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Post 40

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 10:15pmSanction this postReply
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Jason and Joe

I agree; I am at the wrong site. I thank you for you efforts at helping me to interpret Objectivism.  It would be counter-productive to try and explain myself further.  I shall go to Rand's novels and see if I can find common ground there. Perhaps I'll return in a few days.

Cheery Bye
Sharon 


Post 41

Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - 10:39pmSanction this postReply
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That's probably the best way. Good luck Sharon. :)
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 7/27, 10:43pm)


Post 42

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 5:58amSanction this postReply
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Jason, did you have real life experience about the things you write about? and how you know what you know,
are you a business man? or a student?  Why you didn't answer my explanation to you  about criminality and government,
do you just talk with people who have your same convictions about the world?or you don't't like to talk about things you are ignorant about ?
best to you
Ciro


ps,
 I would love to learn from your real business  experience, I would tell you then about mine.



Post 43

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 7:45amSanction this postReply
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Ciro - Jason's answers were excellent. I felt that the discussion was being handled well by him and others, so I mostly sat back and observed.
As for my experience, I am 61 years old. I have been the Director of Sales for a large publishing company, responsible for 275 man field force and $85 million in sales. Fifteen years ago, I left that job to start a high end computer training company. I am the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Custom Training Institute to this day.
The slanders against capitalism are still omnipresent, but when I started reading about it in the 1950's, it was much more difficult to find the truth about it, too. Today, there can be no excuse for vilifying it, as info is everywhere on its record, and its record of success is undeniable. My first goal is to see who sincerely wants to learn about it and who just wants to spew forth their leftist bile. Convinced that some of you are genuinely curious, I recommend several places to start:
You will find some superb articles right here from some of the best minds in the world. I suggest, just for starters, that you read articles by Joe Rowlands, Ed Younkins, Tibor Machan. These will lead you to many others.
Ayn Rand's "Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal" is an "ideal" beginning, as it mainly answers criticisms of capitalism with short and brilliant articles that are easily understood.
Henry Hazlet wrote "Economics in One Lesson", another short book, over 60 years ago, but it still works.
For the truly ambitious, the greatest book by the greatest economist is "Human Action" by Ludwig von Mises, and "Capitalism" by George Reisman, published last decade, will answer every question that you and your entire family tree have ever considered on the subject.

Post 44

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 8:48amSanction this postReply
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You are not barking up the wrong tree Sharon. If truth is what you are looking you are closer than most people.

Post 45

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 1:43pmSanction this postReply
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Mr Kilbourn this is my original post to Jason:

Jason ,

It’s always been held in the past, that a certain degree of criminality was considered

Pathological and inevitable in the economy of the modern state.  But their structural difference made them distinct, distinguishable, recognizable. A  premise, this, to be able to eradicate the criminality from economy.

The growth of criminality has, instead, arrived to chock the economy and from here

descents their irreconcilability behind a very low limit.

The rule of the State and of the institutions it’s always been to protect the economy and the market from criminality.

However, in the last few decades, in the economics of the richest and developed world;

of capitals, of the world-wide markets and of the globalization, in which the economy travels on internet, it’s not like this any more.

This old dichotomy has been transformed in syntony and the State and the Institutions

warrant its functioning giving full freedom to the finance, and to the new technologies  

which became the tools of the new dominium in the hands of a new alliance among

Governs (Scoundrel), transnational mafias, and banks especially for what concerns

the financing of the new and relevant phenomenon of the international terrorism.

Of the States in the hands of the international mafia it has been openly spoken

with reference to Russia, Albania, and Montenegro, etc.

It’s been spoken a little less and with embarrassing, when was discovered that the capital provided to the Russian Mafia was coming from the international Institutions

and from the guide state, USA, which should have controlled this, and  had to.

The international institutions appointed for the control of the banks activities, for long time, have been too busy talking of ethic and finance, for noticing these illegal traffics.

The globalization of the modern economy and of the Internet is based on the five pillars of the criminal economic

a)Financial transactions, which is the recycling of all the others forms of criminality;

b)the marketing of weapons and toxic material

c)the marketing of live organs and sectioned for  transplants

d) the marketing of  drugs

e) pollution

f) Internet criminality

.

The rest of our economy the one directed to satisfy the real needs of the real economies

It’s only the under product of these sectors, a residual  phenomenon now, often kept to the margins of the illegality.

 

Mr. Kilbourn, by reporting such informations; have I stated that I am an anticapitalist? or that I am ignorant about it?

 


Capitalism as phenomenon ( I mean, the system of private property of capital) is certainly

different of  Capitalism as idealogy e.i.  the philosophic promotion of such system.

A notion completely different.  I don't think I made such mistake

 

 

 

ps,

Mr. Kilbourn:" will answer every question that you and your entire family tree have ever considered on the subject"?


 

Ciro.

 

 

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 7/28, 1:52pm)


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Post 46

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 2:59pmSanction this postReply
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Ciro -- I don't really know quite where to begin in trying to provide counter arguments to this post because so many of the things I think you are saying I disagree with.   In addition, I don't fully understand all of your writing.   Part of this might be language barrier problems and I commend you for making an effort to communicate in english since I know it is your second language.  So let me try to hit on two important points that I hope get at the heart of the issues you are raising.
  
#1.    Business itself is not inherently based upon criminal action.  A business, in order to succeed must create some product (see my previous post on wealth creation) or provide some service that is of value to a customer.  When it succeeds in doing this it is able to sell its products at a profit.  The customer wins because he gets the product or service he wants and the business wins because its makes a profit.  This constitutes a mutually beneficial "free trade" in which no criminal action takes place.  The same type of transactions takes place between a business and its hired employees.

Criminal action on the other hand involves an initiation of force.  Force  or Fraud against individuals or against private property.  Criminal actions, by their nature cannot create wealth and they can never result in a mutually beneficial transaction.  Criminals "loot" they do not create anything.  Businesses have customers, criminals have victims.   

While some people who claim to be involved in business are actually criminals it is impossible to state that business and criminal activity are inherently connected regardless of how complicated the economic system has become.  To state that the modern economy with all of its millions of products and services is somehow based soley on those "five pillars" is entirely nonsensical because you are in effect ignoring 99% of all business transactions which are taking place around the world most of which are the mutually beneficial transactions I described above.

#2.  The world's governments, whose job it is to stop criminal activity certainly have greater and greater challenges ahead of them.  While I am not an expert on law enforcement it is my firm opinion that if these governments would stop placing so much focus on silly regulatory agencies and massive wealth redistribution programs, (which are themselves criminal activities because they constitute initiations of force) and instead place 100% of their efforts on stopping criminals and criminal activity of all types then they would be far more effective and the world's citizens would be far better protected from the corrosive elements you are describing.

 - Jason


Post 47

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 3:23pmSanction this postReply
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Not to hijack the thread, but I want to throw in a curious little bit of info that may have some relevance here.

In archetypal mythology, there is a character called the Trickster who blurs distinctions and boundaries, creates confusion and causes people to rethink their ideas. (I argue that Rand made use of, and was herself, a trickster in her work.
The Trickster is also, mainly through the character of Hermes, I believe, the god of commerce. This is interesting since the Trickster is viewed as a thief (think Prometheus.) Rand certainly made use of the Prometheus archetype. Without having read through all of Ciro's posts, I don't know how much this relates to his ideas, but maybe it's more than coincidence? I didn't take up the relation to the trickster and commerce in (shameless plug: http://jungianobjectivism.tripod.com/id15.html), but mention in a footnote:

2. Edith Hamilton ([1942] 1989, 34) mentions that Hermes is also a god of commerce, which fits well with the Francisco parallel. In fact, Tricksters are often found "in the marketplace," that is, as commercial actors, where, as Combs and Holland (1990, 93) put it, they illustrate a "role in connecting the known with the unknown across [geographic and cultural] borders." Hyde (1998) addresses this idea of the Trickster in commerce throughout his book. Given Rand's celebration of capitalism and free trade, this connection between the market and the Trickster is ripe for analysis among scholars in the history of economic thought.

Food for thought.

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Post 48

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 3:23pmSanction this postReply
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James,

However, anyone of thinks that the world (including America) is less free since 1945 has a serious problem with pessimism. I am well aware that is some areas our freedoms have been eroding, but in the big picture, I mean, my God, man! I'll take terrorism and political correctness over gas ovens and collective farms any day!
As you say the world may be more free, but I don't believe America is.  Thanks to FDR we moved as far toward statism as the rest of the world moved toward Liberty; we've met in the middle. Our constitution is in exile.


Post 49

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 5:03pmSanction this postReply
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Joe -- I might be a bit slow today, but I understand your post less then I understand Ciro's last post and he's trying to write in a foreign language.  What exactly are you talking about? 

Ciro -- On your previous questions --  Yes, I find everything I've posted to this thread to be self evident from experience.  At the moment I am unemployed but previously I was in middle management for a large U.S. bank.   I am also still a student and I am currently looking into the possibility of buying a franchise type business so that I can get experience in managing businesses.  My knowledge of economics comes from reading most of the books listed by James Kilbourne in his above post in addition to a couple of others and from taking far less useful economics courses in college.

 - Jason


Post 50

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 5:07pmSanction this postReply
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Jason which parts you didn't understand?

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Post 51

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 5:08pmSanction this postReply
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Jason, sorry if I confused you, and I admitted as much in the post that it might not directly correlate. The point is that there is another theory out there that commerce may have its roots in a criminal element, (Hermes the trickster/god/thief as the father of trade) and that may relate to Ciro's arguments (again, I admitted that I had not followed his posts fully.)
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 7/28, 5:09pm)


Post 52

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 6:24pmSanction this postReply
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That trickster mythology, tho, stems from a worldview which - certainly in ancient times - was anti-business [eg. Plato and those of that era and before], so little wonder it figures prominantly as per your jungian assertions...

Post 53

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 6:44pmSanction this postReply
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Has anyone ever considered that many bright people find the world of business off-putting because it confronts them with stupidity at every turn? I have worked in management in the hospitality industry for over 14 years now, and I find it increasingly oppressive to realize just how many idiots and vulgarians populate the U.S., based on may daily interactions with them. I mean adults who don't know how to read maps or follow directions, who can't understand cancellation policies, who can't read and write well enough to fill out a registration card (they can't all have forgotten their glasses), who don't know how to work appliances in their rooms similar to ones they must have in their homes and so forth. The majority of them also seem financially irresponsible and improvident in that they often travel without having enough cash on hand, a substantial balance in their checking accounts for their debit cards and credit left on their credit cards to pay for their rooms and other expenses. Indeed, most of my guests have no business travelling at all, given their real financial vulnerability. But then, I couldn't make a living from them if they followed my advice.

I can also add all the loser people I've had to hire and manage over the years. I have seldom employed maids who didn't need public assistance and dental work.

Given what I've seen of the general cognitive dysfunction in our species, I have to admit that Robert Stadler's view of the plight of the intellectually superior man in a world of morons has considerable empirical evidence to support it.

Post 54

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 7:19pmSanction this postReply
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"That trickster mythology, tho, stems from a worldview which - certainly in ancient times - was anti-business [eg. Plato and those of that era and before], so little wonder it figures prominantly as per your jungian assertions..."

Robert, that is an interesting thought, and you may be right. Like I said, I haven't looked deeply into the subject, but I have a similar thought to yours regarding the anti-business setting that gave birth to the trickster thief as originator of commerce. The Jews were vilified (and unfortunately, still are today) for their business skills, which stems from their orientation to life in this world in opposition to the afterworld rewards of the Christians, or the pagan back to nature view of the Nazi's. The Jews were comparable to the Trickster in that they had no roots (or lost them) and had to find another way to survive, hence trade and such. (Btw, so it is clear, I find this an admirable trait of the Jews, and to be clear again, I find that the Jews and the Trickster were the ones in the right, and that the label of criminal was misapplied to them by the prevailing morality of their times, hence the need for tricksters.)


Post 55

Thursday, July 28, 2005 - 8:13pmSanction this postReply
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Jason- Whatever you are reading, it is working. You answered things brilliantly once again. Where did you come from? I don't remember seeing your name before.

To anyone who wants to grasp the moral essentials involved here, I suggest Ayn Rand's essay " For the New Intellectual". It makes things very clear.

Mark- You think there is stupidity in business? Try working for the government- or some semi-socialist twilight zone such as American education.

Post 56

Friday, July 29, 2005 - 10:22amSanction this postReply
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Sorry to join this thread so late -- but I have to make comment:

Jason's post 25, and Pete's post 39 are simply OUTSTANDING!

Bravo fellas,

Ed

Post 57

Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 12:23pmSanction this postReply
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Mr Keilbourn thank you  for suggesting  Ayn Rand essay "For the new intellectual "
I read it and I loved every page of it.

I have to tell you though , that I was (with my previous posts) putting on the table some of the world's economic  realities, that's all. I wasn't trying to smear capitalism . I am a successful business man too,( maybe a little more than you- based on your personal given informations  )  and a proponent of capitalism.

I feel that your conclusions about my posts  have been a little too precocious.
I think that you are a busy man and don't have time to lose with people that you don't know or disagree with you, but I also think that is wrong to answer my post( not posted to you) and then shout the door on my face, and in addition to that avoiding my other posts  complimenting  Jason for his great job. I consider  your  papal influence on others, especially where there is no need  for it, or maybe there is one? inappropriate . Is this what  many on this forum consider moral to deal with people?If on this forum   capitalisms and objectivisms are discussed on such terms, I wonder why this forum is open to  public, and it's not some kind of private forum where you don't have to bother to deal with whomever doesn't repeat  as a parrot what you wish to hear.
Best regards 
Ciro D"Agostino
 I edited it to put an h to my ear.


(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 7/30, 12:30pm)

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 7/30, 12:44pm)

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 7/30, 1:46pm)


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Post 58

Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 12:51pmSanction this postReply
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(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 7/30, 1:37pm)


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