The Self-Made Myth

[Gonzo]

The Self-Made Myth: Debunking Conservatives' Favorite -- And Most Dangerous -- Fiction
A new book makes a strong case that nobody ever makes it on their own in America.
April 25, 2012  | 

* An excellent education received in public schools and universities.

"...A quarter of all ninth-graders will not graduate in four years. Among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, only four (Mexico, Spain, Turkey, New Zealand) have dropout rates higher than America's, whose 15-year-olds ranked 23rd in math and 25th in science in 2006..."

US Schools Get Failing Grade
Friday, 28 Jan 2011 09:02 AM
By George Will

http://www.newsmax.com/GeorgeWill/arne-duncan-education/2011/01/28/id/384219

Because our education system is doing so well preparing our children for the workforce...

[fsquid]

Total unadulterated crap.

This is the left's newest talking point du jour, trying to come up with some conceptual justification for Big Brother. Sell the idea that all wealth is created in common, and it's up to government to decide how to distribute it, and they've won. But in reality the societies that have tried to go that route ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," ring a bell?) have ended up creating little or no wealth and distributing what little was created much less equitably than a free market.

Actually, the common wealth is always the sum of individual efforts to create wealth, not the other way around. When the rewards go to those who earn them instead of those favored by the governing elite, society progresses.

If government protects the borders, preserves public safety, and provides a reasonable, consistent, rules-based environment for the conduct of commerce, and lets individual enterprise take it from there, we'd be fine.

I'm both disturbed and offended that anyone in this country could seriously be peddling this absurd garbage, or that any intelligent person could be buying it.

nice blanket statements.

perhaps you might offer some explanation instead of just this standard, not very informative blast of coals from below?

some concrete examples would be nice.

It's more accumulated knowledge and understanding and not anything that I parroted that I can link to, but I'll try to point you toward a few things.

As far as the left's latest talking point, I'm suddenly seeing a lot of talk about "shared society"; the left seems to be trotting it out as their new theme. The woman running against Scott Brown in Massachusetts is big on this. I note that the referenced article describes the author as "community organizer, coalition leader, and nonprofit director of United for a Fair Economy, the organization which created the Responsible Wealth project, of which this book is a product. The nonprofit raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermines the economy and aims to achieve broadly shared prosperity." In other words, someone who has never done anything of value. Those seem to be the kinds of people who are pushing this.

My comment about if "the government protects the borders, etc." is pretty much taken directly from Milton Friedman in CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM. If you haven't read that, read it. That would probably provide about the best framework possible to understand a lot of this.

As far as providing examples, there really aren't any concrete examples of a society that pursued wealth as a cooperative exercise and succeeded, at least none that I'm aware of. If those who want to advocate the position taken by the author of the book care to provide examples, and are able to do so, I would be very interested.

[fsquid]

I agree, there classical definitions of left and right as used in political rhetoric are probably not accurate here.  I'll stop using them for this debate.  I will point out that the OP's points are being used in this election year though.  Maybe not at the Presidental election, but certainly in some state races as I mentioned.

I didn't mention shared property, I mention the shared prosperity that the nonprofit aims to achieve.

[finehoe]

there really aren't any concrete examples of a society that pursued wealth as a cooperative exercise and succeeded, at least none that I'm aware of. If those who want to advocate the position taken by the author of the book care to provide examples, and are able to do so, I would be very interested.

Nice strawman argument there.  Nothing in the book is talking about a communistic common ownership of the means of production, that is just the spin you've put on it so you can say you don't know of any place where it's worked.  But if you are actually interested in a society that has a developed mixed economy with state involvement in strategic areas of the economy and have a strongly integrated welfare system, look to any of the Scandinavian countries, who have quite high standards of living, high growth rates, and high social mobility, beating out the US in most every measure.

[fsquid]

I agree, there classical definitions of left and right as used in political rhetoric are probably not accurate here.  I'll stop using them for this debate.  I will point out that the OP's points are being used in this election year though.  Maybe not at the Presidental election, but certainly in some state races as I mentioned.

I didn't mention shared property, I mention the shared prosperity that the nonprofit aims to achieve.

So a profitable year of income based from vigorous stock performance isn't shared prosperity derived from shared property?

Absolutely. But that's the point I'm making, the common wealth is the sum of the wealth creators. Here the corporation is the wealth creator and the sharing of that prosperity is growing the common wealth.

What I'm criticizing is the idea that it wasn't the corporation, or its employees, or its officers and executives, who caused that profit, but that the profit was created in common by society as a whole and that corporation's share is just what was "distributed" to it. Viewed that way, it becomes a theoretical justification for "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Of course when societies have started operating that way historically, what's happened is that the wealth creators lose the incentive to create, and it turns out that society can't really create any wealth in common, so the wealth decreases, and the elites in power continue to grab theirs first and that leaves less and less for the rest.

If the whole shared society concept worked, then the USSR would have had the large successful middle class. Or Cuba. Or North Korea.

[fsquid]

there really aren't any concrete examples of a society that pursued wealth as a cooperative exercise and succeeded, at least none that I'm aware of. If those who want to advocate the position taken by the author of the book care to provide examples, and are able to do so, I would be very interested.

Nice strawman argument there.  Nothing in the book is talking about a communistic common ownership of the means of production, that is just the spin you've put on it so you can say you don't know of any place where it's worked.  But if you are actually interested in a society that has a developed mixed economy with state involvement in strategic areas of the economy and have a strongly integrated welfare system, look to any of the Scandinavian countries, who have quite high standards of living, high growth rates, and high social mobility, beating out the US in most every measure.

But they don't pursue wealth as a cooperative exercise. They still have private enterprise as the prime economic mover. And one thing that all of Europe has is a much more cordial and cooperative relationship among private enterprise, labor, and government than we have here. That's one thing I think we'd do well to emulate, and there are certainly some things that we could implement to do so, although I doubt we'd ever get to the point they are. One thing for sure, that is a major attraction for private investment. Of course, they take it to the point that it's past corporatism to borderline fascism, and I would not favor taking it that far. I still think we'd do better with more of a free market approach.

There are a several things about their welfare state. One, they are all very small societies, Sweden with about 9 million people is the largest. Particularly in health care, there are some really strong indications that their approach doesn't work very well in larger economies. Second, they are relatively homogeneous societies. Finland probably has more diversity than any of the others and they are basically two ethnic groups in one country. It makes conceptual sense that shared sacrifice would work a lot better where the society is more homogeneous, and that seems to be the case. Obviously, neither of those applies here.

Norway is a bit unusual because it has such a huge share of the North Sea oil. They're doing very well now, but take out the energy sector and what's left isn't doing all that well on its own.

I happen to think that socialist approaches may actually work where the society is small enough, basically just a large commune. But I don't think giving the government the level of power necessary to implement such proposals on the scale of 300 million people is a good idea

[fsquid]

I agree, there classical definitions of left and right as used in political rhetoric are probably not accurate here.  I'll stop using them for this debate.  I will point out that the OP's points are being used in this election year though.  Maybe not at the Presidental election, but certainly in some state races as I mentioned.

I didn't mention shared property, I mention the shared prosperity that the nonprofit aims to achieve.

So a profitable year of income based from vigorous stock performance isn't shared prosperity derived from shared property?

Absolutely. But that's the point I'm making, the common wealth is the sum of the wealth creators. Here the corporation is the wealth creator and the sharing of that prosperity is growing the common wealth.

What I'm criticizing is the idea that it wasn't the corporation, or its employees, or its officers and executives, who caused that profit, but that the profit was created in common by society as a whole and that corporation's share is just what was "distributed" to it. Viewed that way, it becomes a theoretical justification for "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Of course when societies have started operating that way historically, what's happened is that the wealth creators lose the incentive to create, and it turns out that society can't really create any wealth in common, so the wealth decreases, and the elites in power continue to grab theirs first and that leaves less and less for the rest.

If the whole shared society concept worked, then the USSR would have had the large successful middle class. Or Cuba. Or North Korea.

But you are self contradicting.

Either a shared property with shared prosperity works or it doesn't?

Corporations are very concrete examples of shared property that produces shared prosperity, and I take it that you don't believe that they are either imaginary or evil, right?

They are not imaginary and as a whole are not evil.  What point are you driving at?

[bill]

You might be a leftist if........

You think that having 20 mm more people on food stamps in 3 years is swell.

You want more rules, regulations and taxes on developers, businesses, companies or anyone you deem as not "doing their fair share".

but if it affects you in any way then the rules should be changed, altered or done away with.
I.E. food trucks, downtown rules.

You are a part or want to be a part of some protected class and want to have the laws changed to protect you from some percieved sleight that kept you from being rich, famous etc.

You abhor all of the implements that we used to gather the intelligence that lead to Bin Laden and many others, but you are ecstatic that BO "got him".   

You think keeping terrorists at Gitmo to get additional information is terrible but killing them with drones is dandy.

You are outraged at Limbaugh saying something negative about a women but are elated when Mahar calls Palin a dumb slut.

[finehoe]

...they don't pursue wealth as a cooperative exercise. They still have private enterprise as the prime economic mover.

I don't understand why you keep throwing that out there.  The original article quite plainly says it is

about government's central role in creating the conditions for economic prosperity and personal opportunity.

Not a word about the collective being the source of wealth.

[NotNow]

Comparing a corporation formed for business profit to a taxing collective government is a false comparison. 

Shareholders invest of their own fee will, with the intent to profit.  Taxpayers pay under threat of prosecution, and while they may expect services in return for the money, there is no guarantee of service or requirement of the taxing collective government to provide any.

Shareholders can remove their investment along with any profit or loss at their discrestion.  Um, I'd like my social security "investment" back with interest please!

Corporations exist for one reason, to make money for the shareholders.  Governments exist for many reasons or sometime specific reasons, but not to make money.  They exist to establish and enforce "rules" for a nation or society.  The unfortunate experience with the "rule" selection and enforcement led to the founding of this nation, where the Federal government was intended to be limited to certain, enumerated areas.  There was never any intention of a "collective".

[fsquid]

well you asked for an example of the above described and I have provided it for you.

Since your argument seemed to hang on this one proof, it seems as though your point is davalidated.

Yes, but that's not what I think the "shared society" crowd has in mind. A corporation is voluntary sharing among people who have common objectives. "Shared society" is forced sharing between people who have nothing in common.

[downtownjag]

Comparing a corporation formed for business profit to a taxing collective government is a false comparison. 

Shareholders invest of their own fee will, with the intent to profit.  Taxpayers pay under threat of prosecution, and while they may expect services in return for the money, there is no guarantee of service or requirement of the taxing collective government to provide any.

Shareholders can remove their investment along with any profit or loss at their discrestion.  Um, I'd like my social security "investment" back with interest please!

Corporations exist for one reason, to make money for the shareholders.  Governments exist for many reasons or sometime specific reasons, but not to make money.  They exist to establish and enforce "rules" for a nation or society.  The unfortunate experience with the "rule" selection and enforcement led to the founding of this nation, where the Federal government was intended to be limited to certain, enumerated areas.  There was never any intention of a "collective".

this is literally beneath response, not now.

Actually, I think it's a well thought out and cohesive post; for the most part. 

I, like most americans, do everything I can to pay as little taxes as possible.  Social security tax is robbing young Americans, we will never see any of that money and it is less we can put into private retirement accounts.

[NotNow]

Comparing a corporation formed for business profit to a taxing collective government is a false comparison. 

Shareholders invest of their own fee will, with the intent to profit.  Taxpayers pay under threat of prosecution, and while they may expect services in return for the money, there is no guarantee of service or requirement of the taxing collective government to provide any.

Shareholders can remove their investment along with any profit or loss at their discrestion.  Um, I'd like my social security "investment" back with interest please!

Corporations exist for one reason, to make money for the shareholders.  Governments exist for many reasons or sometime specific reasons, but not to make money.  They exist to establish and enforce "rules" for a nation or society.  The unfortunate experience with the "rule" selection and enforcement led to the founding of this nation, where the Federal government was intended to be limited to certain, enumerated areas.  There was never any intention of a "collective".

this is literally beneath response, not now.

Yep, the logic is inescapable at times, isn't it?

[NotNow]

Comparing a corporation formed for business profit to a taxing collective government is a false comparison. 

Shareholders invest of their own fee will, with the intent to profit.  Taxpayers pay under threat of prosecution, and while they may expect services in return for the money, there is no guarantee of service or requirement of the taxing collective government to provide any.

Shareholders can remove their investment along with any profit or loss at their discrestion.  Um, I'd like my social security "investment" back with interest please!

Corporations exist for one reason, to make money for the shareholders.  Governments exist for many reasons or sometime specific reasons, but not to make money.  They exist to establish and enforce "rules" for a nation or society.  The unfortunate experience with the "rule" selection and enforcement led to the founding of this nation, where the Federal government was intended to be limited to certain, enumerated areas.  There was never any intention of a "collective".

this is literally beneath response, not now.

Actually, I think it's a well thought out and cohesive post; for the most part. 

I, like most americans, do everything I can to pay as little taxes as possible.  Social security tax is robbing young Americans, we will never see any of that money and it is less we can put into private retirement accounts.

downtownjag.  The answer is simply an attempt to avoid the obvious point that corporations are the very definition of shared property by throwing in non related political nonsense that requires the other person to accept a bunch of opinions as fact before answering, or else debate opinions one by one, when the factual point has already been proven.

You have "proved" nothing.  Actually, your attempt to compare a corporation to socialist government is laughable.  I have pointed out just a few of the obvious differences specifically.  You  simply have no logical answer and resort to your default snarkiness.

I would be interested in what specifically in my post you would term "non related political nonsense"?

I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage every reader to pull up the text of the US Constitution and do what stephendare! and those like him hate for you to do....read it.  Just read the document.  It will just take a few minutes. 

[NotNow]

Thanks for making my point.