Cara sez:: Are you saying, that all of the work I do, all of my sweat, all of my blood, all of my labor, that that belongs to the society. I think not. That 10% are the leaders. They have the unique ability to make us follow. But we are given the right not to follow. So if you don't want to, don't work for them.
Wow, elitism. Here is the power of reason laid prostrate before the "10% who lead", doubtless because they claim what's left of the divine right of kings. "We are given the right not to follow." Oh gee, thanks for telling me, I feel much more free now and will give my eternal gratitude to those who gave me the right not to follow, and who might take it away if I don't behave like a good little boy. And if I don't want to, I don't have to work for them. Of course, I won't survive that way, because capitalism has made me dependent on the jobs the corporations offer, but that's just a mere technicality against the forward march of noblesse oblige, er, reason.
(moving on)
: : 3.If this money wasn't spent then the poverty that is caused by free market ethos capitalism would run rampant, and american society would begin to disintergate, dear.
: Well, Dove, I see your point, but the amount of money spent to give to other people is simply unacceptable to me. You see, Honey, I have nothing against a few bucks to help someone get back on their feet. But when these people live off of it for years on end, I say enough is enough. See my point, Love?
The Welfare Bill, which is supposed to "help someone get back on their feet" by replacing government welfare dependency with inadequately-paid and environmentally-toxic corporate dependency on McJobs, is really the Soviet prescription of forced labor imposed by Lenin upon Russia, and given a capitalist disguise. Here we have today's issue of the Los Angeles Times: "Critics Say Budget Accord Undercuts Welfare Reform," by Melissa Healy and Elizabeth Shogren, copyright 1997 by the Los Angeles Times, blah blah blah. Its begins: "WASHINGTON -- a chorus of governors, welfare reform advocates and expert on the issue is accusing Washington of crafting a budget deal that will undermine the primary objective of last year's historic welfare reform legislation: forcing people to take real jobs." (music playing in background: Sting's "If you love someone, set them free")
Oh yeah. I've already responded to the moralistic concern about .8% of the Federal Budget of a country where 4% of the world's people do 30% of the world's resource consumption, where America is drowning in wealth which it gives in huge chunks to its rich CEOs (with their huge tax breaks) and its bloated defense establishment which is paid with 52% of this same Federal Budget. Welfare money keeps the lower-class economy afloat and protects America from social disruption by its poorest who live amidst such fabulous wealth and such towering income inequities. I don't mind that less than a penny of every income tax dollar I pay goes to it, it's a better social insurance policy than the bombers the Pentagon freely buys with far bigger chunks of the money I'm forced to pay. But maybe if you missed the riots of 1992 that isn't your concern.
(moving on)
: Oh, if only it were that simple. I really don't want to explain why it doesn't work that way in detail, but here it is in a nut shell.
: Joe is a tin smith. He works with other tin smiths. Joe is a good worker. Suddenly, Joe and his collegues are thrust into a socialist system. For a while they work, but soon they realize that they don't have to produce tin goods in great quantities or of great quality to get the same amount of pay. So why should Joe and his buddies work hard? There is no incentive for them. Now imagine this happening in the bakeries, on the farms, in the factories. Doesn't look to pretty anymore, does it? I rest my case.
Ah, yes. Here we have the fallacy of Adam Smith, repeated 200+ years later in the amateur's defense of capitalism. People don't work merely for capitalist incentives, nor do they find work to be inherently unpleasant. If the pleasure of working has been replaced by the desire to slack off, and if the incentive to work has been replaced by a monetary incentive, it is due to bureaucratic fiat, whether the bureaucracy be socialist, capitalist or whatever.
If ALL work were explained by the monetary incentive, this would tell us nothing about why schoolchildren do schoolwork or homework, why people take lower pay for jobs they claim to enjoy, or why people work with charities.
Now if humanity were capable of removing the bureaucracy's hold over its human lives, maybe we could get back to doing the work we love, and we could get to the point where we loved doing the work of building a sustainable society where sharing, not greed, would be the norm, and where everyone would have the material necessities. Merely declaring socialism will not itself get the bureaucracy out of our faces -- the work we do will have to be radically decentralized, its power taken away from bureaucracies and handed to democratically-run local entities.
