New economy

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The chief problem with capitalism seems to me to be resource control and allocation. The resources are there - there exists enough food and material that no one in the world needs to be hungry or homeless or uneducated. But when resources are owned and doled out in a manner that ensures shareholders will he happy and corporate profits protected and enhanced, then misery is bound to follow.

It works kinda like this: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, buy the pond, tell him he can't have the fish but he can fish for you and you'll sell the fish and give him a very small percentage and he'll say things like, 'I'm hungry' and 'My teeth hurt'.

Boru

[Jehanne]

The chief problem with capitalism seems to me to be resource control and allocation. The resources are there - there exists enough food and material that no one in the world needs to be hungry or homeless or uneducated. But when resources are owned and doled out in a manner that ensures shareholders will he happy and corporate profits protected and enhanced, then misery is bound to follow.

It works kinda like this: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, buy the pond, tell him he can't have the fish but he can fish for you and you'll sell the fish and give him a very small percentage and he'll say things like, 'I'm hungry' and 'My teeth hurt'.

Boru

No, he will organize with his fellow fishermen and overthrow you.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The chief problem with capitalism seems to me to be resource control and allocation. The resources are there - there exists enough food and material that no one in the world needs to be hungry or homeless or uneducated. But when resources are owned and doled out in a manner that ensures shareholders will he happy and corporate profits protected and enhanced, then misery is bound to follow.

It works kinda like this: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, buy the pond, tell him he can't have the fish but he can fish for you and you'll sell the fish and give him a very small percentage and he'll say things like, 'I'm hungry' and 'My teeth hurt'.

Boru

No, he will organize with his fellow fishermen and overthrow you.

Right, because that happens so often these days. What he'll do is organize with his fellow fisherman and they'll all refuse to fish until the owner of the pond agrees to increase their starvation wages by 1% and sell them oranges at cost +10% to help with the scurvy. This largesse will be paid for by increasing the retail price of fish by 15% and blaming the increase on the fishermen.

Boru

[Spongebob]

No idea where this thread belongs.  

Much has been said about the best kind of society to have and capitalism is clearly the most popular.  But capitalism has immense flaws as well.  We may be somewhat safe for now but future generations will face the treat of limited resources.  And limited resources leads to poverty and oppression.  Only a stable population can hope to resolve this, but population growth has generally been the engine from which capitalist nations build wealth.  Oh, there will likely be innovation, but innovation only seems to move us from one resource to another.  From trees to whale oil to fossil fuels to lithium, the carousel continues to spin.  Humans certainly live more comfortable lives now but we still face massive problems in pollution, resource depletion, wealth disparity, unhappy work lives and so on.  Is it even possible to reinvent society and economics in such a way that it does not rely on growth for prosperity?

It's called communism, Comrade.

Well, he.  Yeah, I didn't think of that.  Good point, but I still wonder if communism/socialism is the answer.  Maybe it is.  We do know that Norway has a very high standard of living and has a pretty high socialist element to their society, which is still capitalist in nature.  But they have some things that skew those results.  Their greatest source of wealth is the offshore oil and that is essentially owned by the people and the profits are used to fund all kinds of basic needs like health and education.  Absent that I suspect Norway would b a much different place, though it might still be economically stable.

But more to your point, yes having the means of production and its wealth fall back into the hands of those who work means wealth is distributed much wider instead of concentrated.  But would that wealth still be dependent on the growth of production/sales?  IOW, consider an isolated society where the population is diminishing.  Fewer people means lower sales of products and no growth of production, but rather retracting production.  That means retraction of production means less wealth and usually results in a recession or depression.  We have those sporadically even with a growing population because of imbalances and disruptions in our economic system.  I'm not sure social ownership of production can overcome that.

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The chief problem with capitalism seems to me to be resource control and allocation. The resources are there - there exists enough food and material that no one in the world needs to be hungry or homeless or uneducated. But when resources are owned and doled out in a manner that ensures shareholders will he happy and corporate profits protected and enhanced, then misery is bound to follow.

It works kinda like this: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, buy the pond, tell him he can't have the fish but he can fish for you and you'll sell the fish and give him a very small percentage and he'll say things like, 'I'm hungry' and 'My teeth hurt'.

Boru

I think in some cases this is true.  Oil prices don't shoot up because oil wells are running dry; its because OPEC refuses to pump enough oil to meet the demand, creating a fake limited supply.  That results in higher prices and more profit for the sand people.

This makes me wonder if nuclear fusion is ever perfected, will there truly be unlimited energy or will the electric companies throttle the power like OPEC does now?

But some resources truly are limited and the owners of production still use this to keep prices and profits high.  I'm not sure anyone really wants unlimited supply of anything.  We essentially have an unlimited supply of sea water and its value is absolute zero.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It's called communism, Comrade.

Well, he.  Yeah, I didn't think of that.  Good point, but I still wonder if communism/socialism is the answer.  Maybe it is.  We do know that Norway has a very high standard of living and has a pretty high socialist element to their society, which is still capitalist in nature.  But they have some things that skew those results.  Their greatest source of wealth is the offshore oil and that is essentially owned by the people and the profits are used to fund all kinds of basic needs like health and education.  Absent that I suspect Norway would b a much different place, though it might still be economically stable.

But more to your point, yes having the means of production and its wealth fall back into the hands of those who work means wealth is distributed much wider instead of concentrated.  But would that wealth still be dependent on the growth of production/sales?  IOW, consider an isolated society where the population is diminishing.  Fewer people means lower sales of products and no growth of production, but rather retracting production.  That means retraction of production means less wealth and usually results in a recession or depression.  We have those sporadically even with a growing population because of imbalances and disruptions in our economic system.  I'm not sure social ownership of production can overcome that.

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The chief problem with capitalism seems to me to be resource control and allocation. The resources are there - there exists enough food and material that no one in the world needs to be hungry or homeless or uneducated. But when resources are owned and doled out in a manner that ensures shareholders will he happy and corporate profits protected and enhanced, then misery is bound to follow.

It works kinda like this: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, buy the pond, tell him he can't have the fish but he can fish for you and you'll sell the fish and give him a very small percentage and he'll say things like, 'I'm hungry' and 'My teeth hurt'.

Boru

I think in some cases this is true.  Oil prices don't shoot up because oil wells are running dry; its because OPEC refuses to pump enough oil to meet the demand, creating a fake limited supply.  That results in higher prices and more profit for the sand people.

This makes me wonder if nuclear fusion is ever perfected, will there truly be unlimited energy or will the electric companies throttle the power like OPEC does now?

But some resources truly are limited and the owners of production still use this to keep prices and profits high.  I'm not sure anyone really wants unlimited supply of anything.  We essentially have an unlimited supply of sea water and its value is absolute zero.

Resources don’t have to be unlimited, they need to be better managed. And seawater has the potential to be an immensely valuable resource - desalinization doesn’t just provide potable water, it provides a staggering array of minerals that could be used in everything from fertilizer to electric batteries.

This, of course, won’t happen as long as it remains cheaper to do things like strip mining and sinking oil wells.

Boru

[Spongebob]

So, resource management is the key. So how do we accomplish that when resources are owned by an elite group who hoard wealth?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So, resource management is the key.  So how do we accomplish that when resources are owned by an elite group who hoard wealth?

Lots of possible ways (and I don’t ask anyone to agree with them):

-Nationalize vital resources

-Increase corporate tax rates

-Cap CEO and other upper-management pay

-Long-term investment in renewable resources 

-Funding research into clean(er) energy

-Universal health and wellness care

-Large-scale public transport

Boru

[Spongebob]

OK, so move society toward a more socialist model.

Is there anything to say to those who will inevitably cry that innovation will be squelched because there's no incentive to break your back trying something completely new? Or is this where we reevaluate how innovation is accomplished?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

OK, so move society toward a more socialist model.

Is there anything to say to those who will inevitably cry that innovation will be squelched because there's no incentive to break your back trying something completely new?  Or is this where we reevaluate how innovation is accomplished?

I’d say, ‘Four of those seven ideas are about nothing BUT innovation, and the other three are about financing it.’

It isn’t so much about reevaluating how innovation is accomplished as it is about recognizing how it’s always been accomplished. For more than a century, technology has been almost exclusively driven by either governments or by private/corporate research largely funded by governments. The notion of the genius ‘garage tinkerer’ who single-handedly changes the world has become a fable.

Boru

[Jehanne]

So, resource management is the key.  So how do we accomplish that when resources are owned by an elite group who hoard wealth?

Lots of possible ways (and I don’t ask anyone to agree with them):

-Nationalize vital resources

-Increase corporate tax rates

-Cap CEO and other upper-management pay

-Long-term investment in renewable resources 

-Funding research into clean(er) energy

-Universal health and wellness care

-Large-scale public transport

Boru

Have you read the Manifesto? Marx & Engels advocated, 1) An end to child labor, and 2) A national income tax.