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   Seamus

   (logged in via Twitter)

   I really liked this article and will probably buy (how ironic?) a copy of the book.

   You draw attention to Capitalism dependence upon constant compound growth in order to survive. This a fundamental to so many contemporary debates surround sustainability and yet it is all to often ignored.

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      Andrew Hack

      Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

      Compound growth is a requirement of running a debt-based monetary system. The debt-based monetary system is not a product of capitalism but in fact a product of the corporatist structures of the government / corporate coalition. It should be evident in the name; "capitalism" is where growth comes from capital - not from debt. It is the debt that distorts the system and creates the financial crises and it is the debt mechanism that is so immoral and insidious. Bankers collect interest payments on…

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      Compound growth is a requirement of running a debt-based monetary system. The debt-based monetary system is not a product of capitalism but in fact a product of the corporatist structures of the government / corporate coalition. It should be evident in the name; "capitalism" is where growth comes from capital - not from debt. It is the debt that distorts the system and creates the financial crises and it is the debt mechanism that is so immoral and insidious. Bankers collect interest payments on the debt whereby the money is created out of thin air. It is a fiction and rent-seeking on a fiction is in my perspective akin to theft.

      "Capitalism" is blamed because it is the easy thing to do. It is by my opinion very lazy. It does not take that much research into the philosophy behind free-market capitalism to realize that this system is not being adhered to, but it is government involvement that distorts economies and gives those with government favouring the unfair advantage over others.

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         Seamus

         (logged in via Twitter)

         You're right that the text-book definition of free-market capitalism is not being adhered to. However the idea of a functioning free market utopia is just that. A utopia.

         I cannot think of an advanced market-based economy (I'll abstain from the term capitalism) that has existed without some form of Government intervention in the market and some form of credit system used to help drive demand and create the conditions under which capital can grow.

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            Andrew Hack

            Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

            Much of the literature is philosophical and that is why it sounds 'utopian'. It is also a very different philosophy compared to most conventional thinking which assumes the government's purpose is to fix almost all problems in society.

            I think the Achilles Heel of free-market capitalists and libertarians is perhaps that we focus on being too principled (something most of us pride ourselves on) and need to focus on clear steps to push things towards being more free-market.

            The debt-based monetary…

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            Much of the literature is philosophical and that is why it sounds 'utopian'. It is also a very different philosophy compared to most conventional thinking which assumes the government's purpose is to fix almost all problems in society.

            I think the Achilles Heel of free-market capitalists and libertarians is perhaps that we focus on being too principled (something most of us pride ourselves on) and need to focus on clear steps to push things towards being more free-market.

            The debt-based monetary system, however, is not open to negotiation for me. Banks are able to create the fiat currency out of thin air just by 'lending' it. Money is supposed to be a notion of value or wealth. But that wealth/value does not exist when banks create that money by lending it. In fact, the wealth/value is sucked out of the rest of the economy through inflation. That is essentially theft. If/when a loan is paid back though, the banks still collect the interest payments on that. It is rent-seeking on a fiction and is totally immoral by my standards.

            Governments generally don't mind this as they are able to spend as they wish running up huge deficits. The banks collect on the interest repayments owed to them which is essentially owed by the taxpayers. Not to mention that usually the money interests (such as Goldman Sachs in the US) have their buddies in government making sure the status quo is not changed.

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               Michael Shand

               Software Tester (logged in via email @gmail.com)

               When you say "Without Government Coercin"

               Your not talking about much needed regulations are you? like safety regulations? minimum wage? workers rights? Consumer rights? etc

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                  Andrew Hack

                  Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                  At the time I wrote that I was probably thinking more along the lines of the regulations enforced on industries that are designed by the big players in order to squeeze out competition. Sometimes, though, it is difficult to distinguish.

                  I'd also be talking about subsidies and taxes as well.

                  There is a role for government in protecting 3rd parties from harm caused by the action of others. But "3rd party" generally does not include a seller or a buyer as they are in a contract. The same goes for your 'workers rights' and 'consumer rights'. The role of government is to enforce contracts and provide a framework for doing so, but the government should not be meddling with the terms of private contracts.

                  Minimum wage laws, however, are unhelpful.
                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk

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                     Emma Anderson

                     Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                     1. Having the resources to ignore minimum wage laws is one of the ways the big players squeeze out competition. Compete for a contract with a price war. Having lots of workers who don't get paid is more competitive than an handful of workers who get paid well.
                     2. Subsidises are misused. Subsidising petroleum is clearly not a good idea. Subsidising mental health care, in the absence of it being freely available, is a better idea.
                     3. Subsidies are paid for by taxes.
                     4. Generally is the operative…

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                     1. Having the resources to ignore minimum wage laws is one of the ways the big players squeeze out competition. Compete for a contract with a price war. Having lots of workers who don't get paid is more competitive than an handful of workers who get paid well.
                     2. Subsidises are misused. Subsidising petroleum is clearly not a good idea. Subsidising mental health care, in the absence of it being freely available, is a better idea.
                     3. Subsidies are paid for by taxes.
                     4. Generally is the operative word, but there are plenty of situations that can be cited that shows that the sanctity of the private contract can be ignored. For example (and I know this is extreme, but it does happen) when a parent sells sex with their child. The role of government, if there is one in this situation, is to prevent the contract. Actually it's the role of the entire community to meddle. Technically it's an illegal contract (it has criminal clauses and is therefore not enforcable anyway) but it's not the sort of thing where the worker (child) can take it to the IRC for arbitration. Requires police intervention. Wasn't always illegal to sell this uhrm, 'service' to willing buyers. Interestingly, it seems to be more common for parents with no money to sell their kids in this way. Why do they have no money? Complicated, but not having a fair wage wouldn't help, surely.
                     5. I completely agree that minimum wages are unhelpful. They are irregularly enforced, disproportionate to the actual cost of living and usually only apply to people who lack individual bargaining power. Not to mention it's a bandaid that doesn't address one of the roots of the problem: the mantra that cheaper is better and it's better to exploit people rather than run at a low profit margin or at least attempt to be more efficient and effective in other ways, like for example, not buying that M3 or leer jet on the company dollar.

                     Another issue: big players throw their weight around because they can. Maximum company sizes might reduce some of this dilemma.

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                        Andrew Hack

                        Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                        1. Government intervention always favours one group over the other. The effect of minimum wage laws is that it makes sure anyone who is worth less than the designated minimum wage will not get a job. It therefore favours the people who already have jobs and have the skills or experience to be worth that wage at the expense of those who do not.
                        2. I am not talking about charity and welfare, but business subsidies which are always bad. They reward failing businesses and prop up unproductive sectors…

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                        1. Government intervention always favours one group over the other. The effect of minimum wage laws is that it makes sure anyone who is worth less than the designated minimum wage will not get a job. It therefore favours the people who already have jobs and have the skills or experience to be worth that wage at the expense of those who do not.
                        2. I am not talking about charity and welfare, but business subsidies which are always bad. They reward failing businesses and prop up unproductive sectors of the economy at the expense of the productive sectors.
                        Charity is different, although I prefer charity to be private rather than government.
                        3. Yes because the government does not produce anything of itself. Therefore it must expropriate through threat of force in order to give it to the favoured group. I'm not sure what you point here was?
                        4. It is a feature of the common law that contracts that involve illegality cannot be enforced. I think you are creating a situation that is completely out of context to my original point.
                        5. The 'cheaper is better' mantra is based on what the consumer demands. The consumers for the most part control the industry in terms of quality versus cost.

                        Other issue:
                        Only in a corporatist environment where the big players can control the government to regulate the industry in such a way. If it was truly a market free from coercion and intervention of the government, there is always the threat of competition which keeps prices down.
                        Milton Friedman on monopolies:
                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMvVmlDN0nY

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                           Emma Anderson

                           Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                           1. Define 'worth'
                           2. Sure, okay, that's great and all, but what about when a sector of the economy is still at seeding stage and is being muscled out by an industry it's likely to make obsolete?
                           3. True, true. You made a distinction between subsidy and taxes. I know one is collected and the other is the spending of what is collected and it's all coercive and all that because it originates with the tribute system which is basically the king collecting all our wheat so he can sit on his backside telling us what to do, but anyway I was being a pain in the neck.
                           4. Not exactly. You assumed that the role of government is to enforce contracts. I am arguing the opposite.
                           5. We do? That's nice. I'm sure we're all fans of Telstra and British Petroleum.

                           Other issue:
                           Not just corporatist. The government IS a big player and corporations have replaced cartels of feudal lords. But it's all the same shit, different asshole to regular people.

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               Anitra Nelson

               (Associate Professor, School of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at RMIT University)

               On crating money out of thin air, if you haven't already, take a look at Mary Mellor's The Future of Money (2010, Pluto). I agree with Schumpeter et al. that capitalism requires the creation of money above and beyond what wealth exists as commodities/capital to grow.

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                  Andrew Hack

                  Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                  Hi Anitra,

                  Capitalism, in the free-market sense, does not require growth in the way that a debt-based monetary system does. The debt-based monetary system is essentially a house of cards that requires growth in order to keep up with the interest repayments. When the growth (inevitably) falls below the levels required to keep up with interest repayments, the house of cards starts to crumble. This is not a product of capitalism.

                  I've read the description on the publisher's website:

                  "As the…

                  show full comment

                  Hi Anitra,

                  Capitalism, in the free-market sense, does not require growth in the way that a debt-based monetary system does. The debt-based monetary system is essentially a house of cards that requires growth in order to keep up with the interest repayments. When the growth (inevitably) falls below the levels required to keep up with interest repayments, the house of cards starts to crumble. This is not a product of capitalism.

                  I've read the description on the publisher's website:

                  "As the recent financial crisis has revealed, the state is central to the stability of the money system, while the chaotic privately-owned banks reap the benefits without shouldering the risks. This book argues that money is a public resource that has been hijacked by capitalism."

                  The last statement is incorrect. "Money" is not a resource, let alone a public resource. Money is a way of assigning value and a mechanism by which trade is enabled. The wealth is something that is owned by individuals. I suspect the author comes from an egalitarian point of view of distributive justice. I am wholly against this point of view as a libertarian. I see individual property rights as paramount. The logic follows: you own yourself and no-one owns you. Therefore, you own your faculties and thus the products created by your application of your faculties. That is your private property. I don't like the idea that you belong to a collective organism of society and that you are owned by that society regardless of whether it is a nation-sized society (North Korea) or a local community-sized society as you would seem to suggest.

                  I do think though that the regulation of money should a responsibility of the government in the same way that enforcing private contracts should. But the debt-based monetary system (the causes for our economic ills) is the product of special interests grasping control of the government and interfering.

                  There are a few solutions, either having a commodity-backed currencies or having competing currencies. Certainly there should be nothing stopping individuals who want to have arrangements of the nature you describe from doing just that. Bartering and trading with gold instead of a fiat currency is a great way to avoid the insidious effects of inflation as well as insidious taxation. But no-one should be forced into a system that they don't want to be involved in. Only the government has this coercive ability.

                  Andrew

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                     Emma Anderson

                     Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                     Hi Andrew

                     I'm not sure I agree with you about the distinction between a debt-based monetary system and capitalism, or the distinction between capitalism and corporatism.

                     It would seem to me that debt based monetary systems and corporations are outgrowths of capitalist economies of scale.

                     First, begin with what capital might be logically defined as. Not just money or debt, let's start by saying it's the bit of something or other that you begin with in order to 'invest' in a project or activity…

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                     Hi Andrew

                     I'm not sure I agree with you about the distinction between a debt-based monetary system and capitalism, or the distinction between capitalism and corporatism.

                     It would seem to me that debt based monetary systems and corporations are outgrowths of capitalist economies of scale.

                     First, begin with what capital might be logically defined as. Not just money or debt, let's start by saying it's the bit of something or other that you begin with in order to 'invest' in a project or activity that provides a return above your costs 'profit'. Barter systems could also be capitalist using this logic. I have a watermelon and you have a rockmelon. Non-capitalist barter would involve a simple swap. Capitalist barter would say 'it took us X resources to acquire the melons let's include this in the price [term of exchange]' and so we determine that my watermelon involved a bag of fertiliser and two weeks labor to produce, and your rockmelon took an irrigation system and one week labor, but some time waiting for the rockmelon to grow. We negotiate the term of exchange so that those costs are included in the price, and in the end decide that a watermelon and rockmelon are insufficient terms, so we add other items to the exchange to balance the values.

                     In a very basic sense simply swapping the rockmelon and watermelon covers our needs. I am in the business of producing watermelons and eating rockmelons, and you vice versa. That need can be met by the swap; all the other details are superfluous to this exchange - if I need fertiliser, I can only get it elsewhere, and so on. So it seems what capitalism does (in practice) is attempt to account for future costs by including a balance of previous costs into current prices, rather than actually reflecting the current exchange. It's a projective measurement that operates in addition to current needs and outside the boundaries of strictly speaking known resources (we can't know what we can't observe, and the future is unobservable without it becoming the present - so it remains a projection only). In effect, profit, by being logically justified through cost balancing, is based on a fictitious assumption that capital can be returned in excess of itself based on projected unknowns.

                     Money could operate in a non capitalist system too, simply it says "2 dollars equals a watermelon" whether or not that 2 dollars covers the projected costs. Money in this respect is another layer of arbitrary denotation of values. Perhaps it is a convenience for people who neither have watermelons or rockmelons. Perhaps it is even an equalising force, setting standards for prices and facilitating exchange. On the other hand, it's value still fluctuates according to watermelons and rockmelons. So it's in the interests of the melon owners to control these and therefore control prices, and therefore, control the their ability to make more melons and therefore, more money, and therefore, more melons. A cyclical loop based on a fiction that doesn't help people who don't have money and never had melons to begin with, where melon producers compete with each other instead of simply acknowledging that swapping melons is less of a headache and does exactly the same job.

                     Corporations grew out of capitalism to scale up melon production. Governments corporatised to scale up the regulation of melon production. Debt based economies grew around the idea that people don't have enough money or melons to start their own production facility now, but can project they will do so in the future if they borrow some melon seeds or money to do so. Fiat currencies associated with debt based economies grew around the idea that money itself can be an object of exchange rather than a unit of facilitated pricing, as well as the idea that gold backed currencies are unstable because gold itself has a price and this fluctuates.

                     In all cases, it's falling flat on it's face because it's based on fiction, and people are catching on to that because no matter how many layers of this fiction we play with, it doesn't alter how many melons that can be grown nor does it alter how many we need to eat to survive.

                     So when people criticise capitalism, you're correct in saying that this doesn't match the complexity of the situation (ie corporations, fiat currencies etc are also involved) or the original definition of capitalism. However, perhaps people who do this are getting to the point. Which is that the basis of capitalism leads to these issues of concern and is based on a fictitious assumption that boils down to what we don't know can be used as terms of exchange.

                     This is not an argument for planned or state based economies, or even Marxism, by the way. So called communist countries still had banking systems, for example, and the issues of controlling pricing and production. It was a bandaid for a much deeper issue because socialism is basically capitalism with tweaks.

                     Glad to see that other alternatives are being put on the table now - thanks for the article. One point though, last I heard the Occupy movement was growing and morphing into other activities, not fizzling out. If there is evidence on the ground or from Occupy researchers that show my assertion to be false, please provide it.

                     Cheers
                     Emma

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                        Andrew Hack

                        Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                        I think the term 'capitalism' can be misleading as well. I like 'free-markets' personally. I think I didn't quite make myself clear about the debt-based monetary issue. In my 'free-market utopia' capital should come from 'savings' and not from debt that is simply created out of thin air. Money boils down to being a notional value attached to tangible wealth and resources. One cannot simply create wealth out of thin air in the way that the banking system creates money by loaning it out ficticiously…

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                        I think the term 'capitalism' can be misleading as well. I like 'free-markets' personally. I think I didn't quite make myself clear about the debt-based monetary issue. In my 'free-market utopia' capital should come from 'savings' and not from debt that is simply created out of thin air. Money boils down to being a notional value attached to tangible wealth and resources. One cannot simply create wealth out of thin air in the way that the banking system creates money by loaning it out ficticiously. In effect, through the force of inflation, the wealth is being drained from the rest of the money-using economy. It has to come from somewhere.

                        Being somewhat pragmatic, I do agree that there may be some areas of industry that should be regulated. I'm not sure the 'melon' industry would be one though. That's the main crux of us free-marketeers. Government involvement so often messes things up. The insidiousness arises when large companies hire swarms of lobbyists to modify regulations to their own advantages. There is nothing wrong with a company being large because they are successful. Without government involvement, a company could only become successful in a free society by offering good value to their customers. The issue is when some companies are able to influence the government into putting regulatory pressure on their competitors.

                        Of course, a prospective entrepreneur who has no money but may have a great idea will need to find capital from somewhere. That was part of the original purpose of banks. But there is a big difference in finding capital in someone else's savings. Someone who is willing to lend that money out, knowing fully the risks. It is quite right that the person should be entitled to see interest on that loan, assuming they have no stake in the entrepreneur's project. But the point is that the capital came from the loaner's savings. For example, your melon grower saved a month's worth of melons and traded them for the resources needed to build an apple orchard. In return, the apple entrepreneur may return the payment in 2 months worth of apples. It is entirely possible the apple project may have gone bust but that is the risk the two took.

                        The capital always has to come from some real and tangible wealth. When bankers create the money out of thin air by issuing debt, it devalues the currency thus robbing those who have stored their wealth in the currency of the value of their savings.

                        Economic hypotheticals are a good way of figuring out these things. I found this book extremely interesting and educative in teaching basic principles of economics:
                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78a84qbT5-w

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                           Emma Anderson

                           Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                           I think the term 'free market' is even more misleading than the term 'capitalism', granted that both have been used with implied and not exactly comparable definitions.

                           Free and market individually are misleading as well. What is free, and what is a market? Perhaps, market is place of exchange. So this website is a market. We exchange ideas.

                           Free on the other hand. Hmm. Tough one. Unimpeded generally comes to mind. But by what? Brick walls? Taxes? Variability in social/linguistic skills…

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                           I think the term 'free market' is even more misleading than the term 'capitalism', granted that both have been used with implied and not exactly comparable definitions.

                           Free and market individually are misleading as well. What is free, and what is a market? Perhaps, market is place of exchange. So this website is a market. We exchange ideas.

                           Free on the other hand. Hmm. Tough one. Unimpeded generally comes to mind. But by what? Brick walls? Taxes? Variability in social/linguistic skills (and subsequently negotiation)? Take away all the usual suspects (laws + trade tariffs / regulations) and what do we have remaining? Perhaps exactly the same obstacles to unimpeded trade that make the whole shebang unequal in the first place. A small percentage of people owning melon farms and a massive percentage of people using their labor to acquire melons, or at least some kind of symbol of 'equivalency' like money to maybe get melons later.

                           Free markets are impossible when the market is an uneven playing field. Give the king all the land and he decides what is grown on it. If melons are profitable, melons it is. If it's weapons of mass destruction, weapons it is. Because the king owns the land, the serfs don't decide anything at all! How do you get a loan from a bank to start up the business? With collatore; - pre-existing property. The landless serf doesn't have that - the king does.

                           So the ability to concentrate property in the hands of the few, which is an outgrowth of capitalism (as well as it's predecessors, fuedalism and mercantilism) is an obstacle to truly free markets, is it not?

                           Just a thought

                           Also, king and melon are descriptive units that can be exchanged here. Melon being a resource or object of exhchange, and king being an entity that attains power through the uneven acquisition of property (maintained or executed by force). Gold and corporations may be suitable subsitutes for discussion purposes.

                           Now back to land versus labor theories of value. I only need to include the cost of my labor (mode) into the price of my unit of exchange because I do not own the land (means) to provide for myself uhrm, freely. Thus labor is only a unit of pricing because land is not owned equally by all participants in the market. i.e. The labor theory of value is only meritorious in markets involving land as a form of private property.

                           If you are a full libertarian (as other comments suggest) then you do not own land. You only own that which you make yourself. It is your melon because you grew it. Thus there is no reason why the melon farmer should own the land at all! It is in the common property. Yet arguments for capitalism, which is often conflated with the free market, seem to be based on libertarian assumptions that private property enables trade, and yet, how many free market capitalists will give up title deeds to land because only the Lockean concept of property counts for anything! Indeed, banks, real estate agents, even the legal authority of governance itself goes right back to people thinking they can own land at all - people who say they or through their organisation owns the land and therefore has the right to decide what is done or not done with it and the people who inhabit that land - whilst those people are the ones who actually do the things on the land that produce what libertarians call property, and yet, don't own it!

                           So, why is the apple and melon farmers owned by the manager in capitalism? Why is it owned by the state (in state socialism)? Why is it owned by the duke or baron (in feudalism)? If Lockean concepts of property make the most sense, why isn't it being applied as it is - that is - no one actually owns the land - we merely occupy that land, and do things on it and if those things result in something being made, we own what is made, but never the land?

                           1. Permalink

                              

                              Andrew Hack

                              Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                              "Free-market" refers to the markets being free from government interference and coercion.

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                                 Andrew Hack

                                 Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                 I think I'm going to disappoint you because I agree that land is a sticking point in the philosophy, or at least in as much as I have read and researched so far. It's sticky due to the fact that land is so finite. Wealth itself is not finite, but when you reduce the argument down to land then it is a finite resource. But not only is it a finite resource, but each piece of this resource is completely unique; no piece of land is identical. Some argue that it can only be 'owned' when it is being put…

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                                 I think I'm going to disappoint you because I agree that land is a sticking point in the philosophy, or at least in as much as I have read and researched so far. It's sticky due to the fact that land is so finite. Wealth itself is not finite, but when you reduce the argument down to land then it is a finite resource. But not only is it a finite resource, but each piece of this resource is completely unique; no piece of land is identical. Some argue that it can only be 'owned' when it is being put to productive use, but even that appears to me to be somewhat subjective. I think most libertarians adhere to 'first acquired' rule.

                                 It was a sticking point for me in my research into distributive justice last year because I could find no perfect answer. This year I delve into property law in much depth and I'm hoping I can find some nicer answers.

                                 I should note that capitalism is a big step up from feudalism because at least with capitalism one who holds title can sell the title (relatively) freely. Feudalism did not work this way.

                                 1. Permalink

                                    

                                    Michael James

                                    Student at Murdoch University (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                    Not Native Title holders, though - who can neither sell land nor use it as leverage to raise capital for business projects.

                                    1. Permalink

                                       

                                       Emma Anderson

                                       Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                       Touche, Michael.

                                       Also Andrew that's a limited point of view of liberty (I'm using it as a synonym for freedom at this point). Freedom from the state interference in economic matters. Ok, let's say that works in so far as the magical invisible hand of the economy waves it's wand and makes trade equal. Then some religious dogmatist comes in and says, "we'll fill the vaccuum - you Emma, Anitra and all the other broads - back in the kitchen, no more science and ideas trading for you". Suddenly…

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                                       Touche, Michael.

                                       Also Andrew that's a limited point of view of liberty (I'm using it as a synonym for freedom at this point). Freedom from the state interference in economic matters. Ok, let's say that works in so far as the magical invisible hand of the economy waves it's wand and makes trade equal. Then some religious dogmatist comes in and says, "we'll fill the vaccuum - you Emma, Anitra and all the other broads - back in the kitchen, no more science and ideas trading for you". Suddenly the social and the economic variables intersect.....even within a free market system of that definition. What then, are you going to say that in order to protect free markets the state would need to not interfere on economic matters, but restrict religious freedoms instead?

                                       As for the finiteness of land versus the infinity of abstractions like money. Well, once the land is all used up and all the melons eaten, there's only so long before the trading of the currencies becomes worthless and it all falls flat on its face. Hmm. Sounds familiar.

                                       Finiteness of resources, like the finiteness of being alive....that sounds like a more realistic idea to work with. Land is finite, people and melons are finite....why should money or anything else be treated as infinite?

                                       1. Permalink

                                          

                                          Andrew Hack

                                          Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                          Hi Emma,

                                          I'm not entirely sure I understand your first question. There may be some examples where pragmatically, it would make sense to have government involvement, albeit limited and at as local a level as is possible. But generally, I want to avoid it as much as possible especially where the involvement can be proven to make things worse, as is in most cases today.

                                          I cannot think of any examples where it would be proper for the government to involve itself in religious questions. Government…

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                                          Hi Emma,

                                          I'm not entirely sure I understand your first question. There may be some examples where pragmatically, it would make sense to have government involvement, albeit limited and at as local a level as is possible. But generally, I want to avoid it as much as possible especially where the involvement can be proven to make things worse, as is in most cases today.

                                          I cannot think of any examples where it would be proper for the government to involve itself in religious questions. Government should not restrict religious freedoms at all.

                                          One can always grow more melons. I don't see your point here? If your point is about over-consumption then over-consumption is mostly a product again of debt-based systems. The debt-based monetary system is largely inspired by Keynesian economics. It is based on a myriad of fallacies and falsehoods yet it is the dominating theory among pretty much all the worlds economic leaders. Keynes insisted that governments could and should borrow and borrow to the cows come home in order to (artificially) create demand. In reality it creates fake booms that eventually turn into busts as the economic bubble bursts. It does not properly allocates resources towards savings and production but instead encourages short-term consumption. It also adds to the amount owned to the bankers who lent that money.

                                          As I have described, it is a house of cards that inevitably must collapse. Interestingly, one of Keynes' most famous quotes when prompted about it, was that he responded by saying "in the end we are all dead".

                                          A friend of mine describes:
                                          "We live in a world where those who actually produce wealth are subsidising the parasites who sit around and shuffle abstract numbers."

                                          BTW - I didn't say money is infinite. I said that the amount of wealth an individual can produce is not finite in that same sense.

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                                             Emma Anderson

                                             Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                             To clarify my first question, I was pointing out that government regulation or legislative powers aren't limited to questions of economics. That rather, the role of the state has evolved through various historical manifestations, as a means of drawing lines in the sand about moral versus immoral conduct, usually in its definition of crimes and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and some of what is defined as crime and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, has a religious basis…

                                             show full comment

                                             To clarify my first question, I was pointing out that government regulation or legislative powers aren't limited to questions of economics. That rather, the role of the state has evolved through various historical manifestations, as a means of drawing lines in the sand about moral versus immoral conduct, usually in its definition of crimes and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and some of what is defined as crime and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, has a religious basis. But also, that government (ie the state) is not the only institutional power that impacts the culture, what is defined as crime, rights and responsibilities, and that subsequently, when the state is not deciding these, those institutions fill the power vacuum.

                                             My question, partly rhetorical, essentially asks that if achieving a free market requires non-interference from the state, then what do we do about these other institutional powers? It is clear to me that religious freedoms that some of these institutions seek to represent involve morals that result limiting some people from freely participating in the market. So to achieve the free market it might take limiting some of the powers of these institutions in limiting the rights of citizens to participate in that free market, which would be, in effect, asking the state to limit religious freedoms but not interfere on economic issues.

                                             So now that you answer that government restricting religious freedoms is not desirable, I am considering the possibility that there is a missing variable here in my analysis or yours. Do religious institutions really have the power to limit the economic freedoms of citizens in the market place? Why? We supposedly have equal opportunity laws / non discrimination laws, just as an example. But in Victoria, I am of the understanding that religious institutions can by pass these under circumstances that would limit their religious freedoms to discriminate, e.g not hiring gay people because homosexuality contravenes the religious codes. But this limits (in this case) the gay person's free participation in the market.

                                             So how to answer that question? Non interference in social AND (apologies no italics) economic matters on the part of the state? Then what is the state good for? What is it's purpose?

                                             And no, I disagree - one cannot always grow more melons. If one does not have the resources to grow melons, it does not happen. One can seek to improve resources, including technology, to grow melons, that is true. But these are also finite, and printing money doesn't change that. So whether you're looking at Keynesian or Monetarist (perhaps Freidman) or Smith or Marx or (pull other names out of hat) theories of economics, does it ever really answer the question of what role various institutions actually have in social and economic matters, and the inherent finiteness of resources?

                                             ""We live in a world where those who actually produce wealth are subsidising the parasites who sit around and shuffle abstract numbers."

                                             I agree with your friend. But I'm looking at Wall Street, Martin Place and Canberra when I'm thinking of it. I'm also considering that wealth and money are not the same thing and that people who produce social and environmental wealth are often described as parasites simply because their activities are not profitable in the culturally and legally sanctioned sense of the term.

                                             "BTW - I didn't say money is infinite. I said that the amount of wealth an individual can produce is not finite in that same sense."

                                             That clarifies your meaning, thanks for that. Nonetheless, it is still finite. How much value that wealth may subjectively be worth can seem infinite, although it's difficult to measure it with objective certainty. Like the millions of iterations of subjectively improved living that comes from things like ending apartheid and slavery, or the idea that a longevity is connected to happiness. I'm not saying that apartheid and slavery are good and longevity is bad. It's more the point that in this example, one finite actor (e.g. Martin Luther King) did something finite that appears to have infinite consequences, and we can measure some of these, but never be certain that, strictly speaking there was linear casuality between what MLK did and the consequences that we're measuring. So it seems infinite, but it probably isn't.

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                                       Andrew Hack

                                       Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                       Yep, I'd agree it is another issue.

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            Andrew Hack

            Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

            "a pretence by the Australian media that Julia Gillard must fall and a real (read “male”) leader take her place"

            I'm not quite sure that's true. I can certainly understand how you would interpret that; Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister had equally bad policy as Julia Gillard has. Most of their policies are actually identical.

            But no, I think it has less to do with gender but more to do with individuals on power trips vying for the top job. It is the worst thing about politicians; their prime concern is their career, reputation and ego. Democracy is supposed to harness that concern for good through the ballot box. Instilling fear into the MP that if he/she annoys his/her voters he/she will lose his/her job next election. The problem is with the process by which candidates are chosen by parties. The power resides in the Whips / caucus. Open primaries in the US allows Congress a bit more flexibility to vote their conscience on issues.

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   Troy Barry

   Mechanical Engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   I am not sure the internet can be relied on to facilitate the operation of a decapitalised world. A major international link like PPC-1 running from Sydney to Guam costs two hundred million dollars to construct and requires replacement every fifteen years. Most of the route runs through deep ocean so we probably can't just knock up some optical fibre in the shed, do our section and wait for the next village to carry on. On the other hand, a microchip fab plant costs over a billion dollars of concentrated resources to build - bit hard for a village to round up those resources by trading tomatoes - so we would have nothing to read the internet on anyway.

   I think a collectivised cash-free life could turn out to be an improvement, but the level of technology will be Amish at best and probably far, far lower as even basic raw material minerals like iron and copper cannot be shifted to points of demand.

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   Michael James

   Student at Murdoch University (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   It sounds lovely. But what do we do about stupid, ignorant and violent people. You know, the types that make one's children scared to play in the front yard because they and their friends take hammers and bats to neighbour's cars over some personal infraction. The type of people who smash bottles up the footpath for kids to pick their way through after they have got flat tyres on their bikes riding home from school. Or those who think that it is quite fine to let their big dogs roam the neighbourhood…

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   It sounds lovely. But what do we do about stupid, ignorant and violent people. You know, the types that make one's children scared to play in the front yard because they and their friends take hammers and bats to neighbour's cars over some personal infraction. The type of people who smash bottles up the footpath for kids to pick their way through after they have got flat tyres on their bikes riding home from school. Or those who think that it is quite fine to let their big dogs roam the neighbourhood. Will we get rid of the drug house a few doors up? Will it help the lady up the street to see that it is not okay to keep a dozen cats and let them out at night? Or my neighbour whose dog barks and barks and barks and the only way to engage with her about the problem is in court because she will not open her door to anybody since her house was ransacked and squatted by neighbourhood teenagers after she fled, we suspect, to escape domestic violence situation and now she has a child every eighteen months or so and is convinced that all her neighbours are plotting against her. Or the lady up the street who is lovely when her partner is in gaol but when he is released she must not take her medication regularly so screaming and yelling and crying in the street is twice weekly event and the police are up and down the street like it is just a regular cruise for them. And whenever the heavies walk up and down the street the cars have to move for them.
   Bags not being the one to knock on their door and ask if they are going to be growing the chickens for the co-op this year.
   And will the new world order help my other neighbour to buy a new battery for his car because I can only jump start him two or three times before I say "no".
   My point is that the suburbs are a battleground. We are all just shunted into our little slot, paying the mortgage that we could afford at the time. It is the family that is the basis of society, surely, not the people you happen to share a street with. It is a mistake to think of community as spacial, it is partly spacial, otherwise it is genetic and through marriage (or the modern equivalent thereof) and also of common values and ways of thinking.
   The trouble with the barking dog, for instance, if that was to be dealt with at a neighbourhood level I do not think there is any chance that justice will take place. The people whose children broke into the house may well be the loudest advocates for inappropriate sanctions against the (mentally ill) woman. For all the great ideas about decentralisation and all this, I just cannot see how it can end up in anyway other than rule of the strong over the weak. through threat, intimidation and numbers.
   Still, your book may be an inspirational read because the truth is that we all just have to get on. But I like having organisations like the council, the police, social and community services etc to call on. Having lived in remote Aboriginal communities, I do not share the same sense of romance about the collective or micro community, and I certainly appreciate the services that are available in the big city that are just not there in the country. Am not sure if the moneyless world will bring broadband internet to the street, though. 12 km from the Perth CBD and we still can't access ADSL broadband.
   Money or Muscle - it has to be one or the other in this world.

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      Emma Anderson

      Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

      All valid questions, Michael.

      When discussing human behavior it's important to acknowledge that it exists in a system of variables and that money is just one of those variables. So I tend to think that the idea that 'money is the source of all evil' is overly simplistic.

      Nonetheless, money is a huge part of the problem. Instead of developing social skills by sharing resources and instead of becoming a community by socialising, suburbia is a wasteland of people penned in little jail cells…

      show full comment

      All valid questions, Michael.

      When discussing human behavior it's important to acknowledge that it exists in a system of variables and that money is just one of those variables. So I tend to think that the idea that 'money is the source of all evil' is overly simplistic.

      Nonetheless, money is a huge part of the problem. Instead of developing social skills by sharing resources and instead of becoming a community by socialising, suburbia is a wasteland of people penned in little jail cells we will never truly own because 1) most of us rent 2) those of us that don't are in debt to do so 3) underneath all that, the queen supposedly owns the land anyway. We spend our days attempting to accumulate fiscal power to overcome or at least survive this battle. Money for the home, then food, and for goodness sake, several hundred dollars for a decent set of noise cancelling headphones. Then there is the issue of community violence and vigil antism. If you were to say, take the matter into your own hands, not only would the problem not be resolved but you'd have the additional problem of the courts etc on your back for trying. So you can pay through the nose to deal with the issue in court with you as a complainant or yourself as a defendant, but either way, you pay through the nose. Thus what do people do instead? Internalise the stress? How so, booze, TV, etc, and then what, depression, diabetes, strokes? Vicious cycle - now you have to pay doctors for the priveledge of treatments for illnesses that may not have been prevented because you weren't rich enough to escape the stresses of suburbia in the first place.

      Hmmm....connect the dots? Is money not a common theme here?

      It won't stop the mentally ill woman from being mentally ill IF her mental illness is rooted in things that aren't connected to money, e.g. a gene she inherited. But if she had adequate access to health care (which people with mental illness don't as a rule of thumb) we could focus energy on that. We could find out that maybe that gene is being switched on by stress, so what is the source of stress? Ok now we don't have money we don't care that she can't pay to move house (away from the stress). We just help her move. Problem solved, right?

      As for barking dogs, the bane of all neighbourhoods, it is not uncommon for this to occur most often when the dogs are restricted to a small space and the owners are not home. Where are they? At the pub drinking to their sorrows after working all day (or struggling to find work, for example)? If home was a pleasant place, maybe they'd stay there more often and the dogs wouldn't bark.

      Then there's the kids. Well, kids are almost entirely products of their environment. They're still developing the tools that enable them to make the decisions adults can make. That's what makes them kids. So change their environment and most of the time, the kids will change too. Other cases - they're sick, and once again, if their parents and neighbours aren't too busy panicking over money, they may be able to access help.

      Just a thought.

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         Anitra Nelson

         (Associate Professor, School of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at RMIT University)

         We certainly do not think that a society where money is no longer the operating principle will be problem-free. As you've pointed out, many problems are caused by human beings. However, we do see that under current monetary structures social and environmental values are neglected, contorted and/or damaged. This can promote bad behaviour. Our book doesn't just criticize the current system, which is so dependent on monetary power, values and relationships, but also offers examples and ideas for ways society could operate without money. One example of a small relatively self-sufficient community that we have a chapter on in our book is Twin Oaks (http://www.twinoaks.org/). However, we don't think that people need to live collectively like this. We offer a model based on households, which might be family-based or simply joint households where the wider neighbourhood is the economic unit.

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            Michael James

            Student at Murdoch University (logged in via email @gmail.com)

            Thanks for that link to Twin Oaks, Anitra. I must say that when I read Walden Two a few years back it was like reading about a nightmare. I note that Twin Oaks no longer a behaviourist community. Skinner was never my favourite theorist. But the key thing that comes from all of these intentional type community literatures - and also was a mainstay of the forest non violent direct action movement in the nineties, at least - was the commitment to communication. Honest and open communication. And active…

            show full comment

            Thanks for that link to Twin Oaks, Anitra. I must say that when I read Walden Two a few years back it was like reading about a nightmare. I note that Twin Oaks no longer a behaviourist community. Skinner was never my favourite theorist. But the key thing that comes from all of these intentional type community literatures - and also was a mainstay of the forest non violent direct action movement in the nineties, at least - was the commitment to communication. Honest and open communication. And active listening.
            The truth is that this is hard and requires an openness to be wrong.
            I don't mean to give my street a bad rap because I love sitting out under the eaves and watching the world go by - even the fights - but I was listening to one of the mad people and her friend having an argument at about 3:30 the other morning walking down to one of her "mutual support havens" in the next street. They were arguing about something and this busted face scary as heck woman decided that she was going to call in her debt from her friend. As I listened in that half awake state where your mind is filtering things in a different way I was blown away by the gentle but very assertive way this woman was communicating her position and her personal boundaries. I don't mean to get all bolshie or anything, but there I lay, with degrees and diplomas and letters after my name there in my dream state and thought. Gee, I wish I could communicate that simply and assertively - and politely instead of wrapping things up in a million words.
            Communication - it always seems to come back to that. And patience.

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               Emma Anderson

               Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

               I think I know what you mean Michael. I often wish to master brevity, sometimes it seems as though speaking too much achieves little, but not speaking enough can also lead to communication breakdowns. Conversations aren't essays! But essays are communications too...note, Anitra, my observations in that commentary were generalised, not specific to your article, but mostly replied to Michael, though the context suggested otherwise....so thank you for clarifying...

               I was just reading the draft…

               show full comment

               I think I know what you mean Michael. I often wish to master brevity, sometimes it seems as though speaking too much achieves little, but not speaking enough can also lead to communication breakdowns. Conversations aren't essays! But essays are communications too...note, Anitra, my observations in that commentary were generalised, not specific to your article, but mostly replied to Michael, though the context suggested otherwise....so thank you for clarifying...

               I was just reading the draft pdf for a group that appears to have been formerly known as Occupy Mental Health. They appear to be associated with the Icarus project.
               http://mindfuloccupation.org/?page_id=55

               Communication appears to be a skill Occup-iers are seeking to develop. Might be worth a read. Also if you're up for it, it might be worth sending them a few dollars through their kickstarter project. They seem genuinely interested in helping people at the front lines, and I would anticipate that this resource is going to be handy in that situation.

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   John Harland

   bicycle technician (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   To clarify that:

   Beyond group sizes of about 150 people we want prompt and precise repayment of favours, so we don't have to carry them in memory.

   Money is very useful in this context. It is a single value computation rather than the double computation that we might see as implicit in barter.

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   John Harland

   bicycle technician (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   It is important not to blame the tool for its usage.

   The bicycle has been used for terrorism and war. There are people trying very hard to make it a fashion item to be discarded after brief usage. Yet some of us persist in promoting its usage for local transport. It remains a useful tool, despite its abuse by some people.

   Money is a useful tool, as well, particularly for breaking down the power relationships inherent in "charity" and feudalism. Through allowing people to pay, we accord them an equality in the relationship.

   How well that works depends on things like pricing strategies and so other policy tools, but that is precisely the point with the misuse or abuse of money as well. It centres on how we use it.

   Money can be used to build up power, or to break it down. Does this make it inherently good, or bad?

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   Peter Davies

   Bio-refinery technology developer (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   Interesting article. One of the issues that concern us is the increasing dependence on large, remote. corporate s for supply of appropriate technologies and equipment we as a individuals come to depend on. Of course this is the aim as part of consumption based marketing strategy, but does it need to be ours? What happens when this involves essential medicines or goods and services that are suddenly cut off, either as a tool of control of some despot or the result of some widespread war or natural disaster?

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   Anitra Nelson

   (Associate Professor, School of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at RMIT University)

   A 'major international link like PPC-1 running from Sydney to Guam' and microchip fabrication plant are both built by people using the earth's resources. They are not built by money per se. We're not suggesting barter nor 'going back' to village-life but rather vastly improving sufficiency in neighbourhoods and employing compacts (agreements between people) instead of contracts to arrange production and exchange. None of what we suggest precludes large or complex industrial processes though we would…

   show full comment

   A 'major international link like PPC-1 running from Sydney to Guam' and microchip fabrication plant are both built by people using the earth's resources. They are not built by money per se. We're not suggesting barter nor 'going back' to village-life but rather vastly improving sufficiency in neighbourhoods and employing compacts (agreements between people) instead of contracts to arrange production and exchange. None of what we suggest precludes large or complex industrial processes though we would want to minimise all kinds of output to what was necessary and employ appropriate technologies. Interestingly some of the strongest proponents of a money-free world e.g. Demonetize it! (see http://demonetize.it/) argue that the digital-internet world is streets ahead of other sectors in terms of potential in this area (e.g. creative commons etc.) though we have had debates with them over the material infrastructure elements you raise too. Our visions and strategies exist most strongly in the economic democracy realm and rely on people having a direct say on what, how and for whom things are produced. We see money as deficient in terms of its organisational functions. We are not against inventions and discoveries, just in giving people power over what is applied to do what, when and where. Making a direct leap is impossible in many circumstances so hybrid forms, say cooperatives in terms of large industry (as in Mondragon) slowly devolving power to consumers as well as consumers would be one way to go.

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      Andrew Hack

      Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

      Anitra,

      There is no better way at giving the individual choice than through free-market capitalism. There is no better way to empower consumers than by giving them the free choice where to spend the fruits of their labour.

      I could detail it further myself but honestly I think Daniel Hannan has done a far better job than I could here:

      http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100131209/capitalism-isnt-immoral-its-the-most-virtuous-system-on-the-market/

      Andrew

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         Anitra Nelson

         (Associate Professor, School of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at RMIT University)

         If you have no, or not enough money, you can't buy. The issue I'm raising is one of social justice not individual choice. But, if I do turn to individual choice, wouldn't I be more likely to get what I want (or understand why I can't) if I have a direct say in decisions on production. In our society and free-market capitalism only capitalists decide what to make and, therefore, you can only select what you want from a limited choice of products and services.

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            Andrew Hack

            Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

            Absolutely not. Producers do not decide what to produce more than their consumers. Ever heard the famous line "the customer is always right"? Producers are after the money of their customers and as long as that is how it works the producer needs to satisfy the needs of the customer in order for that to occur.

            The business people are the experts in how to achieve that. Business people who are not very successful tend to go bust.

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               Tim Niven

               Unspecified (logged in via email @yahoo.com.au)

               No, it's clearly both that go into it.

               If I build a product that literally smells like faeces nobody will buy it - except a few special people, perhaps - so obviously there is an important sense in which you are correct, Andrew.

               However, billions of dollars would not be spent every year manipulating consumers into buying what is produced if it weren't effective. But also, don't take my word for it, just read the literature of the industry (i.e. aimed at an industry audience, not the rabble…

               show full comment

               No, it's clearly both that go into it.

               If I build a product that literally smells like faeces nobody will buy it - except a few special people, perhaps - so obviously there is an important sense in which you are correct, Andrew.

               However, billions of dollars would not be spent every year manipulating consumers into buying what is produced if it weren't effective. But also, don't take my word for it, just read the literature of the industry (i.e. aimed at an industry audience, not the rabble) - they're refreshingly frank and honest. Edward Bernay's (godfather of the PR industry) classic work titled "Propaganda" is an excellent example - he brags about conflating women's liberation with smoking and getting an entire generation of women hooked. You can argue over the extent to which propaganda (i.e. PR and advertising) "caused" this, but there is no arguing the facts of their intent, the operative assumptions of their activities, and how much money is spent on it.

               Also, preferences don't exist in a vacuum which are then brought to market and magically satisfied. It's far more complex than that - e.g., see above paragraph.

               Also, as Anitra has said, since people have a disproportionate share of money, they have a disproportionate share in "voting" with their money for what is produced. When "one person, one vote" becomes "one dollar, one vote" - that's hardly a "free democracy" I'd vote for or freely choose to be a part of.

               Market power also often ends up being monoploy power. Consider a situation I've personally seen where a customer can get a better deal with company A, but company B with whom they are currently get wind of that deal, and because of their power place a call to company C who were going to do the deal, and threaten them with withdrawing other business if they go through with the deal. In this situation, just by virtue of their position in teh market, company B does what's WORST for the customer. The "product" (or service in this case) is no longer on offer, the customer can't get it. Only in a fantasy world would this type of thing not occur.

               To ignore power is foolishly naive.

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                  Andrew Hack

                  Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                  Hi Tim,

                  Yes that's true. The producer can always choose whether to do one thing or the other but in business, generally speaking, those decisions are made under the pretext of making the customer happy.

                  Propaganda is churned out by the government machine just the same, actually I think far worse. The law should prohibit people from making false claims deliberately. The law should also exist to remedy civil wrongs. Persuading or convincing people should be allowed.

                  Consider though, that there…

                  show full comment

                  Hi Tim,

                  Yes that's true. The producer can always choose whether to do one thing or the other but in business, generally speaking, those decisions are made under the pretext of making the customer happy.

                  Propaganda is churned out by the government machine just the same, actually I think far worse. The law should prohibit people from making false claims deliberately. The law should also exist to remedy civil wrongs. Persuading or convincing people should be allowed.

                  Consider though, that there are free-market alternatives such as Choice who publish a magazine as an independent reviewer of products.

                  I accept that life is not fair. There is no system that can determine 'fairness' and distribute accordingly as fairness is incredibly subjective. Being envious of money is very debilitating. It is impossible for any person or even group of persons to get together to decide how wealth should be distributed. That is a great power for anyone to have. Democracy is very overrated in this sense because democracy only satisfies the majority and forgets the minority. Democracy is used for government because government implements laws, schemes and systems that affect everyone. What I am talking about is a system by which the individual is his/her own governor. He or she works as hard as they wish and decides how they spend the fruits of their labour accordingly.

                  Wealth is not a finite thing. There is no set amount of wealth that exists within a society. Everyone has the opportunity to be more productive and thereby create more wealth. So I don't view the 'rich' as having plundered the 'poor' as do the Marxists. Marxists think that value is directly related to the amount of labour a worker works. This is so obviously false because someone who creates something by hand that a machine can do with ease has not created an equal value in production given the same amount of hours.

                  As for monopolies, they are the product of government interference. It was true in medieval times where 'guilds' were used to prohibit competition and it is true today with government-run monopolies, monopolies through government subsidies and monopolies that exist because competition is regulated out of existence. In a free-market situation the producers must keep their costs low otherwise competition will spring up and undercut them.

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                     Tim Niven

                     Unspecified (logged in via email @yahoo.com.au)

                     Hi Andrew,

                     I genuinely appreciate the integrity of your position, it's relatively uncommon in my experience to meet a free-market libertarian who is prepared to admit they're not interested in democracy.

                     I do believe that is where we part ways in value terms. Certainly, I wouldn't know where to begin with my disagreement in re just about every other point there! I fear it would take us quite far afield - the main point I wanted to establish here was that consumers are not sovereign in the…

                     show full comment

                     Hi Andrew,

                     I genuinely appreciate the integrity of your position, it's relatively uncommon in my experience to meet a free-market libertarian who is prepared to admit they're not interested in democracy.

                     I do believe that is where we part ways in value terms. Certainly, I wouldn't know where to begin with my disagreement in re just about every other point there! I fear it would take us quite far afield - the main point I wanted to establish here was that consumers are not sovereign in the oversimplified manner neoclassical economists seem to think. This is even more striking if you consider the "labour market." In fact, some time ago I was surprised to have a discussion with a Treasury economist who conceded this point - people have little choice as regards how many hours they work, under what conditions, etc. And that's not just the result of "regulation". In the many corporations in which I've worked, the only people that could negotiate "flexible" hours and the like were the privileged - us low-downs had no say in anything, no choices but to take what we're given and follow orders. Or someone else can do what's asked - we're replaceable. I tried to negotiate better conditions, but I had no chance - they weren't just going to give it to me, I had no power, they had all the power. So I took what I was given and dutifully did my part without grumbling, of course, like everyone else - but this is a totalitarian institution. Indeed I remember a microeconomics textbook, the author compares the market to the firm: the firm is the polar opposite of the market - heirarchy, command. But I fear it is my turn to take us further afield than intended with those points...

                     Cheers.

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                        Andrew Hack

                        Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                        Hi Tim,

                        I think you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my comments.

                        I was stating that democracy is not without flaws. Democracy makes 51% of the people happy but will ignore the other 49%. When it comes to governmental issues there is no better system devised for choosing leaders and deciding on issues. But this should be for issues that effect everyone and where government involvement is necessary. For example, policing and national defense.

                        I've recently had the pleasure of…

                        show full comment

                        Hi Tim,

                        I think you're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my comments.

                        I was stating that democracy is not without flaws. Democracy makes 51% of the people happy but will ignore the other 49%. When it comes to governmental issues there is no better system devised for choosing leaders and deciding on issues. But this should be for issues that effect everyone and where government involvement is necessary. For example, policing and national defense.

                        I've recently had the pleasure of seeing Daniel Hannan MEP give a talk earlier this week. He is a large advocate of the 'direct democracy' movement in Britain which are trying to implement policies through which to shift power in the governmental machinery 'downwards and outwards' as he would term it. To give you an example, rather than having the police force run from a top-down bureaucracy, have locally elected Sheriffs that determine things such as budgets and prioritize crimes based on popular opinion. This 'localism' is one way of partly getting around the issues of the minority of democracy. It is something that libertarians support in general.

                        But for the most part, libertarians want powers and decisions to be dispersed even more widely; namely to the individual. Each person should be the leader of their own life and take personal responsibility for it.

                        1. Permalink

                           

                           Tim Niven

                           Unspecified (logged in via email @yahoo.com.au)

                           In fact, I'm quite sympathetic to what you're saying there - but unable to see it amounts to anything whilst concentrated centres of power are left free to dominate, and therefore unable to see people would be able to take charge of their own lives - freedom is really for those with the power to act, which I certainly have never had in employment, for example. Which is far from a conception of "democracy" or free people managing their own affairs which I'm familiar with, or sympathetic to. But of course, "democracy" is a contested concept, so you are free to try and argue for any conception of it you like. But when it starts to look very unfamiliar, people might not think it's really "democracy" after all. Those poor minorities, the concentrated centres of economic power, remain the elephant in the room.

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                              Andrew Hack

                              Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                              A company is owned by an individual or a group of individuals who have the right to run it how they see fit. If you don't like how a company is run then you should be free to jump ship or start your own. You should not be impeded to do so by regulations designed for the purposes of preventing you from doing that.

                              If you don't have the capital required to do this, then you have to convince others who do to get together and do that.

                              More easily said than done, yes. But no other system than free-market capitalism has turned more people from 'working class citizens' into wealthy business owners.

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                                 Tim Niven

                                 Unspecified (logged in via email @yahoo.com.au)

                                 We're way tangential again, but I will note I DID jump ship, use my "freedom" to go to a "competitor" - which was exactly the same (they all are). Not only that, during the GFC the CEO stood in front of a mass of us employees and said, without batting an eyelid, without any hint of irony, that he had gotten together with other CEO's in teh industry and they agreed not to raise wages and poach each others workers in this uncertain time. I still cannot believe I was the only person looking around in disbelief who had to ask, "did he just say that?" Needless to say, there were plenty of bonuses handed out in the upper ranks that year (at least enough worth boasting about) despite the internal "PR", which stated there wouldn't be. All deserved, I'm sure, in this meritocracy of ours.

                                 Of course, once you "jump ship" enough times you get a reputation, employers don't look too fondly on that kind of thing... "Spotty work history", "probably unreliable", "do not employ".

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                                    Andrew Hack

                                    Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                    Sounds like you worked on Wall St.

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                                 Emma Anderson

                                 Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                 On the contrary, looking at the proportion of wealthy business owners compared to working class citizens, in the current structure, compared to fuedalism (lords versus serfs) the proportion is probably about the same.

                                 Indeed, with the advent of the permanency and ubiquity of the corporation it would seem that there is less stability and security in self employment as well. Rather than being an individual that can freely contract and negotiate terms, the self employed finds them self as a sub…

                                 show full comment

                                 On the contrary, looking at the proportion of wealthy business owners compared to working class citizens, in the current structure, compared to fuedalism (lords versus serfs) the proportion is probably about the same.

                                 Indeed, with the advent of the permanency and ubiquity of the corporation it would seem that there is less stability and security in self employment as well. Rather than being an individual that can freely contract and negotiate terms, the self employed finds them self as a sub contractor having terms dictated to them by larger companies. Similarly, disenfranchised workers find themselves being classified as self employed contractors by larger entities so those entities can avoid basic worker's entitlements (it's called sham contracting, I believe this was promoted under Workchoices and outlawed under the Fair Work Act, but still happens)

                                 And while this is all happening, the logic of reducing cost and avoiding the state regulation, is leading to corporations encouraging sham visas too - sorry, working visas - where foreign workers are temporarily relocated to our land of the Fair Go and paid under the table so that 1) those workers avoid the huge income tax they're charged 2) the employer pays less than minimum wage where they can get away with it and threatens the workers with deportation. All the while, other workers are kicking up a fuss about immigration 'taking our jobs' and having their own conditions reduced because the employers are getting it cheaper elsewhere, and they need to compete. But the rent, the bills, and everything else - prices go up and up. These businesses DON'T reduce their prices when their costs are reduced, but the working class citizen, well, they usually don't get to increase their prices (wages) when the costs are increased, not without a huge industrial battle and a lot of naming calling.

                                 I fail to see how the claim of free market capitalism reducing the imbalance is substantiated.

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                                    Andrew Hack

                                    Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                    It is true that socialists would prefer the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich. Margaret Thatcher's famous words when confronted by statistics that suggested the gap between the richest and the poorest had grown, despite the fact society as a whole was more wealthy and the standards of living of even those at the bottom had risen.

                                    If you look though, at industries run by hegemony of only a few large corporations, the reason for this is because they have struck favour with the government…

                                    show full comment

                                    It is true that socialists would prefer the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich. Margaret Thatcher's famous words when confronted by statistics that suggested the gap between the richest and the poorest had grown, despite the fact society as a whole was more wealthy and the standards of living of even those at the bottom had risen.

                                    If you look though, at industries run by hegemony of only a few large corporations, the reason for this is because they have struck favour with the government and are awarded subsidies or have successfully lobbied for special interest regulations to squeeze out competition.

                                    You discussed how it is difficult to start and run a business. I agree! It isn't easy and there are risks. That is the decision you as an individual must make if you are looking to go down that path.

                                    I think too often people are concerned about the employees and not much consideration is put into the employers' situation. Running a successful business is not an easy thing to do.

                                    Businesses who don't reduce their prices when their costs go down can only do this due to a lack of competition.

                                    Price increases are largely caused by inflation, taxation and regulation.

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                                       Emma Anderson

                                       Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                       How do you define those on the bottom? We've got a nearly 20 year life expectancy gap between the people who life span the average and those that don't. That kind of gap isn't a coincidence - it has causes.

                                       Similarly I have heard claims that the projected life expectancy of my generation (late X early Y) and the kids that came after me is lower than that of my grandparents generation, who were either born during or lived through world war two, among other things. I, who managed to be born during…

                                       show full comment

                                       How do you define those on the bottom? We've got a nearly 20 year life expectancy gap between the people who life span the average and those that don't. That kind of gap isn't a coincidence - it has causes.

                                       Similarly I have heard claims that the projected life expectancy of my generation (late X early Y) and the kids that came after me is lower than that of my grandparents generation, who were either born during or lived through world war two, among other things. I, who managed to be born during the computing revolution, with almost complete access to vaccination and education, and rights even my mother and her age group considers new, may not live as long as they, who had all manner of often fatal diseases and even went to war.

                                       Homelessness is on the increase AFAIK, not the decrease. Mental illness is on the increase, not the decrease. The economy is bigger but job security is lower. We've had scientists parading around the figures for global catastrophic climate change since before I was born, and yet, even as I myself approach an age when my grandparents became grandparents, this debate is still raging and hordes of kids are getting all sorts of diseases of 'advanced civility' cancers, respiratory disorders, diabetes...

                                       What kind of standard of living is it? When a person has to run from job to job and still not afford the rent. When there are oodles of young people who are asking themselves 'should I even bother to procreate?' because the world is so overpopulated and scare after scare and human generated threat after threat is injected into our skulls by the culture minute by minute.

                                       Live is hard, granted. Perfection isn't ever going to happen - it's a pipe dream. But, you know what, it was the hard work of creative people that gave people rights and the rest of us technology and medicine. It wasn't capitalism, it wasn't religion, and it wasn't any political theory I've heard of so far. People did that.

                                       So, I'm going to drop the remaining portion of my 'professionalism' and be completely blunt.

                                       Boo hoo, poor managers. Boo hoo, stuck in an ivory tower, not knowing any of the struggles the rest of the world face. Boo hoo, poor bosses at Foxconn. Boo hoo, Halliburton.

                                       Boo hoo, capitalism.

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                                          Andrew Hack

                                          Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                          Okay, so rather than doing something yourself about your own situation you expect others to do it for you. Makes sense.

                                          So life expectancy is really directly caused by the rich hogging all the wealth from the poor people, rather than being more to do with lifestyle choices.

                                          I hadn't realized that diabetes was actually a direct effect of free-market entrepreneurship. Here's me thinking that perhaps it was caused be excessive consumption of refined sugar and other unhealthy foods. How silly am…

                                          show full comment

                                          Okay, so rather than doing something yourself about your own situation you expect others to do it for you. Makes sense.

                                          So life expectancy is really directly caused by the rich hogging all the wealth from the poor people, rather than being more to do with lifestyle choices.

                                          I hadn't realized that diabetes was actually a direct effect of free-market entrepreneurship. Here's me thinking that perhaps it was caused be excessive consumption of refined sugar and other unhealthy foods. How silly am I?

                                          I also hadn't realized that cancer is all the fault of the greedy 1%. Again, I was misguided in my thought that it was largely caused by unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking. What a dill I am.

                                          How easy it is to blame 'capitalism' all through bizarre correlation without causation.

                                          And what an easy solution! I didn't realize that prosperity actually came from the pen of the legislature. Simply declare that everything should be a 'right'.

                                          Perhaps I'd better throw those economics textbooks out the window then?

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                                             Emma Anderson

                                             Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                             I take it you've never heard of epidemiology, systems theories, or a host of other concepts that relate to this.

                                             I take it you've never lived in a poor suburb or the middle of no where - limited by all options, often as a direct result of under investment by the 1%. Made poor through these actions, and then blamed for being poor. The intergenerational tendencies of these issues. The connection to gaps in wages and discrimination of various sorts.

                                             You probably don't realise what's in the…

                                             show full comment

                                             I take it you've never heard of epidemiology, systems theories, or a host of other concepts that relate to this.

                                             I take it you've never lived in a poor suburb or the middle of no where - limited by all options, often as a direct result of under investment by the 1%. Made poor through these actions, and then blamed for being poor. The intergenerational tendencies of these issues. The connection to gaps in wages and discrimination of various sorts.

                                             You probably don't realise what's in the food you eat, or that some illnesses aren't just caused by so called bad behaviour "fatty blaming" but also by environmental issues. For example, cancers seem to be higher in places were industrial zones are allowed to develop closer to schools and homes. Those homes somehow, by sheer coincidence, seem to usually be in poorer suburbs. The locals, with limited access to university level education, often working poor or entry level jobs, don't have a couple of grand to apply for some kind of injunction to these developments at the courts. They may not even know that the developments are happening until they're woken up at 3am by the stink.

                                             Look up coal seam gas for starters. Any mining town in Australia will be able to tell you of their weird cancers. Forget about the new techniques - we've got 150 year old mining towns with cancer problems as well. Directly as a result of industrialists taking short cuts. The well literally poisoned by greed - and who let's this happen? The governments, who make money off of it too.

                                             If you think that an economics textbook is enough to understand this situation, you're wrong. So don't throw the books out, read more widely. Think outside the box of the theories that are going to get you in good with the high paying bosses, and look at the broader reality. It doesn't say that socialism is the answer granted, but it does show that capitalism is a huge blight on this earth and we can do a lot better than it's narrow vision of profit above all else.

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                                                Andrew Hack

                                                Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                                                "The well literally poisoned by greed - and who let's this happen? The governments, who make money off of it too."

                                                So you agree with me then that the government is a main culprit here?

                                                What you keep describing here, time and time again, is not free-market capitalism. In free-market capitalism, the government exists to protect individual liberty and private property. Shockingly, we don't draw a line on environmental issues here. If you pollute your neighbour's property, then you should be liable for damages. In fact, the law should aim to prevent that from occurring in the first place.

                                                You're describing a situation where the government is in bed with big business. That is exactly what I've been banging on about here, as it is that which I see as being the source of the problems.

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                     Emma Anderson

                     Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                     As nice as it would be to be able to work 24 hours a day and be more productive than we already are, it would seem that the body would react with a certain amount of resentment and eventually go on permanent strike.

                     So production even on this level is finite. If wealth must be limited to production, it is also finite. And if it's limited to physical resources (like the land and what's in it or on it) these are also finite.

                     Wealth, either way, is finite.

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                        Andrew Hack

                        Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                        Value is not equal to the amount of labour you put in. You can be more productive through innovation and efficiency.

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                           Emma Anderson

                           Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                           And yet innovation and inefficiency that is not within the rubric of the status quo is often considered as unproductive and futile through hegemony and actively promoted as a form of ideological nonsense.

                           For example, gift economies. Who benefits everyone? Who profits? No one. It's innovative, it's efficient, but it's not the status quo, so apparently it's not the way to go.

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   Pieter van der Vegte

   Public Servant (logged in via email @gmail.com)

   While I commend you on releasing this book and would love to see this sort of economy brought into being, I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in the majority of the world coming to realise any time soon that it is probably the best way to tackle the upcoming resource crisis.
   A question - what do you think would motivate people to go down this track? I ask because I see the majority of people being motivated by fear mostly, seeking security in getting enough money to survive or getting more money…

   show full comment

   While I commend you on releasing this book and would love to see this sort of economy brought into being, I’m afraid I don’t have much faith in the majority of the world coming to realise any time soon that it is probably the best way to tackle the upcoming resource crisis.
   A question - what do you think would motivate people to go down this track? I ask because I see the majority of people being motivated by fear mostly, seeking security in getting enough money to survive or getting more money in order to feel materially comfortable. I don’t see enough people being motivated by idealism or the foresight that might come from reading about or learning about the issues you address in the book.
   Ok, maybe education is the key, but I venture that enough people are blinded by materialism and the myths of superficial happiness and security promoted by capitalism that it will take severe shortages of resources and a much higher level of unhappiness with the predominant economic model for the world to seriously seek such a big change.
   However it is great to have another resource in the promotion of the debate that we surely will have to engage more and more in as time goes by. I’m interested in buying this book to engage in more self-education and to prompt discussion with others.

9. Permalink

   

   Steven Shaw

   (logged in via Twitter)

   I've become concerned that articles at "The Conversation" are often politically biased. This article is an obvious case in point. The charter of "The Conversation" is supposed to rule out political bias: "Provide a fact-based and editorially-independent forum, free of commercial or political bias.".

   http://theconversation.edu.au/our_charter

   Some examples of bias. The article includes marxist class analysis. The book website promotes "non-market socialism" and includes references to marxist…

   show full comment

   I've become concerned that articles at "The Conversation" are often politically biased. This article is an obvious case in point. The charter of "The Conversation" is supposed to rule out political bias: "Provide a fact-based and editorially-independent forum, free of commercial or political bias.".

   http://theconversation.edu.au/our_charter

   Some examples of bias. The article includes marxist class analysis. The book website promotes "non-market socialism" and includes references to marxist literature. The book is published by PlutoPress, "Independent Progressive Publishing". The author also recommends another book published by PlutoPress called "The Future of Money" which is written by an economist with "a longstanding interest in alternative, green and feminist economics".

   http://www.greeneconomics.org.uk/page45.html

   This not all terrible in itself. I certainly don't think that a bunch of folks who want to create a commune/collective and use voluntary contracts are going to do much harm to the rest of society. It does, however, seem to be in violation of the charter (perhaps also in commercial bias since it is a book promotion).

   I would suggest keeping all the biased articles including this one but updating the charter to admit them. Or perhaps flag the biases articles to give a heads-up to readers like myself who have read the charter.

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      Andrew Hack

      Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

      There's no such thing as an unbiased article. Everyone has differing opinions and views. Even when simply publishing a list of facts, the sub-conscience will make the person word them in a way in that infers a particular point of view.

      The bulk (99%?) of articles with some relation to political issues come from a left-leaning persuasion. I think this to some degree reflects the near-monopoly the left have over universities and like institutions. It also could reflect the persuasion of the editors but I'm guessing it is a combination of the two.

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         Steven Shaw

         (logged in via Twitter)

         Andrew, I agree. That's why the charter needs updating. The overwhelming bias is somewhat surprising to me. How does it come to e that the left have a monopoly over the universities?

10. Permalink

    

    John Harland

    bicycle technician (logged in via email @gmail.com)

    This kind of thinking suffers the same basic flaw as Marxism.

    What works within a small community of fewer than about 150 people will seldom scale well to larger sizes. The Primitive Communist communities of Yorkshire could not scale to the size of Iron-Curtain nations.

    Within our circle of close acquaintances, deferred and staggered repayment of favours is part of the network of trust.

    However this requires a very high level of mental processing and is not workable above groups sizes of…

    show full comment

    This kind of thinking suffers the same basic flaw as Marxism.

    What works within a small community of fewer than about 150 people will seldom scale well to larger sizes. The Primitive Communist communities of Yorkshire could not scale to the size of Iron-Curtain nations.

    Within our circle of close acquaintances, deferred and staggered repayment of favours is part of the network of trust.

    However this requires a very high level of mental processing and is not workable above groups sizes of about 150 people. Beyond that, money is very convenient.

    The problem is not with the basic concept of money, It is how we abuse it, and the abstractions we make of it in our financial systems. Let's concentrate on those.

    It is important to understand that many of the abuses of money are protected or facilitated by our legal structures. They are not natural outcomes of the use of money. Even the basic idea of the joint-stock company is a legal concept heavily protected by regulatory frameworks.

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       Anitra Nelson

       (Associate Professor, School of Global Studies Social Science and Planning at RMIT University)

       If there's no basic problem with use of money why do you have trusted networks that don't use it?

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          Michael James

          Student at Murdoch University (logged in via email @gmail.com)

          Ideology, I would say. A concious decision to get rid of the coin as a reaction to the damage cause by love of said coin.

          What is the link, would people say, between the rise of this debt based capitalism readers are talking about and the Pope's decision in the middle ages to loosen up on the prohibition of money lending with interest?

          Also there is some stuff around about the Islamic principles of money lending. I believe (someone will surely expand on this or else correct me) there is a prohibition…

          show full comment

          Ideology, I would say. A concious decision to get rid of the coin as a reaction to the damage cause by love of said coin.

          What is the link, would people say, between the rise of this debt based capitalism readers are talking about and the Pope's decision in the middle ages to loosen up on the prohibition of money lending with interest?

          Also there is some stuff around about the Islamic principles of money lending. I believe (someone will surely expand on this or else correct me) there is a prohibition against making money off money. When you think about it - this was the cause of this GFC - all these derivative investments which were just numbers.

          Is it fair to say that the cult of consumption is quasi religious? Inflexible social order and communities bound by religious laws are a thing of the past in our society. People have aspirations now. They want to move up the socio economic scale. they look at the Joneses and want what they have and more. Take this away and what does it get replaced with - an inward looking cult? a new religion? What do we replace conspicuous consumption with?

          1. Permalink

             

             Andrew Hack

             Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

             And isn't it interesting that the Iranian constitution strictly forbids having a debt-based monetary system. *dons tinfoil hat*

             Interestingly enough, the Bible teaches that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. Usury is forbidden for the reasons I have outlined in that it is immoral; that it is theft. Money is used to store the value of someone's time. So by the theft of the money (regardless of direct or indirect) that is the person's time being stolen. If you make the link between money and time, you could also argue then that it is a form of slavery or dominion. And God says you cannot serve two masters.

             I'm trying to paraphrase a friend of mine to as studied this a lot, so I'm not sure if I'm making much sense...

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             Emma Anderson

             Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

             Interesting reflections.

             Maybe it's like gambling. Not much harm in sitting around the table playing poker or blackjack with your mates. But when you're living in front of a poker machine or black jack table while your family is being kicked out of the home because of mounting debts and the bank or landlord not getting it's payments, it's fair to say it's a problem.

             People would ban the pokies and the casinos because these exist for the express purpose of profiting off what is an addictive…

             show full comment

             Interesting reflections.

             Maybe it's like gambling. Not much harm in sitting around the table playing poker or blackjack with your mates. But when you're living in front of a poker machine or black jack table while your family is being kicked out of the home because of mounting debts and the bank or landlord not getting it's payments, it's fair to say it's a problem.

             People would ban the pokies and the casinos because these exist for the express purpose of profiting off what is an addictive behavior. Interesting, OWS is having a go at Wall Street for gambling with everyone's money - that's the point of Wall Street it seems - it's a casino. Every so often the little guy got a couple of extra dollars in super, or the floated dollar resulted in some increase in revenue that may have let the armed forces purchase a defunct helicopter (yes, I am being cynical but military spending seems to be given priority over things like rural and mental health and that is something to be concerned about in the context of social justice and why we pay taxes in the first place). So do we an elect a government that spends our money more wisely? Looks like (to the punters) that both horses in our allegedly two horse race are from the same stables, so what's the use? Besides, Wall Street is where the gambling is happening anyway.

             Michael seems to gets to a more social point of why Wall Street gamblers have an addiction and why we've been enabling that addiction. The cult of consumption. But what fuels the cult? The perceived need for continuous economic growth. If the economy isn't growing, more production, higher GDP, etc, it's panic stations on the TV and radio and the opposition and various interest groups start asking the government for answers. But why? If costs and income equal out to zero, that's not insolvency - that's actually the natural order of things. Death and life cancel each other out. Too much death and you get extinction (bankruptcy) and too much life and you get overpopulation which can also lead to extinction (growth exceeding resources).

             Be fruitful and multiply is most useful when the gene pool needs increasing. We're not at that point, so it's time for something new. Perhaps "Be useful and diversify" - renaissance logic - not everyone has to do the same job all the time or live the same life or fit into the same neat little categories. This doesn't work for most people it would seem, anyway, it's usually just heuristics. A measure of success not based on wealth or property. A measure of success based on the social and environmental usefulness and creativity a person contributes connected to their personal skills and abilities. The form that takes? Who cares - as long as it works.

             1. Permalink

                

                Andrew Hack

                Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                My understanding is that the Bible would consider gambling immoral as it is covetousness: "an envious eagerness to possess something."

                The consequences of this form of covetousness can be damaging not just to one's character, as other forms of envy would, but also directly financially.

                I think stock-brokering is largely close to gambling. Heck, the gambling industry uses similar language as well as developing products using similar techniques the stock-brokers use.

                The first major reason…

                show full comment

                My understanding is that the Bible would consider gambling immoral as it is covetousness: "an envious eagerness to possess something."

                The consequences of this form of covetousness can be damaging not just to one's character, as other forms of envy would, but also directly financially.

                I think stock-brokering is largely close to gambling. Heck, the gambling industry uses similar language as well as developing products using similar techniques the stock-brokers use.

                The first major reason I think is that very few people in the industry really understand the system and how it works. The majority of them have a brief education in Keynesian theory - which is defunct. See this video where Peter Schiff (who adheres to the Austrian school theory) tries in vain to warn of the coming collapse to unsympathetic players:
                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

                The other reason is that people have forgotten what the original purpose was. The purpose of investing in a company is to provide capital so as to grow the business. There are people (many of conservative/libertarian persuasion) who argue the system should be reformed so that the power is shifted from the executives and board directors to the shareholders, who are supposed to be the real owners.

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                   Emma Anderson

                   Independant Researcher and Artist (logged in via email @gmail.com)

                   In principle I agree with the shareholders supposed to be in charge. Under the following conditions, however

                   1. There is no majority shareholder. Ever.
                   2. Shareholders always include employees of the company and members of the community in which the company operates
                   3. Shareholders never include layer after layer of holding/subsidiary relationships. ie. Shareholders are actually human beings, not legal fictions of person hood.

                   Currently, this doesn't exist. Not in any meaningful fashion of any description.

                   Also, BoD members should only direct on one board at a time. There's too much collusion and conflict of interest in the current set up.

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       Andrew Hack

       Business Analyst and Full-Time Law Student UNDA (logged in via email @gmail.com)

       I think you've nailed it quite well, John.