Is it a crime to amass a lot of riches?

The definition provided by Encyclopeadia Britannica is wrong?

Provide a link to your definition of Market Socialism.

 

The idea that you can understand soicialist political ecojomy with a simple definition is ignorant. Look up post-Hayekian market socialism (and then compare it with the other forms from the socialist calculation debate onwards)

 

Can't answer the question, so you try to change it.

Post your links (links, available to all), and we'll see if you can defend you position on your terms.

 

I'm not your librarian (and quite frankly I lost interest in your rattle when you suggested that we could use a dictionary definition to understand political economy). Google post-Hayekian market socialism

 

I didn't use a dictionary to understand political economy, I used it to understand a term you used (I also looked at other sources - all said the same thing). Once again, your useage of the term has nothing tod with the definition. On reflection, I have yet to find your use of an economic term agree with the terms definition.

Rather than accuse you of stringing together economic terms, only to sound impressive (not because you understand them), I have given you the opportunity to pick your link.

You can go into your usual derogatory rant, or you can show that you really do understand economics - your call.



Now, I wait for the rant......

 

I always get a kick out of the people that say what made this country the wealthiest country in the world has failed. We are still an economic powerhouse but those that think capitalism has failed are quickly turning success into failure by trying to turn this country into another Greece where people are so dependent on government they would rather commit suicide than face the truth. Only hard work and the entrepreneurial spirit will keep it going, government cannot.

 

Egalitarians, though they claim to be the sort who rely on reason, can never objectively define what is "too much." The purpose of criminalizing wealth is to stir up class envy and empower those who govern to capture by force what they could never earn for themselves.

The people who believe that anyone can earn too mich wealth are simply useful idiots for those who benefit from class warfare.

 

Yeah I wouldn't say capitalism has failed as such, but America's administration and most of us screwed up in the 80's with the culture of deregulation and sub-prime loans crooked investment banking, fraudulant mortgage lending and collective burying of heads in the sand. I've seen it happen in business, just because people "know" about these things doesn't mean they act rationally. Time after time Greenspan and co fought against regulation. An unregulated capitalist system open doors for a select few to play massive games with huge sums of money, and while the economy crashes and people lose their jobs and homes those select few walk away with obscene amounts of cash. The 80's saw the dawn of madness and excess, the decline of production and increase on focus in "financial products". And a lot of this activity has be outed as illegal. But I think it's a fair assumption to say that greed has come into the maintaning of that culture and still the defence against systems, or even policies which one look to regulate the monetary system and put strick guidlines for banks and conglomerates to work within. The most powerful men in the world don't seem to care enough about wealth divides and are quite happy to exploit workers where possible. Greece is a classic example of workers being exploited and the public feeling the financial bite due to governmental shortcomings. There was this rather sickening idea going around that the country was lazy which was simply not true, Greeks in fact work longer hours and retire later than Germans for example.

Whatever political rhetoric or system we choose to use I believe wealth should be redistributed more equally. Workers rights should be defended, banks should not be bailed out, if they fail they fail.

 

Because Capitalism has produced a very firmly entrenched status quo and because it's easier to exploit capitalism.

 

Easier for who to exploit Capitalism? Those that exploit are just as capable of entering government as they are becoming corporate executives.

 

Those against redistribution are effectively in favour of class divides and the elimination of economic choice. There are alot of pretend libertarians that fall into that camp, being nothing more than right wingers looking for an exotic label

 

Egalitarians are relativists and thus none of their 'principles' are well founded.

From what I've been observing egalitarians are not a far step from authoritarianism, just not a conservative kind.

 

That makes no sense. Egalitarianism, for example, can just refer to equality of opprotunity. Those that sneer against it are often the enemy of individualism

 

Makes no sense? ROTFL

Egalitarianism is not a natural state, so government requires power to enforce equality. The same level of power required for authoritarianism.

 

Try reading before responding. Egalitarianism can refer to equality of opportunity and therefore the authoritarianism tag doesn't fit!

 

For someone that claims to base their economics on reality, you leave it far behind when it doesn't fit your bias.

Even limiting the assumption that Egalitarianism only refers to equality of opportunity, hasn't the government used power to achieve that end?

In the real world, how often is the left satisfied with only equality of opportunity?

 

When someone refuses to share resources with someone else, therefore hoarding opportunity, how can equal opportunities be enforced without authoritarian force?

 

As I've been studying political ideology and reading John Rawls, their enforcement of their version of equality and "social justice" would not be conducive with the individual or individual freedom/liberty. It would require the government to have an interfering hand with the individual ensure social justice is upheld. How else does the egalitarian expect to enforce their ways? I didn't say that they were equal, but that they were just a step away from authoritarianism. Libertarianism and true classical liberalism requires minimal government interference.

Egalitarians are either naive or delusional. Egalitarians = relativist.

 

Occupy Wall Street is a joke. It's a bunch of spoiled white kids from the suburbs with Ipads and Iphones who have never lived in a world without air conditioning or indoor plumbing and yet somehow think they are living in "poverty."

You're still operating in that loser mentality, kid. Shake yourself free or you will spend your entire life unfulfilled. Capitalism is darwinism. It can only fail if darwinism fails. So unless you don't believe in darwinism, you need to stop rejecting the system and learn how to benefit from it. Because right now you're wasting your life in a pipe dream that is never going to happen.

 

The Rawlsian approach essentially argues that we can't compare utilities and therefore we are forced to adopt a maximin approach to a social welfare function. However, you've just made a basic error as you misrepresent the umbrella of approaches that fall under the egalitarian banner. Ignoring equality of opportunity, for example, will eliminate choice and therefore harm individualism.

No, the right wing sham that pollutes libertarianism (as a term) argues for a government result that reinforces class divides. It uses dogma to hide from inequalities of opportunity and the coercion that certainly demonstrates

Also wrong. The naivety is from those that ignore the complex relationships between equity and efficiency (and ultimately how those relationships are the result of how exchange and conflict cannot be separated)

 

The Occupy movement isn't that black and white, it's more the face of a generalized and frankly vague form of dissent which has spread throughout the world. It is the product of the attitude of the Zeitgeist movement for example. It is not one thing, 'capitalism' it is more human endeavour in general. The fact is we can do better if we took a more planetist and humanist approach. Cynical realism sneers at it because we assume this train we are on only travels one way, Occupy and others can see the cliff edge, where the bridge isn't built yet. They want to throw a spanner in the works, and get the world to rethink its direction, sure it's "pathetic" it'll "never work" nobody has a credible thesis on which to work (or maybe they do but it threatens profit margins and what not), it's full of shaggy haired "lazy" teenagers smoking weed and harking back to communism or anarchy... but the question remains.

Will our heads remain in the sands? Or will the human race realise the path we are on - as most of the brightest minds have attested - is one of complete destruction?

My guess is that heads will remain in the sand, we will continue to consume at an impossible to sustain rate, we will become further and further separated from human compassion, intellectual elitist will look at the proles as stats and nothing more, 40% of the global wealth will remain in the 1%'s hands, the global competition accompanied by however many wars waged and wars to come immunise the perpetual turning of doomsdays clogs. But hey, you can't blame the kids for dreaming. And you say that they are wasting their lives, but I know kids like that, it's not so bad, you find ways to get by, sell a bit of weed, or pills, or Ket, MDMA etc... fornicate, right the world's wrongs, it's in some ways a lot more preferable to being stuck in a soul-destroying office job. Not everyone gets the corporate world.

There's some tree huggin' hippy (*)(*)(*)(*) for you

 

And if we didn't have an authoritarian force we'd have class limitation (accentuating exploitation) and we'd have 'free riding' theft. The problem is that utopianism is used to encourage cliche that ignores economic reality.

I don't have a problem with individual choice. I therefore acknowledge the importance of egalitarianism...

 

So, you've managed to insult the people who participate in OWS but not what they are protesting against. This seems to be the standard fare when it comes to talking about OWS. Attack the protestors, ignore what they protest.

 

What if the individual chooses to hoard capital and the various other things that provide opportunity? Do you respect his individual choice?

 

One wouldn't expect equality with 'equality of opportunity'. We would expect, for example, stupidity to kick in and therefore the likes of 'capital hoarding'.