Socialism. We need it America......... For now

So in other words nobodys perfect. Okay, no reason to get all emotional about the U.S though simply because some leaders in the U.S have spoken about american exceptionalism.

This is only a focal point of people with regard to the U.S as they have been the world superpower for so long and are looked upon with greater attention than many others. It is commonplace for people to look to leaders with more critique and insist that they adhere to values more than others who are lower on the chain of command. We may observe this not just on a national or world spectrum, but also at the workplace with the hierarchy structure of bosses and supervisors. People breaking rules or slacking on the job all the while complaining about someone higher up than them doing the same.

Which was my point reworded.

This sounds like something Glenn Beck would say right before bursting into tears and speaking about god and his recovery from alcoholism.

 

Revolutionary Workers Party..(sounds a bit Maoist/Leninesque.) Must first capture the government.Then the Revolutionary Workers Party (transformed into the Democratic Workers Party) (sans democratic) nationalizes banks and industry,,,(sorry, I had to fight the compulsion the shout out 'Heil somebody' and allow my right arm to stiffen).

 

Politicians may now and then be dominated by some defunct economist. Thatcher, for example, was warped by her understanding of Hayek (which ironically gave us a rather novel form of government coercion that forced a substantial rise in child poverty). However, her main grunt derived from Thatcher. Not surprisingly, subsequent right wing politicians were forced to try other macroeconomic policy. This reflects the death of monetarism and the updating of macroeconomic analysis through current economic theorising.

They’re nothing more than the ‘yes men’ of economists, giving a voice to analysis from economic journals that are only read by the few.

You’ve attempted to refer to numbers. That is only required when testing specific hypothesis (e.g. the use of a simple distinction between a ‘competitive sector’ and a ‘monopoly sector’ to assess the impact on the threat of stagflation). All we need for market concentration to be important is for cost-plus pricing to be enabled (eliminating the standard supply and demand analysis used in analysis of competitive industries)

As I said, social capital is typically restricted to a twisting of sociological output in order to provide a more detailed accounting of the nature and consequences of poverty. In terms of more specific analysis, it’s actually closer to the heard of Chicago economics. Becker, for example, used it to discount the importance of ‘social norms’ (i.e. the rational choice model is still determining behaviour, with apparent herd behaviour the result of social capital introduced as an indirect term in the utility function)

Productivity maximisation? We’d have to return to the need for socialism, rather than these marginal shifts between different forms of capitalism.

I discounted it. Referring to social democracy and, as noted before, the consequences of ‘insider-outsider’ analysis (i.e. in these marginal differences in capitalism we simply amend the hierarchical inefficiencies that exist)

Which is bobbins, with a buzzword used to hide from the much more diverse literature into social and liberal democracy.

I don’t agree. It’s about the characteristics that are consistent with stability (and therefore reproduction of capitalist profit). The “fully application of traditional capitalism” is on a par with the ‘socialism is government’ abuse of the economic spectrum. Laissez faire is neither wanted nor achievable. As we move towards economic planning/interventionism, we are merely finding the means to reduce militancy. A social democracy has evolved institutions associated with lower poverty because of the threats posed from a lack of compliance.

Smith made a couple of references to the invisible hand. It’s been blown out of all proportion by those that wish to ignore the characteristics of capitalism. For example, that cost-plus pricing norm referred to earlier provides us with an understanding of the dominance of the visible hand. It’s here where we see the vibrancy of socialist political economy. We see a much more detailed account of both managerial behaviour and the nature of the labour market. It’s through this analysis that economic outcome (and market inefficiencies) can be understood. That socio capitalism malarkey is just pishing about around the edges.

This doesn’t actually make any sense. Growth maximisation is an approach used within analysis of the visible hand. The invisible hand can only help us understand how the market, in a terribly simplistic world where there is no hierarchy, can achieve allocative efficiency. For growth, given the need for investment in technical progress, we have to refer to market power. That would lead us to a more Schumpeterian approach to economic relations.

 

It’s not as simple as not being perfect. A good man is not perfect but he strives to make sure that what he does is right. And if and when he does something against another unintentionally, he apologizes and or if harm was done he does what he can to correct or make restitution. But this not the way of the U.S or Nations. The only Nation that I can think of in our modern time that came close is South Africa, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela....they had what was called The truth and reconciliation commission.

That's what we are told by the media......I don't personally know of anyone the looks up to the U.S. As an immigrant myself I don't and never have. As a Christian, the only person that I look up to is Jesus, but that's a topic for another time.

I am not a listener of Glenn Beck though, and never was. But I have been saying much of things that are starting to happen to the U.S (its economic decline for example) a long time ago.....since the early part of the internet revolution.....and I believe it for much longer than that. If we think things are bad now, you have not begun to see how bad it's going to get. When it gets really horrible many are going to wish they could leave and can't.

 

People are going to wish it was socialism instead when dictatorship hit the U.S with full force.

 

So there is no real disagreement here, good. Only I suggest that the theories promoted by economists have been overly simplified (at least in the U.S) and that 'many' have taken these simplified versions and promoted extremities.

I havent 'attempted' anything with regard to numbers other than explain what market concentration is. One cannot say something leads to market concentration with regard to a particular indusrty except for allowing or starting the indusrty. If there was one producer in an indusrty for one nation the market concentration would be 100%. If a monoply was 'allowed' (purest form of course), this would 'allow' for a very high market concentration of 100%. Actually, by definition it would only take about 4 producers to have a 100% market concentration. Just examine the word concentration for starters, there are different degrees which requires one to specify either high or low. Simple stuff really. Think of making kool aid and regard the market to how strong the taste of the flavor is. I havent invoked numbers to explain away some social ill, just breaking down a definition to what it means. The only thuing that allows for market concentration is production in that industry. The market concentration itself is based upon how many producers are involved in the industry, thus allowing for a look into how many producers are involved and what control those producers have in a particular industry.

The networking of businesess, firms, poor people or anyone for that matter may be greatly improved by enhanced networking (social capital).

Perhaps, where would you like to start?

Maybe just the sort of diversity (Bobbins) you wish to avoid. As a middleway, it is likely that an analysis would prove equally provoking.

Yes, we do disagree on definitions. ( see market concentration )

Examining your initial take on the subject I can easily understand this.

Lets look at the quote without being taken out of context. Heres what I posted before your unecessary abridgement.


"Social capitalism does embrace tenets of traditional capitalist theory. Social capitalism validates traditional capitalism as embodied by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the marketplace. The "invisible hand" should be free to the greatest extent possible to create market efficiencies for all participants in the marketplace: The Tier-one economy. However, under social capitalism, government regulation is required to protect the marketplace from manipulation. The marketplace must be protected so that the invisible hand can work for maximum growth."

It pays homage to the efficiencies of the market, while also suggesting alleviating the inneficiencies.

You posted----"The invisible hand can only help us understand how the market, in a terribly simplistic world where there is no hierarchy, can achieve allocative efficiency."


I suppose I will have to understand your reference to hierarchy here before I can go on.

 

And when is this supposed to happen again?

 

You have referred to numbers, but we have no need to do that. There is no binary shift from competitive sector to monopoly sector (except to simplify empirical analysis). We only need to know whether cost-plus pricing is being followed. That demonstrates market power and therefore hammers home the importance of government interventionism as a stabilisation force.

Given it has been used so widely within the Chicago school (the most orthodox in orthodox economics), I just find a little (just a little mind you, I haven’t gone utterly insane) amusement in the reference to social capital.

I’ve bothered with the history of economic thought and twinned it with modern theory of the firm. Open up your Wealth of Nations and count how many times Smith refers to the invisible hand. Then open up your Theory of the Firm and see the importance of institutionalism and therefore the visible hand. Finally, note that Marxist analysis of property rights is actually consistent with that institutionalism.

I’m not a Marxist myself, but we see here how buzzwords have been abused in order to hide from the political economy. I’ve seen no intellectual output from this socio capitalism of yours!

It’s only in the most simplistic organisations that we can refer to the invisible hand (and, through the price mechanism, how it can get around problems such as the dispersed nature of knowledge). Hierarchical enterprise, however, is the norm. I’d of course use it to refer to how economic rents are created, with labour underpayment going hand in hand with managerial economic planning (i.e. the visible hand can only be fully understood by referring to how it’s used to eliminate the ‘labour market’ as the determinant of wages). For you, however, it just becomes awkward to go for the ‘invisible hand’ cliché. Hierarchy ensures the boundaries of the firm are widened (both vertical and horizontal integration) such that economic planning determines long term success.

 

It was only with my explanation of market concentration that I invoked numbers.

As I find amusement in your reference to 'bobbins', what part of the U.K Riever?

Possibly, it would go hand in hand with what I mentioned about the oversimplification of widespread economic appeal and the diametrically opposed viewpoints we find in terms of economics which so dominate U.S train of thought. Aside from the current rise in popularity with discussing monetary policy that is. If two ideas are compatible with one another, it just means that the child of such a fusion may have to be named, as deviations from standard norms and terms often have need to be called something to distinguish them from other archetypal labels--i.e, buzzwords, bobbins, et al.

I submit the invisible hand is referenced to distinguish an economy driven by a majorities choice for goods and services rather than from an interventionist state attempting to dictate and/or manipulate the economy with price fixing, wage controlling ect. The scale in which this invisible hand theory could be practiced varies with what you might call your, "flavors of capitalism". Complete invisible hand being laissez faire. The reference to the invisible hand pertaining to socio capitalism posits that the invisible hand be allowed to flourish up until an allowance is made for the manipulation of markets for the benefit of a few while relegating many others to social injustices of a most unfortunate character.

 

I don't know. I can only tell you what I am sure of. Anyone that has not buried their head in the sand will see that the ground work is being laid for dictatorship. The Consitution is now just a piece of worthless paper. The President or the military can accuse anyone in America of being a terrorist and they will have no right to defend themselves in a court of law.

 

And it isn’t needed. We have an understanding of market power that demonstrates the importance of government interventionism. It’s actually directly attacking the relevancy of the socio economics stuff as we have government planning part of all forms of capitalism.

I’m from Northumberland.

The invisible hand’s primary motivation is to misinterpret Adam Smith in order to peddle myth about capitalism. I’d highly recommend some alternative buzzwording. There has to be more specific reference to market failures. Something that makes it distinct from the standard neoclassical analysis (which provides support for standard social and liberal democracy).

That doesn’t sit comfortably. Some of the worst abuses of capitalism are about the visible hand. There’s no sliding scale of the invisible hand between Anglo-Saxon, liberal democratic and social democratic economies. There is always the visible hand and the importance of hierarchy. Even in market socialism hierarchy will play a dominant role. However, the invisible hand plays a more important role as ‘growth maximisation’ is replaced by ‘productivity maximisation’ as the objective of the firm (i.e. there will necessarily be a limit to the boundaries of the firm and therefore greater competition).

Laissez faire is a myth. However, even if it was hypothetically possible, we’d expect the visible hand to dominate in all circumstances except the most naive (e.g. a world where economies of scale aren’t available and where family based firms just provide output to very local populations)

You’d probably do better by referring to pareto efficiency and how efficiency is sacrificed to take into account ‘social injustices’. However, we’d be back to what I said before: liberal democracy but with a very particular social welfare function (which would weight certain perceived efficiency gains as actually negative in outcome)

 

So your saying if I check out books at the library about Jihadist agendas and nuclear fission (as I have) I am likely to be chrged with treason without trial? Or is there a more specific list of actions which precipitate said accusations and subsequent persecution? Also, while the trend in the U.S has been increased government involvement when we consider say....1790, there are many other nations which have had more government involvement and have not digressed into a dictatorship. While when we look at a nation which is known for the least amount of government, Somalia, we observe the people are subject to the whims of warlords who have used food shipments as a method of control.

 

The current President or whomever will be the President after Obama can if he so choose……that is what a dictatorship is about. I have seen a news report back when Bush was the President, of a little child that was put on the terrorist list. A news reporter did an investigative reporting on it and what the government was doing....asking them how could they put a child on the terrorist list. He later found out that his name was added to the terrorist list . If this can happen when Bush was in office, what do you think is possible now?

The bottom-line you are talking a chance when you do what you do or if a person challenge what the government is doing. Even some of the things that I post online can be interpreted as a threat to the government, and I could be falsely accused of being a terrorist. You just can never know if and when you, I or any innocent person expressing his or her rights might be hauled off to some unknown place and be tortured. All is needed is a individual in the office of President that is like a Hitler, Stalin or Saddam. Like I said, the ground work is being laid. You see it was find for Americans to stand by and allow non Americans rights to be violated, and now the same thing is about to be done to Americans as well.

Like MLK said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

 

It was necessary to explain market concentration to a greater extent. They were simple percentages pertaining to the top four producers over a particular industry, which is what market concentration is.

I believe the Adam Smith misinterpretation bit, but might you link me to the section of workings which I might read to learn more?

Even if a myth, it still presents one with the idea of the furthest 'right' on an economic spectrum one could go or imagine. This is primarily why I use the term, and primarily why I used it earlier. Theoretical implications are often employed as expedient adjectives to describe a cause, idea, or system.

The U.S is well documented for a welfare system which does little to assist the poor in comparison to other nations with more involved government. In turn, the U.S has lower standards of living, the only ones who say otherwise are right wing political pundits and fox news contributors. What percieved efficiency gains are you refering to? Pardon me for the need for specifics but you can surely recognize the potential wide ranging interpretations.

 

You present me with the terrible impression of someone who has simply took a reporters word of mouth and ran with it. Or possibly the likes of alex jones or other malcontents who incite fear to sell t-shirts and bumper stickers. I am by no means suggesting that there is no need to be alrmed in todays world, I am simply suggesting you look into these stories. How about this, lets do a practice, link for me the child/terrorist in question and we will examine the case together.

Ever hear of sunset provisions? What would your suggestion be instead of the patriot act and other institutions which present a possibility of having individual privacy invaded while allowing for networking and communication which has been invaluable in assisting investigating agencies and allowing for the sharing of information between the CIA and FBI, which, prior to the enactment, was virtually non existent. This, "we dont tell them, they dont tell us" relationship developed over the course of several decades which makes little sense as they are the primary defenders against malicious, felonious, and perfidious villians. Until we get a batman or superman per city we have to do things the hard way. Unless you have a better suggestion.

 

No, it was only necessary to refer to how it can be understood in terms of price making power.

I've always found this [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adam-Smith-Radical-Egalitarian-Interpretation/dp/0748623523/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324927102&sr=8-1]book[/ame] a bit of fun. However, I tend to stick to academic journals. Just got to learn to smoke a pipe in a cardigan.

Crackpots exist on the left and right. As long as we don't embrace their rant we're fine! The laissez faire myth can have dramatic effects (e.g. Thatcherism and the decimation of British industry). However, relevance typically coincides with crisis (where the voter can panic into an irrational choice). We can't use it to understand recent economic patterns (unless of course the 'double dip' is worse than we'd suspect)

The classic example is trade. We know that, except in the case of economic development, trade liberalisation is best. However, a social welfare function could be employed to protect the worst off from trade effects (given wages and therefore poverty intensity can be protected). We get a classic example of the wuss liberal government. Rather than redistributing trade gains, they forgo economic efficiency in order to ensure a minority are perceived to be protected.

 

Thanks for the link good fellow, I will look into it.

Yes, did you happen to live through Ms Thatchers embrace of right wing economics?

So you do not agreee with any protectionism or protecting any workers, ie-smooth rundown, infant industry, national defense ect? The scandinavian countries, some of which do very well these days most certainly have to protect trade otherwise the heavily unionized industries, automobiles, steel, machine making ect would be outsourced as has happened in many formerly heavy unionized nations such as France which now only has around 8% unionizastion. I understand the tradeoff of lower consumer goods actually increasing worker pay through virture of real wages opposed to those nominal, however protectionism (at least to an extent) appears to be having payoffs as we observe increases in standards of living in some heavily unionized nations. How can socialism rightly exist in good standing if a nation embraces free trade?

 

And would you rather take the government's word that the person that they are accusing of being a terrorist is? The government presents itself as the only one to be trusted. They want us to spy on our neighbors, that if we see something we should say something. But the government don't allow its citizens to oversee what it's doing.....what they do in secret, and that it could be involved in not only unethical things but criminality as well.

For years I have heard that only in an society where the government control people they are left with only what the government tells them. Remember, the old Soviet Union? But have you ever heard of false-flag? Where a government commits an act against its own, then accuse the one it wants to go to war against as the one that is responsible. How is it now that the government all of a sudden is now worthy of the people's trust?


But I could not find the video (I guess it was removed) but here is an article about a little kid who is on the terrorist list.

http://current.com/community/892451...t-understand-why-i-am-a-terrorist-he-says.htm.

It is things like this that hurts the airline because not everyone is going to allow themselves to go through what they have to go through at the airport. Flying is not a need, so those who don't have to won't.

How about applying the same laws for a so-called terrorist that applies to a American citizen in the U.S? A person that is accused of being a terrorist, whether he or she is a citizen of the U.S or not is just as much a human being as citizen of the U.S. What better way to show the world that in the U.S they respect the right for a person to have his or her day in court, be it a citizen or not? When one acts like everybody else around them, then that person is just like everybody else.....thinking and saying you are better does not make it so.....it’s how you act that proves it.

Why is the borders between Mexico and the U.S is wide open,if it's really about preventing terrorist from entering the U.S? I have seen hidden cameras that were set up at the borders, and you could see Mexicans, winter, spring, summer and fall crossing the border. A terrorist could easily enter the U.S via the Mexican border.

 

Yes. Other than giving us one of the best songs ever written (The Specials' Ghost Town), we shouldn't forget the damage the milk snatcher inflicted.

I acknowledge that protectionism can be highly desirable in a developing country. I do not support any form of protectionism for a mature economy.

They are either part of the EU or EU free trade agreements.

The worker has nothing to fear from free trade. That maximises her choice and minimises the price that she pays. She does have to fear a non-merit economy (where gains go to the minority at the expense of the majority) and industry protecting profit at the cost of long term potential.

 

I like "one in ten" by UB40 (band named from a U.K unemployment form) which described the unemployment and other social ills which her policies fostered.

How can a heavily unionized nation protect workers from cutthroat competition without trade bariers? It would be much cheaper to outsource many of these, no?

 

Aggressively work to expand union membership in partner states. Provide money, material, education, amnesty for persecuted organizers, and maybe even weapons to unions in their partner states.

 

Does this happen in Norway do you know?

 

Not bad, but not in Ghost Town league (which really grabbed the Thatcherite outlook)

Socialism ensures productivity enhancement. Its through productivity that competition is maintained (and at the same time helping to negate all concerns spawned by the socialist calculation debate)

 

I just youtubed it, its pretty good and also has the reggae undertone which also characterised UB40. The video I found also captures the essence of the songs title pretty well.

Yes I know, yet be so kind as to expound on why you believe this to be so. There has to be protection for the heavily unionized nations because outsourcing many of them would be cheaper.

 

The empirical evidence shows that worker ownership is more productive. The theoretical explanation is straight forward but includes several aspects: from the use of more efficient hierarchy (i.e. based on division of labour, rather than divide and conquer) to the positive effects of democracy within the enterprise.

Outsourcing refers to capital mobility. Why would a worker owned company exhibit capital mobility (unless it was strategically important, such as the acquisition of factors of production)?