Ha Ha ! STUPID AMERICANS !!!

[Seth]

When resources run out I don't think your economic system is really going to matter

One of the dangers is what Venezuela is facing today: Marxist zealots driving the country to wrack and ruin despite there being abundant natural resources... because they are Marxist zealots.

Nothing stopping that from happening in Sweden.

Lenin would spit on the current Venezuelan leadership. They are populist demagogues using left-wing rhetoric to mask their true nature.

Anyway, the successful mixed economies don't really have much of a truly socialist component anymore. They are simply democracies, whose various governments are in the business of carefully managing a basically capitalist economy, while ensuring an appropriate level of health and welfare for their citizens. You will find no calls there for "state ownership of the means of production", which is the essence of true socialism.

That has morphed from outright state ownership to "absolute (effective) political control of the markets." It's liberal fascism, but it comes from the Marxist dialectic.

[JimC]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

With complex, internationally influenced economies, governments of all persuasions can really only tweak the edges in terms of controlling markets...

[Seth]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

[Ian]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

Right on the money, as usual.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

What I really mean is that you're either deliberately lying or just plain ignorant, and either way hoping nobody else notices... as usual.

[macdoc]

One wonders if Seth will float away one day after the right wing declares gravity a conspiracy

one hopes he doesn't attempt to prove it off a cliff....

[Seth]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

Right on the money, as usual.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

What I really mean is that you're either deliberately lying or just plain ignorant, and either way hoping nobody else notices... as usual.

You might want to note that the record holder was FDR, who was a Marxist Progressive.

Also, I said REGULATIONS, not necessarily executive orders.

[JimC]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

The rest of my post implied that modern democratically elected governments haven't got a hope in hell of actually achieving the goal, even if the wished to. To make the attempt (which would almost certainly be a bad thing), one needs a dictatorship...

[pErvinalia]

Seth preached

The problem is that there is no such thing as a "carefully managed mixed economy" that includes socialism in the mix. This is because socialism is inherently and irredeemably opposed to any capitalistic success story

Tell that to Sweden or Norway - you are sooooo parochial......and wrong.

You mean this Sweden?

As I've mentioned before, socialism works (in the sense that people don't starve) right up until the OPM runs out. Sweden and Norway both have abundant natural resources with which to fund a mixed economy, but when those resources run out, socialism in both places will fail just like it does everywhere else. Perhaps before then. Viz: Venezuela. One of the most resource-wealthy nations in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuelans are lining up for food and are wiping their asses with the bones of martyrs, all thanks to socialism.

Wait for it you silly little man...

This is actually quite bizarre to hear from you. Your whole premise here relies on a zero-sum game fallacy. Economic liberals are usually the FIRST to point out the misuse of this fallacy. Not the first to actually use it...

[Hermit]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

If you want to find out who does what, follow the money trail. You'll discover that governments in occidental democracies are bought and controlled by "free enterprise" styled corporations. You'll also notice that those corporations are no ideological warriors for freedom either. They are not interested in supporting individual freedoms at all. They only care about maximising profit, which is why they don't have any scruples investing trillions of dollars in the evil communist run China and other non-democratic countries. They then spend trillions more trading with them. Think about that next time you buy a pair of Levis or a t-shirt, or a blender, or some crockery, cutlery,...

[pErvinalia]

Seth knows all this. But this situation has a net benefit to him (or at least he thinks), so he supports it under the guise of all this libertarian and anti-Marxist rhetoric.

[Hermit]

Seth knows all this. But this situation has a net benefit to him (or at least he thinks), so he supports it under the guise of all this libertarian and anti-Marxist rhetoric.

You're basically accusing him of lying. That is very uncharitable of you. I prefer to think that he has a highly developed capacity for delusion. I mean he has to if the description of his life is to be believed. After spending a lifetime as a government employee handing out traffic infringement tickets he acquired his wealth by selling his dead father's farm. In order to believe that individuals are morally entitled to what falls in their lap because they have worked for it despite of one's own history, one has to really know how to pull the curtains down one's own eyes - and mind. The alternative is to recognise that one has done nothing of note, yet got lucky, and having grown up in a social environment where individualism and "just deserts" are highly valued delusions would be unbearably, intolerably painful, don't you think? I don't think Seth is a liar. He just got sucked in by delusions and in the process became deluded himself. Terminally, it seems.

[pErvinalia]

[Seth]

I'm sure governments wish they had "absolute (effective) political control of the markets."

That's the current socialist goal. The more control the better, which is why the US is seeing an avalanche of executive-action regulations rather than representative legislation.

If you want to find out who does what, follow the money trail. You'll discover that governments in occidental democracies are bought and controlled by "free enterprise" styled corporations.

I know you'd like to think so, but it ain't strictly true. Sure, business influences government, and it should because government exists to serve business, which consists of the economic actions of citizens. The government's proper role in business is to police commerce to prevent fraud and to do whatever it can to support and enhance the ability of people to prosper economically by wisely using it's authority to regulate to do so only when it is absolutely necessary to prevent some actual quantifiable harm caused or threatened by commerce, such as pollution laws.

The government has absolutely no business whatsoever using the regulation of commerce in order to drive social or political agendas, which is what's happening now.

You'll also notice that those corporations are no ideological warriors for freedom either. They are not interested in supporting individual freedoms at all. They only care about maximising profit, which is why they don't have any scruples investing trillions of dollars in the evil communist run China and other non-democratic countries. They then spend trillions more trading with them. Think about that next time you buy a pair of Levis or a t-shirt, or a blender, or some crockery, cutlery,...

Actually they are ideological warriors against communism. And very good ones. China is far less Communist and far more capitalistic today than at any time since Mao because the entrepreneurs of China see the benefits of capitalism and the pernicious evil that communism actually is, and they are ever-so-slowly strangling the old-guard Marxists by making them choke on the reality that people want to be free in much the same way as Reagan strangled the old-guard Marxists in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

[Seth]

Seth knows all this. But this situation has a net benefit to him (or at least he thinks), so he supports it under the guise of all this libertarian and anti-Marxist rhetoric.

You're basically accusing him of lying. That is very uncharitable of you. I prefer to think that he has a highly developed capacity for delusion.

No, delusion is the province of Marxist useful idiots like you and rEv.

I mean he has to if the description of his life is to be believed. After spending a lifetime as a government employee handing out traffic infringement tickets he acquired his wealth by selling his dead father's farm. In order to believe that individuals are morally entitled to what falls in their lap because they have worked for it despite of one's own history, one has to really know how to pull the curtains down one's own eyes - and mind. The alternative is to recognise that one has done nothing of note, yet got lucky, and having grown up in a social environment where individualism and "just deserts" are highly valued delusions would be unbearably, intolerably painful, don't you think? I don't think Seth is a liar. He just got sucked in by delusions and in the process became deluded himself. Terminally, it seems.

Oh yes, I've been very lucky, but I've also worked hard for what I have. My "dead father's farm" was my ranch for more than 40 years and I managed and ran it, so it was entirely mine by right of long, hard labor. And I earned my pay as a police officer, and then some, unlike the welfare leeches like you and rEv who think they are entitled to do nothing and get paid for it.

So fuck you very much.

[Hermit]

...welfare leeches like you...

So fuck you very much.

Ever the convincing debater...