medicine.

-And I have heard stories going exactly the opposite way. I know a couple of americans near me that decided to live here after he had heart surgery here and found the care so much better!

Forced social justice via taking from one person's hard earned paycheck to pay for someone else to have medicine or whatever is an illusion of real justice. In real life, everyone is responsible for their own survival, and usually people will do whatever it takes.

This quote illustrates why I, also, do not support such a system in the US. The people here are not forced- they WANT this, they see themselves as part of a whole, and the well being of their own matters to them. I know this is not the case in our US. They also understand that sometimes people are sick or injured and cannot do whatever it takes, no matter how much they feel motivated to.

Perhaps today's social engineers believe that if you just take away the basic need for survival everyone will be nicer, but I believe it's the other way around. Having genuine respect for the pay you receive is a much better teacher for self-respect and independence than a system where everyone sits around waiting for the govt to do something.

I used to think the same. When I first came here I was a snearing condemning bigot of this socialized system. I did not see the whole picture and how the attitude and culture play into thigns. You get people taught from birth to be selfish, to see government as a big power above them, and put them in that system it doesn't work.
Here, the people pay and do not complain about it. They also do not sit around waiting for the government to do things because they consider that as letting the government go un-checked and without direction. They see it as their responsibility to stear their government- it is their servant, not their god.

Originally posted by Bluesma
Being selfless and and sacrificing self in the name of the collective is just as stupid and destructive as being selfish and sacrificing the collective in the name of the individual..... for both are interdependant lead back to each other.

This is a great quote. Both extremes are destructive. However, we must have some basic ideas of what is for the common good in order to function as a society. We must agree on those principles. There must also be a balance in how the solution is implemented. The solution has to be a choice, an option, but none-the-less available.

You are also right that wealth accumulation is a problem. The average person has less wealth then ever, and the rich have the most wealth. Our founding fathers wanted the wealth of a nation flowing through the economy, not stuck in the hands of a few people. It can cripple a country. This is were we are at. People unable to put food on their tables, no job, and stuck in a man-made city with no ability to produce any life sustaining feature themselves, for themselves. The wealthy get more rich as the small business cannot survive against the throngs of multi-national publicly funded corporations. This cannot be fair that the system by its design favors the accumulation of wealth by one class or group of individuals. Something needs to be done. I personally am in favor of large taxes on huge corporations, and next to no taxes for small business. Maybe that will allow more people to have a chance in competing and create more prosperity.

Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus

 

Those "Pioneers" you admire were trespassers. They were using someone else's lands, resources, and wealth to make their way.

When the actual owners of those things objected, they murdered them and enslaved their children.

Most of the "hard work" of early capitalists was the hard work of stealing, and murdering the victims of the theft when they objected. Aztec, Mayan, and Incan gold and silver financed early capitalism and African slaves provided the labor.

If you look at the Eastern states, there wasn't much "wilderness" to clear: that's complete bull. The Americans dispossessed the Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, and many, many others of their fields, villages and towns, usually just before the crops were ripe.

Same goes everywhere in the Americas: the Industrial Revolution was financed by the theft of the built-up resources of other people.

Things haven't changed much, as what are corporate takeovers and downsizing, selling off assets, and looting pension funds but the very same process adapted to modern times?

Capitalism is a short-term success due to using a century's worth of resources in a decade, but ultimately it is a long-term failure, as we see today: capitalism is in the process of killing itself and the rest of us with it.

We either need a new system, or to get capitalism under far better control.

The only way I see is to CAP WEALTH....mandatory economic retirement and removal from all economic activity when wealth hits the trigger point.

Go find a different game to play.

Welll, aren't you a nice fellow, and don't you have a giant chip on your shoulder. Are you still longing for the day you can again scalp White Men because they found a small plot of land in the wide open spaces? Don't ever ever ever preach to me about the Socialist bs when you still feel that you once owned all the land and everyone else is a trespasser. It's a real convenient excuse to be on the govt dole because x pioneers stole land from your ancestors, and walk around with that giant chip that says Capitalists are horrid people and therefore I have a right to their stuff. It's that giant chip on your shoulder that listened to Socialists bs their way around with all the class warfare.
As to your snarky "go find a different game to play", this is where we all find ourselves. You are not playing fair any more than the next guy, you just have a different victim blame game. You obviously care as little for your fellow man as the govt does.
I'm sorry but I'm not buying into your victimhood, for you have separated yourself out from everyone you see as White Man(except for those wonderful Socialist guilty white men who pretend to care about the indigenous peoples when their real motive is control over all the lands and all the resources in the hands of a few bureaucrats via Totalitarianism.) This will not be a return to the days of old as you would hope, so wake up and smell that coffee. If you thought that Bill Gates and all his UN and Club of Rome buddies and the DNC parading indigenous peoples carrying flags at campaign time = retribution, think again.

Now tell me, what is the point of capping wealth? Do you really believe that if the govt taxes the super rich that that means more for you? Or just less for them? What's your motive? You hate White Man so it can't be that you care about white men with no healthcare. Maybe it's only the descendents of slaves you feel sorry for, again the bad white man's karma. Or wait, what about the white slaves? Didn't know about them or didn't care?
Maybe you are a bit more racist than you care to admit. Again, it's racists who respond to race warfare, something the Obama's have plenty of.
Capping wealth is just more Socialist/Communist class warfare and propaganda. More encroachment on liberty and freedom.
I don't understand why so many people want Totalitarian rule to make every decision for them.

reply to post by Bluesma


Don't confuse interdependence with collectivism. It is my understanding that the original colony of Jamestown based their system on a sort of collective thing, and it failed terribly. Eventually, they changed.
I see that certain people do relate to the collectivist thing. Perhaps it's some kind of ancestral throwback to times when people roved the land in little tribes and migrated around to whatever area had the most resources. This is hardly the system being set up by the UN Agenda 21 people though. They mean to control all the resources in the hands of a few bureaucrats. And the Rothschilds and the Soros will still have all the money.
All you people who want to "cap wealth" how about starting with Soros and his funding of MoveOn.org.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


Wow...a wee bit touchy about acknowledging history, are we?

For the record, I'm not claiming victimhood, whatever you mean by it, I'm simply outlining known facts pertaining to the establishment of capitalism.

Sorry if the facts jar your belief system, but there they are.

They mean to control all the resources in the hands of a few bureaucrats. And the Rothschilds and the Soros will still have all the money.
All you people who want to "cap wealth" how about starting with Soros and his funding of MoveOn.org.

But that is not socialism. Socialism is defined as the means of production (resources/factories/tools) in the hands of the workers, NOT in the hands of a small few. How can the Rothschilds be socialists, they are bankers, they deal in CAPITAL. They are top of the hierarchy. What this is, is a plutocracy

Socialism (ˈsoʊ̯ʃəɫɪzm̩) is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively, or a political philosophy advocating such a system.[1][2] As a form of social organization, socialism is based on co-operative social relations and self-management; relatively equal power-relations and the reduction or elimination of hierarchy in the management of economic and political affairs.[3][4]

en.wikipedia.org...

No country in the world practices real socialism, without a hierarchy just as no country practices true capitalism with a free ope market.

reply to post by silent thunder


LOL Well aren't you just the cleverest cat in town........hehehe funny

reply to post by apacheman

I just don't understand why some folks think everyone's out for a free ride: it isn't true. The vast majority of people want to earn their way, not leech. The ones who worry most about leeching are usually the ones who practice it the most.

Sounds like you have had a lot more luck that I have had.

Of the twenty or so people I have help, often giving them a place to stay when they were down and out, ALL but two repaid my kindness by stealing from me.

this is why the economy sucks in this country the people who are in control of it know nothing of business and finance.

telling people how much they can earn that is if they earn anything at all

take away from those who are "more fortunate" by any means necessary.

the experiment is socialism is not an experiment the only people who are not entitled to what they earn when and if they are earn are anyone but those who do earn it.

this thread is the greatest example of how any why we have half this country paying taxes and another 50 million on welfare.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus


Don't confuse interdependence with collectivism.

Valuing the whole one is a part of acknowledges interdependance.
"I care what happens to my country because I am part of my country and am affected by what happens within it."
"Because I am in it and a part of it's machinery, I am an influential element in what happens to it".
This indicates interdependance between self and the greater whole.

Many, many countries in the world have people who feel this way, and it does work. They feel it is important that they work and be productive, that they vote, that they watch carefully what the government proposes and object strongly when it proposes things they do not want. (look at countries such as sweden, denmark, france...)

Thinking that "what happens to my country is meaningless to me and what I do is without any impact upon my country." Is EXACTLY what causes people to sit at home living off of welfare.
I am not a supporter of ideas which promote and sustain such behavior.

"I see that certain people do relate to the collectivist thing. Perhaps it's some kind of ancestral throwback to times when people roved the land in little tribes and migrated around to whatever area had the most resources. "

I don't think so. I think it is an acknowledgment of reality. That if I sit around and live off of my nations welfare when I could be working, I am part of the reason my country is in big debt- my choices effect the whole
If the economy in my country crashes, than I shall face some very hard times as people fight over resources around me. Thinking that your own behavior, like living off of credit, or welfare, is detached completely from the problems of your nation.......or that the problems of your nation are detached from you and have nothing to do with your experiences, is an illusion.

It is a popular fantasy that if one could just get filthy rich enough, they would be completely detached and independant from whatever is happening to the larger whole. Some want to protect that possibility, just in case they too, ever get there. In the past, there were peasants who did support the royalty that was being wasteful unproductive partying idiots untouched while people starved around them.....because they too wanted to believe in the dream and that maybe someday they could enter the special circle somehow.

But personally, I think it is an illusion. We are never that detached from our world and they come tumbling down with everyone else eventually too. And then there was the reality that the people outside the walls were starving BECAUSE of the stupid partying lazy asses in the palace, and those needed what the starving people gave up in order to party all day and do no work......so interdependance was a REALITY. Whether they chose to acknowledge it or not.

reply to post by Jezus

Money given to the Government doesn't go back into the economy?

But giving tax breaks to the rich creates jobs right?

OK, I will bite.

What DOES Happen to our tax money???

...Dear Mr. President,

Following your directive to identify and suggest remedies for waste and abuse in the Federal Government, the President's Private Sector Survey (PPSS) offers recommendations....


Resistance to additional income taxes would be even more widespread if people were aware that:

* One-third of all their taxes is consumed by waste and inefficiency in the Federal Government as we identified in our survey.
* Another one-third of all their taxes escapes collection from others as the underground economy blossoms in direct proportion to tax increases and places even more pressure on law abiding taxpayers, promoting still more underground economy-a vicious cycle that must be broken.
* With two-thirds of everyone's personal income taxes wasted or not collected, 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government.....
www.uhuh.com...

"...contributions to transfer payments...." Accoring to "A PRIMER ON MONEY" by the COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, the US government pays for the expense of all the money transfers between banks. You know all those wire transfers the bank charge you thirty bucks for.

"....interest on the Federal debt..."

...the largest slice of the pie, over 40%, is owed to the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, and to other government accounts....

The remaining 60% of the Debt is privately held by individuals, corporations, states, and foreign governments. As of November 2007, Japan ($580 billion), China ($390 billon) and the United Kingdom ($320 billion) www.brillig.com...

Only 3.3% goes to interest on saving bonds (individuals)
6.5% to Pension funds
6.3% to Mutual funds.


Lets pretend I didn't disclose that. Lets pertent the money would have gone to government bureaucrats who do what???

An old ATSer answered that:

...I'm glad to see People posting about their own experiences with waking up. I know at times it can be difficult; especially wading through all the crud out there.

I remember for years my brother chose not to see the light of day, and it was his very employer who should him. He worked for the EPA in oil field site inspections. Consistently he was tasked with fining, and shutting down mom, and pop outfits, but consistently was ordered to leave the big boys like Exxon Mobil alone.

This made a profound impact on the way he looked at the World,..... sanchoearlyjones

If you have been on ATS for a while I hope you have followed the scandal of the FDA lead by Monsnato's lawyer, Mile Taylor, allowing the American population to be used as experimental animals for GMOs. Studies are now showing Bt-toxin is found in the blood of women and fetuses and lab animals have “allergic and inflammatory responses.” and third generational sterility. See my post

SHIELDING THE GIANTS details the USDA's cover-up of food borne diseases caused by the big corporations.

This is collaborating information:
Senate Hearings
www.access.gpo.gov... Testimony by Mr. Stan Painter, Chairman, National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals:

www.fsis.usda.gov... Hearing where Stan Painter is called a LIAR by the government. (In a round about way of course)

New Regulations ALWAYS put companies out of business and those companies are the small guys not the Mega-Corporations. That is what they are designed to do and that is why there is a Government-industry revolving door


With the Corporate Lobbyists on K street writing the bills and the bureaucracies created "Packed" with corporate shills such as Dan Armstutz VP of Cargill your TAX dollar has been used to kill off the competition not strengthen the economy.

...
CONCENTRATION OF THE MARKETS
For over a decade, some of us at the University of Missouri have been documenting the growing concentration of ownership and control by a few firms in the processing stages of the major farm commodities produced in the Midwest (Heffernan et.al., 1999). Increasingly, the food system began to resemble an hour glass with thousands of farmers producing the farm products which had to pass through a relatively few processing firms before becoming available to the millions of consumers in this and other countries.

The extent of horizontal integration, that is the concentration of ownership and control in the processing stage of selected crop and meat commodities, is shown in Table 1. In the meat sectors, about 80 percent of the beef cattle are slaughtered by the four largest firms which includes Farmland National Beef. Fifty-seven percent of hogs are slaughtered by the four largest firms. Farmland Industries is the fifth largest slaughterer of hogs. About one-half of the broilers (chickens produced for meat) are produced and processed by the four largest firms with Tyson Foods now producing and processing almost one-third of the broilers in the United States. Gold Kist, a cooperative, ranks second in size. In the crop sectors, the four largest firms process from 57 to 76 percent of the corn, wheat, and soybeans in the United States. AG Processors, a cooperative, ranks fourth as a soybean processor and Minnesota Corn Processors ranks third in ethanol production, but Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) owns 32 percent of their shares as non-voting shares....

Agribusiness & Concentration of Production