RoR: Forum

Dean,

Perhaps either you or I misunderstood Steve's 'creation of dependency'.

Of course, many lives would be in dire peril if it were not for subsistence relief. But does the act of distribution/assistance 'create' dependency? No. Again, that's like saying trees make the wind blow. Relief is a respons, not a cause.

Yes, the elected government risks pissing various people off when it taxes specifically for redistribution measures. That's why New England states want to leave the union.

Far too much of its tax revenue is transferred to the southern states; this phenomema of net loss and gain is called 'blue' and red', btw.

The literature I've read clearly states that southern people ('dumb rednecks', as written) have created a scam dependency in which hard-working yankess supprt their indolence.

I strongly urge, therefore, that the RoR ExecCom look into this sad state of legal theft asap!

EM

Post 21

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 8:13am

Steve,

At least Dean, the the previous post, correctly labeled your 'group' of tax-takers 'The Fed'. To elaborate, the real 'group'as it were, are elected people who represent us as a collective.

To this end, I really don't see the use in using 'theft' as an extended metaphor to describe their legistative acts. I would gander, moreover, that such language would be counterproductive.

Yes, I'm sure you have many, many tales as to how the recipients of welfare appeared to be lazy. So please, ferret away as to how various studies have confirmed your own experience.

What you'll probably find is that the constant receiving of welfare eventually makes one feel fairly worthless, demoralized.

We all know that --at least on the college campuses that you denounce yet, at the same, time troll for information that supports your own pov. (the Doctor Tibor Principle, I believe that it's called,. let every belief claim a PhD in the ranks to bolster for credibility.)

The solution, as we all know (here), is more jobs created by federal funding, since the shortfall of employment in the private sector is the problem's effeective cause. That means higher taxes, although not on the businesses themselves--rather, on profits taken and personal taxes.

My guess, however, is that many in the business community would prefer blaming the unemployed for their problems, in order not to pay the taxes requisite for a real solution.

EM

Post 22

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 12:09pm

Eva,

Theft is the taking of property against the will, or without the permission, of those who are its proper owners. Nearly everyone accepts some kind of taxation as a valid means of funding the proper functions of government - we could call that a part of the consent of the governed. Clearly you and I disagree on what functions are included in a proper government. But we would both agree that there is SOME limit somewhere, and that beyond that limit it would be an improper taking. Agreed?

As a libertarian, I believe that the government is only engaged in proper functions if those functions directly relate to the protection of individual rights, and that means establishing and maintaining an environment that tends to be free of initiated force, fraud and theft. Beyond that, government tax funded functions arise from a form of theft.

This can also be approached from the direction of the constitution. The government only has those powers granted to it in the constitution and any actions that are not so authorized, but are funded by the taxpayers would also arise from theft.

To say that we voted for the representatives or voted directly for a tax that goes beyond what would be a proper function is just a case of a majority violating the rights of a minority, or of our representatives violating rights. Democracy in action, or Representative government in action can result in the violation of rights - just look at the many instances of legalized racism in our past. Voting to have a lynching of an innocent person doesn't make it right.
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Our elected representatives were sent to Washington to represent us, but only within the bounds of the constitution that they took an oath to defend - which for the most part, they have not.
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What you'll probably find is that the constant receiving of welfare eventually makes one feel fairly worthless, demoralized.

Agreed. And in that state those people depend upon the continuing welfare (economic and psychological dependency).
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We all know that --at least on the college campuses that you denounce yet, at the same, time troll for information that supports your own pov. (the Doctor Tibor Principle, I believe that it's called,. let every belief claim a PhD in the ranks to bolster for credibility.)

That strike me as kind of insulting... was it intended that way?
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The solution, as we all know (here), is more jobs created by federal funding, since the shortfall of employment in the private sector is the problem's effeective cause. That means higher taxes, although not on the businesses themselves--rather, on profits taken and personal taxes.

SERIOUSLY?!?! Are you kidding? Let me tell you how unclear you are, at least to me. I don't know if that was sarcasm, or ironic, and just tongue in cheek. Or if you really believe that federal funding via taxation will produce a net-net increase in jobs. I'm guessing that your spirited defense of Krugman means you are an advocate of large government and that you seriously buy into the nonsense of government spending magically creating real increases in prosperity. You must really believe what Obama said, "You didn't build it" makes sense. If that is so, it is really sad that you have no idea where wealth comes from.
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My guess, however, is that many in the business community would prefer blaming the unemployed for their problems, in order not to pay the taxes requisite for a real solution.

I have been in business, for decades. I have family members and friends who have been in business. I have worked for businesses. We are talking about over five decades of experience that says what you spouted was nonsense. Many, if not most, in the business community blame the government - not the unemployed. Some do so from the left, saying the government doesn't do enough, but most are not that far to the left, and blame the government for this or that interference in the economy. There are those who are angry at people who vote for redistribution - I'm one of those. And if you really think that paying more taxes will ever be a solution you are living in Progressive La-La land. Why would you come to RoR, a place where the members are strong supporters of unfettered Capitalism? Are just trolling for angry responses? Do you get off on tweaking people who have different beliefs?

Post 23

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 12:11pm

Eva,

"My guess, however, is that many in the business community would prefer blaming the unemployed for their problems, in order not to pay the taxes requisite for a real solution."

Are you making the argument that paying taxes is required in order to solve the problem of hunger (people not being able to produce more than they consume)? I would argue that the only solution to making it the case that no one is starving is for everyone to die. Then no one would be starving. But that is not a solution that you nor I could live with.

Over the long term, paying more taxes doesn't cause fewer people to be hungry. It only causes the human race to foster stealing, begging, and manipulating rather than fostering the creation of resources that enable creators of said resources to live.

I do generally blame large segments of populations for their own desperation. Not the full blame... but there are manipulators and fraudsters and thieves and rapists and all sorts of other kinds of other force initiators... and their are the victims of all of these force initiations: the sheep and the gullible and the insecure and the vulnerable... and its not inherently my responsibility to take care of them. The force initiators are to blame for force initiating, and the victims are to blame for not defending themselves. And if we lived in a free trade society where people died from hunger where no one would willingly donate resources to sustain them... then I'd only have those who starve to blame, and no one else. I've shrugged off the duty ethics.

Post 24

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 2:51pm

Yes, Dean, I do blame sourthern people for their own desperation. They should quit being a red, tax -transfer receiver-region! The blue tax- giver states up north are getting fed up!

They should either be permitted to leave the union or have their population deported to Alaska to mine for precious metals.

We'll let them take their banjos. We'll let them make moonshine and marry thirteen-year old cousins; all of their quaint customs will be respected.

EM

Post 25

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 3:02pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state#Table_of_Federal_Taxation_and_Spending_by_State

With Florida being #50, I bet it's due to Social Security.

Post 26

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 3:19pm

Steve,

Your sense of 'permission' really means, 'taking from me as taxes only what I agree to give you".

Oh, for sure, let 80 million households give only what they, personally, think is 'fair'.

To continue, 'theft' means "having taken more from me in taxes than agree to give."

Oh, sure....and 'proper' function of government means that I get to decide what propriety means within articles of The Constitution that I'm going to interpret for you.

Your site is chock-full of examples in which the witer denounces academia, yet scurrys over to find an academic article that supports his/her claims. I use 'Tibor' because, althoough having a PhD, he seems to be a major offender---denouncing Krugman as an 'idiot', while praising various Chicago school people as 'geniuses'. Academics are portrayed as 'bad' 'till we find someone who's 'good'.

Newsflash: The Krug and Chicago treat each other with respect. They debate, interchange ideas, research, papers, and politely debate.

Re your last paragraph: anger, indeed, whch confirms my suspicion that "many in the business community would prefer blaming the unemployed for their problems, in order not to pay the taxes requisite for a real solution".

Re my motivations: all beliefs can and should be questioned. Some people here enrich my experience by opening up my mind.

OTH, those who insist that they are correct by sole virtue of working in the business community really haven't said anything interesting.

EM

Post 27

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 4:13pm

Eva,

Your reply to my post avoids any real answers. Do you believe that there is NO limit to what government can take? Are you one of those who are okay with total redistribution where government takes 100% and then redistributes based upon need?
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Your reply also fails to address the issue of what is the proper limit to the functions that government should provide. No limits? Is that your position? Or are you just unwilling to go on the record with SOME principle that lets us parse these issues?
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When are you going to what everyone else here does: State in clear, understandable terms, their idea of what kind of government we should have and why?
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You will notice that I don't use academic studies, or any studies where what needs to be addressed is the reasoning regarding principles. I think that academia is rife with problems - but I also believe that it is home to the leading edge of thinking (but mostly in all of the hard sciences), and it is where each new generation can, and should, go to pick the baton from the generation before. As a culture we have to pass on all of our skills and understandings to each and every new generation or we lose it. If we lose too much, the result is a dark age. So, I don't take any stereotypical, one-sided, anti-campus argument. (I hold a Master's degree and if I were younger, I'd go back for a PhD. I love the campus, despite the Progressive's long standing drive to hijack much of the social sciences as propaganda vehicles.)
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You failed to read my statement on what makes me angry. I did not say I was angry at the unemployed - that would be a total misreading. I said I was angry at those who voted for redistribution. And, my exact words about businessmen was, "Many, if not most, in the business community blame the government - not the unemployed." But maybe you just misread what is written for the purpose confirming your own beliefs... that clearly takes less energy or time then going out and finding studies.

Post 28

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 4:53pm

Eva,

Krugman is an idiot. Or at least what he says is idiotic (he could be a smart manipulator).

Are you a socialist or are you a capitalist? Both Steve and I directly asked you. What say you? If you are a socialist, then you really should limit yourself to only posting on the dissent forum.

Post 29

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 10:21pm

Socialism is defined as 'public ownership of the means of production'
Capitalism means 'private ownership of the means of production.
Real-world experience indicates economies that are 'mixed'.

As opposed to defining myself in ideal terms, I look at history and inquire whether or not a 'pure' capitalism or socialism has ever, remotely, existed. Not.

My own view parallels that of The Economist: structural criticism and fairness of taxation, with particular reference to cost-benefit, has made our system (by whatever name!) highly successful. we just don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

In this sense, everyone who participates in open criticism is a capitalist, including myself. IMHO, since socialism no longer exists as an idea, teh true enemy of Capitalism are the cliche mongers who really haven't come to terms with how things really work.

Post 30

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 10:34pm

No, you, personallly, clearly are angry at those who vote for redistribution.

My statement is more generic; there are, indeed many (obviously not youself!) who blame the poor for their own problems.

Post 31

Monday, January 6, 2014 - 11:21pm

Eva,

Socialism is defined as 'public ownership of the means of production'
Capitalism means 'private ownership of the means of production.
Real-world experience indicates economies that are 'mixed'.

Neither of those are the best definitions for Socialism or Capitalism.

Try these:

Enforced Socialism consists of:

Centralized economic planning of some or all of the economic activity,
The public provision of non-public goods,
The threat of force to maintain a monopoly in those areas.

A group of elites determine and enforce centralized economic planning - in the U.S. examples would include much of our public school system and much of the health care systems. In Venezuela an example would be the state run oil business.

Some things can not be provided by a free market and those are the things I mean by "public goods" - like a code of law, or the military defense of a country. Non-public goods are those things a free market could provide if not prohibited. When a government uses its force to establish some degree of a monopoly on the providing of goods that the free market could provide, it is being socialist to that degree.

Those are the three elements needed for a nation to be engaged in socialist behaviors.

It is a distinction of great importance that it is a monopoly protected by government's threat of force - because there is no moral issue with people freely associating to plan their personal economies, or to share their means of production, or to redistribute their wealth in some fashion. As long as no one is forced to participate it is an association that can live under the large tent of capitalism.
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Capitalism is the political system that maintains a free market. To be a free market means to be free of initiated force and its corollaries: the threat to initiate force, theft, and fraud. Relative to socialism, capitalism is a system where there is no group of elites engaged in centralized economic planning that they force upon the nation. It means that the government is prohibited from providing non-public goods. It means people can voluntarily decide to engage in any socialist, communist, fascist, or wide-open market practices that do not involve forced acceptance of those practices.
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It is simple misdirection to ignore instances of socialism in a country and refer to it a mixed economy. It is true that there is full socialism, partly socialist, and there are welfare states that are otherwise capitalist.

But mixed economies are just mixtures of clearly identifiable capitalist and socialist practices. The only concern is whether or not efforts are being made to remove elements of initiated force from the system to move it towards liberty.
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Post 32

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - 6:03am

I am just going to politely sit on my hands now.
Hi guys!

Post 33

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - 6:13am

Yes, Steve, 'mixed' economies are 'mixed' because they combine elements of a priori concepts. This, of course, is retrospective, 20/20 hindsight based upon purely mentalist models which have never existed.

In passing, Max Weber called these 'Ideal types'. This is how the mind begins to grasp real problems (Fall) , only to toss the ideal types away as real relationships and facts emerge.

In other words, the issue is not that all economies have always been 'mixed'; rather, an analysis of each particular economy based upon interacting parts.

As for daffy-nitions, mine for socialism is basic textbook, per Wiki, while yours is...yours.

As for 'force', yes, governments admit to the threat of sanction by virtue of having passed laws in the first place. That's why it's called 'en-forcement'.

EM

Post 34

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 10:58am

A quintilian redistributor in our midst; maybe Eva can finally answer a question I've raised for decades:

Can any quintilian redistributor name even just one action that is done, either by a 'quintile' or even, primarily as a member of a quintile acting on behalf of a quintile(or decimile or percentile), as an economic actor in any of our economies?

To make this as fair as possible, I will accept even purely imagined things, like, from a lost episode of Star Trek. (Hell, I've even offered purely imagined actions in the past.)

Just one thing...to -finally- discover the barest shred of a basis for quintilian redistrbution.

How do quintiles/decimiles/percentiles perform as economic actors in our economies?

Surely, there is some shred of a basis for quintilian redistribution, that can be offered up as justification?

It should be easy to provide an example; quintilian redistribution is the foundation of fully half of the tribe's ratcake politics. But after decades of asking the question and never getting a single answer, I've long stopped holding my breath.

regards,
Fred

Post 35

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 11:05am

Do members of a quintile/decimile/percentile vote as bloc? Purchase as a bloc? Create as a bloc? Hire as a bloc? Pay taxes as a bloc? Get welfare as a bloc? Commit crime as a bloc? Join political parties as a bloc?

For example, tax season is coming up. There is a huge hint at the top of everyone's 1040. In big 'bloc' letters is printed the word "INDIVIDUAL."

Is there seriously an argument that those forms should be re-issued with the word QUINTILE at the top?

regards,
Fred

Post 36

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 11:35am

Fred,

Quintiles are not solvable, which is why Gallois devised groups to give partial solutions.

Otherwise (?!), it's merely an ad hoc device that's used a tool to assess relative levels of wealth.

It's employ cannot help the truly needy, because saying that they're at the bottom fifth begs the obvious question of real standards of living.

In any case, I'm not familiar with anyone who advocates redistributon by using this model; if iyou know otherwise, kindly inform.

Eva

Post 37

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 12:31pm

Eva:

As for daffy-nitions, mine for socialism is basic textbook, per Wiki,

Well, Wiki is Wiki: the egalitarianism of knowledge, pure democracy rearing its on average, we're average, head.

Much more fundamental to a definition of 'socialism' is a definition of politics: per 'Wiki:'

Politics (from Greek: politikos, meaning "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the practice and theory of influencing other people on a civic or individual level. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance � organized control over a human community, particularly a state. A variety of methods are employed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising force, including warfare against adversaries. Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level.

What a confused spewing of drivel; for instance, how does the same definition meander from 'influencing other people on a civic or individual level' to 'warfare against adversaries?'

Let's not be harsh on the on average, we're average egalitarian mud wrestling mess that is Wiki; UNESCO posits on its website for educators the thought that 'there is no widely accepted definition of the word 'politics' -- before, by necessity, providing their own.

Examples have been 'the art and science of governance...the art and science of who gets what...and a load of attempts that circularly refer to 'political.'

My definition of the word politics: the art and science of getting what we want from others using any means short of actual violence; the superset that includes violence I define as 'mega-politics.'

"What we want from others" might be anything: their vote, their love, their consent, validation for the parking of our soul, their money, carnal knowledge, the TV remote, Kuwait, or the most difficult thing to obtain in a graceless seething mass of peers, many of whom are overwhelmed with their childish existential fears and atavistic fealty to their herd mentality genes, 'to be left alone to live in peace except under a model of free association, peer to peer.'

All examples of 'what we want from others', but not symmetric wants; what rapists 'want from others' is not what the rape victims 'want from others;' the distinguishing characteristic is free vs forced association. Keep that clearly in sight, and 'political' arguments cleanly sort themselves into the rapist/slaveowners wanabee pile and the libertarian pile.

This is as broad a meta-definition as I can come up to encompass all that has been accused of being politics(like 'personal politics' and 'sexual politics' and 'gender politics' and so on.)

This is why I forgive the two fourth year politSci students -- one from Duke, one from Syracuse, who both acted like I had C4 strapped to my chest when I asked them for their working knowledge of the word 'politics.' I didn't ask for 'the' definition, because there is no widely accepted 'the' definition, only instances of definitions. I only asked for their working definitions.

Whatever politics is or isn't, apparently it is something that can be studied as a 'science' for four years and still not have the first f'n clue how to define. But the reason for that is -political-: when pumping out instructoids, the last thing in the world that needs to happen is actual education.

Post 38

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 12:41pm

Eva:

Sure. I've been living under a rock, and never heard the phrase 'The 1%/The 99%' in modern political debate, nor any reference ever, in any context, to US Census 'Quintile' data when lamenting the current distribution of income/wealth in 'the[sic] Economy.'

Apparently, percentiles are solvable where quintiles are not. (More words in a blender non-argument unrelated to redistributive myth.)

Several decades and still counting; using vowels and consonants and throwing words into a blender does not qualify as an actual answer to the question.

Still not holding my breath.

regards,
Fred

Post 39

Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 1:15pm