Stop Complaining Americans!

[Stigmata]

I don't think you guys actually grasp the realities of the situation. We're basically at pareto-optimal efficiency; this is as good as it gets for everyone (until the economy grows some more, of course). The current system may suck but it's helluva lot better than the ones we had before; feudalism, slave-centricity, pillage, etc.

This is a false generalisation and a false dichotomy. First off, we're nowhere near pareto-optimal efficiency - there are huge inefficiencies in terms of bureaucratic/operational redundancy, food spoilage due to shipping structure, nonregulated or nonorganised behaviours, profiteering over planning, and so forth, which waste resources in either the immediate or long term and plague every country in one way or another. What we have is simply what has worked well enough to keep working up to this point in time. Nothing more can be presumed about the innate qualities of capitalism. Besides which, each country's implementation of capitalist law varies widely enough to make any generalisation rather worthless.

Second, with your juxtaposition, what you've done is basically equate capitalism with "modern politico-economic structures" and non-capitalism with barbarism. Each country's and administration/dynasty/what-have-you's implementation of whichever style of rule is a) labelled by interpretation of outsiders and historians (i.e. no country is built with a mindset of "This government is going to be a dictionary-definition Constitutional Republic", and the interpretation is usually the result of a protracted "Well technically it was an x y z" debate) and b) widely variant in the way they are implemented. It's not fair at all to generalise from this.

[edit] And thirdly, many (and I would presume most) capitalist states actually implement a number of "communist" policies. Does any company or industry get a subsidy? A tariff on imported goods? A tax break? That's socialism.

I understand that you don't like CEOs getting lots of money, but I cannot understand why you think a worker deserves just as much pay, or perhaps simply more pay. Or why you think penalizing people for getting lots of money is just. Are they ill-gotten? Some, possibly. How can you judge? Sure, I'd like to see more taxes on the rich, so that we can spend more on tanks and feeding poor people. But I understand the repercussions on the economy that comes from such taxes.

It's not necessarily about workers getting as-much-or-more. I, personally, think that CEOs in many cases do deserve to earn more than their "lower-level" workers. The problem is how much more they earn. Is a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio fair? In many cases, I think I'd say yes pretty quickly. But what about a ratio of 20:1? 50:1? 200:1? That's when I start questioning whether the workers are getting their fair share. Each one is presumably hired on the pretense that their inclusion in the company will generate more value than the inclusion of one of dozens (maybe hundreds?) of other candidates. They should be rewarded for the value they've contributed.

[edit2] @dfc05: I get what you're saying, it's dangerous territory and possibly very intrusive to actually dictate a ceiling ratio of pay. But what about social regulation? If we're not going to force them to take a fair wage, we can at least make them feel extremely guilty

I also really liked the phrase "non-actionable statistic". Just wanted to say that.

 

[15357]

This is a false generalisation and a false dichotomy. First off, we're nowhere near pareto-optimal efficiency - there are huge inefficiencies in terms of bureaucratic/operational redundancy, food spoilage due to shipping structure, nonregulated or nonorganised behaviours, profiteering over planning, and so forth, which waste resources in either the immediate or long term and plague every country in one way or another. What we have is simply what has worked well enough to keep working up to this point in time. Nothing more can be presumed about the innate qualities of capitalism. Besides which, each country's implementation of capitalist law varies widely enough to make any generalisation rather worthless.

I agree that it varies widely enough, yes, and that there are wastes. But you can't make people act efficiently. Reforms will be only a short-term solution until we return to the quagmire of bureaucracy again and again, which will in the long run even out to an average efficiency that we might reasonably expect. Realistically speaking, this is probably as efficient (reforms notwithstanding) as we're going to get, until we figure out new technology that is more efficient or perhaps how to make computers make all the decisions for us.

Second, with your juxtaposition, what you've done is basically equate capitalism with "modern politico-economic structures" and non-capitalism with barbarism. Each country's and administration/dynasty/what-have-you's implementation of whichever style of rule is a) labelled by interpretation of outsiders and historians (i.e. no country is built with a mindset of "This government is going to be a dictionary-definition Constitutional Republic", and the interpretation is usually the result of a protracted "Well technically it was an x y z" debate) and b) widely variant in the way they are implemented. It's not fair at all to generalise from this.

It was more of a comment on the general term that is capitalism. Whatever policies that you may take doesn't make capitalism any less capitalistic. I dislike the idea that our economy can be transformed into socialism simply by taxing more and giving more welfare. Therefore I hate it when people refer to the current system as capitalism without realizing that whatever system they say should be is also capitalism.

I think I worded that wrong anyway.

It's not necessarily about workers getting as-much-or-more. I, personally, think that CEOs in many cases do deserve to earn more than their "lower-level" workers. The problem is how much more they earn. Is a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio fair? In many cases, I think I'd say yes pretty quickly. But what about a ratio of 20:1? 50:1? 200:1? That's when I start questioning whether the workers are getting their fair share. Each one is presumably hired on the pretense that their inclusion in the company will generate more value than the inclusion of one of dozens (maybe hundreds?) of other candidates. They should be rewarded for the value they've contributed.

But they're getting paid the amount that people are willing to pay them, and the amount that they are willing to work for. I mean, if the board of directors of a company and her shareholders believe that a CEO should be paid in the millions or nothing at all, it's entirely their choice. We can't make them pay CEOs less, or workers more. (If we take it that the workers are paid more than minimum wage)

It is also equally unfeasible that we can judge what amount of money that people deserve. They are paid what they are willing to work for, and also around the amount of their marginal productivity of labor. That should be enough, and I don't think there is anything more we can do about that.

I am completely for the notion that people should be rewarded only for productive economic actions (ie, I think short-term stockbrokers should all hang and be replaced with people who actually make long term commitments to companies with their investments) and not for actions that simply entail buying and reselling without anything produced at all.

You see that's part of the problem. Capitalism demands constant growth and constant use of resources. Burning resources like a mother****er is a great thing in capitalism. Cutting down a forest is great. You employ people to cut down all the trees, you employ people to move the trees, you employ people to make the trees into paper, you employ people to print stuff on the paper, you employ people to gather the used paper and dispose of it. But that said, cutting down all the forests in the long run is ****ing terrible idea. Capitalism demands constant consumption and last time I checked the Earth wasn't infinitely big and didn't have an infinite amount of resources to use. If we ever want to get off this rock and survive for a bit longer in space (or just survive for a bit longer here) we need to stop wasting so much shit.

But capitalists are capable of thinking long-term, even for the next 50 years or so. Take the lumber companies who chop down acres of wood a month. They plant more trees in a week than any NGO will ever plant in a decade, more than they have chopped because they know that it needs to be sustainable.

Hell, I'd say the entire goal of capitalism is to be sustainable -- because that creates infinite profits in the long run.

But more to the point. You can't stop consumption. People will spend what they earn. Consumption does not come from capitalism; capitalism is simply humanity's current answer to the question of consumption. But lets say that people do consume so much that famine, shortages, etc. overtakes us. It will forcibly end our consumption because we can no longer produce as much as we could. Wages will drop, the population will fall, until we reach the point of sustainability again.

It is not because capitalism exists that we use resources. We use resources because it makes our quality of life go up. If communism had the means and the manpower + efficiency, they would have used up resources at the same rate just simply to let people consume.

Take a can of coke. It's utterly retarded that we buy hundreds of tin cans, film them with liquid, drink the liquid and throw away the cans made of useful aluminium. Even recycling it is really stupid. Use the can once, melt it down and make it back into more cans? Retarded. We should not have so much stupid disposable packaging if we want the species to survive for as long as it can. We need to sell liquids on tap instead of in bottles and have stuff in shops in crates that we take the amount we want out of. I know this is kind of getting off the point, but it's just another problem I have with capitalism.

I don't think that's a problem of capitalism, but a problem with humanity in general. Seriously, people want the most unneeded of shit, like clothes. Who the hell needs more than 10 shirts? Etc. etc.

Of course, capitalism enables people to get the shit, but in turn it increases our happiness.

 

[dfc05]

Views on capitalism aside, did you see this infographic in particular? There are a few more out there which clearly indicate that the gap between CEO's and the average worker have been rapidly increasing over the past couple decades. This isn't just capitalism at work-- it is the result of the corruption and loopholes, which you recognize, that are driving our economy into the toilet. Billionaires are making more and more money as the average middle class makes less and less, directly due to both the lack of government interference and actual legitimate government corruption. A government in which the actual population has no say. How can you perceive stating this as "whiny?"

Yes, it is important to illustrate how many teacher's salaries could have been paid instead of inexplicable tax breaks for the ridiculously wealthy. It is a very plain, simple, direct, and easy to understand example of why and how the government is failing its citizens. Are you still going to call people whiny when we fall into another depression while the billionaires safely hold onto their enormous fortunes?

I think everyone in this thread should read this article. It's an accurate breakdown of OWS's concerns. And if you want a shorter one with an edge of comedy, read Cookie Monster's account on the issues. But for the love of god, actually read about this shit before you judge it.

Actually I've already seen/read all of those except the Cookie Monster thing. An increasing wage gap is a bad symptom but not a targetable cause. The Guardian article has good, concrete points, but if you'd actually read my post again -- I already agree with those. To clarify one last time, I agree with specific aims of the movement, but I think it's framed so poorly that it muddles the message. Two of the things needed for a successful movement are concrete goals, and appropriate framing. The former, people seemed to have rejected at the beginning (but are doing a bit better now with exception that the two things that come to my mind first when I think about OWS are not concrete goals but "We are the 99%" and Comparisons of CEO Wages to Other People's Wages). The second, in my opinion, has gotten completely screwed up with this "us vs. them, 99% vs. 1%" black-and-white mentality. Many people see things in shades of gray, and nobody likes to have other people put words in their mouths. I think the whole 99% vs. 1% message turns away moderates. "Bring back the Glass Steagall act" is an agreeable way to frame something. "Those bad people are making more money than us, they're so greedy, what about me" is not. This is why I thumbed up every point that was actionable and nearly universally agreeable, and thumbed down everything that (in my opinion) is framed really bizarrely.

As for people "not getting it" -- it's like being in a class. If a student isn't getting the point, it could be that they're not studying hard enough, or it could be that their teacher totally sucked. If people can't find the specific points of your movement on your main website because your website is intentionally vague, then you are partly at fault for our lack of understanding. Remember, you're supposed to be the ones selling your movement to us. Even that Guardian article you posted points out this problem. "I was still deeply puzzled as to why OWS, this hapless, hopeful band, would call out a violent federal response. That is, until I found out what it was that OWS actually wanted. The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy." Why is that list of specific demands not already posted on the main website? Why must we directly solicit you? Why, in late November, is a journalist of all people still frustrated and deeply puzzled? Is it really a smart idea to have such an utterly craptastic website that The Guardian and Wikipedia are better at voicing your message than you are? Should the main page really be a minute-by-minute rundown on whether people were allowed to camp in a park, instead of having a list of actionable policy targets?

In short: Think of how much better OWS could have been.

 

[Stigmata]

I agree that it varies widely enough, yes, and that there are wastes. But you can't make people act efficiently. Reforms will be only a short-term solution until we return to the quagmire of bureaucracy again and again, which will in the long run even out to an average efficiency that we might reasonably expect. Realistically speaking, this is probably as efficient (reforms notwithstanding) as we're going to get, until we figure out new technology that is more efficient or perhaps how to make computers make all the decisions for us.

Right, but this technological change isn't going to be an instantaneous paradigm shift. That rarely ever happens, regardless of context. The shifting between bureaucracy and reform is the lifecycle of politics and business, and each cycle brings changes, whether it's in the laws and policies, or people's opinions about those laws and policies (which then guide future changes etc etc). Nothing is ever as good as it's going to get. That's no excuse to be complacent.

It was more of a comment on the general term that is capitalism. Whatever policies that you may take doesn't make capitalism any less capitalistic.

That's not the point. The point is that capitalism isn't "more advanced" or "more modern" than any other style of rule, and even if it were, that wouldn't make it intrinsically better. You said that there is the current system, which "sucks", and then there is everything else, which all suck more. This is pure intellectual dishonesty. I'm not saying it's intentional or stupid or anything like that, but it's not a valid perspective.

I dislike the idea that our economy can be transformed into socialism simply by taxing more and giving more welfare. Therefore I hate it when people refer to the current system as capitalism without realizing that whatever system they say should be is also capitalism.

I think I worded that wrong anyway.

Fair enough. But you have to accept that things can change form significantly with small modifications. It's true of everything in the universe. A few percentage points of difference in the oxygen content, and we'd die of asphyxiation. A tiny bit of cyanide gets in our bodies, and our nervous systems shut down. Remove one line from a law, and its functionality is destroyed. And so on.

But they're getting paid the amount that people are willing to pay them, and the amount that they are willing to work for. I mean, if the board of directors of a company and her shareholders believe that a CEO should be paid in the millions or nothing at all, it's entirely their choice. We can't make them pay CEOs less, or workers more. (If we take it that the workers are paid more than minimum wage)

This isn't quite true, in that it's not a complete description. (Also keep in mind we're both generalising ) They get paid the amount people are willing to pay them, based on the payers' desire for a bigger share of the profits. They are willing to work for this wage, because the unemployment rate is non-zero and not having money quickly equals death. The board of directors believe a CEO should be paid millions, because the CEO and board of directors are friends and have some control over each others' employment and salary. The shareholders believe that CEO should be paid millions, because they are chasing immediate profit rather than sustainable business, and don't understand that the CEO's actions are not the complete source of that profit.

It is also equally unfeasible that we can judge what amount of money that people deserve. They are paid what they are willing to work for, and also around the amount of their marginal productivity of labor. That should be enough, and I don't think there is anything more we can do about that.

Sorry, but marginal productivity of labour? That's downright personally offensive. (Not to me, but to people who have a job :V) If their productivity is only marginal, they'd hire someone else. Secondly, it is necessarily feasible that we can judge whether a wage is fair or not. If we couldn't, we wouldn't be able to have business or wages in the first place, because nobody would be able to conceive of the idea of attribution.

I am completely for the notion that people should be rewarded only for productive economic actions (ie, I think short-term stockbrokers should all hang and be replaced with people who actually make long term commitments to companies with their investments) and not for actions that simply entail buying and reselling without anything produced at all.

Aside from the hanging, I can completely agree with you. But this is the same rationale I use to say that CEOs don't deserve such high pay ratios

But capitalists are capable of thinking long-term, even for the next 50 years or so. Take the lumber companies who chop down acres of wood a month. They plant more trees in a week than any NGO will ever plant in a decade, more than they have chopped because they know that it needs to be sustainable.

This isn't capitalism, this is regulation. Whether it's by law or by the business, it is regulation nonetheless. It doesn't take a capitalist to make something sustainable, it just takes basic intelligence and foresight.

Hell, I'd say the entire goal of capitalism is to be sustainable -- because that creates infinite profits in the long run.

This is true, but the problem is that the feedback structures in place tend to reward short-term profit over long-term planning. It's analogous to the creeping bureaucracy you mentioned earlier, in that over time sound business structures will be corrupted by the self-interested changes made by people in positions of power.

But more to the point. You can't stop consumption. People will spend what they earn. Consumption does not come from capitalism; capitalism is simply humanity's current answer to the question of consumption. But lets say that people do consume so much that famine, shortages, etc. overtakes us. It will forcibly end our consumption because we can no longer produce as much as we could. Wages will drop, the population will fall, until we reach the point of sustainability again.

It is not because capitalism exists that we use resources. We use resources because it makes our quality of life go up. If communism had the means and the manpower + efficiency, they would have used up resources at the same rate just simply to let people consume.

Nobody's saying consumption should be stopped. The problem again comes down to the feedback structures. We're at a point where resources are being used at a globally critical rate, in that the Earth's "untouched natural resource buffer" (so to speak) is now smaller than the portion of resources we consume. This means that a catastrophic change - a drought, a spoilage, a disease - cannot be recovered from in a way that allows us to sustain a similar mode of activity.

I shouldn't really go that far, I don't know if we're really past the 1:1 ratio of buffer to consumption. But it's clear that this point is being approached in many, many different industries and resource sets, and eventually - in tandem with exponential growth - we will reach a point of no return, in a very literal way. Take oil, for example. Once production and reserves plateau, and fall, we had damn well better have a solid solar and wind infrastructure to carry us through.

I don't think that's a problem of capitalism, but a problem with humanity in general. Seriously, people want the most unneeded of shit, like clothes. Who the hell needs more than 10 shirts? Etc. etc.

Of course, capitalism enables people to get the shit, but in turn it increases our happiness.

It's absolutely a problem with humanity. Capitalism is just slightly more conducive to our greed. Who the hell needs more than 10 shirts? Who the hell needs more than 10 million dollars?

 

[Sulkdodds]

I'm done ranting now but the people in Occupy Wall-street are not the 99%. They represent those who just don't know when to stop complaining

People across your country are having the shit unjustifiably beaten out of them for politically motivated campsites - for complaining, effectively - and you think there's nothing to complain about?

 

[Remus]

Seriously, people want the most unneeded of shit, like clothes. Who the hell needs more than 10 shirts?

I have over 15 t-shirts. I'm such a monster.

 

[Mr Stabby]

People across your country are having the shit unjustifiably beaten out of them for politically motivated campsites - for complaining, effectively - and you think there's nothing to complain about?

To be fair, some of them were hipsters.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Hipsters... deserve..... fair treatment.......... too..................

 

[kineaesth]

To be fair, some of them were hipsters.

You're just as clever as a button

 

[unozero]

haah this thead is funny.
First I was gonna post a rant...but this thread was actually very uplifting lol.

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Nono, do post it. I'm curious to see what the wise and almighty Unozero has to say.

 

[kazsymonds]

...God I need out of this shithole. How hard is it to move to the US or Japan or Australia? Had enough of this bloody place...

Yeah, because then your problems would be solved!

Don't let it hit you on your way out.