One last thing about socialism and then Ill drop it

Medical students can serve in social hospitals to “pay” (Giving Back, a known philanthropic concept and a name of an organization of a billionaire philanthropist) for their education. And so on.

Keeping companies under a certain size, I think, is key. Amazingly this is often assumed to keep us all unfree, as if we were corporations and they were us. They are states with kings.

So, all rhetoric aside, this is a pretty damn good idea don’t you think? This flat tax kicking in at say 20 million.

The way I compiled that list was simply by going through your posts on this thread and pulling out assumptions that I could easily recognise about the kind of economy that you’re arguing against. So if only the Welfare State applies to what you’re arguing against, and only somewhat, then largely what you’re arguing against contains mostly concepts that you’re fine with - but with only the addition of the Welfare State tipping the balance - and even then, only somewhat? Is that correct?

I’m guessing that your grandfather, in spite of his laudible character and deeds within his circumstances, did not gain much influence - relatively speaking, compared to the political powers that were in charge of the society and economy that he was living in at the time? I might be wrong - correct me if so.
I’d also guess that the political powers in his society and economy got there and stayed there through spending money to pay the right people to get the best version of their message out to the most number of people that might otherwise be swayed to support other parties.

Unless, of course, the country in question at the time did not allow campaign donations, in which case - that would be awesome! Ideally, yes, money would be moot in this kind of thing. In practice, the world powers get there through money - so it’s not moot in the slightest. And in this case, it’s convenient that you have this impression that Communists are only good Communists if they run based on their deeds, character and circumstance alone - because that guarantees their lack of success, which is what you want, right?

It’s interesting how the economic models with higher emphasis on cooperation and sharing are associated with sacrificing the means to gain power - “or else they are hypocritical”. If an economy is productive, meeting all the needs of its people, perhaps even by a long way such that the economy is decidedly wealthy, is it therefore less wealthy if all that same amount of produce is shared around more equally? Of course not. A cooperative and sharing economic model does not mean everyone has to be without any riches beyond subsistence level, because even if they all donated/got taxed down to subsistence level, they’d be getting it all back and thus each remain net-wealthy. The issue is the institutions that their donations/taxation is mediated through. In Capitalism, these institutions are businesses who only pay those who work for them, and perhaps charities that they support as well (also businesses) - decentralised and competing with each other to keep each other in check. In Statism, there can be much less decentralisation, which lacks that competitive control that cuts down on corruption. There are other ways of redistributing wealth in a decentralised way than Capitalism passing it through competing businesses, but popularly Social Democracy, Socialism and Communism are all associated with too much centralisation. You can have a decentralising economic model with a higher emphasis on cooperation and sharing that both isn’t centralised, and doesn’t necessitate that its people have to live at mere subsistence level in order to avoid being called hypocrites.

Rather than being dishonest, I wanted to bring up the term of “poverty” to be contrasted with your term of “subsistence”.

What really is subsistence? One is reminded of all the people who have a much higher standard of living than others, who still regard themselves as having no money simply because they spend it all on the things that everyone around them normally spends all their money on, but personalised in proportion with their own tastes. Yet even those in genuine poverty get by - they subsist on what they have - my point being, what really is the difference between poverty and subsistence in your estimation?

Never ideology and thought police? You and me both, brother.

I cannot stand these “new left” authoritarians who want to force restrictions on how we’re allowed to live our personal lives, or even speak. I am leftist in the older way that supports social freedoms, although believing that in order to acheive this, the economics that determines the means to live needs rules.

Church? No.

State? What is the difference between dealing out basic necessities and dealing out money? Basic necessities cost money. The difference between dealing out basic necessities and money is that the former has someone else deciding how the money should be spent, whereas the latter allows the receiver of said money to decide how it’s spent.

Agreed - I just wanted to establish what degree of state intervention you supported. The above quote, combined with “no taxation of privates, whatsoever” sounds like Minarchism to me. Is that accurate to describe your preferred economic model?

I think it is underestimated how many rich people have the impulse to offer charity, but a sure way to no longer be rich is to heed any such impulse too much. It does make one happy to follow it, absolutely, which is where the support for cooperative and sharing economic models comes from - but the contention is how and by whom such distibution is to be managed. Obviously you doubt the state’s ability to do so, where many on the other side of the political spectrum doubt more the ability of private parties to do it. The left tend not to think that private parties do it enough, or at least that they are reliable enough in doing so - and this is the origin of the perception of the left, by the right, to be forceful and tyrannical over their freedoms and rights. It’s not that compulsion is enjoyed (though I’m sure there are vengeful assholes out there who do enjoy this), it’s just that it’s seen as unfortunately necessary.

Didn’t you just say “I favour no taxation of privates, whatsoever, ever”?

The above quote could easily come out of a leftist’s mouth as a rightist - they share a huge amount of common ground in fact. The intention is to have controls in place to stop too much money going to too few people, whilst not negatively impacting on the possibility to earn the responsibility of dealing with more money, through your deeds.

Remember I don’t know you and you don’t know me - I want to be sure we are on the same page with respect to your position, and some questions will be easier than others.

I expect nothing from you either, but I hope for patience and as much honesty and integrity as I am trying to offer you.

I have the disadvantage of already having been boxed by you, in spite of our lack of exposure to one another, but fortunately I merely have to converse with you to prove that your prejudice is unfounded - that’s all I’m offering.

I meant that if it were possible for leftists to acquire significant wealth through their own collective means without engaging in the infrastructure already available to the private sector, would you still only trust them if they were living at subsistence level?

I’m simply offering scenarios that may or may not appear to you to counter your general dismissal of wealthy supporters of a welfare state.

Honestly, I feel like practical solutions are above my pay grade. I wish I could be confident of what such measures would accomplish, but I feel like I would be speculating wildly. I do like the idea of measures taking affect at a certain level. IOW I think it is fine to put say above this level new rules apply and we do this in part to keep the power of organizations like corporations at bay. IOW one can look at the constitution as organized to protect citizens from various kinds of abuse of power of governments. To both grant powers and set the limits of the various branches of government. I have not the slightest problem with viewing corporations as potential threats and having measures that restrict their powers and their powers to control government and thus people. I think current corporations have products and abilities that could not be imagined by the founders, but we can find in the founders skepticism about private organization power. I think that all the reasons to limit government power apply now to corporations and that this need not be conflated with limiting individual freedoms. Quite the opposite.

So I like the idea in the abstract, since it fits in with the general idea of starting to limit corporate power above a certain size. I think other measures related to control of their own oversite (revolving door stuff), lobbying, campaign finance and information gathering/behavior mod, etc. need to be looked at also. I wish I had the confidence to say ’ these measures will work, these will not, no bad side effects of this policy need to be mulled over’ and so on, but I do not think I have the expertise. Right now I think the main thing is to geto n the same table about these things, think outside the traditional right/left split - which I think is benefitting the wrong people ultimately - at least some of the time, - and then move into problem solving with some shared goals.

If we don’t recognize the problem, enough of us, then specific solutions can’t really even be considered well.

Well the Donald gives away his whole salary so don’t worry about that :wink:

Well but you are still looking at it from a fearful perspective of judgment. Not that fear and judgment aren’t logical results of this time but theyre never helpful for oneself. What I like about my own proposition is that it is without any judgment or without an outspoken motive of keeping companies small, it is only from a motivation of taxing big capital because big capital can’t complain about being troubled for money.

Taxing your average struggling middle class citizen is I think a great great evil. Ridiculous. The idea that there are well paid people in congress deciding that some soccer mom holding two jobs should give a part of her income to the state, noooononononono. Just, no. But that a business of 20 million plus capital should be asked for some contribution is perfectly fine with me.

Many companies will try to prevent it and stay small, thus holding little societal influence, others like car manufacturers can’t stay that small and have to simply pay taxes. I don’t see a down side.

Yeah and my solution recognizes both the concerns of the traditional left and the right.
The current left is composed entirely of corporate power and social engineering institutes, so it will disagree to exempt citizens. But persistent humanity, ideas and logic are a formidable force and might even prevail.

Bottom line: for a state to automatically have the right to tax any citizen who just happens to be born in that state is such a banal form of tyranny that I don’t expect it to last. As long as it does last we are unfortunately inferior to insects.

As long as we have people wielding coercive power being payed with money the state took from hard working small living people we are a prison camp. This is why the Donald gives that filthy bureaucrats salary away.

In fact to make all this tight and viable, logical economically as well as ethically, no government worker should ever be paid.

People should only be working for the government who decide to do it out of the overflowing of their being. People who have made a nice life for themselves or received great charities from others and are living well, and out of gratitude and a sense of logic decide to spend some time educating themselves and working for a police or fire department or putting themselves up for public office. In the past I don’t think there was a Senators salary.

I don’t think its right that governing other people should be a paid job. It should only be a service. Also teaching. Otherwise you get the “Im getting paid for it and you’re not so Im the boss” classroom which is basically our current “education”. Real education happens for example online by non profit initiatives like wikipedia or hell, this, or when people decide to pay some expert in for a private exchange of services for resources. Sharing and valuing.

I bet 99 percent of all wealth in the world is being wasted to bribe, counterbribe and retribute and defend. Bureaucracy is at the top simply a bargaining floor for political favours, and favours go for the costs of whole national wealth pools. Bureaucracy must stop. All lethal regimes were showing bureaucratic prowess.

Communo-Aristocracy as the ethical axis of the capitalistic world.
No one will ever starve under this scheme, as people will be competing with each other for the privilege of feeding nations.

How will this be accomplished?
It’s like Lennon said, I am the walrus.

So if one of the motivations gun owners have is to protect themselves. IOW that is part of why they take the measure of having a gun and perhaps practicing its use - the prevention of potential intruder threats - you would consider them ‘looking at it from a fearful perspective of judgment’? They should come up with a formulation for choosing to have a gun that never mentions potential threats? or should refer to them as ‘interesting targets’, as in I bought my gun because home invaders are interesting targets I wouldn’t want to miss out on shooting? Now I am being satirical, but I saw no reason to frame my reaction to current abuses and problems in terms of my emotions. Assessment of problems and threats, it seems to me, is a pretty given portion of any practical approach to life. And the motivation of taxing them since they cannot complain is not a motivation. IOW it states that one will not suffer some negative consequence, but doesn’t explain why one wants to tax them. And that want, it seems to me, comes from concerns about the power an untaxed corporation past a certain size. It is a solution to something, not simply a random policy passed because it won’t have a certain negative consequence.

I just like my proposition because it creates freedom and beautiful incentives for real people. If it is also a guard against things you fear, thats okay too.

My main problem with the modern society isn’t that corpos get taxed too little, its that citizens get taxed at all. You’ve not expressed much interest in this subject of the government taxing citizens which I think is completely Babylonian in its barbarism, but this is the main issue for me.

Taxing 20 million plus companies is the perfect solution, because it doesnt harm any individuals and as a bonus it creates a yuge incentive for companies to stay moderately sized.

So its a Triple Whammy if you don’t mind my French.

I suppose if I get services I don’t mind being taxed. If I expect some group to drive over and risk their lives for pulling me out of a burning building, I am happy to have collective pooling of money to pay for these services. Where I draw the line around this and what I consider services and how I would like, say, money for defense and war calculated, I am not sure of. If you had a society where collective services could be paid for by taxing corporations, great.

For me fear is just another emotion. Can be problematic, sure, but I have no desire to eliminate fear (or anger, or desire, or joy, or disgust or…). I do want to know when they are habitual (often choosing one emotion when another is appropriate) and I don’t want to get frozen in any emotion. But emotions are just peachy.

However I wouldn’t say I fear corporations, per se. It’s too abstract. I don’t like what they do when unfettered. Even their reckless playing around with AI, nano-tech, gene tech and so on is a little too abstract to get me afraid. I do think they are and will continue to play fast and loose with all our lives. IOW I consider them a threat in those fields.

Yes but that you dont mind doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t mind. Even if one person minds it is coercion and Im sure many more than one (me) mind.
And if it can be financed from companies above 20 million only, then why would you want to encumber humans with being basically property of the state? I mean thats literally what taxes mean. You pay to exist.

I said if it works with just taxing corporations, great. Are you really going to end people’s sense that things are coercion? Even if one mind thinks whatever happens in your system is coercion, there is a problem? How will you handle contract disputes?

I don’t understand why you are asking me questions as if Im Leader of the World, but im honoured.
Still Im irritated. Because, what you’re not doing is look at my solution and give it some serious thought.
Ive had this before. I come up with an elegant solution to very long standing problems and all I get from most people is kind of an indignation like now that I solved the problem all of a sudden it ceases to interest them, as if it isnt a real problem.

This solution solves two enormous problems, one of corporate dominance and the other of the theft at gunpoint that forced taxes factually represent.

I wonder if you have it in you to celebrate the birth of a useful idea. Most people don’t, which is why useful ideas usually get tossed aside, and the pleasure of complaining continues to delegate people into its various issues.

I am asking you questions about the plan you presented.

I was probing it with questions, which is part of what I consider giving something serious thought. I ask questions, get information.

You presented what seemed rather utopian. No indignation on my part in the least. Some skepticism. I asked questions in an area where I could not understand your confidence.

Of course the current problems are a problem. I focused on your solution. Sometimes people are great at noticing the problems but their solutions have problems. I could have sent you a Valentine’s card, but I figured you were a big boy and could take some serious questions and a little skepticism. I still figure you are a big boy, so I don’t know what you’re on about.

[/quote]
Me, I don’t celebrate until I am confident something has happened. I don’t do this about personal things, like celebrate I got a job after the interview before they call me. I don’t do this when presented by ideas that people are proud of, however great they sound, until I feel some serious degree of confidence it will work or see it in action, at least on a small scale.

To take an idea to implementation in society is not, as far as I know, just coming up with a great idea. It is being able to deal with all sorts of questions, criticism, confusions, requests, testing and so on.

This forum is littered with geniuses, all of whom have solved enormous worldwide problems. Very few of them seem to deal well with criticism or even mere questions.

I will lay money down that the person who does change society or the world for the better will be a person who can deal with questions, doesn’t pout and ask for people to celebrate short descriptions of untried things they’ve read on their computer screens and who welcomes the chance to get into detail, rebuff criticism, demonstrate the intelligence of their ideas, etc.

But here’s some celebration…
:banana-dance: :banana-blonde: :banana-angel: :banana-fingers:

I won’t bother you about your idea any more.

I see it the other way around - the people who solve he worlds problems (and I already solved hard sociopolitical issues in my home country in a decade ago) are the ones who actually come up with solutions and not the one who arbitrarily throw “criticisms” at solutions that miss all context of the solution.

Like if I make an engine, you would ask: yeah but who will water my plants?

The ones who then address that question as if it is indeed an engine-problem (even if the engine is running perfectly) are not the ones I put my money on. But I know you would and you know what, I accept that from you.

Regarding socialism, it is a form of entropy. That’s what it is. It eats out the existing foundations and loosens existing norms and structures in order to release free energy like in an atomic reaction.

Well technically, all forms of collectivist politics and economics at state levels are this, socialism is just a shiny image and mask for moving in that direction. Even someone as stupid as Marx knew the process was capitalism to socialism to communism. He even wanted it, because again he was an idiot.

All states that don’t serve the peoples’ real interest are evil. The only state that legit does serve our interests would be a self-constrained one with limited rational power with checks and balances. Too bad that doesn’t exist anymore anywhere on the earth.

As for politics itself I don’t really believe in it anymore, what we are seeing today from any politics side or class is not really politics but a kind of theater show, a game. Trump is playing the game same as all the others do. Trump exists to stabilize the western American system for a short time longer so that the demographic shift and political indoctrination can keep going a bit longer, until the threshold is reached from which there is no going back. He is a kind of pressure release valve deployed by the globalists, whether or not he knows it (he probably does).

Trump allowed ISPs unlimited spying on everyone’s internet data and to sell that data, the ACA is not gone, Hilary and the Clinton foundation is not being charged or even investigated, he isn’t draining the swamp he is hiring it, wars in the Middle East and drone strikes continue, there is no wall, illegal immigration is still ongoing and massive, his tax law made only marginal changes that actually hurt people like me (I paid way more in taxes this last time for 2018 than ever before, on comparable income, and I know others in the same boat), he still props up fake Fox News and isn’t going shit about helping assange, no inquiry or even a word about Seth rich, it’s all just… a theater show. All of politics is a game being played on and with human beings, who don’t know it’s all a show.

Other than being the short term stabilizing force and pressure release valve Trump is also doin what is called revelation of method: he talks about a lot of true and bad things like fake news, globalism etc but he doesn’t actually do anything serious about any of it. It’s a normalization process.

So yeah, I’ll stick to my political observations and theories as I’m developing now in that thread, and leave actual “real politics” alone. I don’t care anymore about trump or anything in politics, it’s all bullshit. I like reading theories and discussing specific issues and ideas with others but otherwise I’ll just write my own stuff and be outside the system of it all. It’s incredible how effective the bullshit really is.

Indeed entropy can be “held together” by a combination of idea and desire. A reification of the desire can become a vacuum which tears at existing structures.
It matters to a degree how real the idea is, how much of actual function of worth it contains, because something that has no reality like the Spaghetti Monster simply doesn’t draw as much energy. To all popular ideas there is some truth, or rather, behind them is truth, something that wishes to be spoken and if nothing better is attempting it, then something like Socialism has a chance and when it takes it, it is impossible to reverse.

I disagree about Trump as you know but thats because I am operating from European theater, where his victory has made all the difference in the world. It has completely redeemed our (popular) relationship with the US and also prevented, Im as certain as one can be about things that didn’t happen, escalations with Russia. He defeated isis in Iraq and Syria, stopping the war there which had reigned all but one of Obamas years, and didn’t continue to invest in the other exploitation wars. He is thinking about firing Bolton over the idea of invading Iran. And that list goes on - Trump is a positive influence because of what he did not do, what he prevented, what he destroyed. Ray 1. But yes - one man, as we said back then, can’t take on a 40-60 trillion machine all by his lonesome. Of course he has been blackmailed out of his mind, there is always a pressure point if its just one man. Still Im sorry to hear about your taxes and the other stuff is bad enough that I completely understand your own lack of valuing of him. The world needs to take many other steps, and I should probably begin a pool over this Pluto ingress date Ive been working with.

It is all a game in as far as the internet is concerned. Trump allowing spying enables oversight on it, as we know it was already happening universally by at least several parties at once on every user. It is this which I consider to be the (an) AI - the universal thirst for user data. This selfvaluing form is powerful. Its not that I applaud it, its something that requires a whole techno-philosophical paradigm shift to deal with, meaning a decentralization of the internet, which seems pretty banally obvious - the way Mike Judges Silicon Valley portrays it is brilliant.