At 9 hours ago, streetbob wrote: You have a classroom ... socialism!

We already discussed this and the shallowness of this view.

At 3 days ago, Slizor wrote:

Two, the story is predicated on a simplistic understanding of "reward". It assumes, following usage in the status quo, that what you receive for a service/product is "earned" - that you have a moral right to it on the basis of deserving it. However, the world is replete with examples of people who get a high salary but actually do very little - investment bankers being a good example.

You don't have the slightest idea what you are taking about. An investment banker has to make extremely difficult and risky decisions about what companies to accept as clients, whether their securities are marketable and how to make them so, and deal with a whole other slew of complicated financial instruments.

Equally, people who do do useful things - factory workers, for example - often see very poor returns for the provision (and fruits) of their labour.

You're fundamentally confused about the concept of "value." It is not the amount of calories or muscles used, or whether the end product is something real, like a house, as opposed to something abstract like financial advice, it's about how replaceable you are. I'm sure many factory laborers work pretty hard, but the fact is that there are a hell of a lot more people who can operate part of an assembly line than can keep track of the latest financial regulations or trends and use them to build securities. The market for employees functions the same way as the market for goods. Especially skilled or uniquely capable individuals will get paid more than those who blend in with everyone else.

As such, to suggest that in Capitalism people are given their due "reward" is fundamentally not in line with how capitalism has operated. Also, to link reward to hard work in capitalism is just plain fucking stupid

Not true. You're just forgetting that hard work applies to young adults as well. The people who bungle through high school, don't care about learning, or who only do the minimum necessary to advance to the next grade aren't going to be in a good position to get a college education. The poor but dedicated student has far more potential than the rich, uninspired slacker. The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year for just this purpose through community and state colleges, scholarship programs, and subsidized financial aid, not to mention what's spent at the federal level to support primary education.

Operating under its implicit definition of socialism, the government, even if it takes all the "reward" can not take away the inate pleasure of crafting something, or of enjoying your work.

Every failed socialist system spent considerable resources trying to convince people that this was the case. It didn't work, so instead the government just punished anyone who publicly said otherwise.

Why is it that the one user who put a good deal of thought into their post is ignored?

At 55 minutes ago, The-Great-One wrote: Why is it that the one user who put a good deal of thought into their post is ignored?

Because this is the internet. I disagree with him so I thusly ignored his post.

Get with the program.

At 2 hours ago, The-Great-One wrote: Why is it that the one user who put a good deal of thought into their post is ignored?

If this is such a crime, then how about you try to rehash it through discourse insetad of just pointing it out and blaming everyone else?

At 13 days ago, Camarohusky wrote: It ain't as easy as you think.

A better dichotomy, and one the puts two important values at odds, is freedom v. community.

They are both rife for abuse, and both have severe downsides.

Although, How does the situation of FDA Agents sending heavily armed troopers into an amish farmers shop and arresting him for selling raw milk fit into this dichotomy exactly?

At 17 hours ago, SmilezRoyale wrote: Although, How does the situation of FDA Agents sending heavily armed troopers into an amish farmers shop and arresting him for selling raw milk fit into this dichotomy exactly?

It fits in the community side in the abuse section.

The community interest is consumer protection, from sour, bad, or improperly made, milk. The use of armed soldeirs is an abuse of this.

It may also fit into the "large milk manufacturers have used their money to get the government to act on their interests and no one else's" third catergory of flat out corruption.

At 20 minutes ago, Korriken wrote: Socialist programs are fine, to a point, problem is when you cross the line between helping people who need help and giving handouts to degenerates who think they are too good to be productive citizens. Once you cross that line, it's only a matter of time before the ship sinks and all the rats on board drown.

True. However, you could say this about any level. There are leeches upon every class. Many employed people are leeches too. You know that guy in your office who gets paid just as well as everyone else, but thinks he's too good to do half the work? You know those executives, accountants, and attorneys (Enron, et. al.) who thought that they were too good to follow the rules and got our economy into a heap of shit?

Entitlement know no socio-economic boundaries. The reason it looks so bad among the welfare recipients, is that by the very virtue of this sort of people's unwillingness to do the hard work, they often end up at the bottom. Also, when you're not doing any work at all and still getting paid, slacking off has a much bigger relative impact (not mathmatically, but in the eyes of the average person)

At 14 hours ago, Korriken wrote: That's part of the point, this kind of thing should not happen, unless you have some sort of severe disability to where you can't do any sort of work at all. Once people learn that big brother will feed, clothe, and house them, they have little incentive to work. toss in spending money and it's all over. Also, there lack of oversight on how these people are spending their welfare money, and the fact no one is punished for blatantly wasting that money is appalling.

While I do agree that some housekeeping and disciplinary restrictions shoul dbe imposed, I don't think it should be so restricted as to only apply to the disabled. Non disabled people can hit times just as ahard as anyone. However, welfare should be tied to some requirements, and have certain down periods between applications (i.e. like two years of inelligibility after 6 months of participation.) There should also be severe punishments for misue fo the money, like criminal sanctions or a permanent loss of welfare elligibility.

At 2 days ago, Camarohusky wrote:

It may also fit into the "large milk manufacturers have used their money to get the government to act on their interests and no one else's" third catergory of flat out corruption.\

I was aiming for the third one, but corruption does not seem to fit on your sliding scale.

Your sliding scale is certainly one that's more comfortable if you live in today's society. Nobody would want to believe, if they felt they had no real choice in the matter, that any loss of freedom on their part wasn't exchanged for some greater social benefit which they would have bargained for if they had that freedom in the first place; even if they weren't made to believe beforehand that such was necessarily the case.

But the human mind can only recognize about 150-300 people as actually being Human, and that was the scale at which our ethical conception of communitarianism is built around. It did not evolve to accommodate cities of millions of people or trading networks involving billions of people. My impression of people is that the idea of initial acquisition and active use [otherwise known as the homesteading principle] and the legitimacy of voluntary exchange between two individuals are two things which most people intuitively regard as 'legitimate' and 'acceptable', However, gross inequalities of income, and a world where the effects of one's productive efforts are not visible to any single individual
are not things that are innately normal to us.

My guess is that this communication impulse is the main drive behind socialist and communist thinking, it is also likely do to the fact that people project parental authority onto the Government because very few people take the time to look at the institution itself with very much scrutiny. While a I believe. But when people are dealing one another in such an indirect form as today, concepts like the prisoners dillema, rational ignorance, the profit motive, corruption, they are all real and have to be dealt with.

At 2 hours ago, SmilezRoyale wrote: I was aiming for the third one, but corruption does not seem to fit on your sliding scale.

It doesn't fit because it doesn't belong there. Corruption is not part of the scale. Corruption is agiven regardless of what system you use. Capitalism promotes free markets, and as we have seen, that can easily be corrupted. Socialism promotes a communal focus of the government and the economy, and again, as we have seen, it can easily be corrupted. For it to be a part of the scale there would have a be a third concept of a government that is built for the sole purpose of promoting corruption.

But the human mind can only recognize about 150-300 people as actually being Human, and that was the scale at which our ethical conception of communitarianism is built around.

Exactly, the human element is a given. It is, however, not a goal, nor is it a focus.

My guess is that this communication impulse is the main drive behind socialist and communist thinking, it is also likely do to the fact that people project parental authority onto the Government because very few people take the time to look at the institution itself with very much scrutiny.

Yes and no. People don't take time to look into the system with much scrutiny for two reasons. First, they're comfortable. Second, it's a waste of their time. We are a society of specialists. The leave all of civilization's duties to the individual would severely dull this. On top of that, the individual not only doesn't have the specialty to perform these duties, they don't have the time to put even recognizing many of the duties exist. This is why those I know who lean toward socialist policies do so. In this way people give up their responsibility to know and perform the duties to a body who's purpose is to ensure these duties are performed. With that, the people can spend their effort and thought focusing on their specialty. (and this conveniently overlooks the fact that at least 40% of the populace is too stupid and unskilled to meet the basic requirements at all)

While a I believe. But when people are dealing one another in such an indirect form as today, concepts like the prisoners dillema, rational ignorance, the profit motive, corruption, they are all real and have to be dealt with.

No doubt, but they are given in both systems. Neither socialism nor capitalism is magically immue from the human element, nor are either of them intended to focus upon it. They are pure theories, and the human element is an extrenal variable. That is why I didn't include it in the scale, and why it should only be looked at whollistically.

The best solution is a mixture of capitalism with a lot of socialism. Government regulates to a certain degree both the means of production and distribution, with very good social safety nets and labor laws in place. That way, if you lose your job it doesn't mean also losing your house, and when you get a job, you get enough wages to get whatever you need and live alright. Also, universal healthcare.

Sorry for the delayed response. I would have had it done an hour sooner, but my computer shut down... so Now IâEUTMm writing my longer-than-usual responses on microsoft word.

At 7 hours ago, Camarohusky wrote:

It doesn't fit because it doesn't belong there. .

IâEUTMve broken up my response to this in several paragraphs. IâEUTMm still not happy about how I tried to explain myself. I apologize in advance; itâEUTMs a very long read.

I want to start by developing my own way of trying to box the capitalism-socialism issue. IâEUTMm thinking maybe if you see how I view the system, you might understand why I take issue with yours, [and possibly help you to correct me if I turn out to be wrong]

An action taken by an individual or a group of individuals [community?], in a political-economic context, can be described as either Individualistic or Communitarian. But it can likewise be described as Coerced/Coercive or Voluntary. When you combine these you get a four way matrix similar to how dungeons and dragons create a 9 way matrix with Good-Neutral-Evil, Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic. HereâEUTMs just an example of each kind, in a somewhat political context, to solidify the concept.

Voluntary Individualistic âEU" You live in a country where there are no drug laws, you decide to smoke pot in your own residence for leisure.

Voluntary Communitarian âEU" A lightning bolt sets fire to a neighborâEUTMs home and burns it to the ground. Without the aid of tax funds, the local town raises a charity fund to pay for supplies, and able residents volunteer time to rebuild the house.

Coercive Individualistic âEU" Very rarely are government interventions actually self-described as NOT being for the common good of some sort. Especially in the âEU~age of democracyâEUTM. Outside the sphere of government, a common mugger can be thought of as a coercive individualist, and many people view Government officials as common muggers. My point is that even if the motives of a government policy are in fact not aimed at community benefit, they very likely will be cloaked as such to make them palatable. But we can imagine a situation where a law is written where the lawmakers have individualistic intentions but they lie about them for practical reasons.

Coercive Collectivist âEU" The Government compels all inhabitants of its territory to pay into a social insurance program.
Not that I suspect this will become an issue, but do not confuse individualistic with selfish and collectivistic as selfless. Collectives can be selfish in the context of interacting with other collectives, for example, wars. Individualists can be selfless in the sense that someone might retreat from the world for spiritual reflection. Etc.

Finally, it should be noted here that these descriptions do not describe actions based on their outcomes, but their Character in the case of coerced/voluntary and their expectations.

When I used the FDA example I wasnâEUTMt trying to throw an anecdote at you, I wanted illustrate situations where neither freedom nor community is achieved. I should have probably also mentioned a situation where the two aspects cross.
My impression of most people who view themselves as Progressives, Socialists, [Modern American] Liberals, is that they tend to associate a system with its intended results [realized or not] rather than the procedure or structure that brought about those results. So for example, material Equality, fairness, opportunity, various positive rights, these are all desired results. People who describe themselves as "pro market" - usually associate a system with its procedure or structure. For example, protection of property rights, equality of moral worth [sometimes called equality under the law], and the emphasis on permitting peaceful exchange are not 'outcomes' per-say but desired structures. Rightly or wrongly these procedures are believed to bring about outcomes which are by general standards good, but the specifics of those outcomes will be varied and not wholly predictable. The socialist might ask âEUoeIs it for the good of the communityâEU âEU" The Capitalist asks âEUoeIs it voluntary?âEU

Trying to Explain the free market is tricky precisely because thereâEUTMs the prescriptive aspect and the descriptive aspect. At the base of it, is simply the idea that social interactions should avoid compulsion between individuals whenever possible, a concept that seems intuitive when dealing with private individuals, and less intuitive when talking about âEU~the public sphereâEUTM. Things like market competition, labor economics, private property, etc. are descriptions of what we can best estimate to occur under a set of conditions. Of course we can also describe
Another element of difficulty is the fact that this definition of a free market has very little to do with Capitalism as the word was first used under Marx, although it is much closer to what I believe free market thinking is trying to get at. What is private ownership? Ownership by individuals instead of groups? What about monarchical ownership? Is ownership by a âEUoeDemocratic stateâEU REALLY collective ownership? Is it even possible for a state to be democratic [as defined, embodying the will of âEU~the peopleâEUTM]? Was the property of the soviet union âEU~private propertyâEUTM or âEU~public property?âEUTM, or was it neither? If so, is the concept of public/private property misplaced or even meaningless?

Not all free-market people, even people who are extremely free market, are political individualists. But I think the reason many of them are is due to the fact that if socialism is embedded in collectivistic language, aimed at communitarian goals, people who oppose the state may feel the need to counter that language with individualistic language and individualistic goals.

Also, I will say that, since Freedom is often thought of as âEU~An absence of social controls upon individualsâEUTM itâEUTMs easy to see how Freedom can be thought of as something of an âEU~anti-communityâEUTM position. But that view of freedom is much too broad, the emphasis is GENUINELY on what is the STATE doing to individuals and groups.

Yes and no.

I think youâEUTMre close with the comfort and waste of time. ThereâEUTMs truth to the observation that if the sky isnâEUTMt falling, people tend not to ask questions, and we only think about the nature of things when they change.

I think youâEUTMre close with the comfort and waste of time. ThereâEUTMs truth to the observation that if the sky isnâEUTMt falling, people tend not to ask questions, and we only think about the nature of things when they change.
However, itâEUTMs not technically, or rather, itâEUTMs not necessarily the case that learning about the way the world works is a waste of time. What my Government does will directly and indirectly have a massive impact on my life. The problem is that me, as an individual living in a modern liberal democracy, have a functionally zero percent chance of influencing political elections, let alone political outcomes in the forms of laws. Hence, IâEUTMm a prisoner of circumstances, and most individuals not inherently interested in social science would rightly deem it irrational to spend any considerable time learning about these things.

On the issue of specialists, you have to distinguish between knowing the facts, and knowing who knows the facts. In other words, even if you defer knowledge to experts, their expertise isnâEUTMt something anyone can assume at the outset.

Continued on the next post

At 59 minutes ago, SmilezRoyale wrote: Continued on the next post

I totally TLDR'ed this right now. Not in the in depth reading mood. (what can you say, it's a Sunday.) I will get back to it. If I don't, (most likely through forgetting) just harass me until I do.

So as an example, suppose youâEUTMve gotten some illness. You consult your doctor and he gives you a medical explanation of your problem, which you either do not fully understand, or do not understand at all. He then recommends a particular drug as treatment. YouâEUTMre not an expert in medicine, how do you know your doctor is right? How do you know heâEUTMs not prescribing you something which could kill you? Or is simply more expensive compared to treatments which could have the same medicinal effect but at a fraction of the price? You know the doctor went to medical school, but how do you know the school is any good?

The statist solution is a vertical and authority based approach. Make the state the ultimate decider of who is an expert and who is not. I.E Lawmakers or bureaucrats. But this begs the question of how the lawmakers know? They know because theyâEUTMre experts? How do we know theyâEUTMre experts then? âEU" In ancient times the answer was that the King was divine, or semidivine, or chosen by the divine.

The democratic-statist solution is to have the same vertical solution with the state being the direct decision maker, but the stateâEUTMs lawmakers are voted upon democratically, which then just bounces the problem back to how people know whoâEUTMs the expert and who isnâEUTMt.

Both of these are NON-answers. They ultimately do not solve the problem, they simply shift burden of solving the problem on someone else. Our conception of the state as wise and powerful only leads us to feel like the problem has been solved. I have more respect for people who see through this ruse and say that there is no solution and that weâEUTMre all doomed than people who think that this in any way solves the problem.

The non-state solution is the horizontal, information-reputation, approach, and, while not perfect in the sense of achieving omniscience, it does get closest in my view to solving the issue.

LetâEUTMs go back to the issue of the doctor. Why trust his/her bonafides? And even if the bonafides are good how do you know heâEUTMs not pushing some overly expensive cure?

First, the doctor is engaged in repeat business, individuals at a certain point will know from experience if their advice has actually served them well. Alone as a single individual, the information from personal experience would generally be insufficient to make a good judgment; the benefit comes when this information is made available by some formal or informal means, and used to inform the decisions of others. Experts confident that they are both well informed and honest will try whenever possible to make the larger volume of positive feedback on their work available to any potential clients. And third party agencies, realizing that there is a demand for honest testimony, might try to facilitate collecting this information itself. [Think angies list]

Institutions that train and qualify specialists will also have a reason to maintain the integrity of their training programs. People who go to MIT do so because they know that getting a degree from their institution carries weight. It carries weight because businesses are more impressed by MIT graduates than other institutions, and they are more impressed because they know from experience that MIT produces good graduates. As Soon as this pattern changes noticeably, the MIT label carries less weight, and students will not be as willing to pay for an MIT education.

This approach is not authority based in the sense that it does not defer judgment to any single individual or group. It requires only that individuals have a direct personal interest in both acquiring information about a specialist when they need it, and providing information about specialists when they have it. Hence the difference between having reputation and having authority.

You can also see how information distributing need not be testimonial or even intentional. When people choose to patronize one person or agency over another, it automatically sends signals to participants in that market that one agency is doing something right, and another is doing something wrong. Price signals convey information about the satisfaction with a given institution.

This approach is also not perfect. If an entire field of study is questionable and everyone thinks otherwise, youâEUTMll have problems. For example, economists who fail continually to provide accurate predictions with econometric models for private businesses can easily point to the fact that all other economists are making identical mistakes, so the flaw is not with them persay. And technically they are correct, the problem is in econometrics itself. One could make similar claims about psychology. When the whole of society suffers from a collective delusion, thereâEUTMs little that anyone can do. But Governments, particularly democratic ones, have a habit not only endulging in these collective delusions, but solidifying and codifying them. The best example of this I can think of is the college system. I agree there are some colleges that are better than others, but thereâEUTMs also the inability of many people to separate the smartness of the college from the smartness of the students. Do good experts come from Harvard because of the school or because those young adults were born on the right side of the bell curve? Hence the misconception that all a child needs to succeed is an expensive college degree. And the Government worsens the situation by having its authority figures repeat this mantra, but worst of all they encourage overleveraging students with debt, and they also frequently hamstring the ability of businesses to forgo the entire corrupt college system by issuing tests of their own.
This solution probably does not impress or satisfy you, particularly because when we see the failures of certain experts to live up to expectations, we immediately assume itâEUTMs because of some inherent flaw in any system that doesnâEUTMt rely upon the state, rather than a result of some intervention.

This Youtube illustrates a similar principle working in a slightly different context. I highly recommend it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZosnxGKgk&feature=relmfu

So what happens when it is agreed that a single agency, i.e. State, can decide that Mr. X is an expert and everyone should, and therefore, MUST take his advice, be it health advise, car advise, or macro-economic counseling. Well Mr. X, by law, faces no genuine opposition, and thereâEUTMs no way for other individuals to see if alternatives to Mr. XâEUTMs ideas are better. By virtue of legal monopoly, Mr. X is accountable to no one, and it is fanciful to think that sort of position will not be abused.

Worst of all, they give the false impression of protection.

Lastly thereâEUTMs also the possibility that our education system was designed early on to make us very dependent upon the words of experts.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/gatto6.1.1.html

But even without this possibility there would still need to be a âEU~division of laborâEUTM in knowledge.

IâEUTMm sure you have misgivings, but guessing what those might be and trying to address them will only make this post longer.

Gosh, "free healthcare"? You pay for it! In your taxes! People would have money for it, if the government wouldn't take their money! Capitalism=gov doesn't need so much money, so there is no need for big taxes, people handle themselves without a bureaucrat watching him and saying "the size of your tomato is wrong, you can't sell it." People just say: "This guy sells bad tomatoes, don't buy from him!"
It's fairly simple, people can take care of themselves.
"Free education". Do you mean the education system we have right now? "The State, and The Party knows better than you, how to teach your children, what is right, what is wrong. We will take them from you, give them to people who don't know them, and tell those people to brainwash your children."
Just watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phs6CwnutoY

At 6 days ago, adrshepard wrote:

At 3 days ago, Slizor wrote:

Two, the story is predicated on a simplistic understanding of "reward". It assumes, following usage in the status quo, that what you receive for a service/product is "earned" - that you have a moral right to it on the basis of deserving it. However, the world is replete with examples of people who get a high salary but actually do very little - investment bankers being a good example.

You don't have the slightest idea what you are taking about. An investment banker has to make extremely difficult and risky decisions about what companies to accept as clients, whether their securities are marketable and how to make them so, and deal with a whole other slew of complicated financial instruments.

...which they tend not to understand. I mean, who can really evaluate the creditworthiness of a single CDO2? Also, if recent form is anything to go by, investment bankers who make risky decisions and then fuck up.....well they just get bailed out by the government. Echoing public choice theorists, it's not really risk when you don't lose anything.

Also, to attack the example is not to attack the point.

Equally, people who do do useful things - factory workers, for example - often see very poor returns for the provision (and fruits) of their labour.

You're fundamentally confused about the concept of "value." It is not the amount of calories or muscles used, or whether the end product is something real, like a house, as opposed to something abstract like financial advice, it's about how replaceable you are. I'm sure many factory laborers work pretty hard, but the fact is that there are a hell of a lot more people who can operate part of an assembly line than can keep track of the latest financial regulations or trends and use them to build securities. The market for employees functions the same way as the market for goods. Especially skilled or uniquely capable individuals will get paid more than those who blend in with everyone else.

Interesting. You define the value of labour (and, slightly more abstractly, "value" itself) in a market manner but fail to see the inherent contradictions about using such an arbitrary system. We can just as easily, using the market mechanism, assign "value" as how much someone is willing to pay for the end product. The failure to pay at a level whereby the end product and the labour are equal thus implies exploitation.

Or, maybe, just maybe, the market isn't a great tool for assigning "value". But then we'd have to move away from adrshepard's TRUTH that I, and a lot of other people, don't agree with...and wouldn't that be a shame.

As such, to suggest that in Capitalism people are given their due "reward" is fundamentally not in line with how capitalism has operated. Also, to link reward to hard work in capitalism is just plain fucking stupid

Not true. You're just forgetting that hard work applies to young adults as well. The people who bungle through high school, don't care about learning, or who only do the minimum necessary to advance to the next grade aren't going to be in a good position to get a college education. The poor but dedicated student has far more potential than the rich, uninspired slacker. The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year for just this purpose through community and state colleges, scholarship programs, and subsidized financial aid, not to mention what's spent at the federal level to support primary education.

I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to advance here. That the US is a meritocracy? HAH. While not accepting your example, how about we don't skew the data with outliers? Who gets a better reward - the poor mediocre student, or the rich mediocre student?

Here, to get you started...
http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/key_fin dings

Operating under its implicit definition of socialism, the government, even if it takes all the "reward" can not take away the inate pleasure of crafting something, or of enjoying your work.

Every failed socialist system spent considerable resources trying to convince people that this was the case. It didn't work, so instead the government just punished anyone who publicly said otherwise.

Interesting logic there. I suppose you have a nice juicy quote that backs your implied causation up. Something like Stalin saying "They wouldn't believe the innate value of work, so we started censoring people!"

What's that? No? Oh, then how about you deal with the point in a substantive manner? Maybe start talking about how people only do something if they get a monetary reward.

There is one single critical issue with Socialism.
Socialism is without a doubt one of the greatest systems, but it is nothing more than a vision. Socialism will one day dominate the world, but it calls for all of humanity to make great changes, spiritual and intellectual. Socialism is a society for a higher race, a state of being that we have not yet achieved. In this day and age, only a dictator could ensure that Socialism stays intact. And even then, the people are too savage and needy. Socialism would function only under the circumstance that humans become self governing. And that's where the fatal issue lies. We don't recognize our inability to work with each other. Developing countries see the benefits of socialism, but in the process, they skip critical steps in civilized development. Even with a strong ruler, when they die, the system will collapse.
Socialism is a engaging, philosophical way of life. Humans are not made for this. They may not be ready for a thousand years. They need more time before they will be fully prepared for this form of government. In the current age, people are beginning to see the benefits of socialism, but they do not think deeply enough. We must attack our lifestyle to it's base if we are to take on socialism.
The epitome of humanity will be defined by their society: a democratic, socialist anarchy. It is the epitome of society, the pinnacle of civilization. And we're not ready for it. We cannot live without laws. Individuals may survive, but the individuals of the human species will kill each other. Even developed countries operate under a tight knit string on the edge of a knife. Humanity has a long road to travel. But in the end, socialism shall become the governing force.

At 3 days ago, Grubby wrote: Capitalism > Everything Else.

End of Story.

Seriously. No other economic system has lifted so much people out of poverty.

Erm have you never learned about this period of history called the late 1800's or early 1900's? Pure Capitalism works to put as many people in poverty as possible.

At 3 days ago, Grubby wrote: Socialist countries right now are burdened by so much debt, and also face the prospect of economic collapse.

Greece isn't Socialist, it has Socialist programs, but the problem was more by government mismanagement than the country's economy going to shit. Hell Scanadanvia has alot of Socialist policies and it has the highest standards of living in the world.

Inequality will inevitably result from Capitalism, but it's the lesser of all the evils in the world in terms of economic systems. Capitalism, free enterprise, free markets, have lifted nations in ruins, and transformed them into vibrant economic powerhouses.

Look at Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, (and now) Vietnam, were all countries completely obliterated from warfare, but thanks to low regulations, low taxes, and a reverence for capitalist values, these nations have become MUCH more richer and prosperous.

HAHAHAHAHA low regulations? Low taxes? You know that contradicts your first paragraph because well for one when there's low regulations that means more poverty.....which there has been quite alot of in China and Vietnam, sure the top elite class are richer but that's it. All they do is allow for private enterprise, and while that has been succesful this whole "human rights" thing has been ignored so that the ceo's can get richer.

Even China, which was a backwards country up until its embrace of capitalism, has quickly turned into a global superpower.

Capitalism > all

What? The Soviet Union was a global super power too, it sure as hell wasn't Capitalist. Besides China has a high poverty rate so it's a counter-example.

At 12 days ago, SmilezRoyale wrote: Finally, it should be noted here that these descriptions do not describe actions based on their outcomes, but their Character in the case of coerced/voluntary and their expectations.

Those 4 ideas arem good, theough personally I think they come out as slightly narrow. But I was speaking purel;y as capitalism v. socialism, not just governments in general. When it comes to capitalism and socialism, capitalism emphasizes freedom, and socialism emphasizes community.

When I used the FDA example I wasnâEUTMt trying to throw an anecdote at you, I wanted illustrate situations where neither freedom nor community is achieved. I should have probably also mentioned a situation where the two aspects cross.

That third catergory fits right into my "the human element" idea. If socialism and capitalism were equations, freedom would be a set value in capitalism and community would be a set value in socialism. In both of these equations, the human element would be a strong variable. In other words, it's a common element in both equations. When comparing two equations, the common elements will cancel each other out, leaving just the base set values. The "holy shit! Corruption" is nothing but a result of a negative and extremely powerful human element being injected into either, or both of the equations.

My impression of most people who view themselves as Progressives, Socialists, [Modern American] Liberals, is that they tend to associate a system with its intended results [realized or not] rather than the procedure or structure that brought about those results.

In soem cases, yes, but in others I would have to flip it around on you completely. for social issues the left (as you described it above) is very much result oriented. However, when it comes to the economy it is very much procedure oriented. The right is very much result oriented for the economy. The whole idea of trickle down economics and the concept of "job creators" beiong a perfect example of this.

Not all free-market people, even people who are extremely free market, are political individualists. But I think the reason many of them are is due to the fact that if socialism is embedded in collectivistic language, aimed at communitarian goals, people who oppose the state may feel the need to counter that language with individualistic language and individualistic goals.

This comes to another of my points, and an extreme misnomer by many folks. Socialism is not Communism. Certain aspects of socialism may fight with parts fo capitalism, but as a whole they are philosophies governing comp-letely different spheres of governance. So a person who made a few billion dollars as a super capitalist can happily live in a society that taxes 80% of this and uses the money to feed and house the less privilaged.

The biggest conflicts between socialism and capitalism come in arenas where social and economic politics collide such as consumer protections, business regulation, and taxes.

Hence, IâEUTMm a prisoner of circumstances, and most individuals not inherently interested in social science would rightly deem it irrational to spend any considerable time learning about these things.

Extremely true. Having been immersed in law the past 2.5 years UI can say that government and governance is not simple. Because of the complexity of our government political efficacy among average folks is extremely low. This has forced politicans to become simp-letons when dealing with the average American...

On the issue of specialists, you have to distinguish between knowing the facts, and knowing who knows the facts. In other words, even if you defer knowledge to experts, their expertise isnâEUTMt something anyone can assume at the outset.

Think of America as a car. Early America was a 1960's car. The engine was simple enough that anybody with a toolset and a brain could muck there way around in it. Today's America is more like a hybrid. these cars are so complex and specialized that modern day mechanics cannto even deal with them. They need to go to specialists to do things normal folk could do when it was simpler. back in the day, the average personb would have a trade, but would often be conscripted to serve a communal need, such a maintaining the roads, night watchmen, town crier, firefighter and so on. However, our society has become so complex that it takes massive training to handle much of these communal tasks. So much so that we cannot feasibly ask Joe from the grocery store, or the attorney, or the carpenter to do this stuff for the community in lieu of taxes.

At 12 days ago, SmilezRoyale wrote: The statist solution is a vertical and authority based approach. Make the state the ultimate decider of who is an expert and who is not. I.E Lawmakers or bureaucrats. But this begs the question of how the lawmakers know? They know because theyâEUTMre experts? How do we know theyâEUTMre experts then? âEU" In ancient times the answer was that the King was divine, or semidivine, or chosen by the divine.

I'm not saying its perfect, but there is no cure for this problem. If we can't trust the experts, who can we trust? Ourselves? What the hell do I know about the immunosuppressant effect of Prednisone, or why a certain company's stock goes up or down at any given moment, or how a house should be built? That's why I have to leave it to the doctors, the analysts, and the carpenters. Sure they could be wrong. Sure they could be screwing me, but I can guarantee you that even if I was being massively raped by any of these experts, my chances of being better off going it on my own are less than 1 in a million.

IâEUTMm sure you have misgivings, but guessing what those might be and trying to address them will only make this post longer.

What it comes down to, in the end, is that you need a mixture of both. Purely governemnt based has upsides and problems. Almost completely counter to that, purely market based has the opposite upside and the opposite problems. The answer lies somweher in between where the problems cancel out at least to an acceptable point.

I'm going to respond to the first portion of your post. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the second part.

At 1 day ago, Camarohusky wrote:

Those 4 ideas are good

The "Socialist" Ethos might emphasize community. But I consider it dangerous to treat as the first taxonomic criteria for any economic system to be the feelings evoked by that system. A person can justify socialism on the grounds that the capitalist system denies the individual his dignity by making him a cog in some industrial machine; this argument has been made before.

A person, though typically today's "desperate conservatives" justify their conception of capitalism on cultural grounds. Capitalism is American, and Socialism, however they conceive of it, is European, and thus "Un-American" -- The best example of this Rick Santorum. Santorum despises individualism yet would not classify himself as a socialist. Maybe Santorum is deluded, or maybe he's knows what he's doing and is just an opportunist, who knows?

Unfortunately this also makes Conservatives more of a threat to free[d] markets than progressives or socialists, because their conception of what a free market is, is most always based on a comparison between what exists at present, and some vague conception of the socialist "other" - despite the fact that there are governments which might classify themselves as 'socially democratic' yet those economies are no more controlled by state officials in that country than they are here; they simply involve simpler and more overt systems of wealth transference.

And of course the various grounds on which the same system can be promoted begs the question of; what is it exactly
that is being proposed? -- that is why I consider describing the actions of the central law agency --> the state, to be the most important in drawing distinctions. People can inject VERY different values into different systems, or inject the same values into different systems.

But this is sort of like classifying politicians on the basis of the the psychological undertones of their rhetoric. You run the risk of ignoring what activities governments are actually doing and instead focusing on the objectivity of feelings.

Also note that Individualism versus the community is not the same as freedom versus the community, unless you define freedom as freedom of the individual, in which case you're better off just using the individualism/community distinction.

Certain conceptions of freedom require the partial or complete abolition of other conceptions of freedom. You may have heard of this famous essay.

http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/walton/Berlin2Concepts.p df

That third catergory fits right into my "the human element" idea.

The FDA case need not be corruption. The FDA agents may consider what they are doing to be a wholly righteous act, and in doing still violate what the relevant community feels is it's own rights, in favor of the whims of some distant Washington Bureaucrat, who in turn thinks he's doing the right thing.

In this case, I imagine the question is no longer one of whether the human element is at play, because you have two groups of people, one who thinks he's acting in the interest of the 'community' and another who thinks the OTHER is NOT acting in the interest of the community. The question then becomes 'What is the relevant community'? The Nation state or the local community? Or the international community? Which community is the socialist prioritizing.

My impression of most people who view themselves as Progressives

In soem cases, yes, but in others I would have to flip it around on you completely.

I would actually regard the left's positions on social issues [I am guessing that what is being discussed here is civil libertarianism, if you are talking instead about CULTURAL MARXISM, which i doubt, then I would agree that it is very much results oriented] to be the most PROCEDURE oriented of their ideas. A common right wing straw-man of the left-wing social-liberalism is that by tolerating certain lifestyles, they are encouraging them. While their may be some leftists who actually do actively oppose non-counter culture lifestyles and seek to actively promote various kinds of hedonism, the significantly more common leftist argument

In this context, leftists do not desire any OUTCOME; they don't care if the culture becomes generally hedonistic or not, they simply want people to have the right to choose what to do with their bodies.

But social leftist policy could also refer to the more pateralistic stance some leftists take on issues like, for example, fast food. In which case, yet again, that would be outcome oriented. They want to shape society in a certain way.

As for the thing about supply side economics, that simply amounts to one of a few justifications for a particular principle taken. There technically are plenty of people who approach the political question by asking âEUoehow does society best achieve XâEU where X is typically some âEUoeincrease the measure of material well being of societyâEU and then after hearing the arguments, conclude that system Y, in this case, Capitalism, is the answer to that question.

MOST people I know who defend the market do it primarily on the argument that interferences are immoral and most always cause more harm than good. Arguments suggesting that non-interference makes people richer is more like icing on the cake. For some people, like me for example, the roles are reversed. For most people, Free marketers included, Politics puts morality first, and utility second.

But like I said, there are also people who defend the market on cultural grounds, but these tend to be the most ignorant of all free marketers.

This comes to another of my points, and an extreme misnomer by many folks. Socialism is not Communism.

I never used the word Communism, I used the word "Communitarianism" or âEUoeCommunalismâEU

Communism has a legacy of referring to systems of very extreme state socialism [State socialism as defined by polical science]. Often times those practicing communism would call their system socialism, and for good reason. The practitioners of what we call communism were influenced by Karl Marx.
According to Marx. Socialism refers to a period of state ownership of the means of production, a dictatorship of the proletariat. After many generations the state withers away into what is called 'communism', a stateless, classless society where all is owned in common.

Which is another problem with political economy and classifications, the COMMUNISTS were not practicing communism, even by their own standards, they were practicing heavy state socialism but they never the less called themselves communists, because, at least in theory, âEU~trueâEUTM communism was the ultimate goal.

Socialism is a tricky word because the people using it can mean different things. [Just like the word Anarchy has four distinct meanings, chaos, communism, and statelessness, and the absence of all authority not derived from reason] There are typically four definitions for Socialism, IâEUTMm listing them both in the historical order in which they term was used

Continued on the next post.

1. Utopian Socialism âEU" The word as it was used in the early 19th century. The term Utopian socialist was bestowed upon individuals who had ostensibly fanciful visions of utopian, post-scarcity communities. Karl Marx called the first socialists utopian socialists. Look up, Saint Simmon, Fourier, and Robert Owen.
2. Anarchist-Socialism- Stateless societies where capital is owned by workers. Look up Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker. This was a late 19th early 20th century conception of the word.
3. State Socialism âEU" State control of the means of production. National socialism, âEUoeWar socialismâEU âEU" A term used by Lenin.
4. Democratic Socialism âEU" Government ownership of a few major industries, a welfare state, and a varying degree of regulation of private industry where it exists.

Utopian and Anarcho socialism are mostly of a conceptual nature, they were never implemented on a large scale [to my knowledge]. State socialism existed to varying degrees in a few countries, and democratic socialism can be thought of as simply a very diluted form of State socialism. Namely, it involves fewer incidences of state ownership, fewer controls on private industry where it is allowed to exist, and also a welfare state that cares less about equality and more about helping the poor. IâEUTMm not trying to make a continuum fallacy here; The fact that there may not be any discrete boundary between when something can be called one or the other does not imply the classification is invalid.

Communitarians simply refers to emphasis on the primacy of the Community as the unit of political and cultural consideration. ItâEUTMs god nothing to do with Marx. I use communitarianism and communalism interchangeably, although IâEUTMm sure a political scientist could probably tell me that thereâEUTMs a difference.

Beyond that I can't respond to this paragraph because I'm not entirely sure what you're saying.

The biggest conflicts between socialism and capitalism come in arenas where social and economic politics collide such as consumer protections, business regulation, and taxes.

I would IMAGINE that âEU~social and economicâEUTM politics collide MOST where the distinction between the two is the most fuzzy: namely, on the issues of various vices. Prostitution, Drug use, gambling. They are social in the sense that unlike more mundane economic activities, these issues have specific cultural weighting. To put it another way, religion in general and Christianity in particular never really had much to say about financial sector regulation. Although most religions discourage lending at interest, the opposition to it basically ended during the renaissance. Drugs, prostitution, and gambling, however, did not.

Extremely true.

I donâEUTMt think the issues of the past were necessarily less complex. âEUoeProblem solvingâEU is technical issue, but very rarely are the arguments about technical issues. People donâEUTMt really care about arguing for proposals about how to send a manned space craft to the moon, what they argue about are whether or not tax payer dollars are worth spending to send men to the moon. The issue of whether or not to send men to the moon isnâEUTMt necessarily less complex than the issue of the abolition of slavery.

ThereâEUTMs also the fact that the functional literacy of American is declining; it has been doing so gradually since the turn of the century but only within the last few decades has it really picked up steam. Americans understand fewer words now than they did in the 19th century. I blame this on public education in general and the whole word method in particular. IâEUTMm not going to make a case for that though, it may as well be something else that causes it. As such, politicians speak with the vocabulary of the least common denominator.

IâEUTMm inclined to blame this behavior on mass media and the education establishment. But above all, the fact that no individual bears any individual cost for making decisions with his heart instead of his head. And as a result, the system tends inexorably towards FEEL-GOOD politics.

Relevant to this issue is this great blog post. Mind you, it is extraordinarily long.
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/02/democra cy-as-historical-phenomenon.htm

My response to the issue of experts has thus far only talked about the reasons why I think politics seems so intellectually 'devolved' Not about your criticism of my solution to this problem. I'll deal with that separately.

This is related to your comment about america being a car...

I understood your point the first time. Society is complex now, we need more technocrats.

This misses the point. ItâEUTMs not about knowing the science, itâEUTMs about 1. Knowing that the experts know the science 2. Knowing that the experts will act in accordance with the desire aimed at, itâEUTMs the classic quis custodiet ipsos custodes, but applied to technicians.

Even if you have no idea how to fix a car, the burden is still on SOMEONE to hire a car mechanic or car mechanics that are 1. Honest 2. Competent. These two things are each essential but insufficient without the other. And in order to do this, you cannot rely merely on faith, luck, or some archaic ritual.

I maintain that the system I described works better than any other [that I can think of] because unlike any other system I know, it does not dodge the issue of answering these two fundamental questions.

âEUoeGoing it aloneâEU is a mischaracterization of the system I described. And if that is how you describe it, It either means youâEUTMre not trying to understand or IâEUTMm not working hard enough.

ItâEUTMs not a matter of choosing whether or not to have experts. ItâEUTMs about Choosing how the experts are chosen.
We agree that experts are needed. The issue is choosing them. People HAVE to choose their experts SOMEHOW if they are to have them. Experts do not drop from heaven like Manna, and picking the first person who claimed to be an expert to act as the representative of all individuals for all future needs would be a nonsensical and dangerous proposition.

LetâEUTMs go through the possible selection methods.
Non democratic-statism, [any kind of enlightened despotism] answers this question by having experts assigned to the whole of society by an unelected despot. Have no proof ex-ante that the enlightened despot knows the right man for the job, and even if we assumed he did, we do not know if his selection of experts or the expertâEUTMs suggested course of action reflect what is in the collective best interest. And again, even if we KNEW for a fact what the answer to both of these questions were, if it turned out that the answer to either of them was âEUoeNoâEU [I.e. if the despot was incompetent, acting selfishly, or both] We would realize that we as a whole have no recourse against the despot short of revolution. A political system of this kind is unregulated; it is entirely dependent on the good will of the despot. This system, therefore, is faith based.

Even the dumbest politico grasps that in order for wise overlords to act on our behalf, there has to be some regulatory mechanism by which the self interest of state agents, and their technocrats, is curtailed or dealt with in such a way that self interest can motivate them to benefit others. The answer most of them give is some form of democracy, either direct or representative.

Now that enlightened despotism has been dispatched, whatâEUTMs left is a comparison between the democratic state and the method IâEUTMve proposed above.

Now I have my suspicions that the democratic state as it functions in most of the world is a rigged system, and political outcomes occur regardless of the votes that take place. I have my own reasons for believing why such a system can remain afloat for a long time. But IâEUTMm going to assume for the sake of simplicity that democracy works in the way it is said to in civics classes. [Note: And if I didnâEUTMt it would bode even less successful for democracy]

There are two relatively simple reasons why my approach, the polycentric approach, is superior to the democratic approach.

One, Democracy works with collective rewards and collective punishments. ItâEUTMs already been stated that no single voter has any reason to invest himself very heavily in politics. The voters interest falls even as the level of influence politics has over peopleâEUTMs lives grows. People vote on what appear to be non rational bases because they suffer no consequences from doing so, nor do they benefit in the least if they change their behavior.

Compare this with someone making a decision, and that decision *for the most part* affecting only them. It benefits them if they choose correctly, and harms them if they donâEUTMt.

Then thereâEUTMs the matter of getting information. Until perfect alternate reality simulators are created, trying to imagine what things would have looked like If, for example, Al gore had won the 2000 election, or any other election for that matter.

In reality, this is impossible. But what we can do is compare what different individuals experience when they make different decisions than people around them, and are permitted by the economic system to benefit or be harmed by those decisions. The knowledge they get from those decisions can then be passed to others through the price system, consumer reports, or by word of mouth.

In short. The democratic state gives voters no reason to seek information; it also denies them access to information because that information is not capable of manifesting itself. The polycentric approach gives each individual a clear stake in the outcome and the opportunity to affect that outcome, and also gives him access to a better array of information to base a decision on.

The process of *judgment* is no more individualistic than that of voting. And so other things being equal, the judgment process when benefits are accrued to individuals and a system of pluralism is endorsed, will be more informed and thus superior. Individuals are in a better position to âEU~regulateâEUTM the experts, and to regulate each other.

There are other reasons to oppose this system in certain areas [that I am aware of] but they do not relate to the reasons you gave.

Perhaps you have some insights that IâEUTMve overlooked, and that this political middle ground you call for can solve this issue. However I do not trust any centrist positions . IâEUTMll differ to someone else for explaining why

"Moderation is not an ideology. It is not an opinion. It is not a thought. It is an absence of thought. If you believe the status quo of 2007 is basically righteous, then you should believe the same thing if a time machine transported you to Vienna in 1907. But if you went around Vienna in 1907 saying that there should be a European Union, that Africans and Arabs should rule their own countries and even colonize Europe, that any form of government except parliamentary democracy is evil, that paper money is good for business, that all doctors should work for the State, etc, etc - well, you could probably find people who agreed with you. They wouldn't call themselves "moderates," and nor would anyone else.

No, if you were a moderate in Vienna in 1907, you thought Franz Josef I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So which is it? Hapsburgs, or Eurocrats? Pretty hard to split the difference on that one."

In other words, the problem with moderation is that the "center" is not fixed. It moves.

At 1 month ago, Cootie wrote: Socialism never tells you that you can't follow your dreams and become all that you want to be. You can be anything you want to be under socialism, and with free college education that a modern socialist country would provide you would be even more likely. The only thing socialism hinders anyone from doing is economically dominating others and operating other human beings are "wage slaves". Under socialism a person would still be free to invent and let their imagination take them wherever it wants.

No, you can't actually, genius. Under socialism, the government taxes you a percentage that could be either high or low, depending on how much they already have to redistribute the wealth. If you've ever gotten a paycheck (which I doubt you have), you'd know what I am talking about. Now, if you understand anything about economics, you'd know that a government with enough power to "balance" an economy, also has the power to destroy it. That means they can control the market to whatever they please. In America, the socialists that are running the country are choosing green jobs as the "winners." Guess what happened to that one solar panel company that Obama gave half a billion dollars to? It went bankrupt!

That is because it is not their money, so they didn't have any need to work hard and keep the business up and running. If it was their money that they invested in their own corporation, they never would have been bankrupt today. That is what the government and you soviet spies don't understand. No matter how much money you throw at something, it will not get better. Now I hope the smart people in this forum understand why I am pro capitalist.

At 7 hours ago, hateyou1 wrote: That is because it is not their money, so they didn't have any need to work hard and keep the business up and running. If it was their money that they invested in their own corporation, they never would have been bankrupt today.

You apparently have never heard of an 'angel fund'.

classical liberalism > socialism

If you look at capitalism and socialism in the definitive sense rather than the general sense it is in fact entirely feasible for a capitalism economy to support socialist communes and worker's councils and so I have to reject the entire thought process behind this issue. I'm all for accepting ambiguity and being open minded, that doesn't mean I should pretend illogical nonsense is true though.

There is no continuum with laissez faire capitalism on one extreme and utopian communism on the other with socialism and mixed economies in the middle, it is an oversimplified attempt to model government policy (or whatever the state of the power structure is in your utopia), more accurately there are individual policies and actions taken by groups of individuals who obey collective decision making processes (bureaucracies) with different effects, for instance a government with price controls and no tariffs could be considered as interventionist as a government with no price controls and tariffs even though their policies are completely different. Logic dictates that a continuum would be worse than looking at the decision making and reasoning processes in the government and inferring their possible solutions in order to make sense of their 1000s of laws and regulations, this excludes the concepts of socialism and capitalism as being anything other than tidbits. Of course it is impossible to study every one of those 1000s of laws and regulations as very few people can even to begin to grasp but one sector of these bureaucratic quagmires, there is a need for continuums and models to simplify things, you just have to recognize their limitations and keep them in their place.

So... Not to be too abstract or split hairs, I take up the banner of classical liberalism with maybe some social liberal leanings, this is far more accurate than the ideological tunnel vision of socialism and capitalism, even compared to their most moderate proponents.

At 2/8/12 01:00 PM, Nintharmed wrote: Socialism > Capitalism

If you say so, then it must be true. I am no one to argue.

The most Libertarian [using the word loosely] of presidents is probably either Warren Harding, Grover Cleveland, or Martin Van Buren.

The most Authoritarian? Probably either Bush Jr., Wilson, or Lincoln.

I'm taking it as given that whether or not the authoritarian actions were 'just' or 'necessary' has nothing to do with trying to claim that they are less authoritarian than an unecessary or unjust action. One could argue that the Gulag was a necessary implement, but that has no bearing on its description as being either authoritarian or not.

FOUND THIS HERE: Click Me

A SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?

AN AMERICAN DEMOCRAT: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful. You vote people into office who tax your cows, forcing you to sell one to raise money to pay the tax. The people you voted for then take the tax money and buy a cow and give it to your neighbor. You feel righteous.

A COMMUNIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk.

A FASCIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and sells you the milk. You join the underground and start a campaign of sabotage.

DEMOCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk, then pours the milk down the drain.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. They are mad. They die. Pass the shepherd's pie, please.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A BRAZILIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You enter into a partnership with an American corporation. Soon you have 1000 cows and the American corporation declares bankruptcy.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship both of them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported on them.

AN ISRAELI CORPORATION: There are these two Jewish cows, right? They open a milk factory, an ice cream store, and then sell the movie rights. They send their calves to Harvard to become doctors. So, who needs people?

AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.