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.
Marxism is a positive economics? Do you have any evidence of this? Is there or has there ever been a successful Marxist society? Has anyone, anywhere actually successfully implemented Marx, or has all attempts to do so failed?
Name a socialist society or any attempt at socialism prior to Marx. Do you have any documented, from reliable sources, evidence that the term socialism and the associated philosophies did not start with Marx?
Marx of course did draw from different societies and then codified them into a coherent, at least to some, mass and named it Communism and created the method to move towards Communism and named it Socialism. A Marxist is not only a socialist, they are also Communist. Others, Marxist Socialist, attempt to only adhere to Socialist portions of his teachings and forgo full Communism. Other Socialist only pick and choose which portions of Marx they want, however, After Marx, all Socialism is in someway relates back to Marx, or it is not Socialism, since Marx is the one who collected and collated are relational materials and ideas into a whole.
From what I can see, Marx's strongest influence towards socialism was the tribes throughout the Americas and on Pacific Islands. While they were longterm stable, it should also be noted that they were population limited due to limited production/acquisition of food supplies and they never rose above the early stone-age level of technological advancement. Nor did they have any competition, until meeting European society, from other societal and economic structures.
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.
Much of the Third Worlds economic depression exists in either "socialist" countries or countries with closed/protected "capitalist" systems. Name a Third world country that actually practices open capitalism?
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.
So prior to Reagan, there was not high unemployment? There was no outsourcing? There was no Debt Spending? There was no closure of American industry due to over-regulation and environmental protection laws? Our lead in Technological advancement and innovation did not decrease prior to Reagan?
After Reagan, there was no economic improvement. No reduction in unemployment?
Prior to the "new deal and great society politics and institution of neo-liberalism", America didn't rise to economic dominance in several market/industrial areas? America didn't rise to where it's economics influenced world economics? America was not the leader in technological advancements and Innovation?
new deal and great society politics and institution of neo-liberalismYou 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.
You assertion that it could be done without affecting salaries only holds true if the capital investors settle for much less profit. Are they not to expect a return upon their investment? Currently, their cost to invest is over $70 per share, their return is only $1.56 per share annually. While they do still have the capital asset of the stock, it is no use to them unless they either get paid dividends, sell that asset or leverage (borrow) against it. The value of that asset is fluid and depends on market trends, it can go up or down, and whether it goes up or down is directly related to the dividends it pays in many cases. The dividends that a share pays is related to the profits made by the company. Whether you dislike or don't believe in the value of capital investment, it is vital to the creation and maintenance of most companies. Without that capital investment, there would be no company and no jobs created by the company. Walmart and it's investors only make a profit of less than 4%, that is very small for a major company. In the case of walmart, it is also very dependent upon consumer purchasing.
Where is your evidence of it being disproven? Whether Walmart can or not, where is the evidence that walmart workers have earned a 30% increase? Has the individual production of walmart workers increased by 30%? Has even the friendliness and helpfulness of Walmart employees increased by 30%. Has the employment market changed to the point where walmart would have to increase pay by 30% to attract employees? Or is it a matter of you see the salaries of executives, profits generated by the company and compare them to unskilled labor and feel that the distribution of profits is unfair?
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.
Until you stated so, I didn't know that your version of Socialism didn't adhere to that principle. Many forms of Socialism do. You might want to consider whether what you believe is really socialism. Since one of the goals of socialism is to create a classless society, any inequality in the value of individuals would lead to some form of class structure. Only when everyone receives equally can a classless society exist and then it would have to ignore the value of what individuals contribute to society. If you do believe in value in is related value received but still seek a classless society, then you might want to settle out the paradox of your beliefs.
Ownership of Capital has no value? If so, why do so many seek to have it? The capital that these investors put in has value to them? It doesn't create, grow and maintain a company? They should just contribute it and not expect it to be returned? If so, good luck getting someone to invest.
What do you think is the value of unskilled labor? You don't think that it should be valued upon the availability of workers?
Socialism is economic democracy ... So enough of the strawmen. Unions are an example of a democratizing force in the economy.
Other than to the individuals who might theoretically gain from it, Where is the good of it for society as a whole? Again, where are these successful fully socialist societies? Unfettered democracy amongst an un-informed and un-educated society is cumbersome, inefficient and leads to failure because the un-knowledgeable will always out number the knowledgeable and will vote for self gain instead of the good of the economy as a whole.
Unfettered democracy is what has led to the continuing failure of our government and it's adoption of socialist measures.
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.
We disagree on this and will probably always disagree on it. Any further argument about it is only antagonistic and not useful debate. Any interested third part can read the arguments presented and form their own opinion from it.
Outsourcing happened after Union decline.
No, Union decline happed as a result of outsourcing and the adoption by some of right-to-work. Just one example is GM, who opened plants in Brazil in the 1930s and in Canada, Australia and other places in the 1950s. Under your arguments, outsourcing would not of taken place until around the Reagan era, it was happening long before that. Outsourcing and international competition was why OPEC was able to create an artificial shortage in the 1970s.
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.
The state is the cause of so much of the failures in capitalism inside the country. It adopted burdensome regulation, among other things. Also, capitalism is not failing. Outsourcing is Capitalism at work and is spreading to more of mankind than just our nation. Even within our nation, a lot of the failures are because we adopted a philosophy of credit (debt) spending instead of real spending, encouraged by the government and in some cases, to meet governments goals, thus creating an artificial bubble economy which then crashed.
Who gets to decide if something is a strawman? You? Or is it more likely that you want to call arguments "strawmen" because you cannot formulate or express reasonable, evidence based and logical arguments to counter those arguments?
Perhaps you would be so kind as to give us your definition of what a strawman is?