The ideas of economics working as a thing is not wrong, the ideas of economic theory are hardly scientific and certainly amount to nothing more than opinion when you put them to the test with scientific method. This makes an economic truth or fact extremely hard to find. Society is a complex structure, and their economics are linked with many social factors that define them. This means your so called truth is not true for every situation and society. Relying on a concrete model just shows your ignorance and lack of understanding of society in general. In reality most economic systems rely heavily on the willingness of a society to adhere to them, corruption (or lack of), satisfaction of the people, greed of the wealthy, prosperity, and surrounding environment of other cultures and nature. You could probably adapt many ideas and theories successfully to multiple different societies for a period of time. This is really more of a property of society and it's need to work on a system rather than the positivity of that system.
I guess it's easy to be smug when one starts life on third base as compared to most others... Oh, them poors? they just didn't put in the effort.
What makes you think I was born "on third base?" No, I didn't come from poverty (though my mother did), but we weren't exactly wealthy, either. My parents (who were divorced, btw) couldn't afford to send me to college; I went to night classes at community college and tried to find opportunities where I could. When my parents died, I didn't inherit great sums of money. And have no illusions: I'm not wealthy today, though--after 30 years experience in my field--I've broken into the top 10% of incomes. I drive a 10 year old car, live below my means, and avoid borrowing money. I have a little bit saved and invested for retirement, but I need to do more. I have some shares in companies I've worked for, but these may not ultimately be any kind of huge windfall. I'm able to splurge on a few things and can go on a vacation somewhere nice most every year. That's it. (BTW, I mentored/supervised a young guy from India a few years back, and because he's been hard-working, committed to learning, and very astute about career choices, he's almost caught up to me wealth-wise despite being a little more than half my age. I hope he leaves me in the dust because he deserves it!) I don't claim that people are poor because they don't work. Many poor people work damned hard. But I believe everyone can do better with a little thought and a little effort applied in the right direction. First things first: don't do anything that makes your situation worse (e.g., drop out of high school, have a kid, do drugs or crime, etc.). Next order of business is to do what it takes to make more: extra shifts, more responsibility, whatever. Then, if it's open to you, take some classes; even an adult ed class that teaches you how to use Microsoft Excel is something! Community college? Even better. Pursue some course of study that (1) interests you AND (2) has some value in the job market. Finally, move up to a better job. Repeat.
People like Paladin are afraid of raising up the poor because they think of themselves as special. If people who work at McDonalds could get what he had, then he would not be special. He knows they work harder than he ever could, and it is not that they did not put in effort, it is that their effort is their punishment for not having his status.
This ignores a lot of reality. Most poor people go to poor schools, b/c of the assinine way we fund our school systems by local property taxes in virtually every state in the Union. This gives them a far worse education, which is compounded by these poor areas also being rife with crime, drugs, and gangs. It is far more difficult to come out of these areas without trauma due to negative impacts they bring, and that's true regardless of color. There are also pretty profound social distinctions because of this - the US is one of the most stratified of all the developed economies because our system is so much more advantageous to those with wealth. Only the UK is worse than the US in socioeconomic mobility in the OECD, and that's a system that still has literal lords and ladies. Then you get into overt racism that still exists, such as predation by banks, negative bias against resumes with ethnic sounding names, downward pressure on real estate values when owned by people of color, and of course exclusion from social networks that still decide quite a bit on how access to elite education and then job prospects are rewarded. You have to reject a lot of scientific data to believe that it works for everyone the same way.
I agree with you, but I also don't think they're mutually exclusive. Obviously, living just for the benefit of others is terrible. But I'd argue it's more than possible to prioritize yourself not at the expense of society as a whole -- you can have your cake and eat it too (but not in the sense that that's traditionally portrayed), if you will. I think the bolded is the most important part, and while by necessity you and I will disagree on the particulars (even on some of the broader arguments), I believe we're in agreement that this can be a useful tool to ensure that some measure of societal and cultural security can be attained. Would you agree that the overall discussion falters because there is a certain amount disconnect between the connotation and denotations of the terms? And that while, say, conservatives profess to embrace the denotation of 'socialism', liberals prefer to embrace the connotations that post Soviet European countries infuse into socialism? Here I'm not going to argue one is right or wrong, but that the terms seem to be shifting in how their used, even when official definitions are based in historical use (and note, I wouldn't claim Venezuela to be 'socialist', or even Nazi Germany to be, despite their use of 'Socialist' in their name). Also, thank you on the bolded section. I would defy anyone to devalue you your efforts and hours put in, or to confiscate your labor and earnings. And -- It's probable you do. I'm not privy to that information, nor do I have any desire to be. Without that information, you would rightly argue that it would be hubris for me to argue you should be taxed more; however, it's clear that the tax structure is not sustainable. I can accept the argument that the government is a mass of competing, contradictory agents, but I dispute that the Market is bastion you make it out to be. I don't think I worded that as well as I could have. I was attempting to make the argument that we should be observing the successes and failures of other governments, particularly of our allies, and applying those lessons to our own, be in in health, education, culture, or even in regulatory measures. Instead, our government prefers to obstanantly eschew such lessons, to which our allies use us as examples on how not to run their nations. Herein comes part of my critique -- while I can respect your views, it's only to a point, as you seem to prefer the policies that would promote our allies means to move beyond us (while, I'll note, still being dependent on us militarily). TLDR: Fair, fair, that could be a point of contention but isn't wholly germane here, fair, and disagree.
Maybe I should have bolded "compared to others"?. Dude, even that relatively average childhood you're claiming is a hell of a lot better than what lots of folks start with. this is where you lack perspective... you actually think everyone has a choice to stay in school, or treatment for the traumas that invariably are the root of most addiction, or isn't living in such poverty that crime/off book enterprises aren't necessary to survival. extra shifts? yeah, good luck with that if your line/factory job is through a temp agency (which many are) that benefits from keeping you just below full time hours. Look, I could go on, but EVERY thing you're listing here is telling people without shoes to pull themselves up by bootstraps.
He's also a Boomer or older GenXer who reached young adulthood at a time when it was economically feasible for someone to work a couple summer jobs and pay for college and buy a used car for ... two or three paychecks of said summer job and parents still had enough disposable income to help out even if just a little. He is completely ignorant of the world as it currently is.
There is definitely a Go Get Em Tiger! feeling to the career “advice” being peddled here. If I move up in status there should be people below ready and willing to backfill my prior positions. But then you’re saying don’t have kids. OK, that’s nice for you but a properly functioning labor market requires people to reproduce. If not we have to do the unthinkable of importing labor. Oh noes! Immigrants. Which leads to the most disingenuous conversation I can think of: undocumented vs. documented immigrants. The market doesn’t really care. It just wants fresh labor. So why do people of one political persuasion always stand in the way of progress on this issue? To me, blocking immigrant labor is far more harmful than deciding whether someone should be paid $13 or $15 an hour. The market can and will absorb the increase in real wages. It always does.
random factoid, but I was comparing the minimum wage here in 1990 vs today against the cost of a house in this city-something like a 600% increase in proportion of income required. put another way, the down payment now is almost as much as what total amortization was then when measured in hours of work.
The misrepresentation is not purely yours, but a general misrepresentation of Smith's ideas in popular culture. Firstly - Smith was writing in a society that was proto-capitalist at best, where there was basically no industry yet. An agrarian society dominated by feudal elites peppered with merchants and craftsmen. It's applicability to that which followed is necessarily limited. He advocated "free markets" - but one of the reasons was that he believed that they would lead to equality. He despised inequality: "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." He recognised the normal role of the state was in protecting the rich: "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." He considered the division of labour problematic, despite economic benefits. "The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become." And his "invisible hand" is invariably linked with the promotion of the domestic economy over foreign sources. At the heart of this is a view of human nature which is fairly positive. He seems to have held that given "free markets", people would necessarily be motivated by things other than by pure greed. However these views are routinely excised from modern representations, where he is taken as more-or-less offering support for the capitalist system as it has developed in the intervening centuries - despite the fact that he clearly would have been horrified at many of its innovations and at its outcomes. You'll no doubt try to handwave this stuff away. But there is no straight line from Smith to Milton Friedman and neoliberalism. Smiths heritage is much more complex. The exaltation of selfishness as a creed and the extreme disparities in wealth it produces is a much more recent one and you shouldn't get to rely on the august philosophers of classical liberalism in support of it. As an adjunct, it would be wrong for me not to note that your recent political trajectory deviates even from that, with your embrace of explicitly anti-scientific and authoritarian movements like Trumpism and climate change denial. This seems to be motivated by a kind of unprincipled rapaciousness. And the basis of this thread may therefore be fundamentally mistaken.
When I saw UA was the latest reply I knew he would simplify it so paladin is the victim. Way to get to the racist point of it all.
This. Capitalism worked great and advanced much of our society. But, we have grown past it. We are too big. People are too greedy. It is time to re-evaluate our economic system.
yup... wasn't a single intimation of race or CRT in my post. To the contrary, it was a critique of socio economic privilege that he (Paladin) enjoyed while labouring under the almost universal conceit that he faced significant hardships. UA's peep hole view of the world is why he's not worth taking seriously.
I suppose acknowledging the averageness of my beginnings is an improvement over claiming I was born on third base. I really did do quite a lot to get where I'm at, not that I'm any kind of poster child for prosperity. I understand that finding opportunities is difficult and that, initially, they won't seem like much. But if you're convinced you can't do anything--if you'd rather wait around for someone to fix things for you--you're likely to waste a lot of time and end up no better off. And, I'll admit, the further down a bad road road one's gone, the harder it can be to get off it. If you chose not to or were unable to finish high school, your career prospects are already narrowed. If you had kids before you were financially stable, you may not be able to take risks or tighten your belt to enable some saving. If you've spent 20 years in the same city holding on by your fingernails, you've gotten further behind as real estate prices rose. For those in the U.S., it's about to get a lot worse because big inflation is here, and prices will start escalating much faster than salaries. It's difficult. I'm not saying it isn't. But you need to take responsibility for you. All your problems may not be entirely your fault, but they are your problems.
whoosh That your "relatively average" is third base is what you're not getting. Hell, I'm not even contrasting our individual upbringings. I'm talking about that very notable segment of people who never even get a chance at bat. I work in homeless services and harm reduction these days-even a lot of my worst days are better than many of the clientele's best. That "bad road" bit... there's the privilege showing in that you believe people had those same choices to make, let alone any in the first place. How well would you have done as a survivor of physical or mental abuse? or sexual? Hell, even just some basic neglect after your parents split up. At least we appear to agree that inflation has and will continue to be a major factor in intergenerational poverty. As you correctly point out the rise in housing prices continues to exponentially out pace wages. The place I lived in prior to this apartment increased from $450K to $1.4M in the span of a decade. Is that sustainable economically when the byproducts include tent cities and opioid epidemics?
for housing? I'm on the board of a community landtrust with a mandate to maintain/develop affordable rental housing in the area (and cock block condo developers from sterilizing the place). Technically it's a non profit, although part of the "neighbourhood character" is street level retailers, of which we currently have four. I'm not sure how we're approaching those yet other than to ensure they remain sustainable. The outcome is that tenants won't have to fight off renovictions or other sketchy landlord tricks to evict them/raise rents beyond legal/justifiable rates. (edit to add) Otherwise, Eisenhower era levels of taxation on the super rich adjusted into modern dollars seems right place to start. Probably stem a lot of that inflation you were concerned about in the other post.
I’m so totally flattered you would think I’m on the same par as Adam Smith and John Nash - hell, even John Locke. But, alas no. I’m no economist. Which is why my statement earlier - possibly in a different thread - that we (as in the entire human race) need to come up with a new system of economics. I’m not saying I know better, I’m just not standing in the way of progress.
We have, many times. Scandinavian style social democracy has noticeably better outcomes for everyone but the super rich, and yes, it still has those. People live longer, are happier, have more economic rights, better quality of living, and more socioeconomic mobility. Yes, it's not perfect, but we are dealing with nowhere close to perfect in the US, in a society without healthcare for many, without access to higher education without massive debt, and with historic wealth discrepancies. Your only argument against that is we can't have that, because they are homogeneous, and we aren't. And yes, we all know what that really means.
What's not worth taking seriously is this diseased notion that your pedigree alone automatically proves unfair advantage, without requiring a shred of proof specific to the individual. People who float that bullshit expect it to be accepted on faith as a demonstration of moral purity. It's just another pose.
okay... there's a lot of (buzz)words there but very few of them seem relevant. I suppose that makes sense though.
Subsidized by the society in which you live, not to mention whatever public K-12 schools you attended. And also made possible by regulated and/or subsidized utilities and infrastructure. Your books were also likely made possible by the US postal system, which again was subsidized (it no longer is, at least not to the same extent as it once was). Built safely according to safety standards set by the society in which you live, driven on roads paid for and regulated to be safe and navigable, fueled by gas that is regulated to be safe and arrives via a regulated international shipping system, policed by law enforcement whose wages are paid for by the society in which you live, and under the laws set by society via elected officials. Regulated by the society in which you live. On roads, trains, or airplanes that are regulated and/or subsidized by the society in which you live. And using your government-issued ID (driver's license and/or passport), which is regulated and maintained by the government. Which can come with overtime pay mandated by the society in which you live.
It is beyond good faith argument that all other things generally being equal that: Someone coming from a home where parents didn't have to worry about providing basic necessities will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone coming from a community with good to great schools will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone who has access to adequate health care will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone who does not have to face any of many forms of discrimination based on inherent qualities will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't. Yes, there are certainly going to be the cases where someone through hard work, luck or whatever other factor manages to overcome such disadvantages and places where people squander their advantages. But as a general rule, it seems common sensical.
Someone coming from a home where parents didn't have to worry about providing basic necessities will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone coming from a community with good to great schools will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone who has access to adequate health care will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't; Someone who does not have to face any of many forms of discrimination based on inherent qualities will generally have an advantage over someone who doesn't. Those are just excuses for someone being a sorry sack of shit. Excuses I say!
