tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post8324085456526160956..comments2024-03-28T20:47:48.468-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: AND NOW, A RESPONSE TO JERRY FRESIARobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-902388431620061632019-08-13T19:06:05.301-04:002019-08-13T19:06:05.301-04:00Hello everyone out there,i am here to testify of t...Hello everyone out there,i am here to testify of the wonderful work Dr SALATO has done for me with is herbal medicine, in the past years i have being going through hard times in any relationship am into, because of the small size of my penis which was not big enough to satisfy any woman, so which always end up in series of breakup in my relationship with women,because of this i have tried so many drugs to enlarge my penis but did not work out,<br />then i decided to search online for solution to my problem and I came across so many testimony on how Dr SALATO have helped them find solution to their problems,so i visit his website https://drsalatosolutionte0.wixsite.com/drsalato ,i told him about my small penis and ejaculation issue, he told me not to<br />worry that he will help me to be a real man again, i did not believe he can help me but i gave him a try,he told me what to do and then send me his herbal cream and liquid medicine which i used for two weeks and my penis enlarge to 10 inches and last longer in bed now and i am a happy man. 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In the market socialist economy, a firm's workers can elect half the board and the shareholders can elect the other half.<br /><br />I should stop here because I am not going to anticipate and solve every problem in a market socialist economy in a blog comment.)william u.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31680596897305782522019-02-06T00:09:12.426-05:002019-02-06T00:09:12.426-05:00Concerning the definition of socialism, which is g...Concerning the definition of socialism, which is germane to the entrepreneurship question: I would define socialism as a system in which capital is collectively owned. This leaves a lot of freedom in the concrete implementation. A centrally planned economy is the most obvious realization, especially as it has been pursued historically in various places and times, with mixed -- but, on balance, negative -- results. However, there are alternatives that are compatible with the definition. Matt Bruenig has been writing a lot of <a href="https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/nickel-and-dime-socialism-47fcec406295" rel="nofollow">good, popularly accessible stuff</a> about wealth fund socialism. I've also looked into the Yale economist John Roemer, but a lot of his work is mathematical economics that I find inaccessible (for now); Bruenig is nicely filling the gap between Roemer and the educated lay public. <br /><br />In a modern economy, the separation of ownership (the shareholders) and management makes the transition from capitalism to market socialism "almost" painless. (Yeah, sure, expropriation of the capitalists is going to be very painful.) That's not to say that capitalist firms and socialist firms will be run in the same way, i.e., with an eye towards minimising labor income and maximising shareholder profit: I think social ownership will lead to a qualitative transformation here. What about entrepreneurship, you ask? Where are the innovative new firms going to come from? Well: what do Silicon Valley entrepreneurs want today? In the short term, they want to attract venture capital; in the long term, they want to go public or sell to the likes of Google. Now, replace the venture capitalists and the IPO buyers with managers of social wealth funds, and replace Google with.... well, the publicly owned version of Google. The entrepreneur, after his successful IPO or sale, can either retire to a well-earned life of leisure (although not as leisurely as now -- maybe mere millions instead of hundreds of millions), stay on as manager, or start his next firm.<br /><br />This won't satisfy the market abolitionists looking to banish the value-form, or those who dream of a fully automated cybernetic planned economy, but it's definitely a socialism of the possible, and it's easy to see it as the next step beyond social-democratic reforms. Some might object that this leaves workers with too little autonomy, preferring cooperative management. Fine: make the publicly owned firms worker-managed cooperatives, and allow the start-ups to stay as little dictatorships that attract workers willing to give up self-management for wage premiums. <br /><br />Achieving some sort of socialism -- socialization of capital -- is maybe easier than a lot of us think.<br />william u.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15842554956174951252019-02-05T16:47:28.563-05:002019-02-05T16:47:28.563-05:00The model of business enterprise seems to work fai...The model of business enterprise seems to work fairly well. In a socialist economy I imagine that the workers would own the company and that the central and local governments could be shareholders as well. I'm a big believer in checks and balances, so the fact that the government and the workers are all voting shareholders means that it would be more difficult for either party to control the enterprise for ends which are contrary to the public good. If the workers had a third of the shares, the central government another third and the local government still another third, then no important decisions could be taken without two of the three parties concurring. <br /><br />By the way, I'm not an expert on this at all. I'm improvising. That's probably clear to anyone reading this.<br /><br />The Soviet Union is not a good analogy. It's a one party state, far less economically advanced than the U.S. today, without a democratic tradition, with censorship, with a gulag, etc.<br /><br />A socialist country would have foreign exchange because it exports good or services. The U.S. makes the world's most popular movies, TV programs and pop music. The U.S. has a very vibrant pop culture, some of the best universities in the world and a culture which <br />prizes and rewards innovation and originality (unlike the Soviet Union), so I don't see it declining onto third world status with a socialist system. By the way, a country with the natural wonders of the U.S. attracts tourists and foreign exchange.<br /><br />Now would the U.S. still be super-power with a socialist system? Maybe not. Who cares?<br /><br />Would the U.S. still be home to most of the world's billionaires with a socialist system?<br />No. Who cares besides the billionaires?<br /><br />The U.S. with a socialist system might well become more modest, less narcissistic, less arrogant, less pushy, certainly less imperialistic, maybe no longer the richest economy in the world (but still a rich one). People might have more time for their families, for friendship, for poetry, for philosophy, for practicing sports, for calmly walking down a quiet street.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-22455534037883269842019-02-05T15:44:40.090-05:002019-02-05T15:44:40.090-05:00S. Wallerstein
Would there be "business ente...S. Wallerstein<br /><br />Would there be "business enterprises" in a socialist country? Government officials who run the government-owned enterprises may want the foreign computers, but getting them would require foreign exchange, something that is likely to be scarce in a socialist economy. The need for foreign exchange also will impede peoples' ability to travel.<br /><br />Because things would be slower in a socialist economy, innovation would be greater in the capitalist economies--and they would be the ones producing what the rest world wants, not the socialists. I think that's pretty much what happened economically with the Soviet bloc from the end of WWII to the the fall of the Berlin wall. Technologically, the Soviets were superb where they wanted to be--weapons and space exploration. But the civilian economy lagged far behind the capitalist economies. To this day, I can't think of a thing Russia produces--other than vodka--that the rest the world wants to buy.David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15730787093511124392019-02-05T11:17:44.818-05:002019-02-05T11:17:44.818-05:00David Palmeter,
What you say about a socialist sy...David Palmeter,<br /><br />What you say about a socialist system not permitting unfettered free trade is probably true, but once China or Germany start to produce cheap personal computers, not only consumers but also business enterprises in the U.S. (in order to compete) are going to start screaming for them. I assume that socialism is not going to be North Korean style, that people are going to have free access to information, to travel and to see that in other countries people and business enterprises are no longer using typewriters and are using personal computers. Given that, the socialist typewriter companies are going to have to convert to making personal computers, guaranteeing, as I noted above, job retraining and future jobs with the same salary for their workers (which might be subsidized by the central government of course).<br /><br />The process might be slower than it is now, but the changes will be come about. We're in too much of a hurry these days, in my opinion and in the opinion of countless columns about mental health which you can read in periodicals like The Guardian, etc.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-86311847090446493202019-02-05T11:07:41.658-05:002019-02-05T11:07:41.658-05:00A socialist system could not permit unfettered fre...A socialist system could not permit unfettered free trade. It would disrupt the necessary planning. Governments would have to decide what to import, how much, from where. The need to import what cannot be produced domestically would have to be financed with planned exports to other economies. I think this would be difficult, and a socialist economy would have to strive to be as self-sufficient as possible. David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-85793992501337361822019-02-05T08:05:48.263-05:002019-02-05T08:05:48.263-05:00Buyers would have the choice of computers made in ...Buyers would have the choice of computers made in China or in Europe, etc. <br /><br />Workers in the typewriter factories would have to be retrained and guaranteed new jobs with equal wages.<br /><br />The whole process of "creative destruction" might be a bit slower than it is today, but that would be fine with me and maybe a lot saner for most of us. Email and internet are huge technological advances for everyone, but there is a lot of calculated planned obsolescence involved. I've had to upgrade my computer I don't recall how many times, because they keep adding new features, new things to click on everywhere which I don't care about and my older computers were too slow. That means more plastics polluting the environment, more consumer neurosis, etc. Maybe we could learn to live a bit slower and more sanely. s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-5758628914361994862019-02-05T07:54:21.264-05:002019-02-05T07:54:21.264-05:00Jerry Brown: The typewriters wouldn't keep pil...Jerry Brown: The typewriters wouldn't keep piling up. Buyers would have no other choice. Computer production would have been spiked.David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-29229274655932526092019-02-04T22:12:21.694-05:002019-02-04T22:12:21.694-05:00David Palmeter @8:22- Yup, I agree. And as far as...David Palmeter @8:22- Yup, I agree. And as far as your comment @ 9:02- I also agree and don't know the answer either. I suppose when all the typewriters start piling up because no one wants to buy them even the politicians would have to realize something was off. Maybe. <br /><br /><br />What if you had a system more like the Canadian government health care system. I'm no expert on that but I think it works by having private sector firms (doctors) who still have to compete to some extent for customers, but the government pays rather than the patient. If there are no customers any more, then the doctors just will have to find something else to do with their time. Or sit around and not get paid. It is not exactly socialism I guess. It's not really capitalism. I'm not sure what it would be called. What would it be called?Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-4165096687463259782019-02-04T21:02:28.364-05:002019-02-04T21:02:28.364-05:00“And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of findi...“And always keep a-hold of Nurse<br />For fear of finding something worse.”<br /><br />How would socialism create the “creative destruction of capitalism” that allows for progress? <br /><br />Take for example a once ubiquitous machine that is now essentially extinct--the typewriter. When I was growing up in Upstate New York, there were typewriter plants all over the landscape: Royal, Underwood, L.C Smith-Corona, Remington Rand--where my father, his brother, his brother-in-law and his father all worked. Those plants are long gone. The towns are devastated. Some producers did not survive the competition with IBM’s electric typewriter. But the devastating blow was the development of the machine I’m using right now--a computer (and before that, the dedicated word processor).<br /><br />Now if government had owned the means of production, and had located typewriter plants in Elmira and Cortland and Ilion, New York, those plants would have been closed over the dead bodies of their congressional representatives, the governors and the rest. You can see something similar going on whenever the military wants to close a base, or USPS wants to close an unprofitable rural post office, or when Amtrak wants to abandon unprofitable lines and concentrate investment in the profitable Northeast Corridor. Congress won’t stand for it, despite the fact that Congress insists that both USPS and Amtrak “operate like a business.”<br /><br />How does a socialist system--not Sandersite Welfare Capitalism, but real socialism with government ownership of the means of production--allow technological progress to occur at the cost of existing jobs? <br />David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-30344940707747076572019-02-04T20:22:49.547-05:002019-02-04T20:22:49.547-05:00Jerry Brown--Prof Wolff can speak for himself, but...Jerry Brown--Prof Wolff can speak for himself, but I read him to mean that the managerial responsibilities of high ranking military officers is at least as high, if not higher, than those of managers of private corporations. I suspect that the total salary and benefits of, say, the regional manager of a large super market chain is more than that of a four star general or even the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The military doesn’t lack ambitious people competing vigorously for the top jobs, and pay clearly is not the overriding source of their motivation. That must mean that there are other rewards besides money that motivate them. If they can be motivated by something else, why bit super market executives?David Palmeterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01895092366685079046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-31939897768028381382019-02-04T20:11:02.060-05:002019-02-04T20:11:02.060-05:00Howard B.
Venezuela doesn't have a socialist ...Howard B.<br /><br />Venezuela doesn't have a socialist economy in the least. When the economy was functioning, it was a huge welfare state based on oil revenues. There is lots of private enterprise there still.<br /><br />Socialism in the U.S. isn't likely to be like that in Cuba because first of all, the U.S. is at another stage of economic and social development than Cuba was at the time of the Cuban revolution. In addition, the U.S. has a long history of democratic government (with many many imperfections) which Cuba did not have at the time of the revolution. Socialism in the U.S. may have many problems and defects, but I doubt that it will repeat those of Cuba.s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25858452816502894762019-02-04T19:38:11.220-05:002019-02-04T19:38:11.220-05:00The US military might be a well run organization, ...The US military might be a well run organization, but it gets to play by different rules than most of us would tolerate from private corporations. I mean I'm not even sure if 'employee rights' have any meaning there. And there is wide agreement that the military consumes an awful lot of resources, but a lot of disagreement about how useful the final product they end up producing is. Or even what that product is. The military is not a good example to make a case for socialism. Many people might oppose socialism precisely because they fear society might end up like military service.Jerry Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-7242440405816776442019-02-04T17:39:22.440-05:002019-02-04T17:39:22.440-05:00Paul O'Dette, the lutenist? Seconded!Paul O'Dette, the lutenist? Seconded!Deannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-28762014575751104182019-02-04T16:31:00.532-05:002019-02-04T16:31:00.532-05:00Trying to solve the problems of the world armed wi...Trying to solve the problems of the world armed with nothing but a theory- I think Oakshott called that rationalism. That's the squirrel eating up the engine of your intelligently designed argument.<br />You put your faith in untested, a priori analysis,<br />What's your plan B? Tell me why socialism in America won't look like socialism in Cuba or Venezuela.<br />I'm just saying this, first because of inherent plausibility and second because Thrasymachus would raise these objections and Socrates would probably find himself in agreementhoward bnoreply@blogger.com