Someone once told me, after this someone contemplated the buying of a sporting event ticket to scalp (sell) it at a profit of twice its "face value" and after me replying that this would be a "capitalist act," that "it is not capitalism if you are poor." I rolled my eyes at him. Anyone else come upon events likes these? Please share yours.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Yes. When ever I hear or read someone saying, "This crisis just illustrates the failure of capitalism and the free market..."
I throw up in my mouth a little every time.
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree." -James Madison
"If government were efficient, it would cease to exist."
ricarpe: Yes. When ever I hear or read someone saying, "This crisis just illustrates the failure of capitalism and the free market..." I throw up in my mouth a little every time.
This same person once told me, in regards to the bailouts, "they're trying to fix capitalism with more capitalism."
Daniel Muffinburg: Someone once told me, after this someone contemplated the buying of a sporting event ticket to scalp (sell) it at a profit of twice its "face value" and after me replying that this would be a "capitalist act," that "it is not capitalism if you are poor." I rolled my eyes at him. Anyone else come upon events likes these? Please share yours.
That is correct. Capitalism implies that you own capital. The poor do not.
What he is doing is arbitrage, not capitalism.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Lol whenever anyone tells me about the plight of the poor I just tell them about my father who could get out of the debt from his quite unfortunate life if the state would only stop taking away a fourth of everything that he owns, and especially if everything else that he bought was cheaper.
Stranger: That is correct. Capitalism implies that you own capital. The poor do not.
This is not always true; it does not even hold true most of the time. The poor can come to own quite a bit of capital. In any case, what the guy who responded to him implied is really that "capitalism doesn't work when you're poor."
Stranger: Daniel Muffinburg: Someone once told me, after this someone contemplated the buying of a sporting event ticket to scalp (sell) it at a profit of twice its "face value" and after me replying that this would be a "capitalist act," that "it is not capitalism if you are poor." I rolled my eyes at him. Anyone else come upon events likes these? Please share yours. That is correct. Capitalism implies that you own capital. The poor do not. What he is doing is arbitrage, not capitalism.
Then he is not poor. Or, was the money in his pocket is not capital?
Jonathan M. F. Catalán:The poor can come to own quite a bit of capital.
Such a thing would be a contradiction in terms.
Jonathan M. F. Catalán: Stranger: That is correct. Capitalism implies that you own capital. The poor do not. This is not always true; it does not even hold true most of the time. The poor can come to own quite a bit of capital. In any case, what the guy who responded to him implied is really that "capitalism doesn't work when you're poor."
Or "doesn't apply when you're poor." Shades of polylogism seeping through these types of statements.
Stranger: Such a thing would be a contradiction in terms.
How so?
Poor is kind of a relative term. Does ownership of capital make you not poor? I have never made more than $20,000 a year, well below the poverty line. About 20% of my income is eaten by taxes, though I get some of it back at the beginning of the next year. This year, I made less than $8,000 take home pay since I can only work part-time with the course load I am taking. By most standards, I am poor.
I own stock. Not much, I'll grant you, but some. Stock is capital.
So, I am a poor capitalist.
People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome. -- River Tam
I aim to misbehave. -- Malcolm Reynolds
Aster_Lacnala: Poor is kind of a relative term. Does ownership of capital make you not poor? I have never made more than $20,000 a year, well below the poverty line. About 20% of my income is eaten by taxes, though I get some of it back at the beginning of the next year. This year, I made less than $8,000 take home pay since I can only work part-time with the course load I am taking. By most standards, I am poor. I own stock. Not much, I'll grant you, but some. Stock is capital. So, I am a poor capitalist.
This is what Stranger needs to clarify. Is it not poor if all you have $20 in your pocket? If this is so, then no one is poor. But this is obviously not how the guy I was talking to is was defining "poor."
You might not be a capitalist if you are not investing capital in the strictest of definitions, but the term used was not capitalist but capitalism. Just because you are not investing capital does not mean that "it's not capitalism".
Aster_Lacnala: I own stock. Not much, I'll grant you, but some. Stock is capital. So, I am a poor capitalist.
You own assets, but you don't really control capital. You can't direct how your investment will be used. That makes you more middle class than capitalist.
a Phd in history told me that capitalism was the act of enriching business while socialism was the act of making incomes equal.
She's a professor.
fakename: a Phd in history told me that capitalism was the act of enriching business while socialism was the act of making incomes equal. She's a professor.
Historians are just the greatest at economics & political theory aren't they?
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Stranger: Aster_Lacnala: I own stock. Not much, I'll grant you, but some. Stock is capital. So, I am a poor capitalist. You own assets, but you don't really control capital. You can't direct how your investment will be used. That makes you more middle class than capitalist.
So no one is truely a capitalist since there is a plethora of regulations and laws that dictate how capital may be used.
fakename:She's a professor.
Daniel Muffinburg: So no one is truely a capitalist since there is a plethora of regulations and laws that dictate how capital may be used.
This sounds like enlightenment.
Stranger: Daniel Muffinburg: So no one is truely a capitalist since there is a plethora of regulations and laws that dictate how capital may be used. This sounds like enlightenment.
It also sounds like you using your definition in the wrong context.
Communism works in theory, not in practice...
Snowflake: Communism works in theory, not in practice...
I'm not sure if it even works in theory.
Jonathan M. F. Catalán:I'm not sure if it even works in theory.
It doesn't.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Thats why its a larf :P
Jonathan M. F. Catalán: Snowflake: Communism works in theory, not in practice... I'm not sure if it even works in theory.
It doesn't. My saying is "If your theory doesn't work in practice, your theory is wrong" :)
Dog bites man story. You said it yourself. She's a professor.
Giant_Joe:It doesn't. My saying is "If your theory doesn't work in practice, your theory is wrong"
Does libertarianism works in practice and where in the world can you show example of working libertarianism?
Manic: Giant_Joe:It doesn't. My saying is "If your theory doesn't work in practice, your theory is wrong" Does libertarianism works in practice and where in the world can you show example of working libertarianism?
Hong Kong vs China
America vs Mexico
Western Europe vs Eastern Europe (although maybe not so much anymore)
Etc...
Seph: Hong Kong vs China America vs Mexico Western Europe vs Eastern Europe (although maybe not so much anymore)
So USA, Hong-Kong, Western Europe are libertarians ideals? I don't think so.Is goverment bailing out failed market libertarian? Is wellfare state libertarian? Is monetary monopoly libertarian? Central banking? Etc ...
All of the nations he stated were far more libertarian in nature than the antitheses of those nations. 3 might not be equal to 1 but it is far closer to 1 and than 9.... And America was libertarian at the beggining of its history, and although this has been changing in recent years, alot of the more moderate libertarians are pro central banking
so the shirt on my back that might take part in a worthwhile trade to me someday in the future isn't capital?
Ahh yes, those claims you here that are just so revolting you want to puncture your ear drums. One that kills me is "The New Deal fixed the depression caused by laissez-faire policies."
I think this one causes internal bleeding, not sure.
You know, come to think of it, this would lead to a very interesting conclusion.
Capitalism, by this definition, excludes the poor from its numbers.
Therefore, socialism and communism (let's combine both terms under the word "socialism" for now), being the antitheses, of capitalism would mean that it excluded everyone that capitalism included. Therefore its not socialism if you are fairly well off, wealthy, or rich (let us combine the terms within the term "wealthy"). Applying this logic would result in a wide variety of extremly strange conclusions, the most important of which would be that all of socialism's most important figures would not actually be socialists, because all of them were at least fairly well off when they were in office, indeed anyone today who isn't poor cannot take part in a socialist activity and cannot be a socialist, just as the poor person cannot be a capitalist. This would mean that everyone from Marx onward was not a socailist.
Indeed this would also mean that by definition all people in a socialist society would need to be poor in a socialist socierty in order for it to be socialist, however poor is a relative term, and if everyone were or relativly so, there could be no rich, nor poor, merly well off, but socialist activities are not socialist activities if the participants aren't poor, and so by definition there would have to be people wealthier in the world in order for a socialist society to exist, and in comparison to these rich people everyone else must be poor.
Are there any flaws in this statment? Because if not this is possibly the greatest counter argument to the original statment ever.