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Capitalism doesn't work when the only notion of "cost" it considers is monetary cost. Social cost is just as bad as economic cost, and if the economists would realise this then maybe we could start fixing it.
If you think economics is only about monetary costs, I suspect you haven't ever taken an economics course... It's no coincidence that John Stuart Mill (an economist) came up with the "greatest happiness for the greatest number of people" principle of utilitarianism. In any case, economic theory suggests that monopolies are sub-optimal. But people in power tend to engage in corporate/industry protectionism instead of listening to economists on policy matters other than things like interest rates.

 

There's an overwhelming and strong trust in big business in the American public,
Heh, nobody I know here (in America) likes or trusts corporations or government, though news agencies suggest that the general public trusts the government.
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Some peculiar notions flying about, because basically everyone I know is anti-war, anti-bush, anti-big business, and no one likes the way this government is working - with regard to anything. Then again maybe it's just the people I know. :P

 

Sounds like it's more like, someone needs to tell the rest of the world we ain't exactly happy over here either.

 

Heh, nobody I know here (in America) likes or trusts corporations or government, though news agencies suggest that the general public trusts the government.

Exactly.

 

Another crappy thing about the big discount stores is that it's really not a big discount. If you go to, say, Joe's Auto Supply or whatever, the oil filter you want costs 5.29. At walmart, it's 4.97. Not a big savings in the first place. And walmart always does those oddball prices. Why? Just so they can be "lower." I can't say how many times I've seen: KMart (big business, but definitely smaller than walmart) price: 3.99. A pretty standard stupid, "x.99" price. Walmart price: 3.88. WTF? Thanks for that 11 cents, woohoo!

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And there is also another problem. Most people earn average wages, which are high enough to live from it, but not high enough to have to many spare money. So that means that people essentially HAVE to go to the cheapest stores and disregard why it is so cheap. If you have extra money you can support honest shops but not if you getting along so lala and every coin counts.

 

This is a good point. Many of the students I teach, poor and lacking basic educational skills, speak passionately about Walmart because its the one store they can get almost everything they need from. They dont know about the long term costs to their human rights, the environment, or organized labor. They only understand that Walmart is the one place they can actually buy their kids something for Christmas.

 

This leads to some other points. One of the strongest barriers to organizing against corporate or other kinds of power, especially in the U.S., is that the average USer is overworked, underpaid, and essentially living in a state of semi-chaos. Remember we USers have the highest levels of personal debt, some of the poorest healthcare, and one of the most stressful cultures on the planet. These are all considerations when one is asking why folks aren't up in arms.

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Well put. There's often a notion that the US as a unified whole is an ignorant, big chested, arrogant, juvenile, puffing pride machine worthy of the world's loathing, when in reality, it's quite a mess over here - economically, governmentally, and even in the people's hearts and minds (well, at least in the blue states).

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As much as the people of the US are anti-war, anti-government, anti-big business, there seems to be a general complacency which makes it essentially meaningless. Why hasn't the current administration been impeached or removed?

 

Maximus provides some points as to why organized opposition to manipulative powers hasn't sprung, the average US citizen is culturally indentured to a life of obedience in those powers.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
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One word can pretty much cover it all: corruption. Whether it's in the form of disguised or secret law breaking, or as out in the open as simply having rich buddies who put and keep you in power, those who have the money have the power and ultimately control all. How to fight the power, when the means are removed or obstructed?

 

Though I suppose, all the peasants could suddenly grab pitchforks and start poking those with armor and machineguns.

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If you think economics is only about monetary costs, I suspect you haven't ever taken an economics course... It's no coincidence that John Stuart Mill (an economist) came up with the "greatest happiness for the greatest number of people" principle of utilitarianism. In any case, economic theory suggests that monopolies are sub-optimal. But people in power tend to engage in corporate/industry protectionism instead of listening to economists on policy matters other than things like interest rates.

 

Heh, nobody I know here (in America) likes or trusts corporations or government, though news agencies suggest that the general public trusts the government.

 

 

I suspect you are referring to a mainstream economics course here Gildoran. Not all economists were convinced that society consists of purely rational individuals working to maximize their utility within the marketplace. Its always amusing to me that status quo economics courses happily turn to the work of liberal thinkers like Mill and Locke from well over a hundred plus years ago while blithely ignoring those who keenly criticized those individuals afterwards. Utilitarianism has its points as I remember, but to my thinking its an impossible ideology to institute under a capitalist order. Inequalities in wealth are by their very nature destructive to the stability and well being of a society. A society that allows inequalities in wealth is anathema to the notion of the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people. Why? Because wealth is a form of power, and when one group of folks holds too much power they will **always** use it to further their own ends at the expense of others.

Edited by Maximius
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As much as the people of the US are anti-war, anti-government, anti-big business, there seems to be a general complacency which makes it essentially meaningless. Why hasn't the current administration been impeached or removed?

 

Maximus provides some points as to why organized opposition to manipulative powers hasn't sprung, the average US citizen is culturally indentured to a life of obedience in those powers.

 

 

That general complacency finally seemed to give way for a brief period of time, long enough for the Democrats to sneak back into power. Unfortunately, thats about it in terms of moving against the powers that be. Now everyone here is clapping themselves on the back for showing those Repubs whose in charge. Meanwhile, the Democrats are throwing a few bones to their constituents and then happily getting back to the business of keeping the rich and powerful,well, rich and powerful. Don't look for major changes anytime soon. No withdrawing from Iraq, no talk of universal healthcare that I've heard of, no discussion of improving the lot of labor unions or workplace safety. In fact, the fucking coward Dems have shied far away from the notion of impeaching these idiots. Clinton got a blow job and the Reps almost had him pilloried for it. Bush lies, murders, shatters international law and the US's global image, undermines the Constitution and personal liberties and Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is off the table. The entire election process here is a sham for that matter, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out the same people that sell you toothpaste sell you your politicians.

 

Remember too that the US is a powerful enough entity to allow a certain level of formal (read "on the surface") dissent within itself. THere are plenty of activist organizations to join here, but very few of them are pushing for fundamental changes in the way things are done . Thats why you have anti poverty organizations that happily go begging about the business community for a few scraps instead of attempting to mobilize folks against those interests. Its also why the sheeple here praise Bill Gates for combating poverty when he hands out a couple thousand free computers to schools that desperately need textbooks and structural repairs, after his corporation spends millions to avoid paying taxes, to stifle competition, to avoid environmental regulation, and to further consolidate Microshafts hold on the market by handing out free computers.

 

I used to work for an environmental firm in Philadelphia that prided itself on having access to the offices of some of the most influential people in the state. What they failed to grasp, and what I threw in their faces after I walked off the job one night, was that access like that didn't argue for their ability to influence decision makers, it was a symptom of the level of compromise they had to make to even get their voices heard. The leaders in question knew they had to contend with these tree huggers to a degree, so they allowed them to meet with them, nodded and expressed concern about the issues at hand, then did the political calculus and continued to do what they had been doing before these dumb ass wanna be hippies stumbled across their reception area.

 

Now, at the same time, just to show you the hypocrisy, this environmental organization was steadily screwing over its workforce, taking pay away from people who were having trouble getting members to join or renew and steadfastly refusing to allow any sort of organization in the officeplace, maintaining strict separation of management and labor to the point where some managers wouldn't even say hello to the phone bank callers as they came and went. I pointed out that mistreating the phone callers and street canvassers would have a direct impact on membership, we were afterall the front line and public face of the organization. It was me and my appeals, not the boss, that kept people sending in a couple hundred dollars a year to keep the lights on. The workforce was treated like a simple machine that one could replace at will with new parts. Well, after about a year of this crap, the calling room had to be shut down due to the fact that no new members were signing up. Even veteran callers who were raising thousands of dollars a year were losing their numbers. Rather than back off and cherish their workforce as an integral part of the success of the mission, they took the standard US business culture route of exploitation and elitism, and thusly killed the golden goose.

 

The best part was I predicted the entire collapse, I warned the bunch of idiots that they would steadily lose support if they did not allow their workers a stable and positive environment in which to do their work. WHen you call someone and ask them for their money, you have to be relaxed, in control of the facts, and able to make a clear argument for the necessity of their donation. When you are watching the clock to avoid going over each calls time limit, when you are stressing over each and every "No!" you get because each one counts against your record whether or not you can help it, your success rate will tank. And the members start to think of you as just another tele-sales caller and they lose interest.

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If you think economics is only about monetary costs, I suspect you haven't ever taken an economics course...

You got me. :blush:

 

Whether it's economics itself that's at fault or whether it's people not listening to economists, I don't know. In the end it doesn't matter. People will almost always go for the biggest money-grab without regard to anything else; non-monetary cost is simply not an issue in a society which is largely driven towards the accumulation of money. If economists think that it is, then they're wrong.

 

Of course non-monetary cost should be an issue. The fact remains that it isn't. Economists wanting to include non-monetary cost in their models should perhaps look at ways of making non-monetary costs impact more directly on monetary costs first. Is that practical? I don't know. That's for them to find out. :)

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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I suspect you are referring to a mainstream economics course here Gildoran. Not all economists were convinced that society consists of purely rational individuals working to maximize their utility within the marketplace.
Yeah that critique is well known and was also mentioned in the courses I took... Even economists from the turn of the century were aware of it... For example, Thorstein Veblen (who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption") created models for certain kinds of behavior outside of what appears to be rational. (eg, Veblen goods are ones that people only want if they cost a lot - Guchi handbags are an example)

 

People will almost always go for the biggest money-grab without regard to anything else; non-monetary cost is simply not an issue in a society which is largely driven towards the accumulation of money.
I would agree with that. Externalities can skew markets towards sub-optimal solutions, and need to be fixed if you want businesses to behave properly. In other words, businesses are much more likely to behave in the interests of the community if you can ensure that their monetary costs match their social ones. A significant tax on pollution would be an example of this.

 

Economists wanting to include non-monetary cost in their models should perhaps look at ways of making non-monetary costs impact more directly on monetary costs first.
Usually economists try to translate non-monetary benefits/costs into monetary benefits/costs because it's far easier to compare numbers than vague concepts. Of course, coming up with a dollar amount for how aesthetically pleasing a building is, or how much suffering somebody went through is very subjective.
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__Yeah that critique is well known and was also mentioned in the courses I took...

 

I may have misread your reasons for mentioning JS Mill. do you support the notion that the short term happiness of the individual is the mechanism by which the happiness of society is to be worked towards? I thinks its part of the approach but it has to be couched in an understanding of things like identity groups and most especially class.

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do you support the notion that the short term happiness of the individual is the mechanism by which the happiness of society is to be worked towards?
It depends on how well you can ensure the short-term happiness of an individual works in favor of the community... if things like externalities exist to a large extent, then they can prevent that from working. If you can successfully mitigate externalities, then the easiest way for an individual to maximize their happiness becomes helping out the community.

 

However, it's also important for people to carefully choose where they buy things from... With a democracy, if you have apathetic/lazy citizens who don't vote or don't carefully look at candidates or are easily swayed by advertising, you lose whatever chance you (might have) had for the democracy to work to the benefit of its citizens. Likewise, with a capitalist economy, if you have apathetic/lazy citizens who don't carefully look at the companies they buy from or are easily swayed by advertising, you lose whatever chance you (might have) had for the economy to work to the benefit of its citizens. But I think a properly functioning democracy is worth striving for, and so is a properly functioning capitalist economy.

 

In any case, the USA's economy isn't capitalist, because it has too many restrictions that inhibit competition, making it easy for companies to gain monopolies and exploit markets. And yet it it isn't socialist, because it has too few restrictions to effectively help and protect people. I think it has the disadvantages of both capitalism and socialism, without being able to obtain much of the benefits of either.

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Gildoran:

It depends on how well you can ensure the short-term happiness of an individual works in favor of the community... if things like externalities exist to a large extent, then they can prevent that from working. If you can successfully mitigate externalities, then the easiest way for an individual to maximize their happiness becomes helping out the community.

 

I'm not getting your reference here, can you explain externalities? I would argue that society should exist as a way to address those externalities, if you are referring to outside pressures like war or natural disaster or such.

 

G:However, it's also important for people to carefully choose where they buy things from... With a democracy, if you have apathetic/lazy citizens who don't vote or don't carefully look at candidates or are easily swayed by advertising, you lose whatever chance you (might have) had for the democracy to work to the benefit of its citizens.

 

I don't agree that its only apathy or laziness, although they certainly exist. There are structural reasons that inhibit political action on the part of the broad majority as well as reasons internal to specific groups and even individuals. There are +billions+ spent of these campaigns, as one commentator put it recently its a hope to the world Left that the ruling classes must spend so much to just barely be able to influence public perceptions and opinion they way they wish to. And the other part of the problem is that increasingly, people cannot help but shop at Walmart, to pull out that example again, because a. Walmart is all thats left in their communities and/or b. Walmart is all they can afford. One in four workers in the United States is a transient, low page worker, often illegal and always living on thin margins. Walmart knows this full well and targets this market specifically

 

Gildoran: But I think a properly functioning democracy is worth striving for, and so is a properly functioning capitalist economy.

 

I'm all for a working democracy but I don't know if either that or even a free market is really possible under capitalism. If you allow certain groups to accumulate wealth, its a threat to either of those goals. How do you insulate this market, or democracy, from the power of the capitalist? You can regulate, but then they can lobby to undermine regulation. You can expose the truth but they can cover it up again.

 

GildoranIn any case, the USA's economy isn't capitalist, because it has too many restrictions that inhibit competition, making it easy for companies to gain monopolies and exploit markets.

 

I agree, there is far too much direct intervention either by private interests or the government to call this a free market system. And I'm not entirely against the idea of a free market, I just think it needs to be a tiny portion of the overall economic order.

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I'm not getting your reference here, can you explain externalities?
I think the wikipedia page about externalities explains it better than I can... an externality is a consequence of a decision which isn't fully applied to the decision-maker. Classic examples are pollution or public services.

 

To use the example of pollution, it has both benefits and costs... the benefit is that it allows you to produce more goods per resources consumed, and the cost is to the health of society and the environment. However - and this is the important point - when a business pollutes, it doesn't bear the full costs of the pollution... the costs are spread out amongst everybody in society. This makes the cost of pollution appear artificially low to the business, so they'll pollute far more than what's optimal. If you can make sure that the full costs of pollution are also imposed on the decision-makers (eg by a pollution tax), then they can correctly decide how much to invest in pollution-reduction technology.

 

Public services are sort of the reverse - they benefit everybody, but it's hard to limit their benefit to those who pay for them, so people will tend to choose to be free-riders (gaining the benefits but not paying the costs)... because the benefits appears artificially low to decision makers, public services will be under-produced in a free market, so you need some intervention to get them produced at the optimal level.

 

And the other part of the problem is that increasingly, people cannot help but shop at Walmart, to pull out that example again, because a. Walmart is all thats left in their communities and/or b. Walmart is all they can afford.
I've heard this argument numerous times from people I know, though I don't much buy it, because:

Reason (a) wasn't always the case - Walmart became the only store left because people stopped shopping at local stores without considering the consequences.

If reason (B) is true, what were people doing before Walmart came to town?

 

How do you insulate this market, or democracy, from the power of the capitalist? You can regulate, but then they can lobby to undermine regulation.
I'd be tempted to have a more direct democracy instead of involuntary representation. (though individuals could choose to have their votes default to those of any representative they choose) When only a few individuals have enormous decision making power as in congress, it's easy to corrupt them... It's more tricky to corrupt an entire society. Then again, if you could corrupt the voting system for a direct democracy...
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I knew it - no way could a "I took back my 360" thread go on for 2 pages, it HAD to have turned into another one of "these" threads ... :rolleyes:

 

Heh... anyway, it's an interesting read as usual.

 

They have ALDI supermarket stores here. I've set foot inside one once, just to say I did, and saw all those products all with different labels of "made-up" brand names, and all with the very same disclaimer in the very same font in the very same layout.

I never buy from there. You literally only save about a couple of cents, and support imported low quality crap over supporting the Australian economy. Even when I was at uni and living hand to mouth.

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I agree that buying local products is generally better than buying imported ones, but for different reasons. Rather than taking the view that "we should look after our own" (because really, people in China deserve looking after just as much as our fellow Australians), I think there are two main reasons: Control over the standards used in the manufacturing process, and shipping.

 

When a product is produced in Australia and sold in Australia, it in theory becomes easier to regulate the working conditions of the workers (though our Honourable Prime Minister doesn't seem too concerned about those), and the quality standards of the product itself. That's not to say that working conditions in another country will necessarily be worse; doing this just makes it more likely that the relevant authorities will notice, and easier for them to take action to fix the problem.

 

As for shipping: Transporting mass quantities of stuff halfway around the globe is expensive, and I don't just mean in monetary terms; it spends energy (mostly in the form of fossil fuels, but also in the form of labour) that could be better used elsewhere, and increases pollution. When you buy something imported, you are indirectly polluting. Of course transport within a country pollutes too, but not as much.

 

Also, some produce (like food) perishes easily, so you have to throw preservatives at it and use refrigerated trucks/ships, which also spends energy that could be better used elsewhere and indirectly adds to pollution (because the electricity used comes from polluting power plants). It also reduces the quality of the produce, despite the preservatives and refrigeration.

 

 

While we're on the subject of imports, here are some related figures:

 

In 2004, the UK:

 

- Imported 17,200 tonnes of chocolate-covered wafers and exported 17,600.

- Imported 43,993 tonnes of potatoes and exported 85,652.

- Imported 25,720 tonnes of milk and cream (which is very perishable!) and exported 27,125.

 

:huh:

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Indeed. It's not very advantageous for the environment though. :rolleyes:

 

If we're taking all the costs into account, including environmental costs, is there still an advantage? One could argue that there isn't. Of course it's hard to debate this properly without getting into exact figures, which could be tricky (what dollar value do we give to X amount of pollution?).

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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