RGacky3
DP Veteran
- Joined
- May 8, 2012
- Messages
- 9,570
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- Gender
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- Political Leaning
- Socialist
Psst, check your Lean. Socialist. Many of us know that Marx's socialist theories and methods called for Government theft as a means of bring about change from capitalism. Of course, as a socialist, you may not view the government seizing the assets and properties of those who fight against socialism as theft. So either you are not a real socialist (an adherent of Marx) and are really a sudo-socialist, or you are ignorant of what Marx wrote or you support government theft of private properties/monies.
No, capitalism is not failing. The sudo-socialistic economic policy of regulated capitalism is failing. True, unfettered capitalism does not exist in the US and hasn't for a very longtime now, if it ever existed. Our current economic failings can all be tracked back to the introduction of greater and greater governmental controls and the introduction of "social" policy in the government.
No one, at least that I have read, ever said that walmart workers, as individuals would not be better off, at least for a time. You are only looking at the effects upon a portion of the 1.4 million walmart employees. You are not taking into account what it would do the the far greater number of walmart shoppers. You seem to think that it would only effect walmart workers and walmart management. It affects far more people than that. The savings to customers has been what has driven walmart to the place it now is. To meet the pay levels that some workers demand and the whole "living wage" idea, it would have to greatly increase it's pricing. The people who can only afford walmart pricing will no longer be able to afford much of anything. People who can afford walmart prices on non essential products may no longer be able to afford them, decreasing consumer sales in an already depressed and fragile economy. This would not just affect walmart either, it will affect everyone in the chain that gets the products manufactured and delivered to the individual stores. Walmart is big enough that it may have a significant effect upon the whole economy.
As a socialist, you approach the matter from the view point that all people have a minimum value and that each persons value is equal. This lack of a realistic concept of value is at the core of the failures and the falsehood of the promised paradise preached by socialist. However, to a company, any company, an individuals value to that company is directly related to what that individual contributes to the company. A person value to society is only what that individual gives to society and since we do not have nor can we ever have equal input to a society, every person in the society cannot have equal value to the society. There are many in our society that only take from it and never give back, or give back only a very small amount compared to what they take. Pure logic would dictate ridding society of those who have a negative value, however, because they are a person, we do not follow pure logic but instead try to act humanly towards them.
Even those who do not go as far as a socialist but still feel that a worker should have a minimum value, though not equal are following down the path towards socialism, thus they are socialistic, even if they don't admit it. If they were to achieve their goal of a "living wage" with benefits for all, they would not stop there but would immediately start working to eliminating what they see as inequities in the system. Unions, especially collective bargaining, are following down this path. As we have seen, this has caused total failure in a case like Hostess and massive outsourcing in other businesses. It has also caused some to start calling for greater and greater government actions to stop these failures in the economy, however, the government cannot stop the effects of this causal factor without becoming socialist. You may desire this affect, but some of us can use logic and reason and see that this failure of value in socialism will only lead to failure of a socialist systems. Socialism depends on everyone acting idealistically and we all know that greed influences far more people than any idealistic model.
Son of a bitch .... First of all MARXISM IS POSTIVE ECONOMICS ... get that through you're head ... its an analysis of Capitalism. Socialism was before marx and after marx, socialism is no an adherant of marx tat is what a marxist is.
Capitalism IS failing. True unfettered capitalism never existed and can never exist, the closer you get to it the more you end up at the great depression of much of the third world. post 70s' much of the west moved toward more unfettered capitalism and the result is in.
Our current economic failings are traced back to reagenomics ... i.e. the dismanteling of the new deal and great society politics and institution of neo-liberalism ... this is fact.
You could increase every workers wage 30%, not change prices and not change exective pay and Walmart would still be profitable, and that isn't taking into accoutn increased aggrigate demand ... so claiming that infaltion would undo the positive effects is plainly false, and claiming that rising wages are undone by inflation has been disproven OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, and if you want em to show why AGAIN, I'll do it.
As a socialist I don't argue that all peoples value is equal ... Thats nonsense, and thus a strawman. My arguemnt is that labor is value ... not ownership of capital ... of coarse a doctor is more valuble than a secretary.
Socialism is economic democracy ... So enough of the strawmen. Unions are an example of a democratizing force in the economy.
As far as Hostess that's already been answered, it was management, not unions that ruined the company, kept giving themselves raises and bonuses while running the company into the ground and cutting workers benfits.
Outsourcing happened after Union decline.
The reast of you're argumetns are just strawmen. If you don't want the state the stop failures in capitalism, then watch capitalism collapse ... Capitlaism is inherently unstable and naturally grows until it bursts, I don't want governmetn action to stop that, I want to change the whole institutional framework to make it more democratic.
No no more strawmen.