Watch what happens when Marxists set wages

[Blind groper]

Seth

The goal in all social transactions ultimately is the greatest good for the greatest number. If the result of your policies is to add lots more millions to the assets of a mega millionnaire, while reducing the standard of living of other people, that is a failure.

The French had a system, before their revolution, that led to massive wealth in the hands of a few, while the bulk of the population was starving. Their system was a major, big time failure, because it did not give the greater good for the greater number. It was also, according to historical economists, the society with the greatest level of inequality ever. After the revolution, after the Terror, after Napoleon, the French system settled down to a new way of running society, that led to a much greater wealth in the hands of the many. Despite the high cost the French paid, eventually, it was successful.

That is the goal. Not to lower wealth, but to ensure that those at the bottom of the social heap have eough wealth for a good life. That cannot be done using free market systems, unless the free market is kept under control by good rules which are rigorously policed. Those good rules do not permit either a small number of workers, or the odd employer, screwing those they work with.

[Seth]

Seth

The goal in all social transactions ultimately is the greatest good for the greatest number.

No, that's the Marxist/Socialist excuse they use for robbing people.

If the result of your policies is to add lots more millions to the assets of a mega millionnaire, while reducing the standard of living of other people, that is a failure.

Zero sum fallacy.

The French had a system, before their revolution, that led to massive wealth in the hands of a few, while the bulk of the population was starving. Their system was a major, big time failure, because it did not give the greater good for the greater number. It was also, according to historical economists, the society with the greatest level of inequality ever. After the revolution, after the Terror, after Napoleon, the French system settled down to a new way of running society, that led to a much greater wealth in the hands of the many. Despite the high cost the French paid, eventually, it was successful.

And that explains why they have riots and "no go" zones where Islamists live in poverty and rule the neighborhood with an iron hand how, exactly?

France is going down the economic tubes just like the rest of the EU precisely because it taxes wealth so it can be redistributed, and as I've told you before, wealth flows away from taxation like water runs downhill. The only people that benefit from Socialist redistributionist schemes, not very much and at best quite temporarily are the really, really poor who can be successfully rabble-roused by Marxist propaganda. But as soon as the OPM runs out, as is happening all over the EU, and notoriously in Venezuela right now, the whole system collapss and everyone is equal...equally poverty-stricken, sick, hungry and miserable.

That is the goal.

That's the goal of marxists anyway. That doesn't make it a good, worthy, ethical, moral, honest or useful goal however. Hitler's goal was to create the perfect Aryan society that would last a thousand years and which had as its goal the creation of a 'better" race of Aryan superhumans. A laudable goal perhaps, in the abstract. The problem of course was that to even try to get there he had to initiate a world war and kill 12 million innocent people.

Not to lower wealth, but to ensure that those at the bottom of the social heap have eough wealth for a good life.

Except the only way they can even try to accomplish that is to steal that wealth from those who earned it, make them poor too, and remove any incentive for them to continue to create wealth and drive them into the Marxist social welfare system as well, where, when the OPM runs out, riots and dirty asses ensue.

That cannot be done using free market systems,

It cannot be accomplished through any means other than free market capitalism.

unless the free market is kept under control by good rules which are rigorously policed.

That depends on what you mean by "good rules."

Those good rules do not permit either a small number of workers, or the odd employer, screwing those they work with.

Workers who screw with their employers and employers who screw with their workers, or their products, or the buying public, don't persist in the markets for very long. That's the beauty of free markets. If somebody's being a dickhead, eventually he will get what's coming to him...so long as the government stays out of it except to police force and fraud.

It ain't the end of the world for a business to shut down or for employees to lose their jobs. Somebody else will step up to fill the market niche more effectively and employees can go get a job somewhere else, if they are qualified and willing to work hard.

[Blind groper]

Seth

Saying that workers who screw with their employers or vice versa will not succeed is a very naive statement. Screwing with employer or employee is something that has been going on for hundreds of years, and the results in many cases have been maintained for hundreds of years. Just think of serfdom, which lasted 1000 years, with very wealthy people living on the labour of the serfs.

Incidentally, I am not a Marxist, and I regard being referred to one as an insult. Please do not. My belief is that of balance. Extreme views, like your extreme free market view, and the other extreme in Venezuela, will be equally wrong and equally damaging.

What is needed is a balance between the extremes, in which neither extreme left or right wing prevails. Respect for private enterprise, but also respect for taxpayer assistance where tat is needed.

[pErvinalia]

Incidentally, I am not a Marxist,

Don't bother. Anyone to the left of Pinochet is a Marxist to Seth.

[Hermit]

Incidentally, I am not a Marxist,

Don't bother. Anyone to the left of Pinochet is a Marxist to Seth.

rEv, you are forgetting about a subroutine in the program. Sethbot's boilerplate autoanswer program will reply that anyone who is not a Marxist or an extremist, fundamentalist lolbertardian of his ilk is in fact a useful idiot of communism.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, he's got all angles covered.

Well, we can apply the same principle to him. He and any of his libbo mates are just useful idiots of corporatism. The difference between the two cases is that corporatism is the dominant and most insidious form of political system in the west now. And I think there are probably only about 1000 marxists in the whole world. And none of them are in any position of power or influence. I don't even know why I am bothering. Sethbot will just reply with his usual idiotic fact free logic. Thankfully I have him on ignore.

[Seth]

Seth

Saying that workers who screw with their employers or vice versa will not succeed is a very naive statement. Screwing with employer or employee is something that has been going on for hundreds of years, and the results in many cases have been maintained for hundreds of years. Just think of serfdom, which lasted 1000 years, with very wealthy people living on the labour of the serfs.

Wayback Machine fallacy. Your claim is non sequitur because serfdom is not a legal status in any first-world country today. And yes, employees and employers bickering over wages and compensation is not a flaw of the free market system, it's a feature. Labor is a commodity just like any other commodity and the buyer (employer) tries to acquire that commodity at the lowest price possible while the seller (worker) tries to get the highest price possible. Somewhere in the middle, driven by the inexorable forces of the marketplace is a point at which the buyer is willing to pay what the seller is asking for the commodity. That tension is entirely natural, entirely necessary and not in the least bit unfair to anyone in the wider view. Do some employers get screwed by unions? Sure. Do some employees get screwed by bad bosses? Sure. But it is not the concern of the markets or the government to play nanny to every employer and employee. The role of the market is to set the agreed upon price for the commodity. The role of government is to police the transaction to make sure that no force or fraud is initiated by either party. This means that if the employer agrees to pay X for the labor, that he does so and does not cheat or unlawfully abuse the employee, and it means that if the workers agreed to do Y in return for X, the government protects the employer's ability to hold them to that agreement and terminate the contract if the employees violate its terms and it prevents the employees or employer from initiating force or fraud as a tactic of negotiation or enforcement of the voluntary contract between employer and employee.

Does this mean that every employee is treated "fairly?" No, of course not. Employees get wrongfully terminated and they also defraud the employer all the time. The role of government in such instances is as a policeman and adjudicator of unlawful conduct, not as an arbiter or determiner of what's "fair" for one or the other party to the contract. The contract sets the terms and the government makes sure that the participants have an avenue for adjudicating disputes over the performance of the other party to the contract.

But that's it.

Incidentally, I am not a Marxist, and I regard being referred to one as an insult. Please do not. My belief is that of balance. Extreme views, like your extreme free market view, and the other extreme in Venezuela, will be equally wrong and equally damaging.

Marxism is as Marxism does. Your notion of "balance" supports and advocates fundamental Marxist principles of "fairness" and "equality" and the role of the State in setting policies for the labor market that favor workers over employers. If you walk like a Marxist and talk like a Marxist, I'm going to call you a Marxist.

What is needed is a balance between the extremes, in which neither extreme left or right wing prevails. Respect for private enterprise, but also respect for taxpayer assistance where tat is needed.

Platitudes. The devil is in the details and the definitions of "respect", "assistance" and "need" are of primary importance to determining if your plan is Marxist in nature or not.

If you advocate for the State having the power to confiscate wealth from one group in order to give it to another group without the consent of those from whom the wealth is taken, then you are advocating Marxist ideology and therefore you are a Marxist.

If you advocate government being an advocate for the less fortunate that persuades one group to voluntarily donate part of its wealth to help create a better society then you are not a Marxist, you're a Libertarian.

But there's no middle ground. Either you support the forcible and non-consensual redistribution of wealth for social purposes or you don't. And if you do you are a Marxist. It's just that simple.

The only justification a Marxist ever states for such forcible redistribution is a) the ability of the State to do so; and b) the (state) perceived "need" of some group for that wealth.

There is never any analysis of the moral justification for such forcible redistribution more complex than "they have too much of it and I need some of it, so it's morally acceptable for me to take what I need from them." And the reason that there is no more complex analysis by Marxists is that there is no such moral justification that exists in the first place, and Marxists know this, so they studiously evade the moral implications of wealth redistribution just as assiduously as they evade the economic impacts that inevitably occur when they engage in such theft.

[Seth]

Yeah, he's got all angles covered.

Well, I've got all the angles that you've ever thought of solidly rebutted anyway. Not that rebutting anything you say is particularly challenging to begin with.

[Blind groper]

"A system of economic, social, and political philosophy based on ideas that view social change in terms of economic factors. A central tenet is that the means of production is the economic base that influences or determines the political life.Under Marxism, outdated class structures were supposed to be overthrown with force (revolution) instead of being replaced through patient modification. It held that as capitalism has succeeded feudalism, it too will be removed by a dictatorship of the workers (proletariat) called socialism, followed quickly and inevitably by a classless society which governs itself without a governing class or structure."

To Seth

The above is the definition of Marxism as shown by businessdictionary.com.

It is not my system of beliefs, so I am not a Marxist.

However, I know that you have your own screwed up personal definition of Marxism, which basically means anyone who does not agree with you.

[Seth]

"A system of economic, social, and political philosophy based on ideas that view social change in terms of economic factors. A central tenet is that the means of production is the economic base that influences or determines the political life.Under Marxism, outdated class structures were supposed to be overthrown with force (revolution) instead of being replaced through patient modification. It held that as capitalism has succeeded feudalism, it too will be removed by a dictatorship of the workers (proletariat) called socialism, followed quickly and inevitably by a classless society which governs itself without a governing class or structure."

To Seth

The above is the definition of Marxism as shown by businessdictionary.com.

It is not my system of beliefs, so I am not a Marxist.

However, I know that you have your own screwed up personal definition of Marxism, which basically means anyone who does not agree with you.

And yet you advocate a dictatorship of the workers and call for revolutionary overthrow of the wealthy class and elimination of the class structure, no matter how obtuse you care to be about it. Marxism is as Marxism does and everything I've ever read from you indicates that you're a Marxist, even if you refuse to acknowledge it, which is JBTW, a common trait of Marxists and part of the Marxist dialectic.

And the problem with Marxism is that it never has, never will and never can reach the utopian "classless society" state because the dialectic utterly ignores human behavior. It ALWAYS ends at State Socialism, if not before.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

...And yet you advocate a dictatorship of the workers and call for revolutionary overthrow of the wealthy class and elimination of the class structure...

What utter bullshit, whether directed at BG or anyone else on the forum, with the possible exception of sandinista (there's a blast from the past). BG is a wealthy retired businessman, who recognises that free enterprise is vital, but simply wants certain relatively mild government actions to maintain a healthy balance between labour and capital. You might not agree, but don't be so fucking ludicrous as to set him up as a Kiwia Lenin...

Stop putting words into other peoples mouths.

[pErvinalia]

He should face sanction for continually wilfully misrepresenting people, IMO.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

...And yet you advocate a dictatorship of the workers and call for revolutionary overthrow of the wealthy class and elimination of the class structure...

What utter bullshit, whether directed at BG or anyone else on the forum, with the possible exception of sandinista (there's a blast from the past). BG is a wealthy retired businessman, who recognises that free enterprise is vital, but simply wants certain relatively mild government actions to maintain a healthy balance between labour and capital. You might not agree, but don't be so fucking ludicrous as to set him up as a Kiwia Lenin...

Stop putting words into other peoples mouths.

I'm just interpreting Marxist Newspeak. Somebody's got to be fluent in Newspeak other than the Marxist elite who control the useful idiots who parrot the Marxist dialectic in words they don't understand because they've been generationally indoctrinated and propagandized not to think that their religious political beliefs are part of the Marxist long-term plan.

It's really simple: The fundamental tenet of Marxism is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The practical Marxist application of this principle is that the bourgeoisie merchant class and the aristocracy are inherently corrupt and their wealth is the product of exploitation of the working class (proletariat), and that this exploitation (a word you all use with great frequency) is just cause to overthrow the capitalist system and forcibly take and redistribute the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy to the proletariat, from whom it was stolen in the first place through exploitation of their labor.

If you believe that corporations are bad, that the wealthy have been unjustly rewarded by treading on the necks of the poor, that their wealth is an ill-gotten gain, that they have too much and must be compelled, one way or another, to give up their wealth in order to provide equality of outcome for everyone, and you look to government to balance those scales of "justice" you are a Marxist, whether you understand it, believe it or accept it or not.

There is individualism, which respects individual rights, particularly property rights and free markets, and there is collectivism, which does not respect individual rights and places the needs of the many above the rights of the few.

There is no middle ground because the two philosophies are mutually antagonistic and mutually exclusive. It's like being a "little bit pregnant." You either believe in collectivism or individualism, and if you're a collectivist, you're a Marxist because the Marxists who are running the show control you, and if you don't believe it, it means that their propaganda and indoctrination has been successful and you don't even know you're a Marxist. But you are.

And I will continue to say so in the somewhat vain hope that someone, anyone who has been deluded by the Marxist dialectic will understand what I'm telling you and the scales will fall from their eyes and they will see how they have been manipulated and lied to by the Left and how they have become responsible for many of the ills and horrors that Marxism has perpetrated on this planet, and they will resolve to reject this inherently evil religo-socio-political indoctrination and come to their senses and stand for liberty and individual rights.

[Seth]

He should face sanction for continually wilfully misrepresenting people, IMO.

Go back to RatSkep if that's what you want. Oh, wait, you can't. Sucks to be you.

[Hermit]

If you believe that corporations are bad, that the wealthy have been unjustly rewarded by treading on the necks of the poor, that their wealth is an ill-gotten gain, that they have too much and must be compelled, one way or another, to give up their wealth in order to provide equality of outcome for everyone, and you look to government to balance those scales of "justice" you are a Marxist, whether you understand it, believe it or accept it or not.

Wrong. If you believe that capitalism must be overthrown by an armed revolution, you are a Marxist. If you believe that the excesses of capitalism must be controlled by action at the negotiating tables and through consensus, you are not. The latter is what JimC is talking about. It is exactly what has been happening in Australia since it became a nation in 1901, in most European nations and several others besides.