ATM Robbery Sparks Ruminations on Capitalism

[JC]

JC.  Ive found it less frustrating to keep in mind whether or not people are actually equipped with the basics necessary for informed discussion----open mind, informed opinion, basic fair play, not too much of a heavy reliance on semantics.

I can vouch for Dogwalker, Buckethead, and tripoli.

Well, in all honesty, I replied to your invitation for debate back on page 2 or 3 and you ignored it completely so at least with them my words are not literally falling on deaf ears!

But yeah, I am used to arguing from the mat and doing so with people who are formulating their argument to make themselves right when they have not really questioned their own arguments.

[buckethead]

But yeah, I am used to arguing from the mat and doing so with people who are formulating their argument to make themselves right when they have not really questioned their own arguments.

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. John Kenneth Galbraith

True words. Also words that are very difficult to shake.

Questioning my own opinions is usually the most difficult task in any debate.

I do like to be right... even if I'm wrong.

[JC]

True cost, triple bottom line or whatever you want to call it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_cost_accounting

and... my current favorite!

parecon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics

Interesting read... I am sure many companies use the first example and the other... well... is a theory.  Perhaps a small country like Belize should try it out before one of the biggest economic engines in the world does...

I can vouch for Dogwalker, Buckethead, and tripoli.

Jeez Stephen... I cannot believe you left me off your list.  Im kinda bummed...

Glad you enjoyed it, but there are companies who are participating in American capitalism using the parecon model as well as triple bottom line.  Waste Management comes to mind as well as a few others I heard on a panel discussion about this topic.  

A great read, if you are the bookish type is "the value of nothing" by Raj Patel.  Then of course, if you want your brain to hurt and eyes to bleed read Proudhon although Chomsky and Zinn might be better choices.  

[JC]

OK...

How about the "other models"?

True cost, triple bottom line or whatever you want to call it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_cost_accounting

and... my current favorite!

parecon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics

I wonder what it is that makes you like participatory economics?  decisions by participatory councils sounds like the final punishment of an angry and finely powdered sumerian death god.

After all the committee work ive done over the past 25 years, both productive and non productive, this seems like a surer path to mass murder and tyranny than Ive ever heard.

Think Homeowner's associations, but with your money.

ps.  I thought we'd been discussing all along!

also Midway is a stout intellect when he isnt amusing himself by picking on the right wingers.  He derives entirely too much fun out of that though. 

I am not saying its right all the time but having employees decide the direction of a company by voicing their opinion with a ballot, can work in everyone's best interest.  There are plenty of examples of companies (especially financial firms) making decisions that benefit a few at the top while destroying the lives of those at the bottom.  I am all for decentralization... of pretty much everything...

[JC]

Love both Zinn and Chomsky.  I believe I posted an old video of Chomsky and William F. Buckley debating a while back.

Brilliant stuff.

I actually got to meet Howard Zinn in NY at Cooper Union, he was speaking at a memorial service for Studs Terkel.  He was a brilliant guy...

Unfortunately I forgot my copy of A Peoples History, but I shook his hand and took some photos.

[BridgeTroll]

http://homepages.luc.edu/~dschwei/parecon.htm

Nonsense on Stilts: Michael Albert's Parecon

David Schweickart

Loyola University Chicago

January 16, 2006

[buckethead]

Your economic model (parecon) is absolutely welcome within our current economic system. Should it prove to be the panacea you seem to hope for, I'm certain it will spread like wildfire.

I do not support any action that takes privately owned shares and redistributes them to a group of workers to iniate this model, however.

[JC]

Love both Zinn and Chomsky.  I believe I posted an old video of Chomsky and William F. Buckley debating a while back.

Brilliant stuff.

I actually got to meet Howard Zinn in NY at Cooper Union, he was speaking at a memorial service for Studs Terkel.  He was a brilliant guy...

Unfortunately I forgot my copy of A Peoples History, but I shook his hand and took some photos.

I had the privilege of hearing him speak at the University of Washington in Seattle.  Very brilliant fellow. 

I am sure I dont need to tell you that Chomsky is an Anarcho Syndicalist...

[buckethead]

I smoked crack with William F Buckley Jr.

We did an erudite version of "Boats -n- Ho's" that was, tragically, never released for public consumption.

[JC]

Your economic model (parecon) is absolutely welcome within our current economic system. Should it prove to be the panacea you seem to hope for, I'm certain it will spread like wildfire.

I do not support any action that takes privately owned shares and redistributes them to a group of workers to iniate this model, however.

Maybe there is some confusion here, I am not delusional, I understand that I dont understand enough about how this big economic machine works.  But I do understand is that nothing is EVER perfect and that there is ALWAYS something better.  I also understand that every second someone dies of hunger, a treatable disease or a man made catastrophe.  Because I understand those things and internalize them, feel empathy toward those victims, I choose to look at things critically and to explore other possibilities.  If you dont like my arguments than dont read them but I am not for a moment going to stop questioning or learning!

[JC]

no of course not.  That doesnt take away from his brilliance though.

Im not very sure about the future of this "Worker" class, as you know.

Well, you will always have skilled trades people who build... Clearly US manufacturing is dead!

[BridgeTroll]

Clearly US manufacturing is dead!

Why do you say that?

[BridgeTroll]

International Labor Comparisons from the Bureau of Labor statistics...

Fun with numbers...


http://www.bls.gov/fls/#productivity

[JC]

Clearly US manufacturing is dead!

Why do you say that?

Detroit is sort of the embodiment...

[BridgeTroll]

Detroit would be an extreme example... of an old manufacturing model that was never updated and failed.  What and how we manufacture changes.

Blacksmith shops manufacturing horseshoes would be another example... It was replaced with something else.  Japanese and European auto manufacturers still set up shop here.

My great grandfather was a cooper... for a brewery... skilled labor then... out of a job now...

Silicon valley was covered in orchards prior to the manufacturing of PC components and microchips...