Is the USA uncivilised?

[Sean Hayden]

no

[piscator]

Anybody who buys into socialism, including things like the NHS, is a Marxist. The only question that remains is how hard-core they are about it.

I'm sure Marx would have appreciated your crediting him for every promotion of the general welfare, but only a hyperbolic douchebag would think he originated all of them.

He didn't, he just articulated them in ways that make it perfectly appropriate to label those "promotions of the general welfare" that necessitate the enslaving of others to the interests of the dependent class as "Marxism." I figure I'm just calling it like it is rather than using Newspeak to try to submerge the true purpose and intent of "democratic socialism" (or any other flavor of socialism) I speak the truth openly about the origins and fatal contamination of Marxism in all socialist thought.

I think you're just hurling invective from the nosebleed section out in right field...

Marx probably liked carrots too. Does this make carrots Marxist and stew Socialist?
Raytheon does most of its R/D business with the US government. Apple Computer relies on patent and copyright protections afforded by the US government. Does this make corporate persons Raytheon and Apple Computer members of "the dependent class"?
How does wealth get redistributed? A portion of my labor is taken by the State and given to the mother of an A-10 pilot with a broken hip. She in turn spends it in the private sector, like her son. It all comes back.
I have a RAIDZ2 storage array with a hot spare. ZFS constantly cycles the data among the 13 hard drives in the array so that each drive gets to be the hot spare in its order. Over time, this keeps the entire storage pool compacted and optimizes disk access speed, because the sequential write operation from one drive to another ignores null sectors. Moreover the array can stand the catastrophic loss of 3 drives without losing 1 bit of data. Even Hayek would like ZFS.

[JimC]

The use of the term "dependent class" is a nasty example of right-wing spin. For a start, only a very small proportion of the population in Oz are welfare recipients, and of them, only a small proportion are capable of work, but lazily choose not to. And yet it is applied with a slur to the majority, who are out there, working for the man...

Working class is the correct and proud term for the people who actually do stuff.

Perhaps we should compare them to the rich "parasite class"...

[piscator]

The use of the term "dependent class" is a nasty example of right-wing spin. For a start, only a very small proportion of the population in Oz are welfare recipients, and of them, only a small proportion are capable of work, but lazily choose not to. And yet it is applied with a slur to the majority, who are out there, working for the man...

Working class is the correct and proud term for the people who actually do stuff.

Perhaps we should compare them to the rich "parasite class"...

[Seth]

The use of the term "dependent class" is a nasty example of right-wing spin.

How so? If you depend on government for your daily bread, you are dependent. If there are a number of people who fall into that class, it's perfectly appropriate to identify them as the "dependent class."

For a start, only a very small proportion of the population in Oz are welfare recipients, and of them, only a small proportion are capable of work, but lazily choose not to. And yet it is applied with a slur to the majority, who are out there, working for the man...

This is likely true in many places.

Working class is the correct and proud term for the people who actually do stuff.

"Working class" is it's own class. One may be in the working class and still be in the dependent class as well, if one is not able to make ends meet by working. These dual-class people are the ones who may be deserving of the charity and altruism of others to give them a leg-up that will boost them OUT of the dependent class.

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

Perhaps we should compare them to the rich "parasite class"...

Typical socialist "zero sum" fallacy there. Just because one person is wealthy doesn't mean that he has gained that wealth by taking it from someone else. That's not how wealth generation actually works in a free-market economy. In fact, it is the wealthy who put the most at risk by investing their wealth in creating more wealth, which requires compensating the working class for its labor, which obviously benefits the working class to no end.

Without the wealthy, and their willingness to invest, and by doing so place their wealth at risk for partial or total loss, the working class would have no jobs to create their own wealth from, as the Soviet Union and Cuba, among others, have discovered.

Wealth investment builds wealth from bottom to top. "Equality" (in the Marxist meaning of the word, which is the "zero-sum" fallacy) brings only an equality of misery and privation, as anyone in Cuba would tell you if they weren't afraid of being shot in the head and buried in a banana grove somewhere.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

And just how many of the population belong to this "idle dependent class"? In Oz, maybe 1% at the outside would be classified in this way. Those on benefits are mostly either those with real disabilities, or people who are desperate for jobs, and, in time, will find one. The absolute bludgers (an Aussie term) are a tiny minority; they piss me off too, but their real impact on the economy is pretty damn small.

Typical socialist "zero sum" fallacy there. Just because one person is wealthy doesn't mean that he has gained that wealth by taking it from someone else. That's not how wealth generation actually works in a free-market economy. In fact, it is the wealthy who put the most at risk by investing their wealth in creating more wealth, which requires compensating the working class for its labor, which obviously benefits the working class to no end.

Without the wealthy, and their willingness to invest, and by doing so place their wealth at risk for partial or total loss, the working class would have no jobs to create their own wealth from, as the Soviet Union and Cuba, among others, have discovered.

Wealth investment builds wealth from bottom to top. "Equality" (in the Marxist meaning of the word, which is the "zero-sum" fallacy) brings only an equality of misery and privation, as anyone in Cuba would tell you if they weren't afraid of being shot in the head and buried in a banana grove somewhere.

Perfect spin for those who are in a consolidated position of wealth and power. They love to see themselves portrayed as heroic entrepreneurs, whose brilliance, innovation and hard work is the salvation of the entire working class, whose grovelling gratitude to their betters should never end...

The reality is that the wealthy maintain their positions of power by using every crooked tax lawyer they can lay their hands on, supporting conservative politics with funds, and most importantly, by giving their children such a good financial start in life that they run the competitive race with a ludicrous head start.

None of which is to say that I oppose free enterprise in its basic form; certainly, personal motivation to succeed is a powerful source of energy and innovation, and societies which limit it excessively do so at their own peril. What is needed are policies which establish a more level playing field, so that the very wealthy are not going to coast towards greater and greater wealth, not by effort that is productive to society, but by playing financial and legal games stacked in their favour.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

And just how many of the population belong to this "idle dependent class"?

I don't know. I expect the government to know, and I expect it to cut off benefits to anyone who is capable of working but refuses to do so. That's government's job after all.

In Oz, maybe 1% at the outside would be classified in this way. Those on benefits are mostly either those with real disabilities, or people who are desperate for jobs, and, in time, will find one. The absolute bludgers (an Aussie term) are a tiny minority; they piss me off too, but their real impact on the economy is pretty damn small.

I doubt your figures. I'd suspect it's much higher and is composed of those who CLAIM they can't work, but could if properly motivated...by hunger for example.

Typical socialist "zero sum" fallacy there. Just because one person is wealthy doesn't mean that he has gained that wealth by taking it from someone else. That's not how wealth generation actually works in a free-market economy. In fact, it is the wealthy who put the most at risk by investing their wealth in creating more wealth, which requires compensating the working class for its labor, which obviously benefits the working class to no end.

Without the wealthy, and their willingness to invest, and by doing so place their wealth at risk for partial or total loss, the working class would have no jobs to create their own wealth from, as the Soviet Union and Cuba, among others, have discovered.

Wealth investment builds wealth from bottom to top. "Equality" (in the Marxist meaning of the word, which is the "zero-sum" fallacy) brings only an equality of misery and privation, as anyone in Cuba would tell you if they weren't afraid of being shot in the head and buried in a banana grove somewhere.

Perfect spin for those who are in a consolidated position of wealth and power. They love to see themselves portrayed as heroic entrepreneurs, whose brilliance, innovation and hard work is the salvation of the entire working class, whose grovelling gratitude to their betters should never end...

Oh please, enough with the strawman bloviating. You know perfectly well that without investment capital nothing gets built or made. If the workers in your worker's paradise had the cumshaw to build factories and machinery and design things and market them and do all the myriad of other things that have to happen for wealth to be produced then they would do so. But with a few fairly rare exceptions the lumpen proletarian worker has neither the capital, nor the education, nor the skill, nor the knowledge, nor the drive, nor the risk-taking character that exists in the entrepreneur or investor who is willing to risk, in most cases, everything they own in order to build a better mousetrap and bring it to market, or provide a service that the public will pay to use, or simply vend the products of others to the public. Over 70% of all businesses are small businesses that consist of the capital input and unending labor of the solo entrepreneur or partnership who invest their savings, their 2nd mortgages, their labor, their family's economic security in building a company that will employ those people who don't care to take such risks and merely want to go to work eight hours a day and take home a paycheck at the end of the week. They are not interested in being "the boss" and they don't want to take the kinds of risks that "the boss" takes in starting or maintaining any business, from the smallest single-person falafel shop to General Electric.

The bigger the dream the bigger the risk. Large companies need people willing to invest their hard-earned savings to fund capital improvements and operating expenses, and investors do so at the risk of losing all of that capital, but with the potential reward of profiting from their investment as the just fruits of their labor and risk-taking.

The workers of the world prefer the security of inputting a specified amount of labor to a project and being compensated with a specified package of wages and benefits that they get regardless of whether the entrepreneur ever makes a dime on the product. They get their cut BEFORE the risks associated with sales and marketing are applied and they get their wages even if the product produces only losses.

The reality is that the wealthy maintain their positions of power by using every crooked tax lawyer they can lay their hands on, supporting conservative politics with funds, and most importantly, by giving their children such a good financial start in life that they run the competitive race with a ludicrous head start.

Yada, yada, yada. You sound just like Karl Marx and his ilk. Why am I unsurprised? Inequality does not equal oppression, particularly in a system where anyone who has the skill and the drive to build a better mousetrap has an equal opportunity with every other wealth-creator to become an economic success. Many people simply aren't cut out for entrepreneuship and are perfectly satisfied working the assembly line so long as the paycheck doesn't bounce. That's not zero-sum Marxist anti-egalitarianism, that's just human nature. You don't "deserve" anything from anybody else. The only thing that the community owes you is an equal opportunity to succeed or fail on your own merits without deliberately and knowingly interposing hurdles and checks to your potential for economic success. That's what "equal opportunity" means, not "equality of outcome." That's the Marxist conceit that is based in the zero-sum fallacy.

None of which is to say that I oppose free enterprise in its basic form; certainly, personal motivation to succeed is a powerful source of energy and innovation, and societies which limit it excessively do so at their own peril. What is needed are policies which establish a more level playing field, so that the very wealthy are not going to coast towards greater and greater wealth, not by effort that is productive to society, but by playing financial and legal games stacked in their favour.

The game isn't stacked in anybody's favor, the game merely rewards those whose abilities in the commercial world are better than the average worker's abilities, just as it should, and just as evolution rewards the organism that adapts successfully and kills the one that doesn't.

Games have winners and losers. That's the nature of competition. If you are a failure in the competition of commerce, well, that's just too bad for you. You need to improve your skill set and your education, knowledge and drive so you can compete. Using your model, the Olympic Games would be played by random selection and you'd have 70 year old 400 pound fatties competing against 17 year olds, because it's just not FAIR that those who are superior athletes by virtue of genetics and lots of fucking hard work and privation get all the glory for being better at something than anyone else on earth.

That's beyond idiocy.

Nobody owes you egalitarianism or equality because no two human beings are equal or the same, as a function of biology and evolution. People get to be better, handsomer, smarter, prettier, more intelligent and more economically and socially successful than you, and you have no right or even moral justification to complain about it, much less take something from them merely because they have excelled and prospered and you haven't. Or for that matter merely because they have benefited from having parents who excelled and prospered. That's the way free markets...and evolution work. If you want to, and if you have the ability, you too can prosper and become one of those better people. Or not. Adapt or die.

But nobody owes you a damned thing. Not a sou. Not a kopec. Not a thin dime.

[Warren Dew]

Seth wrote:

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

And just how many of the population belong to this "idle dependent class"? In Oz, maybe 1% at the outside would be classified in this way.

In the U.S., it is a substantial fraction, and probably a majority of the beneficiaries of certain forms of welfare. The welfare culture in the U.S. has second and third generation members.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

And just how many of the population belong to this "idle dependent class"? In Oz, maybe 1% at the outside would be classified in this way.

In the U.S., it is a substantial fraction, and probably a majority of the beneficiaries of certain forms of welfare. The welfare culture in the U.S. has second and third generation members.

Certainly it's a worry if you get a social group of people that have given up on the whole idea of having a job. However, instead of blaming or demonising them, perhaps some serious effort could be made on pragmatic programs which wean them away from welfare, and get them into some form of work by any means possible, to break the cycle.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

If you want to, and if you have the ability, you too can prosper and become one of those better people.

Heroic romanticism of the individual, not reasoned social theory.

Sure, a handful of people will overcome major disadvantages of birth, and fight their way to economic prosperity; sometimes by trampling others as they go.

But statistically, someone born to wealth and power is on an easy highway to maintaining and extending their wealth, and the majority of people born into poverty will remain there, typically because of a comparative lack of access to a wide range of resources, educational and otherwise. Those in the top 1 % have access to legal and political power, and, quite understandably, wield it to protect and maintain the position of their lineage. Typically, they will rail against programs which try to counter-act the innate disadvantage of being born into poverty, and demonise the working class as being shiftless and lacking in motivation, or they use the scare words of marxism or socialism. Of course people are different in ability and intelligence, but none of that correlates with the accident of birth, in terms of the social class one is born into. Let abilities shine forth, not simply the luck of being born to privilege.

[orpheus]

I admit I haven't read through this thread. But I'll respond to Blind groper's OP.

Earlier in my life I believed that the USA was the most civilized country on earth. That was before I went abroad.

Since then I've spent significant amounts of time in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. At this point, I would have to say the US, while not the least civilized country, is far from the most. In particular, the Nordic countries have us beat in just about every respect I can think of. Until I lived there (Finland and Sweden especially), I never would have believed the quality of life could be so high. Much higher than here in the US.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

I'm pretty careful to specify who exactly it is that I am utterly unwilling to donate my labor or property to, and it's not the working class dependent class, it's the idle dependent class would are capable of gainful employment but who refuse to become employed because they prefer living off the government dole.

And just how many of the population belong to this "idle dependent class"? In Oz, maybe 1% at the outside would be classified in this way.

In the U.S., it is a substantial fraction, and probably a majority of the beneficiaries of certain forms of welfare. The welfare culture in the U.S. has second and third generation members.

Certainly it's a worry if you get a social group of people that have given up on the whole idea of having a job. However, instead of blaming or demonising them, perhaps some serious effort could be made on pragmatic programs which wean them away from welfare, and get them into some form of work by any means possible, to break the cycle.

I agree in main. That's what Clinton's Welfare to Work did and it was working very well...until Obama destroyed it by administratively removing the work requirement, thereby encouraging people to become dependent again. You've got to understand that this is not an oversight or mistake, it's a carefully conceived and enacted program that has as it's central goal NOT doing exactly what you just suggested. It's a Marxist Progressive plan to MAKE people dependent on the government for their very lives (and now health) as a method of political control, and it's a brilliant, if slimy and disgusting, tactic of Marxists that's been used for more than a hundred years now.

The theory is that if you make a majority of the electorate dependent on government for their food, shelter and health care,you can easily control them by threatening their entitlements, either indirectly ("The Republicans hate poor people and want them to starve in the gutter") or directly ("If you don't elect Obama your welfare and health care will be cut off") and by doing so you can suborn the system and get the votes needed to keep your particular ideology in power.

It's draconian and Machiavellian to the extreme, and it amply demonstrates that neither Marxists nor Progressives have the interests of the poor...and making them not-poor, in mind. Instead they see the lumpen proletariat as a tool to be used and discarded as necessary to achieve their political goals of power and control, as has been demonstrated by every Marxist regime in history.

To "make the poor uncomfortable in their poverty" is not to intend them harm or intend that they remain poor at all, it's to encourage and stimulate them to put forth the effort that is required to rise out of poverty, which is never, ever accomplished by simply giving stuff to the poor. It's "tough love." This does not mean that we don't need to give stuff to the poor to help them in their efforts to rise out of poverty, it merely means that we must not give them stuff in ways that has the opposite of the desired effect and that instead binds them ever more firmly in the chains of generational poverty...which is what Obama actually wants to do so that he can control their voting proclivities so as to keep the Marxist Progressives in power.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

If you want to, and if you have the ability, you too can prosper and become one of those better people.

Heroic romanticism of the individual, not reasoned social theory.

Sure, a handful of people will overcome major disadvantages of birth, and fight their way to economic prosperity; sometimes by trampling others as they go.

But statistically, someone born to wealth and power is on an easy highway to maintaining and extending their wealth,

So what? It's their money, why shouldn't they use and enjoy it?

and the majority of people born into poverty will remain there, typically because of a comparative lack of access to a wide range of resources, educational and otherwise.

Education is the key. Always has been. Unfortunately the Marxist Progressive plan for education is not to provide it as a means of giving people the tools to excel and bring themselves out of poverty, it's exactly the opposite. It's intended and planned to make good little obedient proles out of the vast majority of people who must depend on the public schools for their education so as to better control them and make them happy in their chains. One of the chief ways of doing this in the Marxist plan is to give the proletariat an enemy to hate other than the government, and that enemy is the "bourgeoisie merchant class" or in Todayspeak "the wealth." By demonizing wealth rather than holding it up as an example of the rewards of hard work the proletariat may be more easily controlled by their Marxist Progressive masters.

This is necessary in the Marxist dialectic because what destroys Marxism (and its socialist spawn) is when people actually DO drag themselves out of poverty and succeed because of the free market. Marxists can't allow that to happen because it breeds discontent in the seething proletarian masses.

Stalin and his ilk knew this, which is why there was an orgy of killing and "appropriation" of the property of the wealthy during the revolution.

Those in the top 1 % have access to legal and political power, and, quite understandably, wield it to protect and maintain the position of their lineage.

And why shouldn't they? This is yet another zero-sum fallacy argument.

Typically, they will rail against programs which try to counter-act the innate disadvantage of being born into poverty, and demonise the working class as being shiftless and lacking in motivation, or they use the scare words of marxism or socialism.

No they don't. They know what Marxism's ultimate goal is and how the Marxist dialectic deliberately enslaves people in order to control them and they find this to be repugnant and evil. They understand that these "programs which try to counter-act the innate disadvantage of being born into poverty" are not what they are advertised to be, but rather are evil plots to more securely enslave the poor into dependence upon government largess as a method of political and social control.

No business person I know doesn't dream of a better-educated employee pool. The prime complaint of most industry today is that high school students, and even college graduates with degrees are functionally illiterate and cannot perform basic functions of business, which makes them useless to the employer, who isn't interested in keeping people in poverty, he's interested in creating products and services and making money by, in part, reducing the costs associated with ignorant employees, and in part by harnessing the creativity and intelligence of employees to stimulate innovation in pursuit of market share.

That's why Google doesn't hire Mexican illegals standing around on street corners looking for day work. They hold competitions, and create innovative tests to ferret out the best and brightest and bring them into the company fold where they will be assets to the company rather than liabilities.

Of course people are different in ability and intelligence, but none of that correlates with the accident of birth, in terms of the social class one is born into. Let abilities shine forth, not simply the luck of being born to privilege.

I'm all for that, but that requires that abilities exist in the first place. Moreover, it's not a zero-sum game. Paris Hilton is rich as fuck and as useless in business to the Hilton family as the lump on her twat. She's not taking anyone's place in the Hilton corporation, and anybody who has the ability and can prove it to the Hilton corporation will be welcome and will have all the position and privilege that comes with competence and excellence.

Donald Trump's kids on the other hand are canny businesspeople who will be successful in their own right precisely because Donald Trump DID NOT allow them to live the lifestyle of the idle rich. They have to work for their livings, and when Trump dies, they get NOTHING from him. Yes, they enjoyed the ability to get a good education and the contacts that The Donald provides, but they are succeeding because they are able and competent, unlike Paris Hilton.

But if they fucked around like Paris Hilton does, The Donald would cut them off and fire them without a second's hesitation and hire some driven genius from the barrio who's lived without shoes for half his life to do their jobs, if she/he has ability to do so.

Under Marxism, the boy or girl from the barrio would never, ever have the opportunity or chance to rise in the world because Marxism is all about creating classes and keeping the lower ones in their place. Much more so than capitalism ever has.

[Blind groper]

I have seen programs come and go, intended to lift welfare beneficiaries out of poverty and into the work force. Most fail miserably, and the few that achieve anything tend to work only for a minority of the beneficiaries.

We need to get out of the simplistic thinking mode, and look a little deeper. The sad fact is that a lot of welfare beneficiaries are incapable of making the change to becoming productive workers. There are many reasons for this, ranging from drug addiction, to family background, to cultural, to gang memberships etc.

Just suggesting that the idea that we can somehow wave a magic wand and put everyone into paid work simply is not going to work. Perhaps some programs can reduce the number of beneficiaries by a small percentage, but there is not likely to be any gain much more than that.

Worse, if we use truly draconian tactics to try to force people to work, or else starve, they will simply turn to crime, and society will face enormous damage from burglaries etc.

I have pointed out before that holding someone in prison, at a cost to the taxpayer of $ 100,000 per year each, is cheap compared to that person being loose and committing crimes.

Paying a benefit to those people who are unemployable is actually cheaper than removing the benefit and suffering the crime consequences. As I have also pointed out before, this situation will only get worse, as robots and other mechanisation methods take over more and more jobs. I suspect that, in 100 years, most people will be on benefits, and being a beneficiary will lose its current stigma.

To orpheus.
I agree with you, and you expressed the point very well.

[Seth]

I have seen programs come and go, intended to lift welfare beneficiaries out of poverty and into the work force. Most fail miserably, and the few that achieve anything tend to work only for a minority of the beneficiaries.

Why is that, do you suppose? Could it be that it's more comfortable to live on the dole than to work for a living?

We need to get out of the simplistic thinking mode, and look a little deeper. The sad fact is that a lot of welfare beneficiaries are incapable of making the change to becoming productive workers. There are many reasons for this, ranging from drug addiction, to family background, to cultural, to gang memberships etc.

All of which are exacerbated (and many flatly created) by dependence on government largess.

Just suggesting that the idea that we can somehow wave a magic wand and put everyone into paid work simply is not going to work. Perhaps some programs can reduce the number of beneficiaries by a small percentage, but there is not likely to be any gain much more than that.

Nobody said it was easy. It's not. But just giving the dependent class money so that they don't have to "suffer" the indignities of poverty doesn't help at all, and in fact demonstrably makes things much, much worse...on a generational scale.

Worse, if we use truly draconian tactics to try to force people to work, or else starve, they will simply turn to crime, and society will face enormous damage from burglaries etc.

There are middle grounds.

I have pointed out before that holding someone in prison, at a cost to the taxpayer of $ 100,000 per year each, is cheap compared to that person being loose and committing crimes.

Not really. Of course eliminating habitual criminals from society works even better and is even cheaper.

Paying a benefit to those people who are unemployable is actually cheaper than removing the benefit and suffering the crime consequences.

Try to distinguish between "unemployable" and "unemployed by choice" okay? If you manage that, you might actually get a clue.

As I have also pointed out before, this situation will only get worse, as robots and other mechanisation methods take over more and more jobs. I suspect that, in 100 years, most people will be on benefits, and being a beneficiary will lose its current stigma.

Wrong. Robots merely free up human labor to do other things that robots can't do.