Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

How should society be organised, if at all?

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bobevenson
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by bobevenson »

rantal wrote:
bobevenson wrote:At least in the USA we are not forced to make Kings and Queens billionaires.

No, just insurance companies!

all the best, rantal
You can only make people billionaires, not companies.
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richardtod
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

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The free market provides the environment for fraud. It creates the desire for wealth at any cost. "Greed is Great". Laws try to prevent fraud and misuse of the system but the rewards are too high and people take the risk. e.g. The banking crisis. The suffering this creates is not justified. Better an economic system designed to suit the people and not try to design the people to suit the economic system.

In a socialist state, (Not a Communist state as I know many get them confused) the desire for wealth is not such a big issue and wealth creation is seen as a socially responsible aspect of the economic and social welfare of the country and its citizens. Greed is still an issue but the control of money and personal wealth is kept within the limits set by the needs of the country as a whole. Socialist millionaire is not an oxymoron.
bobevenson
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

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You are totally wrong, my friend. Greed is taking more than your share of something. Free-market economics has nothing to do with greed. It has something to do with voluntary exchanges being made between buyers and sellers that benefit them both.
mickthinks
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by mickthinks »

:roll: Bob would have us believe that voluntary exchanges somehow rule out greed. They don't (and I don't believe he is so naïve as to think they do).
bobevenson
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by bobevenson »

mickthinks wrote: :roll: Bob would have us believe that voluntary exchanges somehow rule out greed. They don't (and I don't believe he is so naïve as to think they do).
Listen, every time one person buys something from another person, and nobody puts a gun to anybody's head, you have a voluntary exhange that benefits both parties, and greed doesn't enter into the transaction. If I am not 100% correct, please point out my error. Thank you.
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richardtod
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by richardtod »

bobevenson wrote:
mickthinks wrote: :roll: Bob would have us believe that voluntary exchanges somehow rule out greed. They don't (and I don't believe he is so naïve as to think they do).
Listen, every time one person buys something from another person, and nobody puts a gun to anybody's head, you have a voluntary exhange that benefits both parties, and greed doesn't enter into the transaction. If I am not 100% correct, please point out my error. Thank you.
In many transactions, mutual gain is normal. However, where you have cornered the market for a commodity are you are quite happy to sell at less than what the buyer can afford? We are starting to see foriegn companies buying up the rights to water sources in Africa. The water was free before but now the locals have to buy it. They have no money. What do they do? It's a free market they can always buy the rights themselves or move or simply die. The free market allows them those choices. The foreign companies in my mind are greedy and immoral.
mickthinks
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by mickthinks »

bobevenson wrote:
mickthinks wrote: :roll: Bob would have us believe that voluntary exchanges somehow rule out greed. They don't (and I don't believe he is so naïve as to think they do).
Listen, every time one person buys something from another person, and nobody puts a gun to anybody's head, you have a voluntary exhange that benefits both parties, and greed doesn't enter into the transaction.
City dwellers went on hunger expeditions to the countryside. They traded their valuables with the farmers for food. More than 20,000 people died of starvation. "My linens, all my silverware, my carpet, a Smyrna stair-carpet — I traded everything for food."
[from http://www.verzetsmuseum.org/tweede-wer ... ger_winter]
If I am not 100% correct, please point out my error. Thank you.

I believe I just have. You're welcome!
bobevenson
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by bobevenson »

The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics. All you understand is socialism, and my friends, socialism is at odds with human nature itself.
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richardtod
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by richardtod »

bobevenson wrote:The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics. All you understand is socialism, and my friends, socialism is at odds with human nature itself.
Your comment is illogical as you have no idea what my knowledge and experience of economics is and you have no idea what "people" group I belong to so what can you possibly mean by "You people"?

"Socialism is at odds with human nature?" That is a strange statement in that for most of man's time on earth, working in large tribes of people sharing the hunting for food and resources they operated in social groups. Capitalism came much later.
bobevenson
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by bobevenson »

richardtod wrote:
bobevenson wrote:The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics. All you understand is socialism, and my friends, socialism is at odds with human nature itself.
Your comment is illogical as you have no idea what my knowledge and experience of economics is and you have no idea what "people" group I belong to so what can you possibly mean by "You people"?

"Socialism is at odds with human nature?" That is a strange statement in that for most of man's time on earth, working in large tribes of people sharing the hunting for food and resources they operated in social groups. Capitalism came much later.
Well, maybe you want to go back to living in tribes or living in caves where you can put your socialistic ideas to better use. Most people want to take advantage of what free-market capitalism brings to the table.
artisticsolution
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by artisticsolution »

bobevenson wrote:
richardtod wrote:
bobevenson wrote:The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics. All you understand is socialism, and my friends, socialism is at odds with human nature itself.
Your comment is illogical as you have no idea what my knowledge and experience of economics is and you have no idea what "people" group I belong to so what can you possibly mean by "You people"?

"Socialism is at odds with human nature?" That is a strange statement in that for most of man's time on earth, working in large tribes of people sharing the hunting for food and resources they operated in social groups. Capitalism came much later.
Well, maybe you want to go back to living in tribes or living in caves where you can put your socialistic ideas to better use. Most people want to take advantage of what free-market capitalism brings to the table.
Bob, why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't they both work in harmony? Capitalism tempered with socialism.
rantal
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by rantal »

Indeed, the mixed economis of Europe in which both man's cooperative and competitve instincts find expression in the capatalist and socialist influences are, long term, the most successful in the worlds and without the restrictive trade practices employed by USA

all the best, urban
mickthinks
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by mickthinks »

bobevenson wrote:The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics.
No, Bob. The problem is that you keep making pronouncements, about The World and The Way It Is, that you can't back up with anything other than your own unshakeable belief in your divinely-inspired infallibility.

No one believes you're a prophet, dude. No one takes you seriously.
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richardtod
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by richardtod »

bobevenson wrote:
richardtod wrote:
bobevenson wrote:The problem is that you people don't understand basic economics. All you understand is socialism, and my friends, socialism is at odds with human nature itself.
Your comment is illogical as you have no idea what my knowledge and experience of economics is and you have no idea what "people" group I belong to so what can you possibly mean by "You people"?

"Socialism is at odds with human nature?" That is a strange statement in that for most of man's time on earth, working in large tribes of people sharing the hunting for food and resources they operated in social groups. Capitalism came much later.
Well, maybe you want to go back to living in tribes or living in caves where you can put your socialistic ideas to better use. Most people want to take advantage of what free-market capitalism brings to the table.
Totally at a loss Bob. My comment on tribal socialism was in contradiction to your assertion that socialism was at odds with human nature. I did not suggest that hunting and gathering was a preferable economic model.

The technological advaces made through the capitalist system are more than impressive, but you have to admit that technological advancement has more to do with wartime creativity resulting from capitalist struggles for power and resources than the peacetime free market economy.
chaz wyman
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Re: Left to the free market, end up with horse meat burgers

Post by chaz wyman »

If you leave everything up to the free market you end up with horse meat in your burgers!
all the best, rantal
True.

and if we leave it to the benevolent dictates of government masters, you end up with Soylent Green

-Imp
True, if you delete 'benevolent', which is inappropriate irony.

Sadly what we have at the moment across the so-called "free-world" is a toxic combination of both; a government that serves capitalism, and a capitalism that serves itself. It offers platitudinous assurances that regulations make the food markets safe whilst failing to enforce adequately or fine sufficiently to make breaking the rules "uneconomic". And then we have the moronic ideology of the Libertardians who always moan about more regulation, and sheepishly followed by a gang of poor people who just can't seem to notice that they are being fucked over.


As for what Richard Tod says; Spot On.

As, for what Bob says - well it's always best to just ignore him.
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