I've never seen this before, thought it was pretty good

[lew]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

it is as much as anything else in capitalism's history

Stop trolling.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by lew

Stop trolling.

I'm not...give me an example of trades and industries that are inherently capitalistic...and show me the differences between that and slave ships

a group of private investors get together, decide they want X cargo taken from point A to point B, because that would make the biggest profit, and they hire a private ship owner to do it

I'm sorry I look over that and I don't see anything "uncapitalistic" about it

[motivez]

Originally Posted by lew

You're confusing capitalism with something else.

Capitalism makes the lives of the poor better off, not worse off.

Why not answer his question directly instead of ignoring it and responding with a generic response about capitalism being great?

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

hmm...im going to have to "disagree"

an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.


people both invested in slave ships, and owned them as they made money...

Uhm, I don't see any connection with capitalism and slavery. Governments can do the same thing.

Mao enslaved hundreds of millions in his time converting the country to communism.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by lew

Wrong again. Those are poor get left to work in a free society and work their way up the economic ladder or they rely on free charity.


And, amazingly enough, to liberals disdain, human charity is a much stronger and efficient force than government redistribution of wealth.

You are still avoiding the issue. You only claim that capitalism provides for more upward social mobility, something which I tend to agree with... however it is necesary that SOME people will remain poor. If you assume that there is a certain service, say a fire brigade, that brigade will set it's prices so that supply can meet demand. This results in the necesary conclusion that not everyone will be able to afford to hire the fire brigade if thier house catches fire. There are several basic services that this sort of morally questionabale situation applies to. Fire, police, medical... In a pure free market economy, those who are poor, (there will always be poor people) will not be able to afford these basic services, the access to which I consider to be a basic tenant of human dignity. I have a very basic moral problem with equating human dignity with ones abililty, or lack thereof, to pay for it.

Your answer is that these people should not be poor which is a non-answer as far as I am concerned.

[A_C_E]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

You are still avoiding the issue. You only claim that capitalism provides for more upward social mobility, something which I tend to agree with... however it is necesary that SOME people will remain poor. If you assume that there is a certain service, say a fire brigade, that brigade will set it's prices so that supply can meet demand. This results in the necesary conclusion that not everyone will be able to afford to hire the fire brigade if thier house catches fire. There are several basic services that this sort of morally questionabale situation applies to. Fire, police, medical... In a pure free market economy, those who are poor, (there will always be poor people) will not be able to afford these basic services, the access to which I consider to be a basic tenant of human dignity. I have a very basic moral problem with equating human dignity with ones abililty, or lack thereof, to pay for it.

Your answer is that these people should not be poor which is a non-answer as far as I am concerned.

His answer is simultaneously that those people should not be poor, or that the poor will have to rely on private charity.

Perhaps he envisions a paid fire department and a volunteer, charity-only fire department which rich poeple fund out of the goodness of their hearts

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Phantom

Uhm, I don't see any connection with capitalism and slavery. Governments can do the same thing.

Mao enslaved hundreds of millions in his time converting the country to communism.

So what you are saying is...since government can do anything capitalism can do...everytime something is good, it's capitalistic, and everytime it's bad, it's non-capitalistic? These are the new definitions?

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

So what you are saying is...since government can do anything capitalism can do...everytime something is good, it's capitalistic, and everytime it's bad, it's non-capitalistic? These are the new definitions?

I don't read your conclusion in my post.

My point is you have posted nothing more than the fact that slavery occurred under capitalism. I pointed out that slavery also occurred under communism - that governments can enslave persons just as corporations have.

The idea is that capitalism, communism or whatever system has nothing inherent about it that allows slavery. There inference then is that slavery comes from the individuals working the system, not the system itself.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I don't read your conclusion in my post.

My point is you have posted nothing more than the fact that slavery occurred under capitalism. I pointed out that slavery also occurred under communism - that governments can enslave persons just as corporations have.

The idea is that capitalism, communism or whatever system has nothing inherent about it that allows slavery. There inference then is that slavery comes from the individuals working the system, not the system itself.

Communism was twisted into an elitist run quasi-aristocracy, they were and are dictatorships

So yes, Dictatorships and Capitalism both engaged in slavery, does that mean you feel better?

If there is nothing inherent about slavery in capitalism, then there is nothing inherent about capitalism

the example i outlined in the above post, with the investors, is a KEY example of capitalism, however when you point to slavery in communism, that certainly isn't key at all, in fact it's directly anti-marxist, and even dictatorship don't have slavery as a prime example of how a dictarship works...it's only one variation

You can not escape the fact that slavery is simply a great and perfect example of capitalism in practice

[lew]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

His answer is simultaneously that those people should not be poor, or that the poor will have to rely on private charity.

Perhaps he envisions a paid fire department and a volunteer, charity-only fire department which rich poeple fund out of the goodness of their hearts

Apparently, you've never heard how generous the American people are when it comes to charity.

[lew]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Communism was twisted into an elitist run quasi-aristocracy, they were and are dictatorships

So yes, Dictatorships and Capitalism both engaged in slavery, does that mean you feel better?

If there is nothing inherent about slavery in capitalism, then there is nothing inherent about capitalism

the example i outlined in the above post, with the investors, is a KEY example of capitalism, however when you point to slavery in communism, that certainly isn't key at all, in fact it's directly anti-marxist, and even dictatorship don't have slavery as a prime example of how a dictarship works...it's only one variation

You can not escape the fact that slavery is simply a great and perfect example of capitalism in practice

No, it is not. Slavery can be very inefficient economically, which is why the whole mess was being done away with all over the place in the 19th century.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by lew

No, it is not. Slavery can be very inefficient economically, which is why the whole mess was being done away with all over the place in the 19th century.

Investors and traders made a shit ton money doing the trade...and slave owners in the caribbean made a ton of money working their slaves to death for tons of sugar, infact they figured the most profitable way was to work them to death and get new ones

Slavery got shut down because the governments of what you today would consider tyrannicaly regimes such as the English Empire thought it was an abomination, and they stuck their nose into morality, into business, and regulated the market by screwing up the slave trade

In the US, who shut down slavery...was it capitalism, or that evil statist lincoln and his Republican Party's 13th amendment?

If I was a capitalist during the 1600s, the most capitalistic thing I could do was to be involved in the slave trade

Again, if slavery is not inherently capitalistic, nothing is

[A_C_E]

Thorgrim is right, slavery is inherently capitalistic.

It involves the buying and selling of property and labor, which is a basic tenet of capitalism.

Just depends on what you would consider to be property But the buy/sell aspect is definitely capitalistic

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

Thorgrim is right, slavery is inherently capitalistic.

It involves the buying and selling of property and labor, which is a basic tenet of capitalism.

Just depends on what you would consider to be property But the buy/sell aspect is definitely capitalistic

I've always heard the arguement that such a free market system requires properly defined and strictly enforced property rights. If you assume that you are your own property, slavery becomes a violation of property rights.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

If there is nothing inherent about slavery in capitalism, then there is nothing inherent about capitalism

I know we're in the speakeasy, but wtf?

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

Thorgrim is right, slavery is inherently capitalistic.

It involves the buying and selling of property and labor, which is a basic tenet of capitalism.

Just depends on what you would consider to be property But the buy/sell aspect is definitely capitalistic

Isn't there going to be management of capital and labor in ANY system?

Someone is going to control it, whether it be individuals themselves, governments, corporations etc. Nobody has posted anything to suggest one manager of resources is more likely to engage in slavery than any other.

I think we can all post examples of any manager of labor taking advantage of their position to enslave others, can't we?

[lew]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I've always heard the arguement that such a free market system requires properly defined and strictly enforced property rights. If you assume that you are your own property, slavery becomes a violation of property rights.

Exactly.

[lew]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

Thorgrim is right, slavery is inherently capitalistic.

It involves the buying and selling of property and labor, which is a basic tenet of capitalism.

Just depends on what you would consider to be property But the buy/sell aspect is definitely capitalistic

No, slavery is not inherently capitalistic - especially since slavery existed before capitalism.

[lew]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Investors and traders made a shit ton money doing the trade...and slave owners in the caribbean made a ton of money working their slaves to death for tons of sugar, infact they figured the most profitable way was to work them to death and get new ones

Slavery got shut down because the governments of what you today would consider tyrannicaly regimes such as the English Empire thought it was an abomination, and they stuck their nose into morality, into business, and regulated the market by screwing up the slave trade

In the US, who shut down slavery...was it capitalism, or that evil statist lincoln and his Republican Party's 13th amendment?

If I was a capitalist during the 1600s, the most capitalistic thing I could do was to be involved in the slave trade

Again, if slavery is not inherently capitalistic, nothing is

As usual, you don't know what you are talking about.

Slavery was phased out of numerous countries for various reasons in the 19th Century, including economic reasons.

The most prominent being the abolitionist movement and of governments coming under the realization that property is an inherent right within all of us. There is nothing tyrannical about a government coming to this realization and enforcing those natural rights.


There is, however, something tyrannical about a government going to war against its own citizens for mercantilistic reasons and for increasing the power of the centralized stated, all while then claiming it was all about slavery.