Question for the more pro capitalist posters

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

"As you understand", something called "government planners" would reign "supreme"?

Do you really lack the imagination to think beyond your current "understanding"?

Sadly, I'm not privy to "revealed truth" - as you suggest I should be. I'm here - offering opinions, seeking perspectives. Instead of criticizing - maybe you could offer some new perspective for me to absorb and consider?

N.Beltov wrote:

Is capitalism really compatible with preserving the Planet? Serious socialists say "No", and add that argument to the many arguments about the necessity of ending this exploitive system and replacing it with a genuinely sustainable system that would restore the human-nature balance, address the huge range of unsolved and potentially catastrophic global problems, and put an end to the powerful economic interests in war.

Question for the more pro capitalist posters?

Well, I don't know how capitalist you're thinking, but I can say that I'm more capitalistic than socialistic.

I used to be a communist until I realised how inefficient it would be for the government to mircro-manage every little piece of production and consumption.

Then I became socialist, until I saw how it entailed just as much corruption as the capitalist model. I'll take a few concrete examples:

1. Language policy.

Even the NDP supports Official Bilingualism, in spite of the fact that it essentially discriminates in favour of Canada's imperialist languages. At the provincial level in Ontario, for instance, French and English are mandatory languages of instruction (with the exception of on-reserve), and depending on which is the language of instruction, the other is the compulsory second-language to be taught.

One solution could be for the government to let each school decide between English, French, ASL, LSQ, and the local Aboriginal language as the language of instruction, and the same or even more choices for the second-language (Esperanto and coudl be added too as a means of promoting equal status between the First Nations languages and the imperial languages). To do that, however, would be political suicide for any party, even the NDP, since the majority of European descent would complain that their money is going towards subsidizing the Frist Nations.

An alternative solution could be a voucher system. This would remove any accusations of unfair subsidization of First Nations languages, thus making it harder to find excuses to oppose such freedom.

Looking at it that way, the public school system actually hurts First Nations languages, whereas a voucher system could help them if we stopped being so ideomatically socialist.

2. Religious discrimination in the public school system.

In the provicne of Ontario, the Ministry of Education actively discriminates in favour of the Catholic Faith over other religions in the school system, even the UN, through the UNCHR, has criticized the province and Canada twice already for being in violation of international laws in this regards. Again, a simple voucher system could end such internationally embarrassing discrimination. Granted, the Green Party's proposal of one secular school system could work too, but again, Catholics would oppose it so that's not very realistic either.

3. Unfair subsidization of university students.

When the government subsidizes public universities directly, only students who go to those universities can benefit from it, even though the entire population is contributing to it. To even out the playing field, it would make more sense to cut government spending on non-compulsory education altogether and instead increse the value of the school vouchers for compulsory education, perhaps allowing schools to increase the number of schooldays per year. This way, all benefit equally, and not just the elite.

4. Unfair subsidization of public sector salaries.

I was reading just the other day that a tudy shoed that the discrepancy between salaries in the public and private sectors has been growing over the years, essentially meaning that the private sector, which makes less money, is paying taxes to subsidize the public sector salaries and job security!

One solution to this would be to privatize some government agencies, possibly converting them gradually into workers' co-ops or, if they are classified as belonging to a natural monopoly industry, then workers' and consumers' co-ops.

5. Well-intended policies that harm their targets.

In Toronto years ago, the government had placed rent ceilings to protect the poor. Though it helped initially, it also stifled incentives to build more buildings, resulting over time in severe apartment shortages, resulgint in tenants either having to bribe landlords or landlords circumventing the law by charging 'key fees', etc. The very people it was designed to help were the ones it hurt.

We find the same with minimum wages. A person would still rather work at low salary than not at all, and if he has no higher education, he's not likely to be able to compete even for minimum wage. Better solutions could include:

a. Increase the value of school vouchers for compulsory educaiton to ensure everyone has a skill to sell on the market, regardless of abilityto pay for higher education.

b. To avoid exploitation, give workers voting rights on the board of directors. But without a minimum wage, worse case scenario, workers could take a temporary wage cut to prevent the collapse of a company.

I could go on, but I think this gives some idea of why I'd eventually turned away from more dogmatic forms of socialism. Another point has to do with protecting the right of the feotus. I'm all for human rights, as long as they apply to all, born and unborn.

Ironically enough, by the way, the time I'd turned fastest away from socialism when when I'd lost my job once. Before that, I had no issue with paying taxes, because it was for a 'good cause'. Once I was on the receiving end, though, it was a nightmare. In the end, I believe that private charities would likely have been much less bureaucratic and more efficient, and also likely have fewer special interests cutting deals with the ministry of social services, cheap schools with teachers who don't know how to teach, providing job training. My guess is, the owner of the school may have been an ex government employeee, retired and keeping an inside link.

Anyway, this is my reason for leaning more towards capitalism than socialism now.

Quote:

Another point has to do with protecting the right of the feotus. I'm all for human rights, as long as they apply to all, born and unborn.

Almost missed that, in there with all that financial stuff.

What about the rights of the unconceived? Surely each of my sperm has at least HALF the rights of a human, yes?

Snert wrote:

Quote:

Another point has to do with protecting the right of the feotus. I'm all for human rights, as long as they apply to all, born and unborn.

 

Almost missed that, in there with all that financial stuff.

 

What about the rights of the unconceived? Surely each of my sperm has at least HALF the rights of a human, yes?

I totally disagree. I don't believe that the unconceived exist yet as humans, and that a sperm, since it does not have all the potentialities within it to become a human on its own, is not human either and therefore should have no rights of its own.

As for the conceived, that's a different story. Once conceived, all the potentialities to become a full-grown adult are established.

N.Beltov wrote:

I forgot to mention the ideological agnostics. However, if you're going to make capitalism as part of your eclectic bag of tricks, (this is addressed to you, Fidel) then you're just as required to defend the system as its most sincere and direct apologists.

To re-iterate - I don't really believe that capitalism is compatible with saving the Planet. Unless new social and property relations come to dominate economic life, we'll just wind up back in the same fix in some distant, or not so distant, future. And there's very little time left.

Just a point about the environment? Instead of bailing out the auto industry, could the government not have used that money to retrain the workers for other growing industries like solar cells, etc.?

If a socialist government supports bailing out a gas-guzzling industry, what makes that any different from the private sector?

Heck, even Elizabeth May supported bailing out the auto sector! Only the Conaservatives opposed it at that moment, essentially making it the most environmentally conscious party at that particular point in time!

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

 Monopoly must be fought at every opportunity.

I disagree with this. Have you ever read about natural monopolies. Tehy do in fact funciton more efficiently than a competitive framework. Granted, we'd need a system of checks and balances for natural monopolies, but I beleive one solution could be to gradually transform them into workers' and consumers' co-ops. That way, we'd all have a vote in it, thus essentially making it a democratic monopoly, benefitting from the advantages of natural monopolization but checked by democratic administration.

Snert wrote:

Quote:

Another point has to do with protecting the right of the feotus. I'm all for human rights, as long as they apply to all, born and unborn.

 

Almost missed that, in there with all that financial stuff.

 

What about the rights of the unconceived? Surely each of my sperm has at least HALF the rights of a human, yes?

And just out of curiousity, since you didn't respond to the rest of my post, I take it you agree? Disagree? Just curious?

Machjo wrote:

Fidel wrote:

 The NDP are social democrats...

 

I woudl have to disagree with this. I'd say the NDP are Labour socialists. What I mean by this is that they pander to labour union interests only.

The NDP are social democrats in the sense that they do not favour no-strings attached corporate welfare handouts to failed and failing big businesses, like the car companies. Giving taxpayer handouts to big businesses and banks doesnt provide any incentive for them to use the money wisely, and neither does it help private enterprise to be more competitive. And there is a long list of bad expamples where old line party handouts to friends in big business came to no good.  And social democrats in the Nordic countries and Europe do not favour no-strings attached corporate welfare handouts either. It's why those countries are more economically competitive than Canada. Liberal and Tory governments have no idea how to run a mixed market economy, and the new liberal capitalism, their handmedown economic ideology imported from the US, is failing badly.

But the car companies are overbloated and bankrupt. From my own point of view as well as the federal NDP's, we need more public transit. Why do we need more cars? The car companies overbuilt and cars are poorly designed. Nobody wants to buy their crappy fuel inefficient cars churned out of GM and Ford plants. The larger problem is deregulated banking and finance. The US is bankrupt. Britain is bankrupt and so on. Where are people going to drive to in their new cars? Expansion is stopped, so theyre not going to be driving to work. The whole neoliberalized system needs to be put through bankruptcy. Theyre only kidding themselves that all the worthless debt and interbank iou's  are worth anything. It's finished.