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  #41 (permalink)  
Old 11-13-2007, 01:22 PM
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Originally Posted by Oregon Elephant View Post
I disagree with your interpretation of libertarism and fascism. Libertarism (and free market) has no restraits on industry and corporations and lets them do what they want to make money, including cutting corners. The best example of when the US was close to a free market was back in the late 1800's and earlier 1900's, just before the rise of unions, when workers were exploited and had to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week just to live in a wooden box that passed as a house and put moldy bread on the table. They had no benefits and no minimum wage and no rights. With no restraits, corporations don't work for the people, they control the people and the rich feed off of them.
Exactly. The interesting thing in fact is, that such a laissez faire market as you described is not even stable. It abolishes itself after a few decades simply through itself. Standard oil was just one example, and in case anti trust laws to regulate the market would have been implemented the market would have been abolished entirely by monopolies.

If companies feel no limits, they definitely dont work for the people. History has proven that. I mean there have been cases where companies even hired the army to force the workers to work and put down in a bloody way attempted strikes because of unbearable conditions...

Thats how the ultimately free market looks like.
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  #42 (permalink)  
Old 11-13-2007, 01:39 PM
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Originally Posted by Oregon Elephant View Post
I disagree with your interpretation of libertarism and fascism. Libertarism (and free market) has no restraits on industry and corporations and lets them do what they want to make money, including cutting corners. The best example of when the US was close to a free market was back in the late 1800's and earlier 1900's, just before the rise of unions, when workers were exploited and had to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week just to live in a wooden box that passed as a house and put moldy bread on the table. They had no benefits and no minimum wage and no rights. With no restraits, corporations don't work for the people, they control the people and the rich feed off of them.
But the unions rose up didn't they? We don't need the government to step in if the people are free to organize and form unions. Government intervention is always less effective, then private intervention. Unions have done more for the American worker, then the minimum wage or other government interventions ever did.
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  #43 (permalink)  
Old 11-13-2007, 01:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Caltex View Post
But the unions rose up didn't they? We don't need the government to step in if the people are free to organize and form unions. Government intervention is always less effective, then private intervention. Unions have done more for the American worker, then the minimum wage or other government interventions ever did.
The government provided protection so the unions could form. Once the governmental power is removed and the companies know that it isn't coming back they will crush the economy. Liquidate and the rich gather as much money as posible and than fire all union workers and hire scabs. Many big businesses will go under, but the CEOs have enough money to live and the workers are the ones that are hurt. Than, later after the unions have died off, they start up the business again and refuse to hire anyone from a union and prevent anyone from trying to start a union and POOF, we're back in 1880. Where a railroad worker's experience is measued by the number of fingers he has lost.
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  #44 (permalink)  
Old 11-13-2007, 01:54 PM
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Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois View Post
I don't need to read Milton Friedman's works. I've had enough courses in classical economics to qualify for an economics major. I suggest you read some of Karl Marx's works.

So you say that we tax the middle class and give to the rich. I guess you didn't know that the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes.*

So given that you are wrong on the facts about income re-distribution (you think it is distributed up, when in fact it is distributed down), do you think it's time to re-consider your ideas on libertarianism?


* Source: Who Pays the Most Income Tax?
I didn't make any claim on which way the income distributed, I know that the top 25% of income earners fund nearly 90% of the income tax. I make the claim that the money is redistributed from the people (Rich and Poor) to the corporations in the form of contracts. Blackwater, Haliburton, and many many other corporations with government contracts. If the people do not control how much they buy from corporations by a pure capitalist set up, then who does? The unresponsive government, who do not hold the corporations liable for product quality like the people do.

If Ford makes bad cars, the public don't buy them, they buy alternatives. If Ford makes crappy cars, all the U.S. Police stations, military, etc. still buy them, because the Ford Motor Company lobbied legislatures to get exclusive deals. This is not capitalist.

If we cut back on Government spending and contracts with corporations to the bare minimum, we wouldn't have this corporatism that we have now.
If the people are free to buy from whatever company they choose, a competitive economy, the corporations will in no way be more powerful then they are, when they can lobby a legislature.
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  #45 (permalink)  
Old 11-13-2007, 02:01 PM
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Originally Posted by Caltex View Post
If Ford makes bad cars, the public don't buy them, they buy alternatives. If Ford makes crappy cars, all the U.S. Police stations, military, etc. still buy them, because the Ford Motor Company lobbied legislatures to get exclusive deals. This is not capitalist.
The flaw with this arguement, is that all the car companies will make bad cars. They will all deterioate and quality will simply not exist. In a purely Capitalist world, companies work off of employees that do the most for the least amount of pay. The more they can cut costs (cheap labor, cheap material, destroying the enviroment) the more money they can make, and they can use that money in comercial to destroy any wholesome competition.
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  #46 (permalink)  
Old 11-20-2007, 03:06 AM
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Libertarian 73%
Republican 67%
Anarchism 47%
Democrat- 40%
Socialism 30%
Fascist 13%
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  #47 (permalink)  
Old 11-20-2007, 12:29 PM
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You scored as a Anarchism
Who needs the State? Not you, it seems. You are an anarchist. Go forth and start the revolution of the crazy wild people. Then sit around the fire and wish there were still some doctors.
Anarchism
83%
Socialism
50%
Democrat-
33%
Libertarian
33%
Fascist
0%
Republican
0%
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  #48 (permalink)  
Old 11-20-2007, 12:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Voluntary View Post
Your synopsis reeks of faulty accusations. First, can you provide an accurate analysis that America was the closest to a free market during the era you mentioned.

Please provide data, methodology, and references.

Second, your emotional plea that every worker lived in a cardboard during this era goes unsupported. We were still recovering from the Civil War. It was one of the most devastating wars experienced by Americans and we were still recovering decades later.

Third, industrial capitalism was difficult on a lot of people. It was exacerbated in the US compared to our European counterparts since we were a nations of immigrants. The was class warfare along with "national" warfare in America. Europe only had to deal with class warfare.

I ask again, to support that during this era that America was the closet to a free market.
You can just read a history book of the 19th century and learn what it was like and compare it to the idea of no governmental interference, it doesn't take that much of thinking to put them together, but if you need an actual reference,

19th Century America

Having the government not interfere with industry or businesses has no different effects between immigrants and natives when they both are treated poorly.
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  #49 (permalink)  
Old 11-24-2007, 02:20 AM
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Originally Posted by Bill Shatner View Post
You scored as a Anarchism
Who needs the State? Not you, it seems. You are an anarchist. Go forth and start the revolution of the crazy wild people. Then sit around the fire and wish there were still some doctors.
Anarchism
83%
Socialism
50%
Democrat-
33%
Libertarian
33%
Fascist
0%
Republican
0%

WELL YAY YOUR NOT A REPUBLICAN OR FASCIST
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  #50 (permalink)  
Old 12-03-2007, 07:31 AM
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Those questions are so heavy and contain so much insinuation and manipulation.

What a shockingly bias quiz...
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