Classical Liberalism

[reverendjeremiah]

My numbers were hypothetical. I never claimed they were accurate of any real company; I was using them to make the point about how consumers ultimately set the price of products. Companies could easily set their prices at unaffordable levels, but in doing so completely reduce their consumer base.

Relax man. I am not being mean about it. :-) smile for me. That is the problem with text conversations. It is so easy to mistake them for being rude, or talking negatively, when they are actually merely stating a fact. Your numbers were off big time, I wasnt sure if you were being hypothetical, and then you complained about my imaginative writings which inforced my unsurity (is that a word? "unsurity"?). I merely pointed out you screwed up on your numbers in light of this. It wasnt a stab in the back. It was a poke in the ribs.I make the same mistakes. Everyone does. This is a friendly chat, and if you feel that it is not friendly, then let me know, and I will back down from the discussion. This is YOUR forum, you are the Emperor. I bow to that and respect that. Just please dont ban me for us getting into a heated argument. Please let us agree to disagree and lets hash out the numbers.

Clarify something for me. You said that the overhead on soda was $0.05, and you made a 95% profit on it. In other words, you bought the cola syrup from the Coca Cola company for $0.05 a pop, and sold it for $0.99. So how exactly is Coca Cola the company doing the "overcharging" here? Surely it is your restaurant that is putting the price up to $0.99, and therefore making the larger profit? I don't see any problem in it either way; if people are perfectly willing to pay $0.99 for a large soda, there isn't any reason not to sell it to them for $0.99. It's not overcharging; it's good business.

Because their overhead is the same on everything EXCEPT syrup bags. The vast majority of the syrup is water and easily obtainable ingredients, so their profit/overhead margin is low, but not that low when it comes to the syrup bags. The sell by syrup bags by bulk, but the majority of their profits come from the canned drinks. That is why fountain drinks taste so much more watered down compared to canned drinks, because the restaurants water the soda down even more to get their profit from it. The more the soda tastes watered down, the more the restaurant is fucking you. Coke does not screw over restaurant chains as much as they do the individual consumer. They want rest (restaurants) to make a profit off of their product so it is guarenteed future predicted profits. They sell bulk to rest chains and give them a discount for product placement and logo placement. When you get screwed is when you buy cans or boss bottles or any other way than the special contracts they give to rest's. They are pulling the same profit vs. overhead as restaurants in this situation. I know the system, and I ran the numbers every night. One can easily look up the ingredients of Coke online and see that the majority of their product is water. One can taste their product and come to the same conclusion.

So, in reflection, rest's make Coke a decent profit. If I were to guess, it might be somewhere comparable to your original soft drink numbers. They are probably hitting 55% +/- 15% profit vs. overhead.. you can get a LOT of large drinks out of one bag of syrup. Im talking upper 3 digits. Individual sales (cans) make Coke upper or mid 90's percentage range profit vs. overhead EASILY. If they arent getting it then they are fucking up BIGTIME seeing as they are the ones who teach the rest's how to make 90%+ profit on their syrup bags.*

*Note - My numbers are based on what I was taught during the early and mid 90's. The percentages might have changed, but I doubt that. Cokes biggest and cheapest asset for logo placement, in my opinion, is rest's.

It is a complete strawman, and for the following reason:

Libertarians believe in a completely free market; i.e. one in which the government does not control the market through regulation, but rather through policing (as theVOID has explained multiple times).

In a Libertarian system, Coca Cola could donate to a particular party, but it would be unconstitutional for any government party to give benefits or other economic relief to them. You really need to actually stop and go and read about Libertarianism before you continue this conversation. No true Libertarian (by the definition of Libertarianism) would allow a company to influence government policy on the economy, just as no true Secularist would allow a religious group to influence government policy on anything.

Okay. I have tried to make it a point that I am not arguing against SOCIAL LIBERTARIANISM per se, but that I am arguing against ECONOMIC LIBERTARIANISM specifically. Lets look at the libertarian platform:

2.0 Economic Liberty
Libertarians want all members of society to have abundant opportunities to achieve economic
success. A free and competitive market allocates resources in the most efficient manner. Each
person has the right to offer goods and services to others on the free market. The only proper role of
government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a
legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute
wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

I dont see ANYWHERE in this statement that stops companies from using their money to control government to enhance profits. I personally think you should be complaining to the lib party about their platform instead of bolding "strawman!!11!!11eleventyone!!" to me. The libertarian platform supports companies having the right to pay off politicians. Honestly, they say more about what the government CANT do as opposed to what companies CANT do. This is a recurring theme in the lib platform. Now, you can claim that you dont see that, but I can claim I do not see anything OPPOSING that as well. Platforms are supposed to be all encompasing of the ideology with as few, direct, descriptive words as possible. If they were opposed to corporations using their profits to influence politics, they would have SPECIFICALLY stated it in some manner. Also "and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected." does not address the issue at hand. In fact a lawyer could easily argue that the voluntary trade clause PROTECTS the corporation's volutary trade with "the government" to ensure its future prosperity and interests, because there is no specific clause banning such voluntary trade between govt and corporation. They are not redistributing wealth, they are not controling or managing trade (they are securing contracts instead, which are protected by the govt), so therefore paying off politicians are "proper" in a free society. I dont know how much further I have to go to avoid being accused of a strawman?

No they don't. I don't know how I can make that any clearer. If Libertarians really are FOR businesses interfering in politics (beyond simply donating to political parties or supporting specific acts of government) then I'm not a Libertarian; I'm something else. However, I have never come across a single actual Libertarian (by the definition) who supports corruption, mainly because it would be like finding a vegetarian who eats beefburgers every night. Your assertion that all Libertarians support corruption is absurd.

You might not be a libertarian. You might be more modern liberal than classical liberal. Of course the libertarians in power are not going to call it corruption. They (libertarians in power) are going to say anything BUT corruption. As I have pointed out, there is nothing, NOTHING in the lib platform that SPECIFICALLY stops corporations, or monopolies.

2.6 Monopolies and Corporations
We defend the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of companies based on voluntary association. We seek to divest government of all functions that can be provided by non-governmental organizations or private individuals. We oppose government subsidies to business, labor, or any other special interest. Industries should be governed by free markets.

So monopolies are a-okay. Yes, libertarians oppose "government subsidies". This is government doing things like paying corn growers not to grow corn, or subsidising (sp, fuck it) farms to keep them afloat. It says NOTHING about buying politicians to GUARENTEE CONTRACTS, and no bid contracts.

(Bolding mine for emphasis at how absurd your statement was.)

You keep denying that you are using strawmen, and yet I can easily show this to be a blatant lie. I'm not sure what your game is here; whether you just want to get theVOID and I riled up, but it's not going to work. We know what our political positions are; we know what we support. You can't convince us that white = black.

I should have been very specific about my statement being the RICH AND POWERFUL libertarian types. I have made statements that Libertarians can follow thier system until they get extremely rich and powerful. Then they are playing on the world market, outside of American jurisdiction, in which case they can easily dump their social views in favor of the economic libertarianism. In this view it is not a strawman. I am not trying to get you and void riled up. Last I checked we are having a discussion about modern "classical liberalism", and that Void started it, and you jumped in about 4 pages after me and Void have made SEVERAL posts discussing this topic. Dude, I respect YOU. Honestly, I am no troll, and I think my devotion to this forum has shown that I am not a troll, nor am I trying to say that you are accusing me of trolling. I love atheist forums. In fact I am willing to do work on its xhtml/css validation errors for free. (http://atheistforums.org/thread-6364-page-5.html)

So either stop buying Coke (and get everyone else to as well), or vote in a party that doesn't support this behaviour; i.e., a party that advocates the government staying out of business and the economy. If you read the Libertarian manifesto, you will see that they do not support businesses buying politicians, but in fact support a free market in which the government cannot step, meaning that Coke can't petition the government for help, or tax breaks, or anything.

I try not to spend any money on Coke, but I am also not an extremist. This means I will partake on occasions, with a conscious apprehension to spending on them. the problem is, MANY, if not ALL, American companies do what Coke does. So how do I really have a choice NOT to give them power? There is no such thing as a free market in light of this. Innocent products may more than likely have nefarious corporations tied to them.
Could you please show me where the Libertarian manifesto speaks out against business' buying politicians? Because I dont see that in their platform.
I will be honest that many of the global companies, such as coke, go against this:

3.3 International Affairs
American foreign policy should seek an America at peace with the world. Our foreign policy should
emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding
foreign entanglements. We would end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention,
including military and economic aid. We recognize the right of all people to resist tyranny and
defend themselves and their rights. We condemn the use of force, and especially the use of
terrorism, against the innocent, regardless of whether such acts are committed by governments or by
political or revolutionary groups.

But, as I have said before, economic policies eclipse social policies. When it comes to personal profit, I can see where the libertarian will quickly (like glenn beck) dump their social libertarian views once they get into the upper levels of economic class.