America's new culture war: Free enterprise vs. government control

[podfish]

washingtonpost.com

This is not the culture war of the 1990s. It is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion. Those old battles have been eclipsed by a new struggle between two competing visions of the country's future. In one, America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise -- limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces. In the other, America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. These visions are not reconcilable. We must choose.

=======================

I think this article is revealing of the mindset that leads conservatives to reject policies that care for the less successful in this country. There are a few huge flaws in his argument. First, he takes as a self-evident truth that Obama and his ilk want to abolish free enterprise, thus setting up a straw-man argument. Second, he assumes that providing public assistance to people essentially will infantilize them by removing any incentive to succeed. By making such all-or-nothing arguments, he attempts to make his case more plausible. But many of his assertions are simply wrong. The most pernicious is exemplified by this:

Benjamin Franklin (a pretty rich man for his time) grasped the truth about money's inability by itself to deliver satisfaction. "Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it," he declared. "The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one." If unearned money does not bring happiness, redistributing money by force won't make for a happier America -- and the redistributionists' theory of a better society through income equality falls apart.

This may be true, but it's no excuse for tolerating a system rigged so the powerful can grab much of what should be considered 'the commons'. Also, the concept of 'community' is totally missing from his article. Civilization itself exists because of the shared lives of the community, and caring for each other to our mutual benefit is part of it. We all live in a better world when the benefits of our civilization are shared. I'd love to see the conservatives spending more time debating good ways to share without introducing dependency and destroying initiative, rather than simply justifying the harshness of raw "free-market" results by blaming the unsuccessful.

[Hotspring 44]

FYI, because of an erroneous voice command, my computer submitted a reply before I was done editing it.

So, my apologies to those who received it in their e-mail in such an unedited state,().

I do a lot of editing before I push the submit reply button (Usually).

What actually happened was, somehow Dragon Naturally Speaking© (which is a voice to text typing program), erroneously put the cursor on the submit reply button a small fraction of a second before I left clicked the mouse! CRAP!... ...how embarrassing!:nerd:

I got kind of frustrated with it on this particular subject, so I don't know if I will try to re-post it in an edited form. I also neglected to copy it onto anything before I deleted it.

[Debunker]

It's propaganda, as you pointed out, a strawman argument.

Our government is owned by the richest 1%, it does their bidding, it subsidises and protects the biggest players in EVERY industry, there's no 'culture war' at all, except the perpetual pitting of the taxpayers against each other via corporate owned media and the illusion of opposition parties.

Our democracy is dead, we live in a corporate oligarchy.

[wbreitman]

Plus ca change, meme la change

From "Mundus Vergens," composed circa 1190:

"The world declining into ruin,
proving by many signs that it is collapsing
exposes its deceitfulness,
for now in the distant citadel of fraud
it devises our destruction
by force or guile, as may now be clearly seen ..."

W

It's propaganda, as you pointed out, a strawman argument.

Our government is owned by the richest 1%, it does their bidding, it subsidises and protects the biggest players in EVERY industry, there's no 'culture war' at all, except the perpetual pitting of the taxpayers against each other via corporate owned media and the illusion of opposition parties.

Our democracy is dead, we live in a corporate oligarchy.

[Braggi]

It's propaganda, as you pointed out, a strawman argument. ...
Our democracy is dead, we live in a corporate oligarchy.

My view fits somewhere in the middle, though I do see the slide toward democratic death. Oh, wait! This has never been a democracy. It's a representative republic. The trouble is that increasingly, the representatives represent corporations and ignore the people they're supposed to represent.

The "conservative" notion that we have anything approaching a "free market" is ludicrous. If you think we have a free market, try opening up a bank or an insurance company, or a lemonade stand on the sidewalk.

The fact is, we can work hard and start our own business and find a degree of success. Ask Steve Jobs. All hope isn't lost yet.

-Jeff

[LenInSebastopol]

1. When the gov't takes over or supersedes the banking industry, the insurance industry and a major manufacturing industry (auto) then one could reasonably conclude that there is a notion that the 'free enterprise' system maybe compromised.
2. Keeping folks on the gov't teat is a way of keeping them infantilized (is that a word?) since denying the ability to problem solve in even a rudimentary way will not allow them to fully develop as adult human beings. Many social studies support such a complex view. I assume your use of the word "succeed" means to make one's way in the world, not to become a Steve Jobs.
3. Again, one's definition of 'the commons' is not shared by all. Wealth is not 'commons' by definition. It takes wealth to afford the things in life we now enjoy. Hunting and gathering that take a full day does not allow for talk of philosophy, leisure, politics, arts, recreation, and all those things we wish to pursue.....'the commons' in a tribal society is the very basic of survival; past that and we have choice, which departs from "the commons" by definition.
4. The notion of 'community' is absurd in this context. Again, it takes choice so that the individual can chose which community to chose. THE community implies a singular, tribal way of life while A community indicates you have a choice to be a skateboarder AND a dope smoker AND a kite flyer AND.....rather than just a hunter/gatherer/survivalist. So the economics of the case does not exclude 'community' but rather is an aside (a way to analyze) for any system to flourish, and not an end in itself.
5. I would imagine conservatives figure out ways to improve communities, just not in front of you! There are Rotaries, Boy Scouts, Soroptimists, churches, Odd Fellows, Lions, Moose, etc. I sense that you simply want to stop free associations and mandate Big Bro to do it. Well, except for killing people, governments don't do a very efficient job at much about anything nor do they have to account to anyone, for real, as much as the above mentioned organizations.

washingtonpost.com

I think this article is revealing of the mindset that leads conservatives to reject policies that care for the less successful in this country. There are a few huge flaws in his argument. First, he takes as a self-evident truth that Obama and his ilk want to abolish free enterprise, thus setting up a straw-man argument. Second, he assumes that providing public assistance to people essentially will infantilize them by removing any incentive to succeed. By making such all-or-nothing arguments, he attempts to make his case more plausible. But many of his assertions are simply wrong. The most pernicious is exemplified by this:
This may be true, but it's no excuse for tolerating a system rigged so the powerful can grab much of what should be considered 'the commons'. Also, the concept of 'community' is totally missing from his article. Civilization itself exists because of the shared lives of the community, and caring for each other to our mutual benefit is part of it. We all live in a better world when the benefits of our civilization are shared. I'd love to see the conservatives spending more time debating good ways to share without introducing dependency and destroying initiative, rather than simply justifying the harshness of raw "free-market" results by blaming the unsuccessful.

[Braggi]

1. When the gov't takes over or supersedes the banking industry, the insurance industry and a major manufacturing industry (auto) then one could reasonably conclude that there is a notion that the 'free enterprise' system maybe compromised.
... 3. Again, one's definition of 'the commons' is not shared by all. Wealth is not 'commons' by definition. It takes wealth to afford the things in life we now enjoy. Hunting and gathering that take a full day does not allow for talk of philosophy, leisure, politics, arts, recreation, and all those things we wish to pursue.....'the commons' in a tribal society is the very basic of survival; past that and we have choice, which departs from "the commons" by definition.
...

Len, first, hunter gather societies, in general, had about 40% of their time free to pursue "the arts." Our modern culture doesn't come close. They had leisure time and lots of it. Art, religion, music, tool making, metal working were all developed by our ancestors as they sat around a campfire developing rich oral traditions.

Re: "the commons." Let's take a look at the "National Forests" in our country. I used to think they were preserved forests. I was shocked to learn they are actually tree banks reserved for private corporations that give money to government officials. The government then grants logging permits, often builds roads at taxpayer expense, allows the loggers to remove the trees while paying the taxpayers a token fee (often $1 per tree) and then the taxpayers come in after they are done and clean up the mess and decommission the roads. So, a lot of the expenses are taxpayer expenses and all the profits go to private industry. Industry takes the money and leaves the mess for you and me to pay for. I've seen the horrible mess modern loggers leave in National Forests. It's total environmental disaster. So, where are "the commons?" Do you think this is right? Now include "mineral rights." Who owns those? Again, it's the corporations that take all the money while leaving the environmental devastation for the taxpayers. Nice, eh? Yeah, we could do some work on equitable distribution of wealth. A lot of work. These are just two examples of how "We the People" are getting screwed out of "the commons."

Lastly, would you have preferred the government leave "hands off" the banks and General Motors? What would that have looked like? What would it be like today?

-Jeff

[Hotspring 44]

For accurate information about the history of money, I suggest you download and watch this informative video.
The_Money_Masters.mp4

Len, first, hunter gather societies, in general, had about 40% of their time free to pursue "the arts." Our modern culture doesn't come close. They had leisure time and lots of it. Art, religion, music, tool making, metal working were all developed by our ancestors as they sat around a campfire developing rich oral traditions.

Re: "the commons." Let's take a look at the "National Forests" in our country. I used to think they were preserved forests. I was shocked to learn they are actually tree banks reserved for private corporations that give money to government officials. The government then grants logging permits, often builds roads at taxpayer expense, allows the loggers to remove the trees while paying the taxpayers a token fee (often $1 per tree) and then the taxpayers come in after they are done and clean up the mess and decommission the roads. So, a lot of the expenses are taxpayer expenses and all the profits go to private industry. Industry takes the money and leaves the mess for you and me to pay for. I've seen the horrible mess modern loggers leave in National Forests. It's total environmental disaster. So, where are "the commons?" Do you think this is right? Now include "mineral rights." Who owns those? Again, it's the corporations that take all the money while leaving the environmental devastation for the taxpayers. Nice, eh? Yeah, we could do some work on equitable distribution of wealth. A lot of work. These are just two examples of how "We the People" are getting screwed out of "the commons."

Lastly, would you have preferred the government leave "hands off" the banks and General Motors? What would that have looked like? What would it be like today?

-Jeff

[Tars]

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, apparently sees any regulation at all in the market place as wrong. He'd have us think that it's a black/white issue. When credit card companies (banks) can change interest rate on a loan overnight, from 12% to 30%, seemingly at their whim, we need regulation in the marketplace. When "payday lenders" can charge 400% on cash advances, we need regulation.

I'm for entrepeneurship. free enterprise. But when corporations have become as rapacious as they are now, we need to be able to regulate to some degree at least, how they can operate in our country.

[LenInSebastopol]

3rd attempt:
Those ventures mentioned below can only be accomplished via the accumulation of wealth; if the community is based on subsistence, then most all energy is put into gathering, persevering, & preparation for the next meal or two. Specializations requires wealth in the form of environmental preservation, be it clothing, housing, or meal prep. The oral tradition is in lieu of writing, not simply a rich tapestry for naught, as with TV. Our modern culture has so many more choices and richness to it that many can't deal with it.

As with so much, the mineral & forestry deals are due to gov't interference & regulations. Gov't in bed with big industry to stick it to the folks in general. Is there a greater good? You make it sound as if NO is the answer. Certainly I am not smart enough to know if there is, but it seems that due to historical precedents there are those that betrayed what should have been a wrong deal, getting in bed with such industries, and now they've done so with the banks & more industries! That does not make it right. Again the tax payer will be stuck paying for GM, just as it is with the examples you mentioned.
Again, as you know, I am not smart enough to know what would have occured had the gov't not bailed out those other industries & services. I doubt if it would have been as France, 1793, but then again, the PEOPLE survived, just not the institutions. I have to laugh as that bloody revolution was the result, in part, of the first business bubble bursting that happened about 70 years prior when they put a Scotsman in charge of their banks, commerce, and transportation industry.
In any case the companies that caused THIS bubble/crisis are now surviving quite well, thank you, and we are footing that as a tax. Saw a GM commercial the other day where the prez stated he paid back every nickel of the loan....ha, ha, ha, but he didn't say that he paid it back with more money he got from the gov't!
I'm thinking Scientology may have the answer: lizard people are running the planet!

Len, first, hunter gather societies, in general, had about 40% of their time free to pursue "the arts." Our modern culture doesn't come close. They had leisure time and lots of it. Art, religion, music, tool making, metal working were all developed by our ancestors as they sat around a campfire developing rich oral traditions.

Re: "the commons." Let's take a look at the "National Forests" in our country. I used to think they were preserved forests. I was shocked to learn they are actually tree banks reserved for private corporations that give money to government officials. The government then grants logging permits, often builds roads at taxpayer expense, allows the loggers to remove the trees while paying the taxpayers a token fee (often $1 per tree) and then the taxpayers come in after they are done and clean up the mess and decommission the roads. So, a lot of the expenses are taxpayer expenses and all the profits go to private industry. Industry takes the money and leaves the mess for you and me to pay for. I've seen the horrible mess modern loggers leave in National Forests. It's total environmental disaster. So, where are "the commons?" Do you think this is right? Now include "mineral rights." Who owns those? Again, it's the corporations that take all the money while leaving the environmental devastation for the taxpayers. Nice, eh? Yeah, we could do some work on equitable distribution of wealth. A lot of work. These are just two examples of how "We the People" are getting screwed out of "the commons."

Lastly, would you have preferred the government leave "hands off" the banks and General Motors? What would that have looked like? What would it be like today?

-Jeff