Why are Americans Anti Socialism?

[LowerMake(I)]

I have a few theories of my own on why, starting with education in schools in America painting socialism and communism with the same brush. That the control in this country is with the money, and the people with the money would never allow their riches be in danger. Maybe its that Americans are so "fat and happy" or just plain lazy that they dont even care that their may be other directions to go in in the future. Is it the power of politicians as a whole(Rpub or Dem)? I mean, I have no idea why we are one of the only major countries in the world that dont have an influential socialist party. There must be a reason for this. Ill go on the record as saying that if the majority of people in this country who arent getting all the "wonderful" benefits of capitalism as it is today, were educated on modern or even past socialist thought, that there would be a move to having an active socialist party, or something fairly close. Not saying that there would be a 180 from capitalism to socialism, but atleast an influence like in other countries.

[GI Joe]

Socialism=Tyranny

[xexon]

No more so than democracy.

The problem isn't socialism. It's the weakness in men to use it for their own profit. Any system can be perverted to serve the interests of the few as opposed to serving the masses.

Just look at the sorry state of democracy in our own country.




x

[Churlant]

A person could spend years on this one ;)

The basics though...

Socialism = Communism in everyone's book. We have a deep fear and hatred of Communism for many reasons - not all of the unjustified.

Socialism is also counter to the spirit of America's founding and success. Get educated, get job, get business, get rich, get old, die. The American dream... very traditional and very hard to let go of.

get educated, get job, support others... get old, die.

Doesn't sound as good :)

-JC

[Turenne]

Socialism=Tyranny

So Spain is run by a despot?

[Platypus]

I think it comes down to two words: property rights. Americans tend to believe that property rights are innate (as opposed to being part of a social contract) and absolute, and that any kind of "taking" by the govnernment is tantamount to theft. I'll bet the mere mention of a social contract got a dozen of our anti-liberal readers hot under the collar, and half of them were further tempted to say there's no "tantamount" about it. To them, the market deserves our unbounded faith and our democratically elected government deserves none. To them, government cannot preserve rights except by leaving us alone (despite the statement to the exact contrary in the declaration of independence), and the idea of anybody but government abridging our rights is unthinkable (even though it happens every day).

Government is the arbiter of who owns what. That principle was well known to the founders of this country, and even well before them, but modern-day "patriots" (an Orwellian abuse of language if ever there was one) will insist to their dying breath that "it's my money, not the government's." They think that they, not the government, have the exclusive right not only to ownership but to determination of ownership. Society and social contracts don't exist to them, and therefore neither does eminent domain. All that is possible in such a simplistic model is "I have it now and to take it from me is theft." Socialists recognize that "having" is a statement of ownership and that ownership is defined by society (through government) rather than the individual, and for that they are branded as thieves.

[Duo_Maxwell]

actually most Americans support several forms of socialism and many politicans wouldn't even think of repealing them unless they wanted to commit political suicide.

America, not to mention Bush, supports socialism on several layers.

xexon: since when did we have real democracy? What we have a is a represenatative plutocracy in America.

[GI Joe]

So Spain is run by a despot?


He is a would be despot if he is for full scale socilism.
Spain is not full scale socialism.


Platy
As far as a social contract goes, that is not a problem, there should be some safety net for society and government should do certain things for the good of society but it should be minimal and it should not encumber capitalism or free enterprise much. The key argument between liberals an conservatives is how much. The far left and the far right are both wrong to the extent they want the economic policy to be.

[cpwill]

fundamentally as an economic system socialism creates far more problems than it solves; ultimately as a self-feeding cycle it becomes suicidal

however, platypus also pointed out something important; we have far more of a tradition of personal ownership in this country than exists in europe. perhaps had you been founded by a middle class which owned their own land you would be the same :shrug:

also, to an extent; the Democrats serve as our socialist party.

[jamesrage]

Why are americans so anti-socialism?

Money to pay for socialist programs has to come from somewhere.
Lets see I work 40 hours a week, 1920 hours a year. I would like to see most of my money going into my pockets not someone elses.I do not mind my tax dollars being used to pay for schools,police, military,roads,and public buildings.I make $7.50 an hour so I tend to be cautious on how my tax dollars are spent since the next year they might decide to ask for more of my money that I as in me myself and I earned.They way I look at it if you want something earn it,get a job,go to school so you can get a higher paying job,Not sit there and mooch off me.

[Jray573]

Well, the next super power is predicted to be China. On a thread related to the subject the prediction was 50-100 years from now. While I don't believe it will take that long, it's still an interesting factor to my next point. Why isn't it the EU? It could be a few reasons I suppose. People could lack faith in the actual union of Europe and France's hope that they will become a true competitor to the US. It could be that that the writers of these news stories favor China. Or it could possibly be that they see China moving at a faster and more promising rate.

Thomas Sowell gave credit to Europe, especially the UK, for the development and success of the US. They did this through investment in American companies. Why is it that they chose to invest such large amounts of money into our economy?

Why is it that many Canadian doctors moved to the US when Canada converted to a national health-care system? A few years ago Canada had somewhere around a 6 month waiting list on surgeries. If they have an emergency situation that requires surgery they have to fly them to the US. Why is that? I don't know what the current state of health-care is in Canada, since I haven't read up on it in a couple of years, but I imagine it hasn't gotten much better.

Socialist like to pass these things off as greed, but I don't think it's quite as simple as that. We pay CEO's an average of $12 million dollars anually to manage a business and it's resources. In America there are thousands of businesses all competing for resources and the latest technology to sell to their consumers. It's a fast paced environment that seeks out professionals in certain areas to maximize every resource possible. An economy that large and fast paced cannot maintain it's speed when the government says what resources go where, instead of hired professionals with experience in a certain market. When it comes to the economy, we would take a huge step down if we converted to Socialism. Most people aren't willing to make that sacrifice.

I was going to go on, but I'll leave it at this for now.

[Platypus]

We pay CEO's an average of $12 million dollars anually to manage a business and it's resources. In America there are thousands of businesses
That implies an average of $12M for thousands of CEOs, but you're really talking about two different things. $12M is the average for Fortune 500 CEOs, not for anyone who has anything to do with the smaller companies where most growth and innovation occurs.
An economy that large and fast paced cannot maintain it's speed when the government says what resources go where, instead of hired professionals with experience in a certain market.
You're talking about a centrally planned economy, which is not the same as socialism. Few nowadays believe that the government should be the primary decision-maker when it comes to allocating resources, though it may set limits in certain areas, so your argument is mostly a strawman. Where it's anything else, it's an example of the boundless and ill-founded faith in markets that I referred to either. Markets have their imperfections, resulting in misallocation of resources, too. Anybody who lived through the dot-com boom and bust should know that.

[cpwill]

markets have their imperfections; but there's is self-correcting, and does so at a speed and scale much less damaging than the government could achieve.

[cytwombly]

What we have a is a represenatative plutocracy in America.

Good one. It's like being given the right to vote for the Chairman of the Board of Directors for a corportation. Our man won, hurrah!

[Platypus]

markets have their imperfections; but there's is self-correcting, and does so at a speed and scale much less damaging than the government could achieve.
That's a statement of faith, not empirical or arguable fact.

[Jray573]

Fair enough, Platypus, but that still doesn't justify why Canada's average quality of health-care dropped considerably when they converted to a national health-care system. Along with the raise in demand for surgery that results in a 6 month waiting list and every emergency surgery having to be sent to the US.

It also doesn't make sense out of why the UK would invest so much money into the American economy instead of their own. Unless of course they believed that America would develop faster, and produce more money, than the UK or another European country. Why is it that the average income is 26% higher in the US than it is in the UK (http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a35b31c4-643f-11d9-b0ed-00000e2511c8.html)?

Why is it that our country is pushing out all the computers and software? Microsoft is getting sued right now by the EU because they are considered a monopoly. Why didn't they produce their own software?

Why is it that the US has the lowest percentage of income going to food?

These factors just don't seem to add up to the idea that Socialism is superior to Capitalism. I live in the UK, and in this country I earn well above their national average without paying the outrageous taxes. Somehow my standard of living is similar, though I live in a smaller house, than it would be in the states earning the average income.



BTW, dot-com balanced out, but I wouldn't call it a bust. It was new technology entering the market. We went from single digit percentages to 90% of Americans having a PC in their home in less than a decade, along with widespread usage of the internet which inspired many to start their own businesses. At some point that had to balance out, but a dot-com bust would seem to imply that the internet was a failure.

[JoeR]

The ideals of socialism are admirable, but tend to not work out in real life.

[cpwill]

That's a statement of faith, not empirical or arguable fact.
not hardly; firstly because business is smaller than government, secondly because business is more goal-driven than government, thirdly, that because of this business is more effecient than government, fourthly, because history has shown repeatedly that countries which organize their economy to be more on the government side will slow and suffer whereas countries that organize their economy more on the business side will be more adaptable and growth-oriented. take the example of ireland. a few years back; their economy is in serious trouble. they knocked the corporate tax rate down to ten percent, and three-four years later they were hitting no less than a 17% growth rate.

[Platypus]

not hardly; firstly because business is smaller than government
Not hardly. ;) The federal budget is $2T out of a $10T national GDP. Clearly business is bigger. It's not relevant that government is bigger than any single company, any more than it's relevant that GM is bigger than any single federal agency; it's the aggregate that counts.
secondly because business is more goal-driven than government
Not hardly, for the same reasons as above.
thirdly, that because of this business is more effecient than government
You're using your conclusion as a premise, and you know that I'm always alert to circularity.
fourthly, because history has shown repeatedly that countries which organize their economy to be more on the government side will slow and suffer whereas countries that organize their economy more on the business side will be more adaptable and growth-oriented.
That's one part post hoc (which shouldn't require any explanation) and one part bad measurement (which might). "Growth" is not always good. Dollar growth sometimes increases suffering. Why don't you ask those evil nasty socialists in Scandinavia whether they think they're "suffering" from their governments' policies?
take the example of ireland. a few years back; their economy is in serious trouble. they knocked the corporate tax rate down to ten percent, and three-four years later they were hitting no less than a 17% growth rate.
Yeah, there were no other factors involved (post hoc again) and such growth is sustainable both globally and over time. Dream on.

As I said, your claim was a statement of faith. Government also has self-correcting features. The speed and scale at which government changes could just as well be argued to be less damaging. Jack Welch's legacy is as economically significant (in a negative way) and enduring as Ronald Reagan's, for example, and he's just one rapacious CEO among many. You're doing a very good job illustrating my original point about unrealistically high faith in business and markets combined with unrealistically low faith in government.

What's strange about such a belief is that government - more than is the case for companies - is what we make of it. One of these days the folks who put the Republicans in power of all three branches of government will have to exhibit some of that accountability they're always talking about by admitting that the government we have is the government they created and that its failings are their failings. Of course that won't happen; we all know accountability is only for other people in that anti-ethos. They'll probably still blame it on Clinton.

[kmchugh]

First of all, I think it is incorrect to say that Americans “hate” socialism. There are any number of Americans, including conservatives, who see a need for some social programs. On the other hand, most Americans are very wary of becoming “too socialist.” Apart from his editorializing about the conservatives on the“right,” I think Platypus came pretty close to the answer in his first post.

Those of us raised in the US were raised with the idea of the “American Dream.” If a person is willing to get an education and work hard, they can get ahead. It was one of the ideas in the minds of the founders of this nation. Inherent in the freedom to get oneself ahead is the recognition that each individual will work better and harder when working for themselves, rather than working for some intangible “social benefit.” And therein lies the crux of the problem with socialism. Capitalism is based on reality, whereas socialism is based on idealism. People don't work well for idealism.

The best definition of true socialism I have read is the philosophy “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” We are all equal, all fields of endeavor are equal, and we will each be paid according to our need, rather than according to any “false construct” of the value of the work performed. This is a noble idea, but is not founded in reality. It simply does not account for human nature. It does not account for human motivation.

Most of us possess at least a degree of altruism. We donate to charity, we work at shelters, etc. However, the simple truth is that when one is recognized and rewarded personally (salary, bonuses, etc) for the work they do, they will work better and harder than they will when working for the altruistic idea of the “betterment of society.” This is proven by the 70 year experiment in socialism (apart from the “evil” communism) conducted in the former Soviet Union. An economy based on socialism, one that does not account for human nature, is doomed to fail when up against an economy based on capitalism. In short, what is the incentive to work harder if harder work nets you no gain? This is the fundamental question that socialism has never tried to answer.

Kevin McHugh

[Platypus]

Inherent in the freedom to get oneself ahead is the recognition that each individual will work better and harder when working for themselves, rather than working for some intangible “social benefit.”
True enough, but I think it's important to distinguish between working for oneself and working by oneself. Many of the programs portrayed as socialist (even though they're not) are intended to assist the individual in achieving that American dream of success through competition. All too often it seems as though the first priority of those who have already succeeded is to "kick away the ladder" so that nobody else can threaten their position at the top of the heap, so government builds new ladders.
Capitalism is based on reality, whereas socialism is based on idealism.
That canard gets repeated so often that it deserves a response. There are many forms of capitalism; some are just as idealistic and counterfactual as pure socialism. While socialists make the mistake of assuming altruism in the form of working for the common good, laissez-faire capitalists make the mistake of assuming altruism in the form of not cheating or undermining the competition that is the source of capitalism's strength, or of contributing to charity at a non-trivial rate. They're all living in dream worlds. As is the case in most natural complex systems, neither extreme is sustainable. The only sustainable policy is a managed form of capitalism, more like a sport than a brawl, but the hard right will always use the "socialist" label to undermine any such thing.
It does not account for human motivation.
Neither does absolute-property-rights capitalism. There are perverse incentives at that extreme too.

[Myglarn]

You know kmchugh. That's a good question. A few years ago they made a study in europe and found that Sweden is one of the hardest working countries, but they are also one of the most socialistic. :shrug: something doesn't add up there?

[Jray573]

What do you mean by hardest working? How did they measure that? Last I heard Cuba had 0% unemployment. It's a great concept, but reality often looks different than it would on paper.

[cpwill]

Not hardly. ;) The federal budget is $2T out of a $10T national GDP. Clearly business is bigger.

:lol: and how many businesses share that $8T? :rolleyes: a business is inherently smaller and almost certainly more effecient than the government.

It's not relevant that government is bigger than any single company,

yes it is, becaue the government's size helps make it innefecient and wasteful of resources.

You're using your conclusion as a premise, and you know that I'm always alert to circularity.

i'm building one argument on top of another; business is smaller than government; business is more goal-oriented than government; business has much more motivation to suceed than government; = business is going to be more effecient than government.

That's one part post hoc (which shouldn't require any explanation) and one part bad measurement (which might). "Growth" is not always good. Dollar growth sometimes increases suffering.

in this case we're talking economic growth; not inflation. :rolleyes:

Why don't you ask those evil nasty socialists in Scandinavia whether they think they're "suffering" from their governments' policies?

:shrug: they've made their deal and right now they like it. i'll ask them down the road when they've acclimated to all these things that they can now no longer afford and unemployment is headed up. that or i'll find someone on the waiting list for critical surgery and ask them how they're doing. what is unemployment like in those socialist utopia's, anywho? it's like getting in shape; you have to eat healthy and exercise (which isn't fun nor instantly gratifying) if you're ever going to get there. eating doughnuts while sitting on your couch is fun; but ultimately will get you in worse shape.

Yeah, there were no other factors involved (post hoc again) and such growth is sustainable both globally and over time. Dream on.

hey, it was cause/result; you want all the specifics?

As I said, your claim was a statement of faith. Government also has self-correcting features.

yes, which take longer because government has no inherent motive to be self-correcting; motive has to be forced upon it. furthermore, the size of government limits such self correction (how many entrenched bureacracy's do you know that welcome change and reorganization within their ranks?), as and the nature of democracy itself inherently limits the governments ability to meed demands for change as well as increasing the cost of change astronomically.

The speed and scale at which government changes could just as well be argued to be less damaging.

yes, because innefeciency is a good thing in an economy.

Jack Welch's legacy is as economically significant (in a negative way) and enduring as Ronald Reagan's, for example, and he's just one rapacious CEO among many.

and yet he had nothing on Carter's economy; to say nothing of the long-term suffering caused by johnson.

You're doing a very good job illustrating my original point about unrealistically high faith in business and markets combined with unrealistically low faith in government.

the government is good at Big Things; which no one else has the resources or organizational capacity (or legitimacy) to do. smashing other countries, building interstate highways, these are big projects which the government does well. fine tuning an economy is not one of those things, nor is brain surgery.

What's strange about such a belief is that government - more than is the case for companies - is what we make of it.

wrong, government is what we originally want to be modified by what the government wanted it to be modified by what the bureacracy wanted it to be modified by available resources.

One of these days the folks who put the Republicans in power of all three branches of government will have to exhibit some of that accountability they're always talking about by admitting that the government we have is the government they created and that its failings are their failings.

agreed; it's time for republicans to remember that whole contract with america bit from the 90's and start hacking away at governmental programs.

Of course that won't happen; we all know accountability is only for other people in that anti-ethos. They'll probably still blame it on Clinton.

when they try the democratic party will go nuts; at which point they will rightfully share some of the blame.

[Platypus]

:lol: and how many businesses share that $8T? :rolleyes: a business is inherently smaller and almost certainly more effecient than the government.
Nice selective quoting there, cpwill. I expected better from you.
yes it is, becaue the government's size helps make it innefecient and wasteful of resources.
The same is true of any large organization, including large companies. That's why the economy shouldn't be based too much on large companies, or institute policies that favor them over their smaller brethren - which we do.
i'm building one argument on top of another; business is smaller than government; business is more goal-oriented than government; business has much more motivation to suceed than government; = business is going to be more effecient than government.
You admit that business being more efficient is your conclusion, but at 11:46pm yesterday you clearly stated it as a premise. That's circular. If you want to make a non-circular argument do so; don't make a circular one and then mischaracterize it as something else after the fact.
in this case we're talking economic growth; not inflation. :rolleyes:
I wasn't talking about inflation either, so put your strawman back away. Better yet, lose the habit of making them up. My point was that growth measured by corporate revenue or profit does not always correlate with well-being. Shipbreaking is a profitable business, for example, but its effects on the workers in India or Bangladesh are horrific. According to your balance sheet this is "progress" but according to any sane one it's not.
:shrug: they've made their deal and right now they like it. i'll ask them down the road when they've acclimated to all these things that they can now no longer afford and unemployment is headed up. that or i'll find someone on the waiting list for critical surgery and ask them how they're doing.
One could just as well commit to asking people here in the US in another decade or so when we have acclimated to the things we can no longer afford. On top of the other faulty reasoning you've tried to employ, you can now add argument from adverse consequences. Do you need the link for that again?

[Myglarn]

What do you mean by hardest working? How did they measure that? Last I heard Cuba had 0% unemployment. It's a great concept, but reality often looks different than it would on paper.
Oh it was a few years ago.. it concluded that Sweden had well above average working hours /week. As for unemployment i don't think that was in the survey. But that is true.. the ones having work are working harder while unemployment stays the same.

they've made their deal and right now they like it. i'll ask them down the road when they've acclimated to all these things that they can now no longer afford and unemployment is headed up. that or i'll find someone on the waiting list for critical surgery and ask them how they're doing. what is unemployment like in those socialist utopia's, anywho? it's like getting in shape; you have to eat healthy and exercise (which isn't fun nor instantly gratifying) if you're ever going to get there. eating doughnuts while sitting on your couch is fun; but ultimately will get you in worse shape.Actually Sweden has been governed almost continuously by the social democrats for 70 years, when are we acclimated? ;). Unemployment has been going up and down over the years. It was almost 11% 1997 after the great recession. Today it's 4-4,5% (don't have exact numbers).

We are doing fine, but i am more leaning to the conservative side nowadays. The taxes are too high and welfare too generous, but that's not what the majority thinks :).

[cpwill]

Nice selective quoting there, cpwill. I expected better from you.

i broke your responses into parts just as you did to me; answer the point, ignore the point; but don't try to feign some kind of dissapointment in an effect we both know did not occur. you attempted to treat "business" as a single entity; a foolish error as there are thousands upon thousands of independent businesses.

The same is true of any large organization, including large companies. That's why the economy shouldn't be based too much on large companies, or institute policies that favor them over their smaller brethren - which we do.

except of course that government is massive by nature; whereas business organizations can only become large by already being effecient enough to overcome opposition.

You admit that business being more efficient is your conclusion, but at 11:46pm yesterday you clearly stated it as a premise.

no, i stated it as my argument, i then gave reasons for my argument, and repeated it. thesis argument repeat thesis: classic outline for any academic argument. i apologize if necessary for using it without big shiny letters telling you i'm doing so; jan term we tend to write alot of papers :p
now, are you going to get over the attempted literary criticism and answer the actual points?

That's circular. If you want to make a non-circular argument do so;

;) did so.

I wasn't talking about inflation either, so put your strawman back away.

increase of plain cash = inflation = harmful. if that's not what you meant by Dollar growth sometimes increases suffering then please enlighten me so we can continue.

My point was that growth measured by corporate revenue or profit does not always correlate with well-being. Shipbreaking is a profitable business, for example, but its effects on the workers in India or Bangladesh are horrific. According to your balance sheet this is "progress" but according to any sane one it's not.

:shrug: i don't see any country in the world that has yet gone through the industrial revolution while failing to have at the same time abuses of the workforce; having a cheap pool of labor is a necessary resource for such a movement. while you don't have to like it, it is certainly progress.

One could just as well commit to asking people here in the US in another decade or so when we have acclimated to the things we can no longer afford.

precisely; the growing use of socialist system here in the US will have the same result as elsewhere; that's why i'm opposed to it.

On top of the other faulty reasoning you've tried to employ, you can now add argument from adverse consequences. Do you need the link for that again?

:rolleyes: you know, i thought it was only certain arrogant immature punks who resorted to debating like that.......

[Platypus]

i broke your responses into parts just as you did
...and in the process left out the part about "any more than it's relevant that GM is bigger than any single federal agency" which was rather relevant to your response. That's selective quoting.
you attempted to treat "business" as a single entity; a foolish error as there are thousands upon thousands of independent businesses.
Yes, there are, but you haven't given a credible explanation for why that's relevant. As I said, it's the aggregate that counts.
except of course that government is massive by nature; whereas business organizations can only become large by already being effecient enough to overcome opposition.
Replace being with having been and we might agree, but it's an important distinction that only the dishonest would elide.
no, i stated it as my argument
Untrue. You restated it as one in a list of "because" statements which are premises. That's still circular.
i apologize if necessary for using it without big shiny letters
You're not spelling it out in big shiny letters. The correct term for what you're doing now is lying about what you did previously.
increase of plain cash = inflation = harmful. if that's not what you meant by Dollar growth sometimes increases suffering then please enlighten me so we can continue.
So you think "dollar growth" necessarily means inflation and not the increase of corporate revenue/profits to which I have repeatedly referred? I don't think you do, but it's convenient for you to pretend so.
:shrug: i don't see any country in the world that has yet gone through the industrial revolution while failing to have at the same time abuses of the workforce; having a cheap pool of labor is a necessary resource for such a movement. while you don't have to like it, it is certainly progress.
So dumping hazardous labor on less-advanced nations desperate for the cash is progress, eh? Did it ever occur to you that such an approach is unsustainable? IMO something that's not sustainable is not really progress. It's just an illusion, momentarily pleasing to the shortsighted but ultimately injurious to all, and embracing illusions leads to flawed policy.
precisely; the growing use of socialist system here in the US will have the same result as elsewhere; that's why i'm opposed to it.
There is no growing use of a socialist system here in the US. There is growing plutocracy and government support of it, which is what I believe we cannot afford.
:rolleyes: you know, i thought it was only certain arrogant immature punks who resorted to debating like that.......
I cannot address your argument at a higher level than you present it. If all you offer is fallacies and lies, I'll simply call you on them. Trying to construct a higher-level response to such garbage is a futile waste of my time...but wasting my time until I get too disgusted to continue and you "win" by attrition is the goal, isn't it? You're the one who's demonstrating the "arrogant immature punk" style of debate.

[Jray573]

...and in the process left out the part about "any more than it's relevant that GM is bigger than any single federal agency" which was rather relevant to your response. That's selective quoting.

I think you're blowing off his question a little too easily. There is a big difference between GM and the government. When GM's efficiency lags behind it's competitor's it will either put them out of business, or it will have to take more control over it's efficiency before they go out of business. When the government lacks in efficiency it still continues the program and still pays for it out of tax dollars. There is no competition, so there is no way to compare it's efficiency, or any real need to.

When the US removed their regulations from the airlines it forced Pan Am out of business, but several spawned in it's place and the end result was lower ticket prices for passengers due to a greater efficiency. It turns out that the companies had a better idea how to run the business than politicians.

[Senor Herberto]

"When the US removed their regulations from the airlines it forced Pan Am out of business, but several spawned in it's place and the end result was lower ticket prices for passengers due to a greater efficiency. It turns out that the companies had a better idea how to run the business than politicians."

this is one market where deregulation caused increased competition, resulting in lower ticket prices based on that competition. however air travel is a luxury market in most cases. deregulating markets which have no elasticity, such as the energy industry, results in companies being allowed to abuse customers at their discretion.

allowing monopolies to form in any industry creates automatically illegal industry-wide trusts and causes non-competetive industry abuses, such as artificially high prices from non-competition, artificially low product quality, and artificially adulterated market employment.

[Jray573]

double post

[Jray573]

Energy has ran into the same problems with government regulations. California went from the state with the largest surplus to the state with the biggest debt after their dealings with the energy companies. During a period where production of energy was low they put regulations on the energy consumption forcing them to only charge 7 cents per kw/h when it was costing more than that to produce. The end result was less energy produced with a demand that remained the same which caused so many problems throughout the state that the government ended up having to pay the energy companies to fix it. It's estimated that after all the tax dollars were spent during this crisis that it actually cost people more than it would have if they would have let the free market take care of it.

[Senor Herberto]

you provided an example of a collosal failure, both on the part of government and businesses. the desired result is smooth operation of both.

socialized energy production is a fine idea, since it is a product at least 95% of people use. groups of people go in on medical insurance, groups of citizens, like all of them, would be wise to go in on energy and transportation and water and food production etc. 'taxes' in america are a form of socialism.

the taxes the provide services to the public increase quality of life and commerce, reduce individual costs for the shared expense of the products or services, and produce many jobs.

[Jray573]

The incident had quite a bit more to do with the government. It was at a time when energy was expensive to produce and the government forced them to keep their prices low. If they would have been able to raise the prices the demand would have gone down by people being more conscious of their energy consumption. If you had to pay 17 cents per kw/h instead of 7 cents would you start thinking about turning off the lights when you weren't in the room? You have to raise prices to lower demand, and when the government steps in like that you have no way of lowering the demand with the supply is lower. In cases of energy this can cause too large of a pull and end with blackouts. Regulating profit is one thing, but forgetting that there are times when production is cheap and times when it's not is irresponsible.

[Senor Herberto]

that energy was made artificially expensive to produce. the company[ies] involved was/were buying it from itself at inflated costs and then selling it to consumers at that inflated cost. they took massive profits at the expense of the californians. do you remember the oil crisis of 1973?

[Platypus]

I think you're blowing off his question a little too easily. There is a big difference between GM and the government. When GM's efficiency lags behind it's competitor's it will either put them out of business, or it will have to take more control over it's efficiency before they go out of business.
A fair point and, now that it has been honestly made, I'll be glad to address it.

I think the disconnect occurs here because there are some options GM has which you do not list. For one thing they can become more efficient financially (especially as regards taxes) without becoming more efficient in any real or useful sense. Another is that they can do various things that undermine their competitors - in an industry that is already characterized by extremely high barriers to entry and thus relatively little competition - to maintain their position. Companies clearly pursue options other than those you list, seriously weakening the efficiency argument for favoring markets over government.

The kicker is that this exchange wasn't about the efficiency argument (which is dealt with lower down) anyway; GM came up as part of the size argument. Cpwill claimed (11:46pm yesterday) that "business is smaller than government" to support an earlier claim (4:16pm yesterday) that the market's failures are "self-correcting, and at a speed and scale much less damaging than the government" (emphasis mine). In that context, he was clearly talking about business in aggregate, not individual companies, and that's what I sought to correct when I mentioned GDP and GM.

Business is bigger than government, and can thus affect the economy more. Jack Welch and his former lieutenants who have gone on to ru(i)n other companies have done more damage overall than any government program or agency, though not at any one company. Stupid ideas that come out of some business school or bestseller book and get adopted by hundreds of companies can have major effects too, though again not at a single company. Considering only individual companies and not their common behavior simply obfuscates the truth that we have at least as much to fear from big business as from the government. Neither is the "solution" to the problems created by the other. A system that incorporates both, with checks and balances between them, is more robust than any system that places one above the other. Unfortunately, those who would rather repeat dogma and distort the facts than discuss issues rationally have elected "leaders" who are clearly committed to a path that ends in calamity.

[Jray573]

Size effects efficiency a great deal as well. Many companies like to re-invest their profits by broadening their production. When they broaden too far their efficiency ends up decreasing and they start taking losses. I know most of you don't like Rumsfeld, but I'm going to use him as an example anyway. He was hired as a CEO by a company that produced medicine because they were on the verge of bankruptcy. When he went in his first step was to reduce the size of the business and bring them back to their original market. I can't remember what they were producing, but I remember some of the stuff was really off the wall and not related to medicine at all. Within a year he had increased the efficiency where they were pulling off a respectable profit, and after it's creation of Nutrasweet they were built up to Fortune 500 status.

This again goes into government, where broadening their market is a lot harder to repair when it exceeds manageable limits. A business is completely dependent on profits, while the government is only dependent on tax dollars. If a market decreases in demand a company has to produce less or take a greater loss, but the government isn't likely to notice the deficiency for quite some time. It is possible that we could have amazing economists managing hundreds, if not thousands, of small markets to maintain efficiency under a socialist government, but it is not nearly as likely as a free market where the individuals ability to produce a profit is what pays his bills.

For the most part, a company will have to deal with it's efficiency in some way. They could undermine every other business that competes with them, but as soon as they start selling at a price where someone else could produce it cheaper new businesses would rise. With the possible exception of Microsoft, that theory hasn't worked for any business I know of in American history. Thomas Sowell, a great economist, claims that that theory would typically do more harm than good for a business.

[Jray573]

that energy was made artificially expensive to produce. the company[ies] involved was/were buying it from itself at inflated costs and then selling it to consumers at that inflated cost. they took massive profits at the expense of the californians. do you remember the oil crisis of 1973?

Actually, not it wasn't. At the time reduced rainfall on the west coast reduced the water flow through the hydroelectric dams. With less water you can count on less electricity. At the same time the prices of oil and natural gas were rising causing two other ways of producing energy to become more expensive. This covered the majority of California's energy production. Well, with less water there isn't much that you can do to produce more, though the cost of production will still be about the same as it would if their was plenty of rain. With that factored in there wasn't really any other option than to raise prices. The oil and natural gas companies still have to compensate for their raised prices, and would need to raise their rates as well until the cost of finding and producing resources went back down. They weren't allowed to do this, and the entire state suffered dearly from it.

[Platypus]

For the most part, a company will have to deal with it's efficiency in some way. They could undermine every other business that competes with them, but as soon as they start selling at a price where someone else could produce it cheaper new businesses would rise. With the possible exception of Microsoft, that theory hasn't worked for any business I know of in American history. Thomas Sowell, a great economist, claims that that theory would typically do more harm than good for a business.
Thomas Sowell is far from being a great economist. In fact I think he's a bit of an idiot, so I reject any appeal to that authority. And no, rejecting argumentum ad verecundiam is not the same as an original argumentum ad hominem.

More to the point, though, this reminds me of a popular line among hikers: you don't have to run faster than the bear (just faster than the guy you're with). Similarly, a company might not be able to undermine every competitor, but - particularly in industries with natural high barriers to entry - that doesn't mean anti-competitive measures. If you have six competitors but only half are more efficient than you, you can defeat one by manipulating regulations and standards and another with predatory pricing or pressure on suppliers, buy out the third and "compete" only against the three who are less efficient than you are (who might well have been willing to help you get rid of the others). This sort of scenario has played out many times in the auto industry, in the airlines, in retail, and just about everywhere else. A race is still being run, but if it's a race from which worthy runners have been excluded the efficiency argument remains weak.

When people talk about privatizing what are currently government functions they're rarely talking about turning them over to smaller companies that really would be more efficient. Most often, they're talking about turning them over to big companies that are just as inefficient as government and operate according to the wrong incentives as well. An argument that applies mostly to X does not support a policy where X' is involved.

[Jray573]

Thomas Sowell is far from being a great economist. In fact I think he's a bit of an idiot, so I reject any appeal to that authority. And no, rejecting argumentum ad verecundiam is not the same as an original argumentum ad hominem.

That's a pretty intriguing statement, would you mind telling me why he's an idiot? Not that it's vital to this debate, just for personal reasons of my own. I may not have explained my understanding, or his, as well as you would prefer, but it's hardly a case of argumentum ad verecundiam.

More to the point, though, this reminds me of a popular line among hikers: you don't have to run faster than the bear (just faster than the guy you're with).

Though you may view this reality as unethical, it is a great analogy for capitalism. Companies competing for the top spot and the most money work to maximize their efficiency, lower their prices, and produce for a wider range of consumers. There are always losers, but the winners for the time create a better economy for the rest of us, even though it wasn't their intention.

Similarly, a company might not be able to undermine every competitor, but - particularly in industries with natural high barriers to entry - that doesn't mean anti-competitive measures. If you have six competitors but only half are more efficient than you, you can defeat one by manipulating regulations and standards and another with predatory pricing or pressure on suppliers, buy out the third and "compete" only against the three who are less efficient than you are (who might well have been willing to help you get rid of the others). This sort of scenario has played out many times in the auto industry, in the airlines, in retail, and just about everywhere else. A race is still being run, but if it's a race from which worthy runners have been excluded the efficiency argument remains weak.

I wouldn't mind seeing examples of this in any of those three markets. Car companies and airlines do have high entry barriers due to the fact that they have to produce huge quantities just to be successful, this doesn't mean it can't be done though. Several airlines have started up since the government backed off it's regulations with great success. When it comes to GM they now have Japanese competitor's that build their cars in America for efficiency purposes. It would be extremely hard to destroy that market.

Out of curiosity, can you give me any worthy runners that have lost out?

When people talk about privatizing what are currently government functions they're rarely talking about turning them over to smaller companies that really would be more efficient. Most often, they're talking about turning them over to big companies that are just as inefficient as government and operate according to the wrong incentives as well.

The big companies will always dominate over the little ones, that doesn't mean the little ones won't someday be big. Privatization means that it goes to the open market where people compete for the greatest business. The difference in the government controlling it and the private sector is that the government has nothing to compare it to, or any real reason to keep it efficient. If a private business loses it's efficiency, to the point where someone can produce it cheaper, at any time they will lose out to other businesses and forced to become more efficient.

I'll hold off with the rest for now until you show me a few examples of worthy companies getting beat out by businesses that couldn't produce more efficiently than they could.

[cytwombly]

Thomas Sowell is an idiot. I stopped reading his column years ago because I got tired of his stupid and mean spirited attacks on ideas that he obviously does not understand. He is a polemicist--at least his journalism is.

[Larani]

The difference in the government controlling it and the private sector is that the government has nothing to compare it to, or any real reason to keep it efficient. If a private business loses it's efficiency, to the point where someone can produce it cheaper, at any time they will lose out to other businesses and forced to become more efficient.


Jray I disagree when talking Private we mention Profit and Loss, When talking Government we mention Surplus and Deficit, but the fact remains there one and the same thing. If a Government does poorly in operating its economy falters and less taxes are brought in because less money is being circulated thus it must cut programs or print more money thus inflation takes over ect. You know the drill.

My point is a Corporation really is nothing more then another form of Government addressing issues of supply and demand within it own chosen market and shareholders are the voting public so in a way it is even a kind of Democracy though as another member said its more a Plutocracy since only real influential shareholders really carry any power within the organization.

So when comparing Governement to Corporation Profit and Loss vs Surplus and Deficit the incentives are still the same stay out of the red.

[Platypus]

That's a pretty intriguing statement, would you mind telling me why he's an idiot?
I don't know why he's an idiot, but I suspect you meant to ask why I think he's an idiot. It has something to do with this, followed by this. He just says some remarkably stupid things sometimes, and great economists don't make a habit of that.
Companies competing for the top spot and the most money work to maximize their efficiency, lower their prices, and produce for a wider range of consumers.
The whole point here is that "maximize" is the wrong word. Companies competing for the top spot, and even more so those which are already in the top spot, often settle for being just barely efficient enough and using other means that have no place in a free market to achieve their goals. Efficiency isn't the be-all and end-all either. There's innovation, there's branding, and a half-dozen other factors that can make up for inefficiency. It has even been said that no company ever became great merely by being efficient, and I pretty much agree. Greatness comes from doing something new or doing it better, and very rarely from doing the same old thing more efficiently.
Out of curiosity, can you give me any worthy runners that have lost out?
The funny thing about companies that lose out is that they don't get big or last long enough to make a lot of news, but I'll try to find and document some examples when I get home.
Privatization means that it goes to the open market where people compete for the greatest business.
Almost never. Do you think the contracts awarded in Iraq, for example, went to an open market? Is that how KBR got all that money? Do you think any of the funds from Social Security privatization will go to mom-and-pop outfits? Whatever noises they make about competition, government contracts overwhelmingly go to big companies. Companies that don't already maintain offices in Washington (paid for from profits elsewhere) have practically zero chance of even getting to bid.

[Jray573]

Thomas Sowell is an idiot. I stopped reading his column years ago because I got tired of his stupid and mean spirited attacks on ideas that he obviously does not understand. He is a polemicist--at least his journalism is.

Are their many columnists who couldn't be classified as polemicists? Not that it really matters, the subject I used him on for debate was the economy. As an economist I find him to be brilliant, as a columnists I see him as a man expressing his opinion. Maybe it isn't that he doesn't understand those issues, maybe he just understands them differently than you. For a person to see reality they have to view it through perspective which doesn't often give a full view of reality. I'm not too quick to pass off conservatives as mean spirited, since it's such a simple-minded label for them and not the true reality behind conservative or libertarian motives.

Jray I disagree when talking Private we mention Profit and Loss, When talking Government we mention Surplus and Deficit, but the fact remains there one and the same thing. If a Government does poorly in operating its economy falters and less taxes are brought in because less money is being circulated thus it must cut programs or print more money thus inflation takes over ect. You know the drill.

It's the same on paper, but it's quite different in reality. Competition finds new and more efficient ways of doing things, while government could possibly do this as well, they have the political burden of jobs and a much slower pace for transition. I was also under the belief that cutting programs at the expense of jobs was a no no for those on the left. I wonder what would have happened during the transition from typewriters to computers if the government was in control. Or what would have happened when electricity was discovered and quickly made other items inferior. The government is just ran by too small of a group to maintain a large economy, and it's got too many political ties to remain efficient. Companies don't share that burden, it's their job to remain up-to-date and efficient, without it they fall apart.

I think that paragraph pretty much covers your post.

[Jray573]

I don't know why he's an idiot, but I suspect you meant to ask why I think he's an idiot. It has something to do with this, followed by this. He just says some remarkably stupid things sometimes, and great economists don't make a habit of that.

For some reason I was thinking that editorial would come up. He wrote one a few weeks ago that really threw me off. I had thought he was more of a libertarian when reading his economy and history books, but his stance on gay marriage pretty much halted that fantasy.

As for the deficit, it's a theory that spans back to Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" (I think) and one he covers quite a bit in his economy books. He basically says that a huge part of our countries economic success has been from foreign investment. He also goes on to show how other countries success has to do with foreign investment as well. I don't know how he feels about our current deficit, but I think it has become quite a concern to the Bush Administration. I read in the news the other day how they sent someone to China to persuade them to start fluctuating their currency value.

That's the aspect of economics that I think people are either over-paranoid about, or way to comfortable with. I can see a deficit being ok to a certain extent, but this case with China is getting too far out of hand. With most countries this would eventually balance out just through trade, but China invests the majority of their excess into the American economy in multiple ways.

The whole point here is that "maximize" is the wrong word. Companies competing for the top spot, and even more so those which are already in the top spot, often settle for being just barely efficient enough and using other means that have no place in a free market to achieve their goals. Efficiency isn't the be-all and end-all either. There's innovation, there's branding, and a half-dozen other factors that can make up for inefficiency. It has even been said that no company ever became great merely by being efficient, and I pretty much agree. Greatness comes from doing something new or doing it better, and very rarely from doing the same old thing more efficiently.

Doing the something new is definitely the best way to become great, but doing it better almost always has to do with efficiency of some sort. When something new is developed it has potential of opening up a huge market as we've seen from computers and the internet, but even the internet is just an example of companies doing things more efficiently.

I'm wondering about your claim that companies "often settle for being just barely efficient enough." Why would a company waste resources if it took away from their profits? Also, what are the other means that don't belong in a free market?

Almost never. Do you think the contracts awarded in Iraq, for example, went to an open market?

This would be a better example if it did, but the jobs went to businesses designated by the government. I wouldn't even call it representative of an open market.

Do you think any of the funds from Social Security privatization will go to mom-and-pop outfits?

Probably not, since most small businesses fail in the first three years, they probably wouldn't be a safe investment. I haven't followed social security as closely as I should have though. To be honest, I think they should educate children in investment and savings so that they can take care of themselves when they get older.

Whatever noises they make about competition, government contracts overwhelmingly go to big companies. Companies that don't already maintain offices in Washington (paid for from profits elsewhere) have practically zero chance of even getting to bid.

State contracts are much easier to get, from there I guess you just have to build yourself up. How many small companies could compete with big companies for large government contracts? What's the percentage of big companies that started off big?

[Platypus]

Doing the something new is definitely the best way to become great, but doing it better almost always has to do with efficiency of some sort. When something new is developed it has potential of opening up a huge market as we've seen from computers and the internet, but even the internet is just an example of companies doing things more efficiently.
Not entirely. There are some things that the internet enables (e.g. modern supply-chain management) that just weren't feasible otherwise. Ecommerce is another example. Yes, there were catalogs before the internet, but the quantitative difference in efficiency created a qualitative difference in how people shop.
I'm wondering about your claim that companies "often settle for being just barely efficient enough." Why would a company waste resources if it took away from their profits?
Because fixing inefficiency is usually hard, and often costly in the short term. With corporate "leaders" often incapable of looking any further than the next quarterly earnings report, companies can often go for years before they "bite the bullet" and make the investments that need to be made to improve efficiency and become truly competitive. Often it's simply out of an executive's comfort zone, if that executive is better at salesmanship or the "other means" we'll discuss in a moment than at improving efficiency.
Also, what are the other means that don't belong in a free market?
Mostly those fall into two categories. The first is the standard suite of monopolistic practices - e.g. bundling, predatory pricing, pressuring suppliers, collusion with other established players to fix prices. The other is "gaming the system" e.g. by taking advantage of (or even manipulating) the tax code, or by playing standards/regulatory games that raise barriers to entry for new competitors. I've worked at big companies, and I'm now in the leadership cadre at a small company that is seen as a threat by the big boys. I've seen them play hundreds of games that have absolutely nothing to do with efficiency or any kind of true competitiveness. Government can help to prevent or counteract those games, but the current trend is to participate in them.
This would be a better example if it did, but the jobs went to businesses designated by the government. I wouldn't even call it representative of an open market.
Well, we were talking about privatization, which almost never occurs by the government cutting a function loose with no oversight of the private companies that take it over. Whoever gets the government contracts during the transition phase will have a huge advantage when (if ever) the function is opened up to a truly open market.
How many small companies could compete with big companies for large government contracts?
Not many, but not for good reasons. Maintaining an office in Washington is costly, and when the odds of it producing any actual sales are minimal because the deck is stacked against you it's an inefficient use of resources, so very few companies even bother until they get fairly large.

[faithless]

fundamentally as an economic system socialism creates far more problems than it solves; ultimately as a self-feeding cycle it becomes suicidal

You're basing that claim on an emotional, gut reaction, you don't really have any facts backing it up.
In fact, the more socialist countries of Scandinavia, Canada, seem to be doing very well.

however, platypus also pointed out something important; we have far more of a tradition of personal ownership in this country than exists in europe. perhaps had you been founded by a middle class which owned their own land you would be the same :shrug:

also, to an extent; the Democrats serve as our socialist party.

USA worships individual effort, Europe praises collective efforts.

[Blueangel]

USA worships individual effort, Europe praises collective efforts.That's pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I can't imagine a European equivalent to Bill Gates. Over here, he'd probably be a vital founding member of a collective.

[xexon]

Humans, are basically socialist in nature. We are tribal. We look out for our group.

Socialism has gotten a bad rap at the hands of communists. That will be a long time in the mending. Until it does, socialism will continue to be the future for the rest of the world. People WANT the government to take care of them. They pay taxes, they want something in exchange. And any government that proves otherwise will become a dinosaur.

But first, we have to slay capitalism. And perhaps democracy too, as it has become a plaything of the rich and powerful.

We need a new deal.




x

[Platypus]

Don't let the right's versions of faux capitalism and faux democracy sour you on the basic ideas, xexon. Capitalism and democracy are fine and we need more of them, but we need them to be real instead of just facades behind which plutocrats hide.

[xexon]

This goes way beyond the right's front yard. The whole system is broken. We have no plan b to fall back on.

Our thirst for personal profit outweighs our drive to help the collective. All the great systems of government we've ever put together have failed to take into account this human weakness. And they have failed accordingly, and for the same reason.



x

[cpwill]

...and in the process left out the part about "any more than it's relevant that GM is bigger than any single federal agency" which was rather relevant to your response.

:shrug: i really didn't see it as such, but fine: yes, GM is very large and this serves as a factor to hurt her effeciency. the problem with using this as an example is that A) GM is bigger than any single federal agency; not the federal government and B) GM is hardly typical among business's, and C) GM got to where it was by being effecient; government got where it was by virutally the opposite route.

Yes, there are, but you haven't given a credible explanation for why that's relevant. As I said, it's the aggregate that counts.

how could it, as the government operates as a single entity from (roughly) a single plan and decision making process whereas businesses do not. we're talking reaction time + ability to put reaction in place.

Replace being with having been and we might agree, but it's an important distinction that only the dishonest would elide.

:shrug: i'm willing to accept that; with the added point that something which has made a career of being effecient is more likely to be effecient in the present than that which has been quite the opposite of effeciency.

Untrue. You restated it as one in a list of "because" statements which are premises. That's still circular.

;) now who's selective quoting; the phrase was because of this,: an inherent wrapping up of the previous points.

You're not spelling it out in big shiny letters. The correct term for what you're doing now is lying about what you did previously.

:lol: my what a mind reader you must be to read my intent through a computer website. you should advertise;)

look; i stated the options, and put that in as my conclusion, you claimed it was something it wasn't, i said no it wasn't, you said i was lying; now i've gone through explaining it, are you happy now, or are you still convinced that you know what i think and what i've said better than i do?

:lol: you know what the funny thing is? this isn't even part of the debate. it's a sideshow; and a silly one at that.
fine, if it means that much to you; alter the wording in your head and deal with the points anyway; at least do that rather than wasting your time and mine complaining about the order in which they were presented.

So you think "dollar growth" necessarily means inflation

that was my assumption; but i recognize that ultimately only you know what you meant; and therefore when it became clear that our ideas of what you were saying were different i asked for you to clarify. (that's called giving you the benifite of the doubt that you aren't an idiot and not simply accusing you of lying)

and not the increase of corporate revenue/profits to which I have repeatedly referred?

hmmm.... interesting; i don't think i've ever really taken a look at that in the claim that it was dollar growth; perhaps we should decide what it is we're actually talking about.

i would argue that increases in corporate revenue/profits is typically benificial; it increases the tax money that the government is getting, and, more importantly, creates capitol which will be used in investment creating more wealth for joe schmoe; you and me.

So dumping hazardous labor on less-advanced nations desperate for the cash is progress, eh?

by "dumping hazardous labor" you mean........

think about it, if these jobs weren't better than the alternative; why are they in such demand? why do you have to bribe a manager just to get hired? yes, industrialization isn't always pretty; and you have to go through hard stages before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor (where we are now, to an extent) but it is also progress.

Did it ever occur to you that such an approach is unsustainable?

:shrug: considering that it appears to be the model for modernization: no.

IMO something that's not sustainable is not really progress. It's just an illusion, momentarily pleasing to the shortsighted but ultimately injurious to all, and embracing illusions leads to flawed policy.

Now you understand why i don't like socialism! :D ;)

There is no growing use of a socialist system here in the US.

has been ever since the New Deal; only lately has the tide been beginning to start reversing.

[qoute]There is growing plutocracy and government support of it, which is what I believe we cannot afford.[/quote]

:p cmon, the illuminati writ en masse? other than the fact that there are rich people at the top of government (rich people have always been at the top of government; as i recall the wealthiest president of all time was George Washington), what is your support for this claim?

[Jray573]

Not entirely. There are some things that the internet enables (e.g. modern supply-chain management) that just weren't feasible otherwise. Ecommerce is another example. Yes, there were catalogs before the internet, but the quantitative difference in efficiency created a qualitative difference in how people shop.

How does that not classify as efficiency. I actually had to go look up the word today because I thought my entire understanding of efficiency was wrong. Here is what it said,

The production of the desired effects or results with minimum waste of time, effort, or skill.

Yes, it's a new idea, but those new ideas lead to a more efficient way of doing business. Businesses that didn't take advantage of the opportunity will most likely suffer due to less efficient ways of doing things. Montgomery Wards and Sears were both built up by a catalog only business, putting smaller less efficient ways of doing things out of business. When people started moving into the suburbs and making greater usage of cars Montgomery Wards and Sears nearly went out of business because people were going to stores again. The same happened with A&P (I think that name is right) which was more of an inner city grocery store where people could walk in and get a bag full of groceries. They lost a lot of business when people started using cars to go to the grocery stores out in the suburbs and buying weeks worth of groceries from stores that were larger and bought in a greater quantity enabling them to charge less. The internet is the next step, it's a new idea, but it's economic usage has to do with efficiency.

Because fixing inefficiency is usually hard, and often costly in the short term. With corporate "leaders" often incapable of looking any further than the next quarterly earnings report, companies can often go for years before they "bite the bullet" and make the investments that need to be made to improve efficiency and become truly competitive. Often it's simply out of an executive's comfort zone, if that executive is better at salesmanship or the "other means" we'll discuss in a moment than at improving efficiency.

I agree with this completely. Many companies have been through this, but this is when smaller companies can most easily make their move. When Montgomery Wards was having hard times using catalogs the CEO was actually fired for suggesting they build stores. After the CEO of Sears was fired they hired the former one from Montgomery Wards who convinced them to build stores. It cost them a lot of money, but the raise in efficiency eventually created more jobs and greater profits along with cheaper prices of products.

How many bookstores will take a hit due to amazon.com? A new small business built up and is now sponsored by other bookstores along with many other products. Toys R us was on the verge of bankruptcy and is now trying to save themselves by joining amazon. Something that may work quite a bit better than a mega toy store, and end up saving the business through a greater efficiency.

This is all a result of a free market, where companies can either quickly adapt to new ideas of efficiency or be taken out by new competition. In the end we all benefit from cheeper products and often better paying jobs.

[Jray573]

The first is the standard suite of monopolistic practices - e.g. bundling, predatory pricing, pressuring suppliers, collusion with other established players to fix prices.

Fixed prices are rare, the most common way I know of doing this is government regulated prices, or government regulations in general to reduce competition. I've seen this happen a lot lately with anti-smoking laws. In Oklahoma a few business got together who went and talked their representatives into passing anti-smoking laws in the name of "fair competition." Basically they wanted to open non-smoking restaurants, but didn't want to be beaten out by those who still allow smoking.

I agree that monopolies can pose a problem in most circumstances, possibly all depending on what you consider a monopoly. Companies that produce medicine have certain time limitations on their patents for the purpose of paying back their research costs, advertising, etc. For that period they have a monopoly over a certain medicine, which is more expensive than the price of generic medicine produced after the patent expires. So, if you're excluding patent rights I'm in complete agreement that we need certain government anti-trust regulations.

My understanding of bundling is just buying in larger quantities for greater efficiency. Is there something more devious than that? The concept actually created new businesses and jobs by building up distribution centers that could provide to local stores. Other big businesses spawned from this as well, but buying in larger scale often reduces the cost to supply it. For a small example, filling a large truck full of items that only has to distribute to one store will be much cheaper than having to drive all around town just to distribute the contents in the truck. Some people see this as poor competition, but in reality it is cheaper to conduct business in that manner.

If you can show me examples of predatory pricing I will be glad to debate it. It's a difficult and costly strategy to take if for no other reason than you risk bankruptcy if that company outlasts your strategy. The length of time it takes to find more efficient ways of doing business is often less time than it takes to destroy the competition through predatory pricing, and comes with a considerably lower risk.

Pressuring suppliers is a part of business, though I agree it can make more problems in the long run. This is what Wal-Mart is accused of the most, and what Canada has done with American medicine producers. It's a dumb strategy, and could result in the destruction of the suppliers along with the businesses that provide their products, but I agree that it happens and it shouldn't. Price regulations to prevent it are normally more harmful than helpful though.

The other is "gaming the system" e.g. by taking advantage of (or even manipulating) the tax code, or by playing standards/regulatory games that raise barriers to entry for new competitors.

The only way I could even imagine viewing companies trying to get around taxes as bad is if those taxes were righteous in creation. Those tax cuts are made for the purpose of helping out businesses in certain circumstances, creating a flat tax would get rid of this altogether, but I can't fault a business for getting around tax laws that they are able to get around.

Not many, but not for good reasons. Maintaining an office in Washington is costly, and when the odds of it producing any actual sales are minimal because the deck is stacked against you it's an inefficient use of resources, so very few companies even bother until they get fairly large.

You have to start somewhere. I don't get how those aren't good reasons.

[Jray573]

You're basing that claim on an emotional, gut reaction, you don't really have any facts backing it up.
In fact, the more socialist countries of Scandinavia, Canada, seem to be doing very well.

Canada has had huge issues with socialist health-care. How do you explain the loss of doctors to America? How do you explain the long wait for surgeries resulting in emergency surgeries having to be sent to the US?

In the UK it's resulted in less people going to school to become doctors, they have to import them from other countries including third world ones that aren't always qualified. I've had experience with those doctors, and I can't imagine having to deal with them for anything serious. One doctor had to make sure it was alright for my wife to drink water with her medicine. I couldn't believe it when he left to go ask someone. In 2001 more than 10,000 people had waited over 15 months for surgery. In at least one case they had to tell a person there was nothing they could do because her cancer had progressed too far.

USA worships individual effort, Europe praises collective efforts.

That's pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I can't imagine a European equivalent to Bill Gates. Over here, he'd probably be a vital founding member of a collective.

Is it interesting to anyone besides me that there isn't a Bill Gates in Europe? Not even a collective equivalent? Why is Microsoft being sued for monopolistic reasons in Europe? Could they not figure out how to produce a windows type program? I'm not trying to be cynical, but it does seem pretty interesting to me.

Our thirst for personal profit outweighs our drive to help the collective.

Our thirst for personal profit drives the help to the collective. I think it's the word "profit" that throws you off.

[LowerMake(I)]

Humans, are basically socialist in nature. We are tribal. We look out for our group.

Socialism has gotten a bad rap at the hands of communists. That will be a long time in the mending. Until it does, socialism will continue to be the future for the rest of the world. People WANT the government to take care of them. They pay taxes, they want something in exchange. And any government that proves otherwise will become a dinosaur.

But first, we have to slay capitalism. And perhaps democracy too, as it has become a plaything of the rich and powerful.

We need a new deal.

x

Agreed, the reason I made this thread was to try and get reasons why Americans dislike socialism and seem to not look at it as an option for the future. It kinda just turned into Socialism V. Capitalism, which I guess was to be expected. But xexon, I believe your the only one who has mentioned the same thing I did in my opening post, the socialism has suffered due to Communism. I believe that it is the job for Americans in the future who support like I do, a more main stream and influential socialist party or something bordering on that. To attempt to contribute not just with cash, but with trying to get the word out on how we have been taught since we were young that anything but Capitalism is evil. When its simply not the case.

[Jray573]

Agreed, the reason I made this thread was to try and get reasons why Americans dislike socialism and seem to not look at it as an option for the future. It kinda just turned into Socialism V. Capitalism, which I guess was to be expected. But xexon, I believe your the only one who has mentioned the same thing I did in my opening post, the socialism has suffered due to Communism. I believe that it is the job for Americans in the future who support like I do, a more main stream and influential socialist party or something bordering on that. To attempt to contribute not just with cash, but with trying to get the word out on how we have been taught since we were young that anything but Capitalism is evil. When its simply not the case.

Communism did hurt socialism, but socialism is doing a pretty good job of holding itself down. I've posted several examples of this already, but I suppose people will still support such failed programs as government provided health-care. If the US suffers from the same flaws that all the other countries are having, it's going to take the entire world back in medicine. I wonder how much damage we will do before someone realizes how bad of an idea it was.

People have to learn to think past stage-one, not all things are as good as they sound. Government provided health-care is a huge example of that.

[Blueangel]

People have to learn to think past stage-one, not all things are as good as they sound. Government provided health-care is a huge example of that.
Government provided health care was nobbled in the UK by the Conservatives introducing a management system that has proved to be a curse. But no matter what the flaws are, I would far prefer that system to the US system any day of the week.
When I know someone in the US who is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy because of medical costs, I thank God for the NHS.

[Jray573]

Is it better to be bankrupt or dead? Does your friend know that you only have to pay $2 a month on your bills for them not to send it to a credit agency?

[Blueangel]

Is it better to be bankrupt or dead? Does your friend know that you only have to pay $2 a month on your bills for them not to send it to a credit agency?Yes she does and did so the first time her condition was diagnosed, but it recurred so she's struggling to get insurance now.

[Jray573]

Yes, it's hard to get insurance to pick you up when you're already sick. It can also be hard if you had cancer or something that has a high chance of returning. Is she getting medical help though? Would she rather take the chances on waiting over 15 months for surgery in the UK? I'm not trying to be mean, but assuming everything would be ok under government health-care is still stage one thinking, there are many other factors involved. Including the speed at which she can receive help.

I would rather pay $2 a month for the rest of my life than to die waiting 15 months for surgery.

[Blueangel]

It can also be hard if you had cancer or something that has a high chance of returning. Is she getting medical help though? That's exactly the problem. It did return and so soon that her insurance wouldn't cover the treatment.
At least in the UK, she'd have received the treatment on as a matter of priority and not have to live with a bill for $15k round her neck. 15months for cancer treatment? Unheard of! I've had family members who've gone directly from the doctor's office to the hospital and been operated on within 36hours.

[Jray573]

That's exactly the problem. It did return and so soon that her insurance wouldn't cover the treatment.
At least in the UK, she'd have received the treatment on as a matter of priority and not have to live with a bill for $15k round her neck. 15months for cancer treatment? Unheard of! I've had family members who've gone directly from the doctor's office to the hospital and been operated on within 36hours.

Unheard of? Maybe you mean you haven't heard of it. What do you think about a London magazine called The Economist? They wrote a story on the incident on November 24, 2001 on page 52. If you have access to a local library that stocks old magazines try and check it out.

[Platypus]

Yes, it's a new idea, but those new ideas lead to a more efficient way of doing business.
Perhaps that was a bad example, then. Maybe I should have used radio or TV broadcasting, which provide qualitatively different experiences compared to books or movies. Video rental offered another qualitative difference, as have Netflix and Tivo. In computing, the shopping experience at Amazon is fundamentally different than what one gets from a store or catalog, and auctions at eBay are very different than auctions in real life. Technology can create entire new categories of products and services, not just more efficient ways of delivering the old ones.
Fixed prices are rare
How do you know? I admit I don't, but I do that even in the best cases it's extremely difficult to detect - let alone prosecute. In many cases it's simply impossible, because participants can "signal" each other in all sorts of ways that could never lead to an indictment. If several producers "just happen" to forego the opportunity to undercut one another and start a price war, nobody can prove collusion but the effect on consumers is the same. If the excess profits from those higher margins allow those producers to gain other advantages over newcomers, what you have is a de facto cartel that the government can't touch. This scenario has played out many times over particularly in the airline industry, where any economist or game theorist can tell that price fixing is rampant but the government has repeatedly tried and failed to prove it.
My understanding of bundling is just buying in larger quantities for greater efficiency. Is there something more devious than that?
Plenty. How about Microsoft bundling disk-compression software into Windows, putting Stac out of business? They even lost that case, but they've pulled the same trick many times and only been caught on a couple. Bundling is about selling disparate items together, not selling larger lots of the same item, and can happen any time one product becomes essential to the use of another. The provider of the essential product (Windows, in Microsoft's case) can effectively control the market for add-ons, which fact can be exploited either by them or by a third party to win market share without actually having either a superior product or a more efficient means of delivering it.
If you can show me examples of predatory pricing I will be glad to debate it.
Microsoft again, with both IE and IIS all but destroying anyone else's market for anybody else's web clients or servers respectively. They've tried to do the same for databases, but with less success because there's more room for functional differentiation in that space.
It's a difficult and costly strategy to take if for no other reason than you risk bankruptcy if that company outlasts your strategy.
Not really. When the company that engages in predatory pricing is vastly larger than a new competitor, the incumbent can use predatory pricing to sink the newcomer with zero risk and negligible effect on their own bottom line. Do you think you have a prayer of outlasting Microsoft if they take an interest in the market you sell into?
The only way I could even imagine viewing companies trying to get around taxes as bad is if those taxes were righteous in creation.
That's treading pretty close to the "if I can I should" non-argument much favored by burglars and computer trespassers. Go read Perfectly Legal to get some idea of the tricks - e.g. income deferral, offshore inversion, loopholes involving fake insurance or retirement plans - and see if you still think everything people do to evade taxes is OK.
You have to start somewhere. I don't get how those aren't good reasons.
So it's a good reason to you if the reason it's not practical to set up such an office is the favoritism shown toward large/rich/well-connected current players? That you could actually provide a superior product or service but be shut out of a market anyway because of spurious barriers to entry?

Yet again, you seem to have a lot of faith that "things must be OK" when in fact they're not. Stop having faith. Investigate what kind of a system we're really in, instead of assuming it's a healthy capitalist one. If you did that, you would very quickly see that the intellectual "product" you've bought and try to sell to others doesn't match its advertising very well.

[ash112619]

I always get in late, and when people start throwing big words around, I get turned off by the argument. Tell me its peaches an oranges, not the latin names of peaches and oranges,lol. I have to sit down infront of a dictionary to understand what you people say, lol. Guess thas why W won, he cant even pronounce half the words yall say, lo. Here is some humor. Laugh it off yall.

DEMOCRAT

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You vote people into office that put a tax on your cows, forcing you
to sell one to raise money to pay the tax.
The people you voted for then take the tax money, buy a cow and give
it to your neighbor.
You feel righteous.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.

__________________________________________________ ______________________
SOCIALIST

You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

__________________________________________________ _______________________
REPUBLICAN

You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

__________________________________________________ ______________________
COMMUNIST

You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.

[ericsdawson]

in response to the origonal question:

the reason the United States has a strong aversion to socialism is because of the lack of protection in a socialist system. a socialist system requires people to have faith in others not to take advantage of genoerosity. there is no way to defend yourself against this crime in a socialist system, you must again rely on someone else to rectify wrongdoing. in a free market system, you are free to defend yourself by you own volition you can protect your property from theft.

reguarding property rights:

what makes a socialist's defanition of "ownership" any more correct than a capitalist's? in this country, we have our defanition set and we live by it.


the argument for socialism is commonly, "well if everyone would share goodwill like they're suppsed to, socialism would work." and to this one could reply the same thing for any political system. the fact is that not everyone is going to adhere to any absolute political system, this is why every society has aspects of many different schools of political thought.

and no platypus, i don't think that ayn rand's objective philosophy is an exception to this statement.

[Blueangel]

LIBERAL

You have two cows.
Your neighbour has none.
You ask your neighbour if he has fine pasture, chickens, pigs, etc, that he would like to swap for one of the cows or a share in your cows milk. ;)

[Jray573]

Perhaps that was a bad example, then. Maybe I should have used radio or TV broadcasting, which provide qualitatively different experiences compared to books or movies. Video rental offered another qualitative difference, as have Netflix and Tivo. In computing, the shopping experience at Amazon is fundamentally different than what one gets from a store or catalog, and auctions at eBay are very different than auctions in real life. Technology can create entire new categories of products and services, not just more efficient ways of delivering the old ones.

All of these made it big through a greater efficiency of the business, consumer, or both.

How do you know? I admit I don't, but I do that even in the best cases it's extremely difficult to detect - let alone prosecute. In many cases it's simply impossible, because participants can "signal" each other in all sorts of ways that could never lead to an indictment. If several producers "just happen" to forego the opportunity to undercut one another and start a price war, nobody can prove collusion but the effect on consumers is the same. If the excess profits from those higher margins allow those producers to gain other advantages over newcomers, what you have is a de facto cartel that the government can't touch. This scenario has played out many times over particularly in the airline industry, where any economist or game theorist can tell that price fixing is rampant but the government has repeatedly tried and failed to prove it.

Why would you fix prices if it took away your advantage to out perform your competitors? It's a terrible business tactic. Also, if they fix their prices too high another company will come along that can produce it cheaper, completely defeating the purpose of the tactic in the first place.

Plenty. How about Microsoft bundling disk-compression software into Windows, putting Stac out of business? They even lost that case, but they've pulled the same trick many times and only been caught on a couple. Bundling is about selling disparate items together, not selling larger lots of the same item, and can happen any time one product becomes essential to the use of another. The provider of the essential product (Windows, in Microsoft's case) can effectively control the market for add-ons, which fact can be exploited either by them or by a third party to win market share without actually having either a superior product or a more efficient means of delivering it.

OK, I see what you mean by bundling now. For the most part I think Microsoft knows every rule in the book, and does everything they can to walk the line. Their ethics are scetchy, and I'm not about to support them, but they are within the rules. As for the product being superior and more efficient, it seems like the bundling strategy wins both of those. While one program within windows may not be superior to one by another company, they provide a package that is considered superior. By bundling it together you reduce costs for disks, packaging, distribution costs, etc... which would indicate a greater efficiency to me, do you disagree?

Microsoft again, with both IE and IIS all but destroying anyone else's market for anybody else's web clients or servers respectively. They've tried to do the same for databases, but with less success because there's more room for functional differentiation in that space.

You know a lot more about computers than I do, but I'm guessing by IE you mean Internet Explorer which is starting to get a lot more competition. I have no idea what IIS is.

By predatory pricing though, I'm assuming you're talking about businesses who charge less than production and distribution costs in order to defeat competitors, not a greater efficiency enabling them to charge less while still making a profit. Am I assuming wrong?

Not really. When the company that engages in predatory pricing is vastly larger than a new competitor, the incumbent can use predatory pricing to sink the newcomer with zero risk and negligible effect on their own bottom line. Do you think you have a prayer of outlasting Microsoft if they take an interest in the market you sell into?

If they can provide a better product at a fair price they would beat out Microsoft. Their disadvantages would consists mainly of advertisement, which the internet has made considerably cheaper. It wouldn't be easy at all, but it is possible.

That's treading pretty close to the "if I can I should" non-argument much favored by burglars and computer trespassers. Go read Perfectly Legal to get some idea of the tricks - e.g. income deferral, offshore inversion, loopholes involving fake insurance or retirement plans - and see if you still think everything people do to evade taxes is OK.

It's human nature, a 2 year old spends the entire year trying to find out what he can get away with. Why would business be any different?

I would think that fake insurance or retirement plans would constitute as tax fraud. That sounds like businesses breaking the law rather than finding their limitations.

[Jray573]

So it's a good reason to you if the reason it's not practical to set up such an office is the favoritism shown toward large/rich/well-connected current players? That you could actually provide a superior product or service but be shut out of a market anyway because of spurious barriers to entry?

How does a small business know that it can create a superior product for a large government contract? Should the government show good faith in small businesses that haven't proved themselves yet rather than a big business that has? If the product or service is superior they will build up, but that doesn't just happen. Normally it takes experience to produce those things, and a big company would normally have that.

Yet again, you seem to have a lot of faith that "things must be OK" when in fact they're not. Stop having faith. Investigate what kind of a system we're really in, instead of assuming it's a healthy capitalist one. If you did that, you would very quickly see that the intellectual "product" you've bought and try to sell to others doesn't match its advertising very well.

I don't think that I ever claimed that everything was OK. I also don't think it's a healthy capitalist system. I just have a greater optimism for capitalism than I do for socialism. I also recognize that their are flaws in capitalism that the government can fix if they're careful. I just see the current system in America as a highly flawed one that has been regulated well past a maximized efficiency.

[ash112619]

No, that would fall under capitalism blue. You hook him up with a cow, he give u some land for ur cow to graze on, and then u have a socialism. You then tell the poor chap with no cow how the cow should be milked, cleaned, and his milk used. He rebels, kills u, steals ur cow and takes back his land. Then you have a cow rebellion. Kinda what happened in the Soviet Union.

[Platypus]

All of these made it big through a greater efficiency of the business, consumer, or both.
Not at all. The TV wasn't more efficient than other forms of entertainment, was it? There are several media/entertainment companies near the top of the Fortune 500; are they there because they're more efficient, or because they provide something different? Many successful companies, particularly in the computer space (*cough* EMC *cough*), are demonstrably less efficient than competitors, but they have other advantages - branding, service, pure marketing hype, whatever - to offset that.
Why would you fix prices if it took away your advantage to out perform your competitors?
If it took away your advantage, you wouldn't, but that's a ridiculous restriction. In an industry with high barriers to entry, which can occur naturally, the incumbent(s) can use predatory pricing and similar tactics to prevent upstarts from ever scaling those barriers. You can't get to the top of the heap with price fixing, but you can darn sure use it to stay there.
Also, if they fix their prices too high another company will come along that can produce it cheaper
Yes, let's assume zero substitution costs and perfectly fluid markets. :rolleyes: The real world doesn't work that way. Bringing a new product into a market can be anywhere from difficult to impossible, and it generally takes years. Just look at the portfolio of any venture-capital firm and you'll see dozens of companies that had compelling products and delivered on all of their promises but still failed. Sometimes just surviving long enough to get through the next procurement cycle or overcome reluctance to bet one's fortunes on an unproven supplier is a challenge, no matter how awesome your product is. Believe me, I've seen that up close and personal. Companies that have lost their competitive edge can still use price fixing to go for years and take in billions of dollars in excess profits before their position is truly threatened. Sometimes they use that money to play any of the other games I've mentioned and stymie the newcomers, or just buy them out if that fails. Once in a very great while they even use their ill-gotten gains to reestablish their earlier advantages, but that's pretty rare.

The natural trajectory of a company based on merit would be up and then back down, with only a few able to maintain or repeat their original success. In our business environment, though, the trajectory tends to be up and then flat, at the expense of those who should be coming up behind.
If they can provide a better product at a fair price they would beat out Microsoft.
If you truly believe that, you know nothing about business. The history of the personal-computer industry is full of companies that tried to do just that, and failed for reasons that had nothing to do with their own product's quality or price.
I would think that fake insurance or retirement plans would constitute as tax fraud. That sounds like businesses breaking the law rather than finding their limitations.
You would think, eh? Well, stop assuming. The title of the book I cited pretty much says it all; whatever we might think of schemes described therein, they conform to the letter of the law and the IRS is powerless to prosecute them. The IRS's enforcement capabilities have been so thoroughly gutted that they can't even go after people who openly brag about not paying any taxes at all. One such group even took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to advertise the fact and encourage others to follow suit, but as of when the book was written not one had been held to account by the IRS (California went after one). How, then, can we expect the IRS to catch tax cheats involving multi-layered partnerships (some offshore) and several obscure parts of the tax code? They simply can't. Expecting magic is not sound policy. People can cheat, and they do cheat, and the rest of us end up paying more as a result. Do you like paying twice as much in taxes as you should, so some corporate fat cat can pay less? Are you proud of supporting candidates and policies that allow them to do so? That's what you're doing, whether you know/admit it or not. I try not to be such a sucker.
I just see the current system in America as a highly flawed one that has been regulated well past a maximized efficiency.
The efficiency losses from what the government does are no greater than those from what the government fails to do, and what big business does as a consequence of that failure. Yes, there are government programs that are entirely superfluous. Some are poorly run. There is corruption in government. There are unintended consequences, unexpected costs, and perverse incentives. Nonetheless, even when you add all of that up, government is no greater danger to us than big business is, and in some cases (certainly not all!) government can be the antidote to business's failures or vice versa. As I said earlier, I'd rather trust a system in which both are balanced against one another than one that gives either primacy, but the prevailing mood among the ill informed and/or venal is to let the fox guard the henhouse.

[Jray573]

Not at all. The TV wasn't more efficient than other forms of entertainment, was it?

That would depend on how you look at it. For the advertisers it was quite a bit more efficient. Instead of putting ads on road signs or newspapers that a few people would see you put it on TV where a much greater portion would. For the viewers you had free entertainment, minus the cost of the television, that required less effort to obtain.

There are several media/entertainment companies near the top of the Fortune 500; are they there because they're more efficient, or because they provide something different?

I imagine both factors played a role in their upbringing, and plenty of other factors as well. Media competes for efficiency just as other companies do, this can be seen by it's expansion to television and the internet. Putting their news on the internet get's their word out to a larger range of people, and enables them to make more money off advertisers.

Entertainment industries do this as well. Providing new shows that bring in more viewers allows them to make more money off advertisments. DVDs and VCR tapes made it possible for people to view movies and TV shows whenever the consumer wanted to, instead of waiting on a television channel to pay you for showing it. This created higher profits along with several new businesses that created more jobs. The time spent producing those shows and movies were made more efficient by broadening the market of buyers.

I have no idea who EMC is, so I'll take your word for it. (I did find their website) Though branding, service, and marketing hype play a pretty big role in efficiency.

If it took away your advantage, you wouldn't, but that's a ridiculous restriction. In an industry with high barriers to entry, which can occur naturally, the incumbent(s) can use predatory pricing and similar tactics to prevent upstarts from ever scaling those barriers. You can't get to the top of the heap with price fixing, but you can darn sure use it to stay there.

I agree, though I also know that government intervention can end in similar results, sometimes when it's not intended to. I still don't think this is a common strategy, but I will admit it's a possibility.

Yes, let's assume zero substitution costs and perfectly fluid markets. The real world doesn't work that way. Bringing a new product into a market can be anywhere from difficult to impossible, and it generally takes years. Just look at the portfolio of any venture-capital firm and you'll see dozens of companies that had compelling products and delivered on all of their promises but still failed. Sometimes just surviving long enough to get through the next procurement cycle or overcome reluctance to bet one's fortunes on an unproven supplier is a challenge, no matter how awesome your product is. Believe me, I've seen that up close and personal. Companies that have lost their competitive edge can still use price fixing to go for years and take in billions of dollars in excess profits before their position is truly threatened. Sometimes they use that money to play any of the other games I've mentioned and stymie the newcomers, or just buy them out if that fails. Once in a very great while they even use their ill-gotten gains to reestablish their earlier advantages, but that's pretty rare.

The natural trajectory of a company based on merit would be up and then back down, with only a few able to maintain or repeat their original success. In our business environment, though, the trajectory tends to be up and then flat, at the expense of those who should be coming up behind.

You're right, all of this is possible, but I don't see how the government getting involved would help the situation. I don't really want to justify every business strategy used by every company. The truth is, I don't trust them either, I just think it's better than the results of government intervention. Whether that is through a centralized economy, or just a regulated one, I don't see a better alternative. I am more than willing to debate the options though.

I read something pretty funny a few weeks ago. I hadn't ever realized how much hatred Adam Smith had for businessmen. A college professor was offering his students an A in the class just for finding one good comment toward businessmen in "The Wealth of Nations." I plan to finish my current book this evening, and then find out just how true the statement was. Though I'm not too excited about reading a book the length of Atlus Shrugged with no real story line :p

[Jray573]

If you truly believe that, you know nothing about business. The history of the personal-computer industry is full of companies that tried to do just that, and failed for reasons that had nothing to do with their own product's quality or price.

OK, you're right. There are many factors that have to be added to that to beat out a major competitor. It would be hard to beat out a company that has very little need for advertisement, when you would need a lot of it. The best strategy I can think of is to start off small and build from there. Other than that, get the word out to the computer geek magazines, and either advertise or hope they write an article about you. It's not supposed to be easy to beat out a major competitor though. What is the purpose of raising a business from the ground up if you aren't going to try to out do your competitors in every possible way?

You would think, eh? Well, stop assuming.

So basically what you're saying is my assumption was right, but the government isn't doing their job. Is this a bad assumption again? Yet this same government is what many would prefer provide us with health-care.

There are many factors for taxes. Why don't we start cutting down on government programs, or quite subsidizing corporations and big businesses? Maybe we could quit giving millions to small town museums or various hall of fames around the country. Why don't we create a flat tax with no exceptions, other than people under a certain income?

The efficiency losses from what the government does are no greater than those from what the government fails to do,

Basically this tells me that the government is inefficient, but you still want them to do more. Would that inefficiency not grow with the government?

BTW, I'm not exactly ill informed, we just differ on opinion. I imagine you have more knowledge than I do, but I'm not really suffering from a lack of. I enjoy your perspective, and debate to find the flaws in my own ideals as well as the opposition. I just thought I'd put that out there, since you seem to make that accusation a lot. If you think I'm stupid then say so, but there have been many brilliant minds on both sides of this subject.

[ghost859]

just a thought... why is it that the original topic never lasts more than three posts in this place?

[Jray573]

We're still talking about socialism vs. capitalism. Not all people enjoy debating with one liner accusations. Some prefer to prove their stance. It's funny how doing so would be considered getting off topic though.

[ghost859]

you must certainly excuse me then, dear educated denizen, i hadn't meant to offend. forgive my simple ignorance. god be with you.
cough, cough, cough.

[cpwill]

LIBERAL

You have two cows.
Your neighbour has none.
You ask your neighbour if he has fine pasture, chickens, pigs, etc, that he would like to swap for one of the cows or a share in your cows milk. ;)

Post the Whole List!!! Post the Whole List!!!!! :D

[Jray573]

I apologize, I shouldn't have said that so aggressively.

[ghost859]

not a problem, im just being outrageously stupid. i was too lazy to read anything but the page i was on. heh so i suppose i offer my apologies in real this time.

[BobbyO]

This goes way beyond the right's front yard. The whole system is broken. We have no plan b to fall back on.

Our thirst for personal profit outweighs our drive to help the collective. All the great systems of government we've ever put together have failed to take into account this human weakness. And they have failed accordingly, and for the same reason.



x

But these sentiments have been the cause of untold misery for millions throughout the 20th century. The "collective" over the "individual" was the driving engine behind the nazis and communists, for example.

[ash112619]

America was founded on the ideals of the individual. Look throughout the constiution, in patriotic songs, even in the words that W and other presidents have used. That word that is most dear to Americans is that of Liberty. Liberty for the individual. This nation has been an experiment in individual rights since the founding of our union. To reverse 200 yrs of history is almost impossible. Look at the old USSR and the new Russia. People are still having a difficult time adjusting to democracy because its alien to them. For the past 200 yrs Russia experianced Czars and the Bolshiviks and then Communism. And now with democracy, they dont have a clue what the deal is. Same with Iraq, those people will take yrs to get over Saddam and his rule. It would take Americans several generations to dispell the idea of the individual and embrace the idea of communism. Why do u think that that avg american, not some