If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

Capitalism is the greatest distributing force of wealth in the history of the world. Countless third-world nations have left poverty thanks to free trade. Regions of extreme scarcity are overwhelmingly ex-leftist and otherwise property-less African shitholes. Capitalism doesn't "need" competition, it creates competition, and scarcity is the primary thing that capitalism alleviates through competition. Everything you said is exactly wrong.

1. Creating and needing aren’t mutually exclusive.

2. Regions of scarcity may be locally ex-leftist, but the global axiomatic is capitalism. As soon as local regions attempt something other than free trade internally, they’re usually excluded from international trade internationally (or seriously disadvantaged by it).

3. Capitalism can alleviate scarcity, absolutely; but if it actually distributed its products evenly then it would leave little or no incentive for people to compete (hence why capitalism “needs” competition).

A lot of what you said is exactly right, but you’re assuming there’s a supreme universal perspective from which to interpret the situation. I’m telling you there isn’t. Capitalism is the greatest distributing force in the history of the world, and yet still promotes poverty, misery, and exclusion. It has to in order to survive.

 

[CiG]

 

[Dak]

We don’t think TANSTAAFL at all. We just think there’s plenty of resources to provide for everyone’s lunch.

The irony of late-stage capitalism is that we have pockets of enormous wealth, and disparate regions of extreme scarcity.

1
2. Regions of scarcity may be locally ex-leftist, but the global axiomatic is capitalism. As soon as local regions attempt something other than free trade internally, they’re usually excluded from international trade internationally (or seriously disadvantaged by it).

3. Capitalism can alleviate scarcity, absolutely; but if it actually distributed its products evenly then it would leave little or no incentive for people to compete (hence why capitalism “needs” competition).

A lot of what you said is exactly right, but you’re assuming there’s a supreme universal perspective from which to interpret the situation. I’m telling you there isn’t. Capitalism is the greatest distributing force in the history of the world, and yet still promotes poverty, misery, and exclusion. It has to in order to survive.

Terms like "wealth" and "resources" and "scarcity" are all being used in far too slippery ways here (and in most conversations that invoke these terms). When we talk about wealth, do we mean liquid money? Broad money? Are we including assets like buildings? What about services (human knowledge + labor)? When we mean resources are we talking about All of the above? Are we including untapped natural resources (which in this case we are also told by some progressives that using them is "raping the earth", and regardless of that, it definitely contributes to pollution)? By scarcity, are we referring to a lack of things provided only within a capitalist context? IE, smartphones were infinitely scarce pre-2007, so to blame capitalism for everyone on the planet not having a smartphone is ridiculous, but this is the same move made about everything constantly.

Capitalism also doesn't "do" anything. It's a system for relatively (but certainly not entirely) decentralized human economic activity. Referring back to the smartphone example, poverty, misery, and exclusion are the base states of nature:

While its true that the capitalist system won't distribute everything equally, the base state of poverty, misery, and exclusion across the globe is far, far higher than at any point in history, and continues to move in an upward trajectory. Internationally, regions of "scarcity" are only relatively so, and often areas with abundant natural resources. Within the US, regions of income "scarcity" have been created by taking low-mid IQ jobs from here, and putting them elsewhere: a net gain for the world but a loss for those persons in the US. This doesn't occur for "capitalism to survive." It occurs because of the regulatory environment and business competition.

Also an important point to add to the above graph: If you eliminated sub-Saharan Africa, it would drop all lines almost the rest of the way, despite tons of international aid and investment, and being rich in resources:

Which area has become more capitalist since 1981: East Asia/Pacific, or Sub-Saharan Africa? Which area has reduced poverty more?

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't think we can abolish it either. You turn to Hitchens, I turn to one of the most unabashed Marxists working today in academia, Steven Shaviro (edited for length):

In the Marxist tradition, economism [...] is the idea that progression from capitalism to communism is inevitable; or, in Konstantinou's words, that Marx's formulations are "literal predictions of the future." If this were the case, then all we would have to do is wait for the dialectical contradictions of capitalism to unfold. Of course, this has never happened. If we wait for the dialectical contradictions of capitalism to unfold on their own, we will find ourselves waiting forever. [...] We should rather say that, for Marx, the dictatorship of Capital is itself the realm of necessity; what's needed is somehow to get beyond it. Marx is notorious for only giving a vague sense of what life beyond the capitalist order would be like. He leaves it open as a realm for speculation, rather than giving detailed plans in the way that some of his "utopian socialist" predecessors did. [...]

Given the failure of economism, many Marxists have instead gone to the opposite extreme: they have embraced a kind of voluntarism. Capitalism can be abolished by sheer force of will--as long as this is supplemented by proper methods of organization and mobilization. We see this sort of approach in the Leninist doctrine of vanguard party, and also, I think, in the ultra-leftism of such contemporary thinkers as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou. But it seems obvious to me that, over the course of the twentieth century, the voluntaristic approach fared as badly as the fatalistic one. It resulted not in human emancipation but in the horrors of Stalinism, the sclerotic tyranny of the later USSR, and the deadly convulsions of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Today, Leninist voluntarism does not even give us that; all that remains is a fantasy of revolution, providing the basis for a self-congratulatory moralism.

In short, capitalism doesn't seem to want to go away. Shaviro has other ideas, namely accelerationism; but accelerationism is very much in league with varieties of capitalist theorizing.

Capitalism also doesn't "do" anything. It's a system for relatively (but certainly not entirely) decentralized human economic activity.

Then replace "do" with "facilitates," "mediates," "permits," or anything else. Of course, that's still doing something, if you want to get particular. As much as you might object to this, capitalism does do things--the same way an oven does something, or a refrigerator, or a car, or a book. These aren't sentient objects, but they have agency. They complete operations in a very literal sense.

As for your graphs, there's nothing in them I object to. Capitalism has created more wealth/access to resources, and reduced poverty more than any prior system ever. Given that, it should be even easier to alleviate the remaining occurrences of scarcity, whatever they may be.

 

[CiG]

@Einherjar86 Hoping you watched the video rather than judge it by its title, I wasn't turning to Peter Hitchens in lieu of giving my views on capitalism, he's not necessarily pro-capitalism, he just brings up an interesting anecdote from the days when he lived in Russia.

If I had to choose between an eternity of status quo free market capitalism and accelerationism I'd probably choose the latter fwiw.

@Dak I know you like some Yang, wondering how you feel about UBI as he supports it (1k a month iirc).

 

[Einherjar86]

@Einherjar86 Hoping you watched the video rather than judge it by its title, I wasn't turning to Peter Hitchens in lieu of giving my views on capitalism, he's not necessarily pro-capitalism, he just brings up an interesting anecdote from the days when he lived in Russia.

I'm sorry, I didn't; but I will. In a coffee house right now and no headphones, and I get self-conscious about listening to stuff on my computer speakers when in public place.

 

[CiG]

Totally understandable, and people who do that are cunts, especially if it's music.

 

[Dak]

In short, capitalism doesn't seem to want to go away. Shaviro has other ideas, namely accelerationism; but accelerationism is very much in league with varieties of capitalist theorizing.

Then replace "do" with "facilitates," "mediates," "permits," or anything else. Of course, that's still doing something, if you want to get particular. As much as you might object to this, capitalism does do things--the same way an oven does something, or a refrigerator, or a car, or a book. These aren't sentient objects, but they have agency. They complete operations in a very literal sense.

As for your graphs, there's nothing in them I object to. Capitalism has created more wealth/access to resources, and reduced poverty more than any prior system ever. Given that, it should be even easier to alleviate the remaining occurrences of scarcity, whatever they may be.

Said that way it seems like the problem is simply with the timeframe/speed of change, if we gloss over what is meant by terms such as scarcity, wealth, and resources. But these terms are important. We got here talking about illegal immigration. How does illegal immigration "rectify" problems of scarcity (however defined)? Why do the citizens of the United States have any duty to address problems of non-citizens over those of citizens?

The reason I press on what one means by wealth, scarcity etc is because we do not, in fact, have enough wealth to get everyone up to a level that would begin to assuage the average western progressive. Best estimates of global cash assets are around 5 trillion. Equally distribute that to 7 billion people, and everyone suddenly has around $700 dollars. That's not gonna do hardly anyone any good. If we include digitized representations of money (bank account balances), we can get it up to around 11k (but of course all that money isn't actually available). Briefly life changing for the poorest of the global poor, but that would barely get a single person through a year in the US even living in cheap places. And of course this is a one time leveling, not something we can do repeatedly. And what are people going to do with the 11k? It's not enough to generate more wealth for most. The entire global economy collapses. Now we are all equal.

Wealth creation has to be the primary focus, and rewarding those that can produce wealth. People with IQs below 85 are generally speaking, net destroyers/consumers of wealth. If you load a country up with a bunch of the latter eventually you will not have a functional/good economy.

@Dak I know you like some Yang, wondering how you feel about UBI as he supports it (1k a month iirc).

Yang is merely the best out of a bunch of bad options. I don't support UBI but it's better than the alternatives his primary opponents are offering. UBI definitely won't work if the border isn't secured. A bunch of <85 IQ non-English speakers will be lifelong wealth destroyers/consumers. Someone has to actually create wealth to cover their destructive existence.

 

[Dak]

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigra...ise-that-cheap-immigrant-labor-costs-us-a-lot

Right on cue from Ms Skeletor herself:

For every dollar illegal immigrants pay in taxes — fees, Social Security withholding taxes, fuel surcharges, sales and property taxes — they collect $7 in government benefits: schooling, English-as-a-second-language classes, hospital costs, school lunch programs, Medicaid births, police resources and so on.

Wealth destruction.

 

[Einherjar86]

Said that way it seems like the problem is simply with the timeframe/speed of change, if we gloss over what is meant by terms such as scarcity, wealth, and resources. But these terms are important. We got here talking about illegal immigration. How does illegal immigration "rectify" problems of scarcity (however defined)? Why do the citizens of the United States have any duty to address problems of non-citizens over those of citizens?

In all fairness, we got here because you said that what distinguishes progressives from conservatives is that progressives don't understand that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I was responding to that accusation, which I find to be an inaccurate cliche. I think it's a routine misunderstanding on the part of those who criticize progressives that they (i.e. progressives) believe something can come from nothing.

The reason I press on what one means by wealth, scarcity etc is because we do not, in fact, have enough wealth to get everyone up to a level that would begin to assuage the average western progressive. Best estimates of global cash assets are around 5 trillion. Equally distribute that to 7 billion people, and everyone suddenly has around $700 dollars. That's not gonna do hardly anyone any good.

This is a critique founded on a straw man version of what I'm saying. Even granting the slipperiness of terms like wealth and scarcity, I don't see how this comment is really significant to the argument.

First of all, what exactly do you mean by assuaging the average Western progressive? Do you mean we don't have enough wealth for everyone to enjoy the standard of living that the average Western progressive enjoys? Even if that's true (and I'm not saying it isn't), that isn't what we need to do in order to "assuage the average Western progressive." All progressives want is what I would call a primer, a starter pack, a rainy day fund. The argument isn't for everyone on the planet to be able to afford a New Yorker subscription, gym membership, and buy kombucha on a regular basis.

Not everyone on the planet needs to have wealth distributed to them. In fact, the vast majority of people don't need it. I don't need it. But I'm perfectly happy to devote a small percentage of my income to ameliorating the circumstances of that vastly small portion of people who do need it, for emergency health care, for food when they don't have any, for access to a bed with a roof over it. Those who make more than I do can devote a slightly larger percentage, and so on. There is more than enough wealth to achieve that.

Also, I'm not saying that America should be responsible for the world's poverty. Asian nations have money. European nations have money. If we're imagining this on a global scale, it's not solely America's responsibility (but I'm an American, and I speak for my country--not others). As for how all this relates to immigration, those coming to American are those who need health care, food, and shelter. I don't think it should be a free-for-all, let everyone in and say that's that. I think the world can afford a concerted effort to address these issues rather than put locks on the gates.

I find it incredible that capitalism has created so much prosperity for so many people, and yet systematically diverts prosperity from a small portion of the world's population. But again, this is why I said earlier that capitalism continues to create scarcity in order to promote competition--to create the incentive to compete. It needs to in order to survive (yes, I'm personifying capitalism).

 

[CiG]

The argument isn't for everyone on the planet to be able to afford a New Yorker subscription, gym membership, and buy kombucha on a regular basis.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

apparently Allison Mack was involved in the NXIVM sex-cult-thing

allison mack - Google Search

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

oh fucking hell

Trump on PTSD: Some veterans aren’t strong enough to ‘handle it’

 

[CiG]

 

[arg]

 

[Dak]

In all fairness, we got here because you said that what distinguishes progressives from conservatives is that progressives don't understand that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I was responding to that accusation, which I find to be an inaccurate cliche. I think it's a routine misunderstanding on the part of those who criticize progressives that they (i.e. progressives) believe something can come from nothing.

This is a critique founded on a straw man version of what I'm saying. Even granting the slipperiness of terms like wealth and scarcity, I don't see how this comment is really significant to the argument.

First of all, what exactly do you mean by assuaging the average Western progressive? Do you mean we don't have enough wealth for everyone to enjoy the standard of living that the average Western progressive enjoys? Even if that's true (and I'm not saying it isn't), that isn't what we need to do in order to "assuage the average Western progressive." All progressives want is what I would call a primer, a starter pack, a rainy day fund. The argument isn't for everyone on the planet to be able to afford a New Yorker subscription, gym membership, and buy kombucha on a regular basis.

Not everyone on the planet needs to have wealth distributed to them. In fact, the vast majority of people don't need it. I don't need it. But I'm perfectly happy to devote a small percentage of my income to ameliorating the circumstances of that vastly small portion of people who do need it, for emergency health care, for food when they don't have any, for access to a bed with a roof over it. Those who make more than I do can devote a slightly larger percentage, and so on. There is more than enough wealth to achieve that.

Also, I'm not saying that America should be responsible for the world's poverty. Asian nations have money. European nations have money. If we're imagining this on a global scale, it's not solely America's responsibility (but I'm an American, and I speak for my country--not others). As for how all this relates to immigration, those coming to American are those who need health care, food, and shelter. I don't think it should be a free-for-all, let everyone in and say that's that. I think the world can afford a concerted effort to address these issues rather than put locks on the gates.

I find it incredible that capitalism has created so much prosperity for so many people, and yet systematically diverts prosperity from a small portion of the world's population. But again, this is why I said earlier that capitalism continues to create scarcity in order to promote competition--to create the incentive to compete. It needs to in order to survive (yes, I'm personifying capitalism).

You can't accuse me of strawmanning when I'm providing numbers for at least some sort of policy and you aren't. It does seem reasonable to want a "rainy day fund". But at what size? For who? Why? For how long? How is it paid for? Beyond a rainy day fund, there are people who must be cared for cradle to grave in some if not all capacities due to either unfortunate birth/developmental problems, some tragedy that befalls them, or through their own stupid mistakes. Invoking "starter packs" or "rainy day" funds speaks to the idea that we are just helping people through or out of a rough patch. Social Security? Not a rough patch. Disability? Not a rough patch. Federal housing? Childcare/Education? Not a rough patch. Food stamps/welfare not a rough patch for many. Then we pull in illegal immigrants. Not a rough patch. There's a dollar amount on every head, and those dollars have to come from somewhere. You're fine with paying a percentage of your income: How many illegals can your percentage pay for? I guarantee you not one per year (particularly as a student, but that's kind of cheating on my part). How about the permanent indigent citizen? Not even one per year. Guess how much it costs for inpatient psych care (at least in my state)? $1800 per day. And that's the rough patch. For many/most, the "not rough patch" are group homes and assisted living facilities, which are still hundreds per day. Of course, these are the seriously mentally ill/intellectually disabled, and doesn't begin to address the larger cost of the permanent slum classes or the trailer park trash on the dole.

Going back to illegals, the estimates provided in the Coulter article put the cost between 115ish and 345ish billion annually. Splitting the difference is 230ish billion. Splitting that amongst the approximately 100 million Americans that pay any amount of income taxes places the dispersed cost per taxpayer at approximately 2300 per year. Each illegal costs more than 11,000 per year (not counting the costs of border enforcement), so it takes approximately 5 of the averaged tax payer to pay for one illegal - and all that money is not going to other services for citizens.

Show me some numbers that supports the statements that "we can afford", "capitalism can afford", "the world can afford." Program costs and sources of payment. Otherwise these are statements of blind faith, not statements of fact. I actually don't expect you to have the time to do so, because the problem is massive and complex and you have a different job, but you should be far less sure of yourself on these matters.

 

[Dak]

https://twitter.com/AnnCoulter/status/1143191942131593217

Number of American civilians killed in the last decade by Latin Americans: More than 10,000.

Number of American civilians killed by Iranians in the last decade: Less than 5, probably 0.

Number of US Military deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan in 18 years of fighting: ~7,000. Yes, military with permissive ROE on the border. No to more war in the Middle East.

 

[Einherjar86]

You can't accuse me of strawmanning when I'm providing numbers for at least some sort of policy and you aren't.

Yes I can. You treat numbers like some kind of secret weapon: "Kill it with numbers!" Numbers don't absolve you of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I'm saying.

Show me some numbers that supports the statements that "we can afford", "capitalism can afford", "the world can afford." Program costs and sources of payment. Otherwise these are statements of blind faith, not statements of fact. I actually don't expect you to have the time to do so, because the problem is massive and complex and you have a different job, but you should be far less sure of yourself on these matters.

You're right, I don't really have time. But I'm pretty sure if those above the global poverty line donated %0.33 of their income, we could ensure that those living on <$1.90 (the global poverty line) per day were given ~5$ per day. That sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Dak]

Yes I can. You treat numbers like some kind of secret weapon: "Kill it with numbers!" Numbers don't absolve you of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I'm saying.

I hate to quote the stupid neocon midget but "facts don't care about your feelings."

You're right, I don't really have time. But I'm pretty sure if those above the global poverty line donated %0.33 of their income, we could ensure that those living on <$1.90 (the global poverty line) per day were given ~5$ per day. That sounds reasonable to me.

That does indeed sound reasonable. I'm down to lock the gates in the US, kick out everyone on any government welfare program, and donate .33% of my income to the world poor even at my current student scholarship income.

 

[Einherjar86]

I hate to quote the stupid neocon midget but "facts don't care about your feelings.”

Nope, but they care about context and relevance. You can ask me for numbers on whether we can afford to lift the global poor above the poverty line, and I can tell you the sun is 93 million miles from earth. That fact doesn’t care about your feelings either, but it doesn’t do me much good.