On 26 Jan, 10:28, Vamadevananda <[email protected]> wrote:
> " Around the world, there are shits who rip everyone else off ... "
>
> What has that got to do with Capitalism, Neil ? That's ethics. The
> unethical can afflict any system -- capitalism, socialism, democracy
> and communism. Democracies typically have institutions to care of such
> aberrant behaviour -- regulators, judiciary, police et al. How
> effective they are or have been is moot. But the behaviour itself is
> rooted in human nature, greed, covetousness, etc. It is not a feature
> of capitalism by any stretch of imagination !
>
> Capitalism is above all about freedom ... ... to own resources,
Perhaps it's that ownership concept that gives an opening for
trouble. We tend to think we can 'own' land, when it's blatantly
obvious that its existence predates ours and will FAR outlast us. How
we think we can 'own' objects that happen to be near to us is a
strange thing indeed. At best, we are care-takers of those objects,
be they alive or dead, rather than their owners.
>to
> make use of those resources to accumulate capital, to make use of the
> capital to create wealth. Being most of all about freedom, capitalism
> natural accompanies a democratic polity, and vice versa.
>
> And, may I suggest that middle men like distributors and retailers
> definitely add value to products and services, as it is for the people
> who buy and consume. They actually bring it to people and, in the
> process, are accountable to the buyers, for whom they act as quality
> assurers. If they hadn't been adding value in the entire supply chain,
> the mail order would have become more pervasive by now or all
> producers would have long ago taken over the distribution and
> retailing function upon themselves.
>
> I did find your post less than " half baked," Neil !
>
> On Jan 26, 4:58 am, archytas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > In the end I suspect we could go on forever Gruff - perhaps to
> > discover we operate on similar definitions! The issue to me is that
> > when people discuss stuff like "capitalism" they are often stuck in
> > chronic, soaked-up positions they don't understand themselves. None
> > of us would want to grope about doing " _ " signs on every term like a
> > bunch of undergraduate sociologists - yet quick content analysis shows
> > many people just churn over old crud that really makes sense of
> > nothing. One interpretation of your distribution and exchange stuff
> > is that of parasitic behaviour and recent bwanking looks very much
> > like massively extended middle-man work failing to add an value at all
> > and eventually crashing the system. What I'm after is some grounded
> > notion of what we actually get in transactions. I have an argument
> > that capitalism actually prevents wealth creation - it certainly did
> > in the old Soviet areas and I think I see this every day here - but I
> > don't see this as necessarily an anti-capitalist argument, just as an
> > attempt to do "tropical fish realism" in terms of work and reward.
> > Around the world, there are shits who rip everyone else off - it may
> > well be that we don't focus enough on stopping this and that it is
> > this that allows work to create wealth. Economics is a phlogiston
> > theory - it hasn't established basics on which to operate.
>
> > On 25 Jan, 22:24, gruff <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > "... On Jan 25, 1:37 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: ..."
>
> > > > I'm not convinced Gruff - but that's not the point. Even this slight
> > > > unpacking gets us nearer to an understanding of what we might think
> > > > good, against what restrictions and so on. Much argument is not even
> > > > half-baked. Maybe entry to Fist of Smoke will cost two bags of coal
> > > > in these currency deflation-aware times!
>
> > > Can you be more explicit on what you think is missing or still needs
> > > to be explored?
>
> > > /e- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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