: : Actually, I didn't contradict myself. In my first statement, I said that societies organized on heirarchical lines _usually_ ended up producing a layered society, that this brought about the fall of the ideals of Communism. It was not a categorical statement and did not attempt to say anything about systems other than capitalist ones.: All societies organized on hierarchal lines fall prey to this "layering?" Everyone keeps talking about all these bosses we have in AMERICA (land of those with the wool covering their eyes) and I'd like to know WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY? THEY DON"T EXIST!
O.K. then. Who tells you what to do? Who tells them what to do? If you extend the chain upwards, you will find that most of the corporate world is based on a militaristic-style "chain of command", with each person being accountable to their boss. The actual power to make "decisions" is limited to a small group of people, who usually have the word "manager" in their title (or "pointy-haired idiot" behind their back). These people are "bosses". You can recognize this structure by the way it removes initiative from the ground level whilst making sure things stay relatively constant at the top.
:You UKers sure know a lot about the US that us Americans don't - but I guess that's just because we've listened to the evil government propaganda too long. Remember: EVIL spelled backwards is LIVE.
And Miles Davis backward is Sivad Selim. Your point?
I'm not addressing the US specifically. What I'm addressing is the "corporate structure", originally born in Europe but dominated and led by the USA for the last 50 years.
An example: The UK Govt. dumped weapons-grade nuclear waste in the Irish Sea during the 1950s. As it was felt the populace wouldn't be happy if they knew, decisions were taken at a level "above" the general public to keep it secret. The people who actually did the dumping were merely "following orders" like robots.
It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but consider this; there are things the bosses and politicians do, without asking you, without even informing you, because they know the public would be up in arms if they knew.
If that sounds paranoid, go to Love Canal, or any of the other places that built schools or towns on toxic waste dumps. Read "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson.
The chiefs of the corporate world (in the vast majority of cases) couldn't give a toss about how their business practices affect the environment unless they have to part with some of their profits in settlement claims. Any ground-level attempts to find out what actually happens usually involve personal risk to the investigator. Read what happened to Karen Silkwood in North Carolina.
: Your clumsy sarcasm is forgiven (as far as I'm concerned) but I want to know why you can make generalizations about all capitalist economies (which by your definition includes ALL organized economies) falling to this great societal ill that is "layering."
I say what I see. No more, no less.
In the UK, we have vestiges left of the "class" layering. In the US, you have layering based more on financial circumstances (which the UK also has, but less so - it's considered "better" to be "poor but upper crust" than "nouveaux riches").
: : My statement was not hugely specific, nevertheless, it addressed _one_ system and _one_ set of conditions. No contradiction: run it through a symbolic logic analysis if you don't believe me.
: Here are the results of that analysis: Umm sorry, but no. You're generalization, even if we can forgive it for being a generaliztion, cannot be forgiven for the fact that it is wrong.
I don't see any traces of formal logic in that view. If you have an analysis that shows your view (in the style of propositional calculus or a similar symbolic system), then show your working. "Sorry but no" is not a logical answer - "true", "false", "valid" and "invalid" are logical answers.
My original answer stands. There was no contradiction between my criticism of Cara's generalization about "human nature" and my making a specific statement about the capitalist system.
Don't argue logic unless you're prepared to use it. And don't pretend that personal views have a logical validity without being prepared to show your working. Somehow, I get the feeling that you've never come across formal logic...
: : (If you really want to be pedantic about the whole thing, it's best to tell me via @mail in future. My address is provided.)
: Not necessary - we can continue here until someone doesn't respond.
It's not your disk space that's getting wasted with pointless and increasingly irrelevant argument, so that's O.K., is it?
I will probably ignore any responses to this post that aren't sent through @mail, as it's generating no new argument, getting increasingly off topic and taking up McSpotlight's disk space.
If you just want a slanging match, go try Detroit.
: : One of Marx's key points was the theory of historical inevitability - the political systems of the world have evolved alongside humanity. I'm not a Marxist, but I'd say this was a good (if flawed) model of the life of the political beast. Capitalism may (or may not) be the "fairest system yet" - that does not mean we shouldn't try for anything better. I'm an anarchist - I don't know if society can survive and thrive in an anarchist society, but I feel it's worth experimenting with.
: Nonetheless - there are certain instinctive feature that humans will never evolve out of or they will die. That includes survival - for themselves before others.
Again, not necessarily the case. Anthropologists have detected "true" altruism in many non-human species.
: : So Jose living in the shanties of Sao Paulo has the same opportunity as Joe living in Bel Air? How interesting, I never realised. Or are you trying to say that they have equal chances of "bettering themselves"? (despite the fact that your average Brazilian kid probably can't read)
: That's right - they have exactly the same opportunities. A person living in the slums may have to travel and even work harder to get the success they need, but like she said - equality of opportunity, not outcome. In other words that job as a plumber is open to the Bel Air millionaire just as much as it is to the welfare dependent in Sao Paulo.
So, taking a job application, you have an Ivy League grad with a car and a house against an illiterate Latin American immigrant?
(I know this is an artificial example. Our Brazilian would get booted out by security as soon as he turned up for an interview...not to mention the fact that any family connections for the rich kid in the company would land them the job in a second). There are some jobs that the poor guy will never realistically be eligible for that the college kid would walk into.)
:This is how the USSR was different. You could not reach the top no matter what you did in many cases because you werent of the designated ruling class. We are different.
You're a teenager, aren't you?
If you find the idea of a "glass ceiling" (an invisible but impassible barrier to promotion, usually maintained by the people above you who don't want you promoted due to your race/gender) incomprehensible, ask yourself why women and non-whites earn, on average a third less than their white male equivalents. Equality of opportunity is a myth propagated by those who want you to sacrifice yourself to the corporate goals.
: : Planetary Atmospheres (3C28) in my degree provided me with all the evidence I need to believe in climate change. If you like, though, I will ask a friend of mine doing a PhD (in atmospheric physics) at Cambridge for her opinion.
: Fine - let's say that the environment is in a terrible state, how do you think collective ownership will make this any better? If you really wnat to change things, do it through the democratic process in a capitalist nation where the reforms will work.
At the risk of sounding obvious, a lot of the stuff our society produces is junk and luxury and is bought by the downtrodden masses who find shopping a means of self-expression (how many people have you heard say "oh, I'm terrible shopping, I live to shop" or something similar?), a palliative for the crushing effect of our monolithic system.
(O.K., that's my opinion and it's written in a flowery style. At least I try to provide an example for every tendency I observe.)
Hamburgers are a prime (offcut, actually) example of this. They provide you with little or no nutritional value, which is more than offset by the basic unhealthiness of the thing. They are packaged in non-biodegradable materials, which litter the planet, and end up in landfill sites. Vast areas of healthy land are set aside to the superproduction of cow meat, and cows produce greenhouse gases in abundance (methane, especially). In addition, the deforestation of land to produce the cows increases the greenhouse effect;
Trees are generally dark. They absorb a fair degree of light, reflecting a bit. The proportion of light reflected is the albedo.
Grasslands (used to produce beef) are much lighter in colour. They have a higher albedo, and thus their absorption spectrum shows they absorb less heat. The result? A local lowering of temperature, meaning that the land is less productive than it would have been, not to mention the fact that the thermodynamics of the system become less stable. Add to this the fact that trees absorb more CO2 (for their weight) than grasses, meaning more CO2 in the atmosphere and enhanced global warming. Overconsumption of meat, globally speaking, is a VERY bad idea. No prizes for guessing one of the major procurers of beef in the world, who would like you to eat their food every day and say as much.
I don't think this mass desire for fast food is natural to humans, insofar that it didn't exist before marketing men did their best to convince people they wanted burgers.
Where does this fit in with the capitalism-bashing? Capitalism is one of the most efficient production and indoctrination mechanisms the world has ever seen - nowadays, you create a product, then persuade people that their quality of life depends on it (e.g. the video recorder, the TV, the video game, fast food, the car, etc - I don't include computers or the 'net as they are (or can be) used for two way communication or data storage).
If nothing else, under capitalism, the slave mentality required to believe you need these things sickens me.
: : :But hey, I'll bet you're a Darwinist. Survival of the fittest.
: : I'm divided on this. Part of me says "of course we'll die out eventually, why not sooner". On balance, I feel it would be a Bad Thing, not least in terms of human suffering. I'm not a Darwinist, as I've explained before - Kropotkin had an equally valid point in saying that considerable inter- and intra-species co-operation features in evolution.
: Again, what would be the consequences of human extinction? If the pain was too bad, we could all just kill ourselfs, so what would be the ramifications?
That's an extremely irresponsible view. We are the dominant large species on this planet - we have the power of extinction of a number of species other than our own. We have the capacity to learn from our mistakes, and there's a whole Universe of possibilities out there. If nothing else, we have a duty to share our limited knowledge, and species suicide is an abdication of that responsibility.
I know it's idealistic and Utopianist. If we only ever did what we could do, we'd never get anywhere.
: : The original point I was making is that the physical world has an "objective" existence that the human one doesn't - I defy anyone to find me an atom of truth or a religion plant. Of course, although I wasn't going to cloud a good phrase then, this is a gross oversimplification, in that whilst religion may not hurt me directly, a fatwa is likely to make my life shorter. OK, the "human" world has no objective existence, but it shapes the "real" one we live in. That's probably why it's so important to fight cases like the McLibel trial, lest we get forced to live in McHell because we didn't oppose their ideology.
: I agree that the physical world has an objective existence, but what's the bloody point? I mean how does this have any relevance whatsoever to what kind of economy is best for human beings?
The bloody (and it is bloody) point is that people, and nations, will go to war over these things that have no existance. We are currently arguing about the contents of our own respective heads, which may be attributable to electrochemical brain activity. Yet such thoughts lead the actions of the world.
My opinion: if McDonald's and its ilk are allowed to go on polluting our minds and our countries, then taking into account the projections of various scientific and sociological organisations (including the UN), the environmental state of our planet will suffer catastrophic damage in the next 50 years. Your lifetime. My lifetime. Additionally, the capitalist system we live in is so resistant to the radical changes we need to make that I don't think such changes can occur inside it. Such changes occur at the grass roots, because ordinary people on the ground care enough to get off their backsides.
My own personal view of the trial verdict is that the points the McLibel Two lost on were the ones the judge couldn't give to them, as it would have indicted the system he and the corporations lived under.
: "It is no accident that capitalism has brought with it progress, not merely in production, but also in knowledge. Egoism and competition are, alas, much stronger forces than public spirit and sense of duty. In Russia they say it is hard to get a good piece of bread. Perhaps I'm overpessimistic concerning state and other forms of communal enterprise, but I expect little good from them. Beauracracy is the of any achievement. I've seen and experienced too many warnings, even in comparatively modeled Switzerland. I'm convinced that the state can only be of use to industry as a limiting and regulative force."
: -- Albert Einstein
Yes, Albert did have some strange views on some things. It's probably just as well he didn't become the first Prime Minister of Israel. I wouldn't argue with the "beaurocracy" bit, being an anarchist, I'm happy to stop it. Neither did he stop to think what human society was, if not a "communal enterprise". I certainly wouldn't take the anarcho-syndicalist position of abolishing the state but leaving us to the tender mercies of the free market...
If you have to repeat quotes, could you make them a bit shorter? Or, better still, not use the out-of-context words of other people. What's wrong with _your_ phrasing of your views? Why do you need to quote others for support?
Gideon.
(take this to @mail if you wish, I'm unlikely to follow up to it here, it's too long and not relevant and we're both far too set in our ways to give in easily)
