Capitalism = Imperialism = Exploitation = Slavery

discuss

The state capitalism Republicans support is all of what you described. Regulated capitalism works, because economic theories need rules and regulation.

more than humans

more than the planet

more than the truth

it is evil beyond any rationalization

it requires a substantially free resource to exploit and there are none of those left unless we return to slavery (which is what is happening now)

it only "works" when it is regulated to the point that it is no longer capitalism

has anyone read Nancy Kress? She proposes a world where the contract reigns supreme; where unfettered capitalism is reined in by fair trade contracts. That means no such thing as "salaries" with uncompensated overtime, which forces employers to either re-utilize or employ additional labor rather than making one person do the work of one and a half resources.

It means that in every human interaction some term of mutual "contractual" obligation is established and enforced, and it is a fundamental value of how society functions fairly and meets its interpersonal obligations.

I think, science fiction aside, that it's a great starting point, and a great leveler. If you pay taxes the government has a contractual obligation to deliver on its terms in fair exchange. If you pay into a system, such as social security, the government has an obligation to protect your stake in it equally. If you work for someone they have an obligation to fairly compensate you for your work, every hour, but they do NOT have any special rights to your privacy, your piss or your medical records, your credit records, or your life away from the front doors of that company in any regard, any more than you do with your plumber or electrician.

Think about every single place you can demand a fair trade for an interpersonal interaction even in an implied contract - it's quite an eye opener what we take for granted, and what we are abused by not enforcing ourselves.

I believe that a fair trade contract IS a market force though.

If an employer knows that he has to pay his employees for every hour they work, doesn't he change how he structures his balance sheet and headcount? He may pass some of that change in cost definition out through his product or service pricing, but if everyone's doing it, it's a market force. I can't predict which way it would drive product and service cost vs. income, but I suspect it would change how we view "labor" and compensation beneficially.

Similarly, having the government favor corporations and "landowners" over individuals at its extreme makes slavery a market force too.

What are our values? If we are a nation of individuals then every decision we make has to account fairly for the best interests of those individuals, and I mean living entities who require daily food and shelter, not all forms of legal entities equally.

I pay my employees a little better wage than other companies doing the same work in my area.

Because I pay a little better, I get a lot of applicants wanting to work for me and I get to choose the best ones.

Because I have better operators, we have fewer screw ups on the jobs and less down time than the other companies so I get more work. I also charge a bit more than the other companies do, but the companies that I work for are willing to pay because of higher quality work, less screw up and down time.

Right now business is booming not just for me but for everyone. I have expanded my company twice in a year. Even some smaller companies that need my services and usually hire the cheaper ones will hire my trucks if I have one loose and no one else does.

Because of how much work we have and the long hours that my operators and helpers have to put in, I have to include some bonuses and incentives to keep them happy.

All of this is possible because of an expanding market that can bear the costs.

Halliburton? Or Monopoly?

Oh, and I got Mine.

it is Patriot Wireline and Hot Shot. And yes, my little business is oil and gas related.

My dad used to run a wireline and hotshot business back in the '70s and '80s. He ultimately got killed in the oil bust bur I don't think that'll happen to you....I don't see a bust any time soon.

I understand your point. However, a universally applied fair set of rules should give no disadvantage to any competitor.

Good luck, goosenect trailers used to be a very profitable way to do the wireline work.

My dad started a small business that involves just watching gates for drilling rig moves. The ranchers down here are now insisting that all bump gates be removed when a rig move is taking place and people have to sit at those gaps to watch them.

My dad is providing those people. They are mostly older retirees. He charges the oil companies $15 an hour for each one and $15 an hour for himself to supervise. He pays the hands $10.

A few weeks ago he had one rig move that involved 20 gates. He had to put 20 gate guards out there. It was a long move so it took about 10 hours to do. He was pulling down $115 an hour that day. Jeez!

the computer you just wrote this topic on. Discuss.

It wasnt even a rich brain.

of capitalism. Why else would it have been?

None of those god damned socialists or communists invented a damned thing. Only Murikans know how to invent. Hyuk yuk!

think Communist and Socialist governments invented anything? Care to list all of these inventions by the way? I'm quite interested in comparing those to all of the inventions created in Capitalistic soceities.

Poor man.

Things do get created for things other than money.

But computers weren't one of them.

http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/
Date codd?
Kernighan Richie? Ada? . .

- state funded research, privatized, organized through central planning,
organized to calculate ballistic missile trajectories and war machines better
than other nations, C4 privatized.

Capitalism was just the cronys who cashed in on a public investment. Be disabused.

The last stage of capitalism is cannibalism and that is the stage we are now, in my opinion.
When food is so adulterated with toxic pollution it will harm fetuses, when the air is so polluted it will harm fetuses and steal the promise of realized potential from children, when corporations market products that are known to cause illness and then diversify into pharmaceutical companies that treat the illnesses they are causing - where does it go from there?

in your post? I saw no mention of humans eating humans.

Like when they arrest a guy for trying to buy some grass, and as they cuff him,
tell him he's a piece of shit, humiliate him and themselves on camera for the
vicarious shadenfreude of 40 million neo-cannibals.

I missed the part where you mentioned that the cops then ate him. Over exaggerate much?

The prison population tops 2 million, largest in the world... most of them for
drugs, we eat our own youth, we fuck them up in prison and we create a culture
of crime and degeneration on the streets of every city, where police run rogue
over privacy laws in a 50 year race to the bottom, with drugs prices cheaper and
more available than ever before. Yes, its cannabalistic, and sick to put your own
youths in prison to get raped... its degenerate.

You're right, cannibal was not my word, its degenerate and subhuman.

Over Exaggerate! ITS HUGH!111111111111111111!!

I must be a moran!!!

of what it means to "eat someone alive." Abstract thinking is your friend.

is that it's so abstract as to be mind numbingly ridiculous.

to think in abstract terms is associated with ASD. A lack of empathy is also included.

When your enemy owns all the airwaves and speaks in perfectly designed framed
soundbytes of right-speak, like "death tax", "no child left behind" and so many
other cynical syllogisms, we have only metaphor, even more abstract for the lack
of its repetitive embedded.

We've come a long way at framing the bastards since when when wars were declared
and legitimized (or not), and apologized... framing them in to the chimpy cage.
They are devious and ruthless in using every aspect of media to undermine
civil society, and we're cuffed to not being abstract. Hmmm... get real.

Abstract art sticks... "when i'm 64", "i love the smell of napalm in the morning",
"I've been waiting for you Obi Wan." Swiftboat liars manufactured a devious
fraud under the noses of people who can't comprehend "abstract".. howabout
not existing in any reality sense. My version of abstract and what drives
US popular thinking are far removed. Theirs has not a shread, not a hint of
veracity underlying. Mine, however, for all its poetic liberty, indicates how
roman we've become, how feeding muslims to lions is pretty thinkable, or dogs, or
perhaps just bullets.

before or at least during the Imperialistic phase but other than that.

The united states was founded on the principal of balance of powers,
that no single party, however corrupt, had enough influence to overthrow
the greater experiment. It was what they said, it was what they wrote,
it was what the signed. And here we discuss tyranny as if the nation
state does not exist.

Then the question, after 100 years of robber barrons and 140 years of
corporate personhood, the state has been entirely corrupted from its framing,
and the problem is that corporations were never part of the constitution,
and hence have the unchecked power to overthrow it from outside the paradigm
of its balance of powers thinking.

THe supreme court should, if it were doing its job, be the one to shut down
this excess over the constitution, excess over the people and the rule of law.
Unitary hogwash indeed!!