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By B. Smith
Barack wants to what?
Capitalism or Socialism which do you prefer?
Please allow me to define the terms before we go any further. According to www.dictionary.com, capitalism and socialism are defined as follows:
Capitalism noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
Now compare that to socialism:
Socialism noun
1. A theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. Procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (In Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
4. An economic system based on state ownership of capital.
If someone were to come to you and ask you for 15% of your 401k or 15% of your pension fund, what would you say? If you are like me you would probably tell them to go take a long walk off of a short plank. If someone were to tell you that the government wants to take ALL of your retirement funds and convert them to social security so as to ensure your future retirement, what would you say? I would tell them that it is my money and that they need to keep their noses out of my business.
But what is happening?
1. We have democrats in the world of academia and in the halls of elected office calling for major changes in the 401k and pension retirement plans. The ideas range from the government taking a "one-time" (anyone believe it will be just once?) confiscation of 15% of your funds all the way to the entire take-over of your retirement plans. You know what these are, right? These are the plans where you invested your money into your future. It is the money that you earned and set aside for your future. It is the money for your kids and grandkids. It is YOUR money. The people that are coming to power want to take it. They have done nothing to earn it but they want to take it. Here is one article for your perusal:
http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20081007/REG/810079894
2. Are you so naive that you think it won't happen? You honestly think that your retirement money is safe, right? Look at Argentina. It has just happened! According to Time Almanac, 2008, both America and Argentina have a Federal Republic with two legislative houses. Argentina is not, nor are we, a socialist country. But we are both headed that way. Look at definition number three for socialism. When over fifty percent of the electorate believes it is okay to plunder the so called rich to meet their own desires, we have major problems.
Look here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article /WRAPUP-2-Argentinas-pension-takeover-plan-scares- g-KNTA7?OpenDocument
3. We have a Presidential elect that has openly called for bankrupting the coal industry. The use of coal provides OVER 50% of our electricity. What would happen if it becomes bankrupt as Barack has suggested? Would this be good? I would suggest that if it goes bankrupt then the government would step in and take over. Compare this to the definition and one might easily see where the government might be "taking over" the coal industry and this can be viewed as socialism. Watch it for yourself at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ
If their country is doing it then what is to say that ours won't be next. Their government has just taken everything that their citizens have been working for and confiscated it. Can it happen here? Sure it can! Look around you. We have citizens that believe it is okay to take from those who go out and work their rear ends off and give their earnings to people that don't.
Please consider the definition number four for socialism. Simply put, capital, in the business world, equals money. Are we not seeing this today? We have the government giving bailouts to the banking world. Now what? The auto industry wants one; the student loan organizations are pondering the question along with the credit card companies. Couple this with the ideas of the government taking over your retirement funds and bankrupting the coal industry, et al. it is clear that we have taken the beginning steps towards socialism.
Does anyone believe we can tax our way to prosperity? How is that possible? The government takes our monies and gives it to those who don't have and this is the road to prosperity? Has it ever worked anywhere? No, it has not and it never will.
Too often the argument comes down to wealth envy. Socialism is supposed to even the field while capitalism allows people to become rich, or so some may say. This may all be true. But when push comes to shove, who are you more concerned for: You and your family? Or your fellow citizen? Me? I guess I can be accused of being selfish because I will take care of "me and mine" first, then everyone else.
I finish with this quote by the great capitalist, Adam Smith, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
I prefer Capitalism! (From the internet: from Helium: Where Knowledge Rules)
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On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:10 AM,
From: David Bain,
Capitalism still needs to be ethically regulated. Otherwise, you have people who have much more money and power exploiting and manipulating many people who don't have the same power and money. I will feed you back your own Adam Smith quote in an entirely different light.
'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.'
If the butcher can sell you 'dog liver' even though you think it is 'cow liver or 'cow steak' that you don't know is full of hormones and steroids, if the brewer can sell you 'domestic beer' that you think is 'premium beer', and if the baker can sell you 'fresh, baked' bread that is a day or more old, if corporate America can 'outsource' all its 'labor force' to places like China and Mexico and India for half the cost, if New Mexico farmers can get 'dirt cheap' labor by 'importing illegal Mexican immigrants', if companies can 'import' scientists from around the world on 'work visas' at half the cost while American scientists with Phds can't find jobs or half to accept jobs for half the amount of money that they should be getting because of 'foreign competition', when full-time workers become a thing of the past because you don't have to pay part-ime workers 'benefits', when employees stop getting raises -- or lose their jobs to other workers who will accept less -- while the!
ir bosses continue to rake in more and more, when Wall Street Bankers take their 'bailout money' from Washington -- and use it for personal executive dividends amongst those who bankrupted the company by exploiting middle class Americans with 'Trojan Virus' mortgages...
After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?
Here is what I say: You still need benevolence, you still need ethics, you still need altruism and caring about other people. You still need regulations, you still need good Government, you still need law and order -- and not only to protect the rich from the poor, but also to protect the poor and the middle class from the rich.
In short, you need homeostatic, dialectic-democratic balance between the best principles of both Capitalism and Socialism, allowing people to work hard and to gain from this, while at the same time protecting people from their own greed and the greed of others.
Unethical self-interest -- that is the curse of America right now and the curse of unregulated Capitalism -- Capitalism with no reigns attached to it.
I like Adam Smith but even he didn't trust many of the business men he was dealing with and knew that they needed to be regulated. A totally 'free market' doesn't work or if you want to play the 'free market' to the max, to the extreme, then you don't bail out the 'robbers' on Wall Street. And you let the American Automobiles fend for themselves -- and go bankrupt if necessary. This is a totally 'free market' and it is so comically ironically when the ultimate Adam Smith Capitalists come crying to Washington for 'bailout money' when the 'free market' is no longer fun for them, no longer in their 'self-interest'.
This is the height of irony -- and the height of human hypocrisy.
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From: B Smith
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2009 11:15:50 PM
Subject: Re: Message from David Bain at Helium.com
Wow! What a response. I want to thank you for setting the record for the longest and most intense response I have ever had to one of my articles. Obviously I hit a nerve.
I would like you to know that I will respond to most of your points. First though, I would like to ask you if you are aware that you had a sentence of 219 words. 219! That sets a record. To the best of my knowledge I have never read a 219 word sentence and for that, I would like to thank you.
Again, wow! You sound like you are a little upset. You made some points and accusations and I would like you to answer the following:
1. How do you define "good government"? And, who defines it?
2. Who are the "robbers" on Wall Street? Or are you just using a cliché?
3. What "protection" does the poor and middle class need from the rich? Who provides jobs for the poor and middle class?
I really am trying to figure out just what you are saying. Are you saying that socialism is better than capitalism? If so, I would ask you to provide an example of where socialism has ever provided better opportunities for its citizens than what we have here in America under what used to be capitalism.
Or, are you saying that capitalism works best when regulated by the government? If so, then I would counter that the very problems we have right now is that we have too much government interference. Specifically, government is too involved in taxes, regulations such as requiring lenders to loan to otherwise unqualified loan applicants so then can buy into the American dream of home ownership and so on. Things look bleaker as Obama is sworn in tomorrow.
And to answer your question of, "After all of this, what do you say about 'the self-interest' of Corporate America and whether it is good or bad for the rest of the American people?" My answer is that the self interest of corporate America is good for America. After all, if the corporations do not survive then where will we work? How will we earn a living?
Finally, I believe there should never have been a bailout. I also believe that it might just be good if one or two of the auto makers declared bankruptcy. One benefit of that would be that the union contracts would be null and void and they would have to start over. I believe that would be good.
Smith
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Well, Mr. or Ms. B. Smith....
You are officially invited to offer your many intelligent ideas to 'Hegel's Hotel': DGBN Philosophy: Dialectic Debates on American Politics/Economics.
It has been a pleasure to hear what you have had to say so far.
Firstly, I would like to get your first name so I can stop calling you B. Smith. And so that I can know whether I am dealing with a man or a woman -- not that that matters relative to your ideas which speak for themselves...My assumption -- maybe a presumptuous sexist assumption -- is that you are a man.
Secondly, I like the way you write and present your ideas. Just as I think you are aiming for full clarity and exposition in what you believe, as well as searching out for the same in my writing, again unless I am being presumptuous on your side, I wish the same. Then we can decide how much we agree and/or disagree with each other.
For me, this is a full-time hobby and project -- at least as 'full-time' as can be conducted outside of a 52 hour work week that doesn't involve writing.
I invite you to check out my interconnected network of blogsites called: 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Thirdly, I strongly hope that you will give me your full permission to not only use your essay in my particular blogsite called: Dialectic Debates in American Politics/Economics...but also to contribute further essays if you so desire...There is no money involved in this enterprise now-- just the potential meeting of intelligent, passionate writers and philosophers on a common blogsite writing about the same or similar issues.
My assumption here is that two or more intelligent, passionate writers can accomplish more in conjunction with each other than one writer working alone. I just finished watching 'The Fountainhead' this morning -- which I read about 30 to 35 years ago and this is where I want to build 'Hegel's Hotel' -- metaphorically speaking of course -- higher than 'The Wyland Building' in 'The Fountainhead'. I am equally willing to take on Adam Smith, Ayn Rand -- and you -- in the philosophical and pragmatic areas where I think you are respectively wrong. Which is not to say that we don't have -- or can't easily or with more rhetorical struggle -- find a common ground where we 'essentially' believe in the same or similar thing(s).
'The greater the contrast, the greater the energy.' -- Carl Jung
'The contrasts of form are too great.' -- one of the actors in The Fountainhead.
They don't have to be.
Ayn Rand argued that society -- and its greatest creations -- was/were/is/are built on the integrity of the individual self.
I counter-argue that the greatest creations of society and culture are often if not usually the product of 'the dialectic engagement different individuals in society with similar and different ideas and philosophical perspectives sharing some common dream, some common vision, or eventually arriving at one, and bringing their differences together in differential unity.
Ayn Rand's self-contradiction, Howard Rourke's self-contradiction, and Capitalism's self-contradiction is that the self -- and the individual -- cannot live in a void. People need each other. The society needs the individual and the individual needs society. The individual is dialectically engaged with the evolution of both him or herself -- and the evolution of society. And visa versa. Society without the individual -- and the individual self -- is devoid of life, passion, and creativity. But the individual needs some viable combination of family, friends, a lover, community, society, and nature in which to function and to flourish without 'individualism' and 'self-interest' being the sole ethical principle on which these combination of relationships exist. Even the Enlightenment principle of 'conquering nature' was turned into the Romantic principle of 'living in harmony with nature'.
This is where eventually -- if not already -- Hegel's Hotel will rise higher than The Wyland Building in The Fountainhead.
As for 'socialism' -- Ayn Rand and Karl Marx had a much greater similarity in ethical principles regarding 'the nature and essence of work and the self' than either of them or many other Capitalist and/or Socialist partisans would ever care to admit.
'The contrasts of form are too great.'
Maybe in The Fountainhead -- between the self and the 'self-sacrifices' in society.
But not even in The Fountainhead where 'great contrasts in form' produced great architecture, great buildings.
And a great love affair. Where Mrs. Wyland finally became Mrs. Rourke at the end of the movie.
And the contrast of the narcissistic, mercenary, power-motivated, opinion-poll motivated Mr. Wyland actually found his 'principles' and his 'self-integrity' -- if only briefly -- and hooked up with Howard Rourke on 'the building of the greatest building -- The Wyland Building'. (That was before he shot himself for living the life of a 'fraud', a 'mercenary' -- and in so doing, 'freed' Mrs. Wyland to become Mrs. Rourke.)
What is overstated in The Fountainhead -- and in Ayn Rand's individualistic, Capitalist philosophy -- is the trumpeting of 'individual unilateralism' -- with no 'dialectic engagement and dialogue.'
What is missing in The Fountainhead -- is the dialectic engagement of 'self-interest' and 'self-sacrifice', self and society, I and Thou, not in a way that makes both the individual and society worse off, not in a way that makes you and I worse off, but rather in a way where each of us 'gains from this dialectic engagement and dialogue'. Where Ayn Rand trumpets the 'integrity of the self and the individual', I do this and more. I trumpet the Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, Buber and Gestalt Godliness of...'I and Thou, Here and Now'....Individuals -- similar and different from each other -- working together the pursue a common cause, a common vision, a common dream, a Multi-Dialectical Harmony and Holiness...
My dad was/is a great Capitalist. My dad is my Capitalist Torch. My dad is my own Ayn Rand and Howard Rourke personified and idolized by me for his great vision and his great willingness to take risks.
But I have seen the dangers and the tragedies of 'Capitalist and Republican Uunilateralism'.
With Bush, America was about 'unilaterally shoving' America onto the rest of the world -- even if it was said to be in the interest of 'democracy'. You cannot force or coerce democracy. Otherwise, it a fraud, a token democracy, a puppet democracy.
Who can forget Bush's 'coalition of the willing' -- as he in effect raised his middle finger at The United Nations -- and the rest of the world?
Bush was about 'dividing and conquering' -- even if it was deemed to be in the interest of both democracy and American self-defense.
Bush divided the world but he did not conquer it. Bush divided Afghanastan and Iraq into two separate war fronts and in doing so he divided the world, divided America, and brought America economically down to its knees. America's enemies have found America's greatest weakness. It can't economically handle a sustained war -- with fading world and ally support -- on different warfronts. Bin Laden said it himself -- if that last tape can be trusted to be his voice still alive and coming from a mind-brain obviously cognitively functioning very well. Just keep dividing the Middle East War up into different warfronts and be patient as, over time, America is economically brought down to its knees.
Bush's vision of Imperialist Capitalism -- the person and the party who helped orchestrate the 'exportation of much of America's manufacturing jobs'; the person and the party who turned a blind eye to illegal Mexican immigrants coming over the American border because large American farmers wanted 'cheaper farm labor'; the person and the party who 'supported the import of scientists from different countries on work visas' so that large corporations in America didn't/doesn't have to pay 'American prices and wages' for American scientists -- is one of 'divide and conquer'.
But in the end Bush's vision of America divided -- and self-destructed.
And Obama is left 'holding the bag'. Trying to pick up all the broken pieces.
Trying to rescuscitate the idea of 'dialectic-democracy'. And 'multi-dialectic democracy'.
Dialectic-Democratic Creative Engagement, Negotiation, and Integration.
Differential unity.
That is how my vision of Hegel's Hotel is bigger and better than Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' -- or 'The Wyland Building'.
The Wyland Building was built by one very talented, creative, passionate man -- Howard Rourke.
The Fountainhead was created by one very talented, creative passionate woman -- Ayn Rand.
Hegel's Hotel is being created and built by me...but at the same time by more than me...
Hegel's Hotel is being built multi-dialectically by all the philosophers, psychologists, friends and family...
Who have influenced me.
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no contrasts in form too great to integrate.
In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, and Erich Fromm can all come together on the same page -- and speak to each other.
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish to hear from Capitalists and Socialists alike, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In Hegel's Hotel, I not only trumpet the creative genius of philosophers like Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, Ayn Rand...
But also the creative dialectic or multi-dialectic working genius built around the similarities and contrasts between Hegel and Marx, Hegel and Nietzsche, Hegel and Engels, Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, Bloomfield, and Kooper, or the loving contrasts between Romeo and Juliet...
In Hegel's Hotel, there are no 'contrasts in form that are too great to integrate'.
Not Hegel and Nietzsche. Not Freud and Jung. Not Freud and Adler. Not Freud and Perls.
Not Capitalism and Socialism.
Not employers and employees.
Not corporate ownership and union.
Not 'fair trade' and 'free trade'. (Where 'free trade' has become a means of exploiting American workers by sending manufacturing companies to foreign -- 'cheaper' -- countries.
Not 'full-time' and 'part-time' workers. (Where 'part-time' workers have become a cheaper work force who don't have to be paid full-time benefits, and thus, are likely to remain 'part-time' practically forever.)
Not The American People and The American Government.
Not self and society.
Not self and self-sacrifice.
Not self and self-alienation.
Not self and self-actualization.
-- dgbn, January 20th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process...
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