Azarkon
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Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim Appelo
And it's exactly these "historical forces" that constitute a nation. Hence the necessity of holding it responsible.
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Revenge should not play into the equation. Yes, the natural inclination towards the guilty is revenge, but that's not the reason we came up with guilt. Guilt is there for the sake of justice and as a catalyst for change. What can change the nature of a man? Regret can - and there can be no regret without guilt - and there can be no guilt if you constantly scapegoat a few for the failings of a nation.
But we have already established have we not , that there is no justice in trying the son of a murderer for his fathers crimes.
Except this analogy doesn't hold if a nation is not the "son" but the same "father" that perpetrated the crime. As I said, a nation needs to be treated like a living organism because that's what it is: national policy determines the kind of people that are raised under the nation, and insofar as that's concerned a nation is guilty until it undergoes a fundamental, repentent change.
In terms of your analogy, the nation is guilty because it is the father until it proves itself to be a repentent son. A generation and a group of leaders may die, but a system survives until it is purposefully killed and replaced by a better system.
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You're guilty not only by what you do, but also by what you don't do. But even beyond that, tell me: who do you blame in a situation where a few people take power and the masses remain ignorant of their atrocities, blindly loyal to their propaganda?
You don't blame these few people alone. You have to blame the masses (for their ignorance and blind patriotism) and/or the system (for its procurement of said ignorance and patriotism). Otherwise you are never going to progress, since even if you killed all the evil dictators, you'll simply be setting yourself up for the same crime the next time they came along. That's why we must blame national systems: because if we didn't, then we've learned nothing.
Example: wartime Japan was ruled by a small clique of military dictators. By your argument, these dictators are the only ones responsible for the war crimes. But if we got rid of these dictators, would Japan have gone a different path? I doubt it. Others would have risen to take their place, and they would've repeated the same mistakes. Only through rebuilding the nation from the ground up can we ensure peace, because it's the nation that's at fault, far moreso than the few men who lead it.
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Revenge should not play into the equation. Yes, the natural inclination towards the guilty is revenge, but that's not the reason we came up with guilt. Guilt is there for the sake of justice and as a catalyst for change. What can change the nature of a man? Regret can - and there can be no regret without guilt - and there can be no guilt if you constantly scapegoat a few for the failings of a nation.
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I'd lke to see you support that statement.
Hitler kill millions of Jews by himself? Ha!
You're the one looking for scapegoats, and these "great big evil men" are it. Sure, they're more responsible than others, but they wouldn't be there if they didn't have the support of others. So why would I blame them alone, and not those who supported them?
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There's where you're not on the same page as I am. To me, people alone do not commit these crimes against humanity - they can't. Nations do, though a few in the nation are more guilty than others. And this is squarely from the Nuremberg trials: how many people held responsible for crimes against humanity said that they did what they did because they were following orders? And did not the whole nation of Germany follow the orders of Hitler, regardless of how immoral they were? These people are not solely responsible for their actions. Their nation - Germany - is, and as long as Germany itself did not repent, its people wouldn't, either.
As far as modern Christians go, I don't hold them responsible for the Crusades because Christianity's de facto view of the world had changed dramatically in its principles since then. However, I do hold Christian fundamentalists responsible, because they refuse to change. Consequently, many people do still hold Christianity as a religion responsible for its crimes - and rightfully so, because there are certain tenets of Christianity that simply are not conducive to a peaceful, tolerant world. Fortunately, a good majority of modern Christians no longer believe in these tenets.
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See, that's where I disagree. I disagree with the tendency of conservative nationalists to attribute the guilt of a nation squarely onto the shoulders of a few individuals, ignoring the very real and very powerful national forces that were equally guilty. What they're arguing, and what I strongly disagree with, is the idea that the nation is never guilty, and if we did horrible things, it's only a few bad apples that should be held responsible. The Mother Nation / Fatherland is innocent. Always and forever.
Bull****.
A nation is always responsible for the actions of its citizens, because it's nationalism and nationalistic ideology that made people support the people who took power. So long as the nation is unrepentent of these tendencies, it remains guilty. To ignore the existence of such guilt would be to not learn from the mistakes of history, and those who forget are doomed to repeat them, as we've seen in the short time between WW1 and WW2.
As far as racism goes, that's again bull****. I judge a person by his nation because if he's a nationalist, then he throws in his lot with the nation, and therefore it'd be ridiculous for me to judge him as an individual independent of nations. If he's not a nationalist, he wouldn't be worried about national guilt, and therefore I'd have no reason to judge him.
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You're never guilty, personally, of your ancestors' crimes. But you're never guilty, personally, of anything with regards to the crimes of a nation unless you were the one calling the shots. Still, your *nation* is guilty, and if you choose to be a patriot of said nation, then you are by implication guilty. You *inherit* the guilt of a nation by virtue of your proclamation of being a citizen of said nation. The nation's guilt remains as long as it remains unrepentent, as long as it fails to change in a fundamental way from its earlier attitudes.
Hence, if a Japanese person told me that he was not personally guilty of Japan's war crimes, I'd agree with him. But if he tells me that his country is not guilty, then I have a problem with that assertion. If he tells me that Japan's modern society should not be blamed for its past, I have a problem. And my problem remains as long as I perceive a continuation of the kind of society that led to Japan's aggression in WW2. Once that ends, the country's guilt is absolved.
This is not racism because I don't judge a person by his race. I judge a person by his nation, and I only enact such a judgment if said person proclaims himself a nationalist of said nation. Since he/she chose to be a nationalist, then I must therefore judge him/her by the nation. That is only logical.
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If you were not even around at the time how could you have even been an aggresor ? It makes no sense.
If the events are current thats a different matter, but your taking about accusing people of being an aggresor when they were not even born. Now I'm pretty sure that no court would convict you of a crime that occured before you were even born.
When it comes to nations, since every nation has at some point been the aggressor in something or other there are no victims only other aggressors who lost.
If your country is an aggressor and you're born under that country and, more importantly, a patriot of that country, then that makes you a potential aggressor. As I said, when a nation commits a crime, it's not only the leaders / current generation that must be held responsible. The entire system of the nation must be held responsible. So long as the system that brought about the aggression remains, the nation remains guilty of its previous crimes. This is equivalent to real life where we judge a criminal's ability to re-integrate into society by how much he's changed from his criminal ways.
The nation, like an organism, must be judged as a whole. It's true that historically, every nation has been aggressive at some time or another. But that simply means every nation is guilty until they've changed from their conquistidor ways. I wouldn't blame modern Italy for, say, the crimes of the Roman Empire because modern Italy is nothing like the Roman Empire. But I do have reason to blame Japan, for instance, for the crimes of historical Japan because in many aspects nothing has changed about the country's attitudes towards its neighbors. Same for the US, which has never renounced its imperialist ways and is still seeking a reenactment of Vietnam: hence Iraq.
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And the classic excuse of failures is to blame someone else.
Works both ways. The aggressor blames others for his own aggression (ie the government made me do it, my ancestors did it, etc.) just as the victim blames him. Sometimes the aggressor even blames the victim for his weakness. Except that, at least in real life, we don't prosecute the victim for his weakness. We prosecute the aggressor. Unless your idea of justice is that it's okay for me to murder people because it's their failure to stop me, I don't think it's relevant at all in this situation.
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No more like a case of not trying to blame people who had nothing to do with the events in question.
There is no victim, that is history. Should I blame the Normans for the invasion of Britain ? Yeah lets blame them for that. Oh what the hell lets blame the Romans (italians) and those annoying bloody danes while we are it
Holding a nation responsible for the actions of individuals that long ago is just pointless.
Ah, but that is the classic excuse of nationalism: don't blame us, blame the people who were responsible for the decisions. Nevermind that we supported them. Nevermind that our culture and society still operates under the same principles that allowed such extremist doctrines to cloud our judgment in the first place.
And therein is the greatest trick of the devil, so to speak: the exoneration of the masses through the scapegoating of the few, of the dead. The delegation of responsibility to top government officials, which ignores both the cultural and political conditions responsible for their rise to power. Would the world be a better place without Hitler? Certainly. But he was not the only one preaching death to the Jews, and if he didn't exist, another would've taken his place sooner or later in making the same mistakes.
The problem is simple: if a man murders another man in cold blood, we hold that man responsible and all the blame we heap onto him is justice. But how do you hold a nation responsible for its actions? What is justice with regards to a nation? Is it merely the persecution of its leaders? They certainly made the decisions, but did they not do it at the behest of the nation, and were they not merely the most obvious representations of the national attitude? Let's not forget that Hitler rose to power through the German people - he was elected, and not one time in his regime did he lose the popular support of his people. Even to the end, the majority believed that he was a savior.
And that is exactly the same issue with separating a generation from its descendants. If we blame a nation's crimes on the generation that committed them we are ignoring the propagation of values from generation to generation, especially in a nation. Anti-semitism in Germany and ultra-militarism in Japan are not inventions of fascism; they were continuations of these two countries' nationals cultures up to that point. And unless that culture changes, the same mistakes will be repeated again and again.
In the end, the truth of the matter is this: a nation's crimes are not the crimes of a few top leaders. They are not even the crimes of a singular generation, present or past. Rather, they are the crimes of a system: political, economic, social, and ideological. The blame, therefore, must not rest with people as much as it must rest with the system in which these people are raised to uphold.
In this respect, blame and guilt, when raised at the level of national critique, is always viable so long as said system continues to edxist. Of course, the world disagrees as to when such a system no longer exists, and it's necessarily the case that the victims would have a longer memory than the aggressors. So it is that many Jews still do not trust the Germans. So it is that many Asians still blame the Japanese for their modern attitudes of superiority. But are they justified in their criticisms? The answer is not a point-blank "no" that supposes the current generations blameless for the actions of their ancestors and leaders. Instead, it must come from a evaluation of the criticized nation's political, economic, social, and ideological differences from the times of its notoriety. In short, they must demonstrate that they've really changed.
Btw, there are always victims, especially in history.
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You make an interesting case, Azarkon. I certainly have no hesitation in agreeing that one should accept your nation's history without blinkers on. However, it is my perception that many kids today learn only the bad about their nation's history. You could say some redress is needed. The first black bishop in the church of England, recently throned, said as much in his inaugural comments. Although he is from Uganda, and proud of it, he also said British People should be proud of the many good things the Empire did, as well as repenting the bad.
Hence, a focus on cold, hard facts would absolve both sides: the evils will have to be taken in hand with the goods, and people can learn to decide for themselves.
I also note you say history should not be a means of indoctrination, and particularly indoctrination of morality. A devil's advocate might say that public morality can ill afford to turn away any assistance whatsoever.If by public morality, you mean a public indoctrinated into the service of ethnocentric nationalism (which is all that is truly imbued by the kind of education we're talking about), then I say down with it.
These people need to grow up and stop trying to blame others for their own failures.Isn't this a classic case of blaming the victim for the misdeeds of the aggressor? I wouldn't say that the age of imperialism is quite at an end, yet...
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China and Japan had a similiar run in.
I think there is a difference between telling history and trying to guilt the current generation into something they have no responsibility for. I'm not going to feel bad just because so and so ancestor made a killing shipping slaves.
Different times should not be judged by contempory values.
I don't think erasing any mentions of a country's past misdeeds or spinning them into an euphemism constitute "telling history."
But then this problem is intrinsic to any sort of historical education that attempts to imbue nationalist ideology at the same time. History should be about the cold, hard facts from both sides of the equation, good and bad. It should not dictate morals, nor make a decision as to which side to support in a controversy as pivotal to modern society as the rights and wrongs of Imperialism.
As far as guilt goes, this is how I see it: the only way you're going to feel guilt at your nation's past deeds is if you're a nationalist who cares deeply about your nation's history and position in the world. And if you're a nationalist who cares about such things, then you have an obligation to know exactly the mistakes your country committed so that your patriotism is not misguided. Misguided patriotism has cost humanity far too much to be taken lightly.
On the other hand, if you really didn't care about what your ancestors did in the past, then any mentions of them in history books are theoretically irrelevant to your conception of modern society. Therefore, it should not trouble you that the history books speak badly about your country.
As a result, I suspect that those who are complaining about not wanting to feel guilty about the past are in truth very much concerned with the past and dedicated nationalists. And if this is the case then I'd sooner that you know the past in all its terrible glory, then to repeat its mistakes. Remember, the so-called contemporary values that we abide by in modern society are a product of mistakes made in the past. If we stopped believing that those mistakes were in fact mistakes, then what incentive would we have of upholding these contemporary, post-colonial values?
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Programming is the practical manifestation of a discipline. It is not necessary or sufficient to know the details in order to grasp the structured method of thinking that bridges engineering with creative design. For example, most programmers should have a fair understanding of pseudo-code, and if you are able to speak in pseudo-code, then you're more than able to understand what goes on behind the scenes. In fact, add to that ability some knowledge of the low-level limitations, and you'd be set.
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Roguelike games, TBS's, and good MUDs tend to make me think. Consequently, all three genres are absent from the mainstream, but then they were never part of the mainstream to begin with (except for, maybe, Civilization).
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Just a short note about craptastic socialist policies in the US: I think you'll find that while socialist policies in the US have largely failed, they have largely succeeded in many other countries, especially in Asia. Could culture have something to do with it? I think so, and I also think that the reason socialist programs like free education and Medicaid have failed in the US has more to do with the efficiency of government agencies than with intrinsic flaws. The government needs only to guarantee the presence of universal free education. There is nothing wrong with privatizing the implementation.
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uh, my statement came out wrong... i meant, back up the concept that just because china has 35:1 (revised from the 36 i suppose, but still significant) wages does not mean equilibrium will result in the same for us.
I see. Well, it's difficult to argue about this, since no nation has ever willingly reduced itself to another nation's wage status, and thus we have no examples one way or another.
we'd have to compete, i agree. the US has, btw, resources that not everyone has as well as historical capability. i'm not in favor of sucking off the teet of the poor if we have to cheat to do it (and keeping developing nations down is cheating).I agree with this, but I suspect the policy makers do not, given recent protectionist trends.
i know they are arguing for it, but evidence is not in their favor. with a few exceptions, particularly oil rich nations, socialism fails globally. every socialist program in the US is a time bomb. the most notable, btw, is SS, but i bet medicare/medicaid will be worse once all those baby boomers actually retire.I really don't think that this is the case. What about things like education? It's true that public schooling has failed in the US, but it thrives in other countries - including China and Japan. At any case, I really can't imagine how society would be if things like free education and minimum mage were removed. They were put there for a reason, historically, due to the exploitation that otherwise resulted (of ex-slaves, immigrants, and/or the poor).
ah yes, if corporations try to create their own structure, then they are treading on the elected government's responsibility. this type of interference and legislation is not only legal, but required. the governments sole responsibility is to protect trade.But there's a paradox there, isn't there? For the government to protect trade, it must first define what *is* trade, which means interfering with market forces that fall outside of what the government considers healthy trade. A free market economy, like everything else that can be considered "free", is therefore purely ideological: it must be curbed by practical restrictions that prevent the freedom from turning on itself.
there's really never been a fully socialist society, but the concept of socialism requires equality. at least, relative equality. the difference between common man at the bottom and top of the scales is negligible. there are the elite, of course, which run the system, and the disparity between those elite and the average man is far greater than in any capitalist society.It seems to me though that part of your argument earlier assumed a flawed socialist society, which is why that comment struck me as odd. In an ideological socialist society, there would be no ruling elite - everyone would, indeed, be equal and upward mobility would be a moot point since everything's owned by a benevolent government anyhow. Yes, practical socialist societies fail, but only because socialism as an ideological system is unattainable.
aha! the closest, right? but not quite a monopoly, AND, they really did cheat. they got to where they are in the beginning by forcing retailers to pay them even if selling other OS products. they got caught, too. also, their share is slipping away...Yes, and my argument is that there has to be policies that guard against monopolistic practices such as those utilized by Microsoft. If they were not caught, and had no threat of being caught, they would've done much worse. The government cannot, therefore, simply practice laissez faire.
it is not besides the point. government interference is the only way monopolies can exist. i dare anyone to find an example otherwise (a real example, controlling a market of a relatively small population, i.e. very small business, does not really count). the fact that governments have never ceased to interfere is further evidence. my point is that they need to stop interfering.Yeah but how can we ever find this example until someone out there creates such a Utopian laissez faire nation? It's like arguing that Communism is Utopia: you can't disprove this because there's never been a truly Communist society, so there. In both cases, the lack of practical examples do not justify an argument in either direction. If you tell me to take you on faith that a laissez faire system never creates monopolies, then I will tell you to take me on faith that Real Socialism is Utopia. Without examples, we both arrive at an impasse.
yes and no. socialism is more than just an economic system. it is socio-economic whereas captialism is stricly about economics of the free market. rather, capitalism does not have to be "implimented," it just happens (capitalism is really more of an observation of the free market). socialism requires implementation, but it can only be implemented in theory, not reality. a pure capitalist society could easily exist, but the same is not true for socialist.I think you'll find it very difficult to argue that any system "just happens" or "is natural", given the historical fluidity of human governments. The exchange of resources on a market - ie trade itself - is intrinsic to human society, but that is not what capitalism describes. Capitalism is not the equivalent - as far as I've ever heard it defined by economists - of Trade. Rather, it is a principle of economics that emphasizes private, individual ownership (something that many cultures traditionally rejected) and a free market (again, something that many cultures never believed in).
In fact, this is why there has never been a truly capitalist society in human history. Some of the most successful "adopters" of "capitalism" (in the sense of their economy's strength, not their proximity to the ideals of capitalism) have been essentially a combination of socialist control with capitalist ownership. As such, it would be folly to assume that socialism is merely an abnormal growth on the butt of capitalism, when in fact they coexist in every capitalist society on earth.
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You can never be certain about certainty. The difference between science and religion is not in the misconception that the former is always empirical, but in that it is never certain. Science is always questioning itself, whereas religion takes all for granted. Thus, one leads to progress, while the other - stagnation.
Edit: as for the Gauss quote, well, we can certainly see where he's coming from, eh?
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Math was never a science to begin with.
I'm talking Biology, Physics, Chemistry - the three prime schools of science. Each have its share of untested (and some arguably untestable) theories.
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Not all of science is empirical.
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exactly where did you get the 1/36th wage? back it up before your "basic mathematics" even have a chance to work. also, just because china's wages are that low does not mean US wages would. part of what happens is that jobs that stay in the country don't cause import/export tariffs and such. i.e. china's wages themselves may be low, but after taking into account the extra expenses, they aren't that much lower.
It's in that same article I linked to earlier. But since you would rather not read the article, here's the text of interest:
"China has more than 1.3 billion people, a fifth of the world's population, and a workforce of 700 million as against a US workforce of 147 million. To avoid being overtaken by China in aggregate national income, US wages would have to maintain a gap of five times Chinese wages. Historically based technological and economic advantages currently give US workers a nominal wage gap of more than 35:1 over Chinese workers, or 9:1 on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis. This comfortable gap is not based on current productive differentials but rather on unbalanced terms of trade and geopolitical incongruity left by history. Yet until wage parity is attained, free trade will continue to be driven by cross-border wage arbitrage in favor of China. But with wage parity, the Chinese economy will be five times the size of the US economy, a prospect not welcomed by the US geopolitical calculations."
Like I said, lose-lose situation, but outsourcing is far less damaging to national wealth than wage parity. US purchasing power comes from the historical "incongruity" inherent in the dollar, and that's what allows most Americans their lavish life style (since the goods, most of which are produced in other countries, are cheap by the fact of that imbalance). Take that away and how exactly would you maintain US privilege?
history dictates that capitalism is the only system that creates wealth, so any socialist system will only lead to a lower quality of life.Why argue in extremes? Capitalism can coexist with socialist policies, and that indeed is what most people are arguing for in this thread.
no, if you get the government out of business, explain to me exactly how the elite that control the US? the only reason "greedy capitalists" have any form of control is because the government interferes with the free market. take their influence out, and oila, no more control.What prevents the corporations from creating their own governmental structure, then? What prevents them from using monopolistic tactics to exploit the populace?
uh, sorry, but in a socialist society, everyone gets the same amount, regardless of who they are. you're a bit off on that.That has never been true in any socialist society in human history.
you obviously do not understand how capitalism works. first, before you comment, find me ONE monopoly that grew up in a capitalist system without government help. just one.Microsoft comes the closest. But this is besides the point, since governments have never ceased to interfere with any capitalist system in existence. Since a so-called free market economy has never quite existed in its purity (much as a perfect socialist society has never existed), this call for examples is impractical and thus moot.
Btw, some of the most successful capitalist societies in history (South Korea, Japan) were government-planned economies. China is going in the same direction, and the world is taking notes.
what is this about? whoever said anything about blaming the poor? capitalism in china has nothing to do with the poor in the countryside. they're farmers, divorced from the reforms. they were poor before capitalism showed up, even in the communist system. the entire reason china went with the reforms is because they couldn't afford to pay for those poor-as-jack farmers. i'm not sure where you're going with this one...The point is this: when every man is poor (as would occur if wealth was distributed equally), the state of poverty is universal and therefore tolerated. When a few men are rich and the rest are poor, inequity is perceived and leads to violent uprisings. A capitalist society inevitably moves towards the latter. The concentration of wealth is the breeding ground of revolution. This was true with feudalism, and it was true with capitalism in the past. Socialist policies are, in some ways, a way of delaying that inevitability through promoting, to a degree, collective advancement, which is key to national cohesion.
as i've already noted, the gap is actually larger in a socialist system. the problem there is that there is no middle. in a socialist sytem, you cannot climb any higher. not so in capitalism.You act like socialism = feudalism. What exactly is your definition of socialism? I speak from the perspective of someone who wants to see capitalist nations with select socialist policies (such as universal health care). Therefore, I oppose a purely free market economy. That does not mean, however, that I'm supportive of socialist societies in the sense of ideological Socialism, far from it.
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no they don't. they keep people unemployed. jobs that go overseas are jobs that are not held here, regardless of wages. jobs that are not here are $0/hour, so less than minimum wage, and certainly less than the salaries for folks that had low-level salaries and had their jobs shipped to china, india, etc.
Oh come on. What's America's unemployment rate? It's not 40%+. Workers in China/India are paid 1/36th of what Americans are paid, or less. Basic mathematics dictates that even if 10% of America were unemployed (a huge unemployment rate) and that all 10% of these jobs were lost to overseas, we'd still be losing less money than if even 50% of American jobs were reduced to 1/36th of its wages.
maybe, maybe not. competition for jobs will benefit those that are willing to work for the market wage. it will keep some jobs here, but others will leave regardless. overall, those countries which produce more than they use will always benefit more than the others, as is particularly the case for oil bearing nations. however, to say that the US will suffer simply because of global competition is a bit short-sighted. if we wanted to stay competitive, obviously much of our current waste would need to be removed from the plan.It is short-sighted, but that's exactly why free market capitalism is going to be challenged by the US and most other first world countries in the short run - because they don't want to lose their privileges. It is true that in the long run it's only *fair* that countries that work harder get more benefits, but that already presupposes a free market ideology - one that doesn't necessarily lead to a better world, as I'm willing to argue.
this is a problem for socialism more than capitalism. in a capitalist market, you can always up your status by working harder or by benefit of some in-demand skill/trade. in a socialist society, everybody is on the same level field except the elite that control the production of goods (and supply of money). there is no middle ground, and no hope of ever being more than your birthright.It's the same in both cases (you don't think the elite that control the US would do anything to prevent others from rising to their power? you're deluded if that's the case), except that in socialist societies the bare minimum line is higher than in capitalist societies. A socialist society would not allow a child to starve to death on the streets if it could help it. A purely capitalist society would - because that's the mentality you adopt when you promote pure capitalism.
You have to realize that all this talk about birthright is meaningless because no one - not in socialism, not in Communism, and certainly not in capitalism - starts out on equal standing. Therein is why capitalism fails - when you are born into a society where an elite of monopolizing corporations already control all the means of production, you have as little chance of upward mobility as you would in a socialist society ruled by aristocrats. This is why we have anti-monopoly laws in effect - because we know that in extreme capitalism the monopolizing corporation survives in effect by consuming all attempts to supplant it. Big corporations become bigger. Small companies become extinct. And therefore an aristocratic elite is created de facto rather than (as you claim in socialism) de jure.
those poor-as-jack peasants could dip into the free-market well-to-dos with education, or a skill or trade, etc. i.e. they aren't poor-as-jack because of capitalism, they're poor-as-jack because they live on farms in the middle of nowhere and probably have little idea about what's happening in the rest of their country.They can't. I've seen arguments like yours before and personally, it's too ideological - too out of touch with reality. The truth of the matter is this: IT'S NOT HAPPENING. I don't care if you want to shift the blame onto the poor. The bottomline is that the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer. The underlying factors are too many to even summarize here, but it does speak of a fundamental issue in capitalism that cannot simply be ignored by blanketing all the poor people as being poor b/c "they aren't trying". You do that, you keep telling them that, and in the end you're only deluding yourself because these people don't see themselve as lazy workers who don't deserve any better. They see themselves as victims, and victims when victimized enough will turn against their victimizers.
ah, therein lies the key... the rich only control resources via government intervention. government intervention is, by definition, not capitalist. mixing theories here, blaming capitalism for what amounts to the ills of socialism (or fascism).Not really. If I'm a capitalist tycoon living in a governmental vacuum (ie no restrictions with regards to my tactics) there are PLENTY of ways I can control the flow of resources without government intervention. I can, and corporations are doing so right now, simply buy out any opposition, monopolize the market, and prevent all upstarts from using my resources. In a purely capitalist society, money can do almost anything, and as such those with money already can very well prevent those without money from obtaining money. Resources, after all, are limited. If the rich keep getting richer, it must necessarily mean that the poor become poorer in a gobal scenario.
But we don't need to keep talking about this in the abstract sense. Simply point out to me how you can prevent the growing gap between rich and poor in a free market capitalist society, because that is a *real* problem that capitalism, even as it is now, fails to solve. If the poor have so many opportunities, why aren't they getting richer, and how can you make them richer without resorting to any "socialist" practices such as better public schooling? You act like if we did away with all socialist policies in this country the poor would suddenly rise to the occasion, and I just don't see that. Rather, if that were to happen, I think the poor would either become poorer, immigrate, or revolt.
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Indeed. And here's another reason health care will never be privatized - when you have a vast majority of the population (the poor, almost exclusively, are majorities in this world) who cannot even guarantee their own lives in an epidemic living amidst a pampered minority, guess what's going to happen? They're not going to just stand by and say, "well, I should've studied harder in school and made more money." They're going to overthrow those in power and redistribute wealth. Capitalism, taken to its extremes, would almost guarantee a Communist revolution sooner or later down the line.
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uh, hate to tell you but these things are not a result of capitalism. the reason there is outsourcing is because these other countries do not have protections on wages like we do in the US. protections on wages are a problem of SOCIALISM. capitalism is based on the free market and this goes for wages as well. minimum wage and states like california setting other wage limits on salaried employees is socialism, not capitalism, and the very reason jobs are shopped out. allow market demands to set salaries and there will be no need to outsource.
sorry, but you need to get your facts straight.
Er... Yes, but that isn't my point. The protections on wages maintain the high living standard of the US. If we were to compete without wage inflation against the likes of China, it *is* true that we'd have less outsourcing, but it'd also seriously affect the wealth of the country. Globalization under free market economy leads, eventually, to the equalization of per capita income (between nations, not individuals, which is really the problem), which given the number of people in the US, basically means that we'll have 1/5th or less of the economic influence of a country like China. It's a lose-lose situation for the US.
Read this for an article expressing this view: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GH20Dj01.html
Now, presuming that you're not a nationalist who wants to preserve US living standards (as most people arguing for free market capitalism tends to be, rather ignorantly), there is still the issue of rich becoming richer, poor becoming poorer, that is *the* natural outcome of free market globalization. Tell me, in a world where money creates money, how can you ever hope to (with a free market economy, no socialism, etc.) prevent the gap between rich & poor from enlarging (and thus the incentive for a violent revolution?)
plus, btw, nearly every socialist program has either failed, or is failing. the richest countries in the world are the most capitalist, and the third world countries that are gaining are all implementing capitalist reforms as well (china, for example). as soon as these countries that are gaining ground take steps to protect their trade and wages, they will suffer the same problems as the rest of the world.taks
A country being rich is not productive towards a better, more prosperous society when it is concentrated in a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. China's adoption of free market capitalism has led to it being a country of 300 million well-to-dos and 1 billion poor-as-jack peasants. Free market capitalism leads, inevitably, to exploitation in order to stay competitive, and there's no indication that the living standards of everyone will eventually go up especially since there's no incentive - if there were no socialist policies whatsoever - for the rich to stop the monopoly of resources. Therefore, while you're right that these countries will suffer the same problems as soon as they implement socialist policies, they must inevitably do so - or face the rebellion of the impoverished masses upon whose backbones the riches were built.
France Upholds Law That Smooths History
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
Without having read the book I wouldn't know what he meant by "uniquely Germanic evil," but I do want to emphasize that Germany was not always Nazi Germany, and that specific historical and national forces brought about the system that operated immediately before and during WW1-WW2. This system was responsible for the crime far moreso than the few persons who gave the orders.
I am a firm believer that we are the products of forces around us. I do not believe that an individual is strictly tabula rasa with the total freedom to choose between right and wrong. In fact, "right" and "wrong" do not themselves exist as static pillars but are shaped by the same forces that shape a person. In Nazi Germany, the destruction of Jews and the subjugation of "lesser" races was considered good. It is the system that creates such a philosophy that must be, in my view, held responsible for the products of said society.
Thus I reiterate my argument: a nation, taken as the gestalt of its social, political, economical, and ideological forces, must be held responsible for its actions. Those who choose to collaborate with such a nation as patriots/nationalists inherit, henceforth, the guilt of said nation. Their guilt ends when they acknowledge and repent the failures of the system of which they are a part and help to correct it for the betterment of the world. Until then, they are accomplices in the crime, passively or actively, and therefore deserving of the same blame that is attributed to the nation.
Put simply: if you support a system that practices genocide, then you must be held responsible for said genocide. This is not a personal guilt, but a collective one, and it is in a collective way that it must be dealt with. That is, we deal with irredeemable criminal persons by killing them. We deal with irredeemable criminal nations by destroying the nation which, in this case, means destroying the system that holds such a nation together and then rebuilding it, which is exactly what we tried to do in Germany and in Japan, with various degrees of success.