*bump*

is there a happy middle

I am interested to see the comments here.  I like your comparison, and want to see how some of the resident socialists will respond.

i could back universal health care if it didn't take away any choices.

Another good example comes two of my National Guard units.

In one unit (19th Special Forces Group), the chow was great.  The Mess Sergeant and the cooks worked hard to give us meals we would enjoy.  We all ate at that chow hall... we even looked forward to our meals there.

In another unit (144th Combat Support Hospital), the food was terrible.  The Mess Sergeant and cooks felt like all they had to do was cook the food and serve it... and that's all they accomplished.

Both units had the same food budget, both Mess Sergeants had access to the same quality and variety of food.

The Mess Sergeant at the hospital unit complained to the Sergeant Major that he and his cooks worked all day to provide meals for the unit, but only a handful of troops bothered showing up to eat.  Instead most of us were willing to pay for food at restaurants, or even bring a sack lunch from home.

Instead of chewing out the whiny Mess Sergeant for his substandard leadership and piss poor attitude, the Sergeant Major showed up at our next formation.  He gave us all a big lecture on the importance of supporting our mess section and reminded us that there might be a day when we didn't have restaurants a few blocks away.  He then read an order from the unit commander stating that none of us were excused from the armory for lunch.

I'm sure the very idea of having to be ordered to eat at the armory would have been a foreign concept at the 19th Group chow hall.

Force is the only way macrosocialism can exist.  The only reason microsocialism works is everyone who participates can choose to leave if they want.

Good concepts for both communities. I however would like to put forward my version (dons flame shield

If community A were complete socialism with no market of any kind, yes you could definitely run into the shovel-leaner syndrome.

However, for community B you would ultimately run into the same scenario that we see in small towns all across north America....  a small number of individuals, say a dozen or so families meet with success and essentially take over the town. While there may be many enterprising individuals in the beginning with great ideas and plenty of motivation, most of them WILL not succeed. This is supported by numbers in the real world- the majority of small businesses go belly-up within two years. Ultimately there will be this relatively small group of winners that end up owning most of the substantial businesses, and with the profits from that they eventually get into the real estate market (unless that's where they started in the first place) and end up purchasing apartment buildings and houses, which they then rent out to the people working for them in their businesses. This is the fait d'acompli for them as now their money is largely recycled through their employees. This mini-dynasty creation doesn't happen all at once, it is a gradual thing that takes place over a period of years. There is nothing unnatural about this, we see it time and again in nature... there always ends up being a top dog or alpha male that ends up running the pack and calling the shots.

So, at the end of the day you have a group of a dozen or so families that effectively run the town, even if they aren't on council or have the mayorship (which one or two of them probably will) But they're undoubtedly all members of the chamber of commerce and respectable social vehicles like the rotary club, knights of columbus or whatever the town may have. What this means is they're in the best position- because they own most of the business and are the largest providers of employment and tax revenue (which they always take the opportunity to remind the town just how much they are needed for that tax revenue) They essentially rule the roost, and can do so because it is in their best interest to stay in solidarity with each other and on any issues that come up.

If papa Joe wants to open up a walmart in town, he and the other oligarchs can exert tremendous pressure on the town to let it go through. If an entrepreneur wants to come to town and open up a new business that might threaten the existing mini-empire built by the families, they can also effectively stop it from happening by threatening to close or move their business elsewhere. Or of course by saying that the new business would harm them, they the local small businessmen would then have no choice but to close or downsize. So best off if we just don't let it happen, wink wink nudge nudge.

In the town that I grew up in there was a fellow who owned a couple of restaurants, a bunch of rental properties and was a significant partner in the local pulp and paper mill (one of the largest employers, family owned, non-unionized with a big sign at the front gate that said "Jesus is Lord!") He was a real entrepreneur to his credit and it payed off. He also paid his employees dirt, many of whom he was also landlord to. He was very stingy on giving raises- you would have to have worked for him for several years before even considering it, but he would always help out one of his employees if they ran into money trouble by offering them a loan, with an oh-so generous interest rate of xx %.

Sadly, many of his employees thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread and didn't see the fact that he was nakedly exploiting them. Now of course this is partly their fault in not understanding the situation, but it doesn't change the fact that he was still a scumbag that made his riches off the backs of his ignorant workers.

So yes, community A could definitely happen in pure socialism. But for community B, that kind of pure market entrepreneurial environment will never exist, because there will always be a predator looking for a kill, and a poor dumb sod who doesn't know any better and becomes the prey!

I disagree, Arty. Our current system is NOT pure capitalism, and, in fact, is far from it. In pure capitalism, if you build a better mousetrap, and market it, you can make a living off of it. In our society, you have to run the gauntlet of patent attorneys, regulatory acts and enough bureaucracy to keep you in paperwork for years. Ever see the movie "Tucker: A Man and His Dream?" That's a good example of why our society is FAR from a pure capitalist society.

The only reason oligarchs run our societies is because we allow it. We confuse collective bargaining with socialism, when in fact it is a key capitalist concept (capitalism is about the free marketing of goods and services; the working man has nothing to put on the market but his labor). We favor large businesses because we have such a poor understanding of economics that we believe low price equates to value when many times, it does not.

Of course, neither community could exist in its "pure" state, which is why we need, to some degree, a mixed economy. But pure capitalism is as untried as pure communism.

Of course, neither community could exist in its "pure" state, which is why we need, to some degree, a mixed economy. But pure capitalism is as untried as pure communism.

Heh heh, that's what I'm trying to say in my example above. At the end of the day, nothing ever works as advertised and life ends up in some sort of compromise to try and accomodate reality!

You've hit on a very key point of mine, arty...

And that is, the reason why Libertarians make great writers and yet don't have a lot of political clout...

Because it's easy to take a hardline position on paper, not so easy to do so in the legislature.

I still remain a diehard Libertarian as I see it as the party most open to reform and closest to my views. But at the end of the day, if I'm not open to compromise, even if I get INTO office, I'm not likely to stay there. So my philosophy is to pick my battles, hold fast to my core values and be a little more willing to give on the less essential ones.

Ideally, I believe nobody should be witout the essentials of life. We agree here, we just disagree how to go about it. I believe a truly "progressive" welfare system would be tooled towards its own obsolescence, And that programs within the system should work towards addressing the core problems, not just throwing money at it. I believe these are best implemented at the state level rather than the federal level so that each state can address its own unique needs.

We favor large businesses because we have such a poor understanding of economics that we believe low price equates to value when many times, it does not.

No, not really confusion.  Marketing.  Low prices (and often associated with lower quality) represent a marketing plow by (usually a start up) a company to gain market share before increasing prices.  That plus they have the advantage of lower over head (which goes to your statement that we do not have pure anything as one of the theories - unrealized mostly - is economies of scale).

With few exceptions, people understand that lower prices means lower quality, but that is what fits into their budget.  Everyone would love to drive a Mercedes as they are synonymous with quality.  Yet most do not have the capital to drive such a car.

I honestly doubt it, Dr. Guy. If people truly realized that lower price is usually not value, they wouldn't blow so much of their money on junk while scrimping on the essentials.

This is one of those things that I guess will always be a matter of opinion. What you see as a failure to understand the quality, I see as consumerism. They want their wants when they want them (or as Brad has stated, they have no concept of delayed gratification).

They're not actually. People think they are because Mercedes have a great marketing department, but if you look at the comparison of mechanical faults over the first five years (the length of time most cars are owned) Mercedes do okay but not as well as you'd think.

Companies like Toyota, Porsche, Honday and surprisingly enough Hyundai actually top these charts.

I don't think pure capitalism could ever work because of marketing. We know too much about human psychology to ever consider the market to be a level playing field. It's always tilted towards those established enough to afford a good marketing division. If you know how people think, you can persuade a much higher number to buy your products than if you just trusted to blind luck or intuition.

reminds me of a story


this lady goes into a store and tells the clerk that she wants their best widget. so the clerk goes and gets the widget and tells the lady it was $5. the lady responds and says no i want your best widget. so the clerk goes and gets the same product 3 times and tells the lady $5. each time the lady says no i want your best one. so the guy finally goes and gets the same widget again and said $15. the lady went away happy.

Honday?

It could very well be great marketing. But I wont buy one because I cant afford it. Now if I could........