Re: Socialism: What Has Gone Wrong?
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 7:48 pm
bobevenson wrote:Why don't you tell me how the county or city collects real estate property taxes. Do they use a ballpoint pen, or a gun?
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bobevenson wrote:Why don't you tell me how the county or city collects real estate property taxes. Do they use a ballpoint pen, or a gun?
Are you fucking serious, shithead??? Between 21 and 34 TRILLION dollars in taxes are evaded by the robber barons of this world ANNUALLY!!!bobevenson wrote:Gary, please be serious. If you refuse to pay your taxes or evade them, the government won't put a gun to your head, but they'll certainly put you behind bars.Gary Childress wrote:Do you currently pay your taxes? When was the last time anyone put a gun to your head and told you to pay taxes? If no one put a gun to your head to pay those taxes and you paid them, then those taxes must be justified. So don't complain anymore about taxes.
What kind of socialist dream world do you live in? Oh, I forgot, Australia.Obvious Leo wrote:Are you fucking serious, shithead??? Between 21 and 34 TRILLION dollars in taxes are evaded by the robber barons of this world ANNUALLY!!! What jail are they in?
I've seen some unrealistic promises made to investors by CEOs of big companies in order to rally their support and their money. The "fertilizer" usually seems to run down hill until everyone in the company is at each other's throats trying to meet quotas, bending or breaking laws in the process. It's like a zoo with caged animals inside. There's a very good reason why many people opt out of the large corps for small business so that they can escape the rat race of the major corporations. And major corporations do their best to squash the small businesses around them. ASSUMING that what you say is true, if small entrepreneurial businesses do benefit from the democratization of larger entities would it be such a bad thing?FlashDangerpants wrote:If this plan were implemented but turned out to have deleterious effects on the running of companies by making them less capable of generating efficiencies that would put those companies at a disadvantage to smaller competitors who didn't have to worry about electing managers.
Sounds like you are correct. Point conceded.FlashDangerpants wrote:Well they would benefit because they aren't democratic. So in your terms I would assume that you don't like that result.
The capitalist system is pretty effective at flushing out, restructuring and blatantly dismembering badly run companies. That is one of its primary strengths.
I think you are ignoring my earlier advice to to consider what are the strengths of the institutions you are trying to abandon rather than just what you don't like about them. It was honest advice, you aren't Bob so I don't feel any particular reason to trap you into errors.
There are lots of businesses structured successfully along socialist lines. Mostly these are collectives though, not large corporations with distant shareholders. When it works, it's usually because the owners are the employees and typically also the founders of those groups. Or because they operate in a locality or industry where relatively low levels of pooled capital produce effective results.
Modern corporate capitalism has evolved a lot of strategies to overcome something called the Agency Problem. It's a fundamental issue affecting all companies eventually, probably with no ideal one size fits all fix. You are proposing a solution to other problems that would exacerbate that issue though by forcing the agent to please competing masters in a way that discriminates heavily against owners and investors. The only rational response on their part is to withdraw investment and put it elsewhere. Unless you "democratise" their actual money as well as the governance of their companies. That seems like a step you are unwilling to take (and which tends to require bloody revolution).
Well that threw me. As a rule I am such a complete dick that I never see that sort of response oOGary Childress wrote: Sounds like you are correct. Point conceded.
Well, there are bigger "jerks" out there. So don't knock yourself too much.FlashDangerpants wrote:Well that threw me. As a rule I am such a complete dick that I never see that sort of response oOGary Childress wrote: Sounds like you are correct. Point conceded.
What you seem to not understand is that there really is no me, me, me. The more global warming takes hold, the more nuclear weapons there are, the more people there are, the more intelligent we become, the more we evolve, the more the world gets smaller, the more we're beginning to understand that we are one thing, one entity, we are human, unfortunately, the best stewards/shepherds this symbiotic biosphere has a chance to benefit from, if we can just finally get our heads out of our arse.bobevenson wrote:Jesus Christ, are you motherfuckers so dense that you can't see the light of day through the darkness of your night vision? Socialism is all about the government taking one person's money to give to somebody else. And it's morons like you that allow this criminal activity to continue!
I don't think it's an accurate statement, Bob. I would say even communism is not ALL about forcibly taking one person's money and giving it to somebody else. There are other aspects to it and reasons for it. Under communism (in theory), if things are shared communally and no one owns anything, including money, then it's even sort of a misnomer to say that anyone has any money to call their own which can be taken from them.bobevenson wrote:Again, do you challenge my contention that Socialism is all about the government forcibly taking one person's money and giving it to somebody else? Just a simple yes or no will suffice if you don't mind.
Thank you for your support.Arising_uk wrote:No.
I believe most are thinking of the actuality of it once it's in place, not how to go about transitioning from our current selfish greedy capitalist systems to the more cooperative, compassionate, loving, and selfless, 'all for one, one for all' mentality.bobevenson wrote:Again, do you challenge my contention that Socialism is all about the government forcibly taking one person's money and giving it to somebody else? Just a simple yes or no will suffice if you don't mind.