Why I support Social Darwinism
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Social Darwinism is the philosophy of true free market capitalism. It holds that the main purpose of government is to defend the nation against foreign invasion and to protect citizens and their property from criminals. It decries the payment of benefits as inculcating an attitude of 'entitlement', and thus being conducive to idleness and stupidity. It maintains the rights of property owners. It opposes laws that regulate housing, sanitation, and health conditions, together with working conditions, maximum hours and minimum wages, as interfering with those rights. It supports the freedom of individual workers to negotiate their terms of employment, rather than have them imposed by unions. It rejects the concept of a government funded school system, which places the burden of education on the taxpayer. Simply put, parents are responsible for the literacy and numeracy of their children. Should industry require specific skills in its workforce, it must meet the cost of selecting and training individuals through scholarships and apprenticeships. It rejects the concept of government funded healthcare, again placing the responsibility upon the individual to make provision for their, and their family's, health. It encourages the characteristics of industriousness, frugality, the desire to own property, and the ability to accumulate wealth, as being beneficial both to the individual and society. Social Darwinism thus ensures the evolution of civilization towards a peaceful, industrious, society, by a form of 'natural selection'.
Bob Emmett
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Bob Emmett wrote:
Why do you consider education to be a right? You have the mindset of the 'entitlement' society.
No, I do not. It's a right because educated people are in a position to be all they can be. It's the most basic of opportunities for advancement, and what makes it not just an 'attitude of entitlement', is the way that educated people are simply of more value to society. Society wins when people are educated, and gets back more than it puts in.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Paying the market rate for a given skill set is not exploitation.
Rubbish. Read a book called 'The Jungle'. It's wrong in it's basic premise ( that socialism rocks ), but it's fascinating to see how little people expected of socialism to make it better than their lot in life. If people are uneducated, and doing manual labour, there is never a shortage of workers, esp in a society where education is not a right, where people remain uneducated and easily controlled by the rich. How does the market set a fair price ? It's supply and demand. Lots of people looking for work, no labour laws, no unions, they get paid just enough to survive long enough to do some work, before being replaced by someone younger and stronger.
Bob Emmett wrote:
People are free to accept their condition or change it.
Spoken like a person who would end up at the top of the heap. Yes, it's easy to say that. In reality, it's not always true. When it's barely possible to make the money to live, working long hours, with no access to education, where is the freedom to change ?
Bob Emmett wrote:
Attaining a marketable skill set enables the negotiation of more favourable terms of employment.
Except where that skill costs money to attain and people do not have it. Taking away free education is the biggest step you can take to sentencing people to a life of poverty and no options.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Only those who, through stupidity or indolence, have to take what they are given in the employment market would be reduced to this.
The problem here could well be that you know little to nothing of history and see everyone's life through the lens of the way life is today BECAUSE of things like free education.
Bob Emmett wrote
Christian Graus wrote:
It's a right because educated people are in a position to be all they can be.
But there is no right to be the best you can be, merely an aspiration on one's own part. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are literate and numerate. That does not mean that they have to teach the children themselves. As stated, the equivalent of a Dame School is all that is required to teach the basics. Secondary education is obtained by applying for scholarships awarded by corporations. Similarly, further and higher education are provided by apprenticeships and scholarships. Scholarships and apprenticeships are awarded on assessment of aptitude and ability. The education obtained is free at point of entry, but the successful are indentured to the corporation providing the education.
Christian Graus wrote:
If people are uneducated, and doing manual labour, there is never a shortage of workers, esp in a society where education is not a right, where people remain uneducated and easily controlled by the rich.
There will always be uneducated manual labourers, and they will always be exploited, because they are not very bright.
Christian Graus wrote:
How does the market set a fair price ? It's supply and demand.
By George, he's got it!
Christian Graus wrote:
Lots of people looking for work, no labour laws, no unions, they get paid just enough to survive long enough to do some work, before being replaced by someone younger and stronger.
Reworded slightly as: Lots of people looking for work, they get paid the market rate to do it, before being replaced by someone younger with newer credentials, and it describes IT. Not many uneducated manual labourers there.
Bob Emmett
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Bob Emmett wrote:
Why do you consider education to be a right? You have the mindset of the 'entitlement' society.
No, I do not. It's a right because educated people are in a position to be all they can be. It's the most basic of opportunities for advancement, and what makes it not just an 'attitude of entitlement', is the way that educated people are simply of more value to society. Society wins when people are educated, and gets back more than it puts in.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Paying the market rate for a given skill set is not exploitation.
Rubbish. Read a book called 'The Jungle'. It's wrong in it's basic premise ( that socialism rocks ), but it's fascinating to see how little people expected of socialism to make it better than their lot in life. If people are uneducated, and doing manual labour, there is never a shortage of workers, esp in a society where education is not a right, where people remain uneducated and easily controlled by the rich. How does the market set a fair price ? It's supply and demand. Lots of people looking for work, no labour laws, no unions, they get paid just enough to survive long enough to do some work, before being replaced by someone younger and stronger.
Bob Emmett wrote:
People are free to accept their condition or change it.
Spoken like a person who would end up at the top of the heap. Yes, it's easy to say that. In reality, it's not always true. When it's barely possible to make the money to live, working long hours, with no access to education, where is the freedom to change ?
Bob Emmett wrote:
Attaining a marketable skill set enables the negotiation of more favourable terms of employment.
Except where that skill costs money to attain and people do not have it. Taking away free education is the biggest step you can take to sentencing people to a life of poverty and no options.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Only those who, through stupidity or indolence, have to take what they are given in the employment market would be reduced to this.
The problem here could well be that you know little to nothing of history and see everyone's life through the lens of the way life is today BECAUSE of things like free education.
Bob Emmett wrote
Christian Graus wrote:
Spoken like a person who would end up at the top of the heap.
An unwarranted assumption.
Christian Graus wrote:
Yes, it's easy to say that. In reality, it's not always true. When it's barely possible to make the money to live, working long hours, with no access to education, where is the freedom to change ?
Why are your scenarios always so Dickensian? We are not starting from the early 19th century, or even the early 20th century, we are starting from now. However, in reality, those with aspirations struggled to attain them. Those without, did not.
Christian Graus wrote:
Except where that skill costs money to attain and people do not have it. Taking away free education is the biggest step you can take to sentencing people to a life of poverty and no options.
But if you have the required aptitude and ability, you can obtain a scholarship or apprenticeship, education free at the point of entry.
Bob Emmett
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Bob Emmett wrote:
Why do you consider education to be a right? You have the mindset of the 'entitlement' society.
No, I do not. It's a right because educated people are in a position to be all they can be. It's the most basic of opportunities for advancement, and what makes it not just an 'attitude of entitlement', is the way that educated people are simply of more value to society. Society wins when people are educated, and gets back more than it puts in.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Paying the market rate for a given skill set is not exploitation.
Rubbish. Read a book called 'The Jungle'. It's wrong in it's basic premise ( that socialism rocks ), but it's fascinating to see how little people expected of socialism to make it better than their lot in life. If people are uneducated, and doing manual labour, there is never a shortage of workers, esp in a society where education is not a right, where people remain uneducated and easily controlled by the rich. How does the market set a fair price ? It's supply and demand. Lots of people looking for work, no labour laws, no unions, they get paid just enough to survive long enough to do some work, before being replaced by someone younger and stronger.
Bob Emmett wrote:
People are free to accept their condition or change it.
Spoken like a person who would end up at the top of the heap. Yes, it's easy to say that. In reality, it's not always true. When it's barely possible to make the money to live, working long hours, with no access to education, where is the freedom to change ?
Bob Emmett wrote:
Attaining a marketable skill set enables the negotiation of more favourable terms of employment.
Except where that skill costs money to attain and people do not have it. Taking away free education is the biggest step you can take to sentencing people to a life of poverty and no options.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Only those who, through stupidity or indolence, have to take what they are given in the employment market would be reduced to this.
The problem here could well be that you know little to nothing of history and see everyone's life through the lens of the way life is today BECAUSE of things like free education.
Bob Emmett wrote
Christian Graus wrote:
The problem here could well be that you know little to nothing of history and see everyone's life through the lens of the way life is today BECAUSE of things like free education.
It could well be, but it isn't. But, having leapt the hurdles of literacy and numeracy, as most do, education is free to those with aptitude and ability.
Christian Graus wrote:
Again, this is a fantasy for all but the few who the system would favour, and they would then judge those not given that chance in the same flippant way that you are,
Why this obsession with the 'few'? Do only an elite have aspirations, ability and aptitude? An aspiration may be to be a beauty technician, a cellist, a brain surgeon, a cook, whatever.
Christian Graus wrote:
Because it is hypocrisy to say that the state cannot act to create shared risk for provision of health services, but the private sector can,
But I didn't say that it cannot, just that in a competitive free market system, it need not - and should not.
Christian Graus wrote:
You are defining a system where the gap between the top and bottom would be ever widening and would feed on itself.
As it has been all my lifetime in 'socialist' Britain.
Christian Graus wrote:
But, that's one purpose of government, to look for the interests of all of society and to make sure that a basic safety net exists that enables people to get their basic needs met and have the time and resources ( in the form of access to education, for example ), to aspire to getting further than they are from the bottom.
And yet, there is always a bottom level that is constantly sinking, relative to the rest of society.
Bob Emmett
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:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Did you have such a boring weekend that you decided to troll?
Opacity, the new Transparency.
RichardM1 wrote:
Did you have such a boring weekend that you decided to troll?
No. It is a serious response to Captain SeeVee's post. He did not respond to a request for his concept of Social Darwinism, so I posted my concept, the working of free market capitalism, to which the term was originally applied.
Bob Emmett
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RichardM1 wrote:
Did you have such a boring weekend that you decided to troll?
No. It is a serious response to Captain SeeVee's post. He did not respond to a request for his concept of Social Darwinism, so I posted my concept, the working of free market capitalism, to which the term was originally applied.
Bob Emmett
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Christian Graus wrote:
It's a right because educated people are in a position to be all they can be.
But there is no right to be the best you can be, merely an aspiration on one's own part. Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are literate and numerate. That does not mean that they have to teach the children themselves. As stated, the equivalent of a Dame School is all that is required to teach the basics. Secondary education is obtained by applying for scholarships awarded by corporations. Similarly, further and higher education are provided by apprenticeships and scholarships. Scholarships and apprenticeships are awarded on assessment of aptitude and ability. The education obtained is free at point of entry, but the successful are indentured to the corporation providing the education.
Christian Graus wrote:
If people are uneducated, and doing manual labour, there is never a shortage of workers, esp in a society where education is not a right, where people remain uneducated and easily controlled by the rich.
There will always be uneducated manual labourers, and they will always be exploited, because they are not very bright.
Christian Graus wrote:
How does the market set a fair price ? It's supply and demand.
By George, he's got it!
Christian Graus wrote:
Lots of people looking for work, no labour laws, no unions, they get paid just enough to survive long enough to do some work, before being replaced by someone younger and stronger.
Reworded slightly as: Lots of people looking for work, they get paid the market rate to do it, before being replaced by someone younger with newer credentials, and it describes IT. Not many uneducated manual labourers there.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
But there is no right to be the best you can be, merely an aspiration on one's own part.
It's not a question of rights, it's a question of what benefits society as a whole. It benefits society for people like the Wright Brothers and Bill Gates to be able to invent and innovate. OK, not Bill Gates. You get my point.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are literate and numerate. That does not mean that they have to teach the children themselves. As stated, the equivalent of a Dame School is all that is required to teach the basics.
Well, again, you're saying that the poor cannot afford schooling, so their kids stay poor. The issue is not one of right, it's that society wins when people are educated.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Secondary education is obtained by applying for scholarships awarded by corporations. Similarly, further and higher education are provided by apprenticeships and scholarships.
So, capitalism is our friend, the companies shower us with benevolence, etc ? Why did they not do this then, before an element of socialism in government forced them to not exploit workers ?
Bob Emmett wrote:
Scholarships and apprenticeships are awarded on assessment of aptitude and ability. The education obtained is free at point of entry, but the successful are indentured to the corporation providing the education.
Ability and aptitude are not inate. They need to be nurtured. Those who cannot afford schooling will never show their ability or their aptitude,
Bob Emmett wrote:
There will always be uneducated manual labourers, and they will always be exploited, because they are not very bright.
So long as they can expect to have a roof over their head, and to be decently fed, and to not have to risk their lives at work, I have no problem with that.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Reworded slightly as: Lots of people looking for work, they get paid the market rate to do it, before being replaced by someone younger with newer credentials, and it describes IT. Not many uneducated manual labourers there.
Well, does it ? That's not my experience. I was 30 when I started and am 41 now, and my wage just keeps rising
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Christian Graus wrote:
Spoken like a person who would end up at the top of the heap.
An unwarranted assumption.
Christian Graus wrote:
Yes, it's easy to say that. In reality, it's not always true. When it's barely possible to make the money to live, working long hours, with no access to education, where is the freedom to change ?
Why are your scenarios always so Dickensian? We are not starting from the early 19th century, or even the early 20th century, we are starting from now. However, in reality, those with aspirations struggled to attain them. Those without, did not.
Christian Graus wrote:
Except where that skill costs money to attain and people do not have it. Taking away free education is the biggest step you can take to sentencing people to a life of poverty and no options.
But if you have the required aptitude and ability, you can obtain a scholarship or apprenticeship, education free at the point of entry.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
An unwarranted assumption.
I assume you are a developer, therefore educated and accustomed to making more than the average wage.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Why are your scenarios always so Dickensian? We are not starting from the early 19th century, or even the early 20th century, we are starting from now.
But, you're looking to wind back the changes in society that made it less 'Dickensian'.
Bob Emmett wrote:
However, in reality, those with aspirations struggled to attain them. Those without, did not.
I doubt many people failed to have aspirations for food and shelter.
Bob Emmett wrote:
But if you have the required aptitude and ability, you can obtain a scholarship or apprenticeship, education free at the point of entry.
Assuming such things magically exist in the absence of access to schooling.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Christian Graus wrote:
The problem here could well be that you know little to nothing of history and see everyone's life through the lens of the way life is today BECAUSE of things like free education.
It could well be, but it isn't. But, having leapt the hurdles of literacy and numeracy, as most do, education is free to those with aptitude and ability.
Christian Graus wrote:
Again, this is a fantasy for all but the few who the system would favour, and they would then judge those not given that chance in the same flippant way that you are,
Why this obsession with the 'few'? Do only an elite have aspirations, ability and aptitude? An aspiration may be to be a beauty technician, a cellist, a brain surgeon, a cook, whatever.
Christian Graus wrote:
Because it is hypocrisy to say that the state cannot act to create shared risk for provision of health services, but the private sector can,
But I didn't say that it cannot, just that in a competitive free market system, it need not - and should not.
Christian Graus wrote:
You are defining a system where the gap between the top and bottom would be ever widening and would feed on itself.
As it has been all my lifetime in 'socialist' Britain.
Christian Graus wrote:
But, that's one purpose of government, to look for the interests of all of society and to make sure that a basic safety net exists that enables people to get their basic needs met and have the time and resources ( in the form of access to education, for example ), to aspire to getting further than they are from the bottom.
And yet, there is always a bottom level that is constantly sinking, relative to the rest of society.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
Why this obsession with the 'few'?
Because the people with the most resources, without any form of government control, have the best shot at consolidating their position. The unwashed masses, most of whom you rightly say are stupid, cannot defend themselves without some form of unionisation or other gathering of resources.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Do only an elite have aspirations, ability and aptitude? An aspiration may be to be a beauty technician, a cellist, a brain surgeon, a cook, whatever.
Sure. But, even becoming a cook would be hard for a family living on the poverty line.
Bob Emmett wrote:
But I didn't say that it cannot, just that in a competitive free market system, it need not - and should not.
No reason for saying that makes any sense apart from a reasoning along the lines of 'I can take care of myself and the poor deserve to die for lack of basic health care'
Bob Emmett wrote:
As it has been all my lifetime in 'socialist' Britain.
Perhaps. Britian as I understand it is pretty screwed up, and that mostly because of too much welfare. Australia is the same. Removal of all welfare is not the answer, though.
Bob Emmett wrote:
And yet, there is always a bottom level that is constantly sinking, relative to the rest of society.
Because we give out money for free. People who are on the dole, should work for it. People who have kids and don't have a job, should not be paid for the act. These things, I agree with.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Christian Graus wrote:
why is the most efficient insurance possible, evil
Private insurance company's need to produce a profit for their shareholders. The greater the efficiency the greater the potential profits can be. And while having copious quantities of "fine print" that is incorporated within the contract, any minor deviation, or negligence or indiscretion, that you as "the customer" has that call into play such fine print. It is not unreasonable for insurance providers to have complex terms and conditions, but the failing is where you (and them) need lawyers to argue the meaning of such terms and conditions. And, of course, the lawyers for the insurance company are specialists in finding cause to not provide that for which you, the customer, thought did. But what would be reasonable is if the "fine print" was written in larger text and in plain English rather than gobbledygook that no ordinary person can hope to comprehend. Mind you, "efficient", that could be explained in other ways and not necessarily in the way above.
Christian Graus wrote:
I favour the AU system,
Yep, and I also appreciate the UK's NHS. There is private healthcare available in the UK and sometimes our NHS uses (as in purchase) such facilities as well.
Christian Graus wrote:
You guys pay a lot more than we do.
National Insurance in the UK is expensive. The monies collected from National Insurance and general taxation has, to some extent, got blurred by our Treasury. The money going into NHS maybe more or maybe less than collected from National Insurance contributions.
modified on Sunday, May 30, 2010 4:13 PM
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Private insurance company's need to produce a profit for their shareholders. The greater the efficiency the greater the potential profits can be.
Bollocks. You're living in a dream. Private insurers need to make a profit. A state run insurance, does not. That's the first point at which it is cheaper. The second is the point at which the risk is shared by more people, b/c everyone is in it. Every inefficiency that could exist in government, can equally exist in the business sector.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
But what would be reasonable is if the "fine print" was written in larger text and in plain English rather than gobbledygook that no ordinary person can hope to comprehend.
A private insurer does not have the interest that government has, in society being healthy. The clauses are designed to increase profit, not to meet people's needs.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Christian Graus wrote:
why is the most efficient insurance possible, evil
Private insurance company's need to produce a profit for their shareholders. The greater the efficiency the greater the potential profits can be. And while having copious quantities of "fine print" that is incorporated within the contract, any minor deviation, or negligence or indiscretion, that you as "the customer" has that call into play such fine print. It is not unreasonable for insurance providers to have complex terms and conditions, but the failing is where you (and them) need lawyers to argue the meaning of such terms and conditions. And, of course, the lawyers for the insurance company are specialists in finding cause to not provide that for which you, the customer, thought did. But what would be reasonable is if the "fine print" was written in larger text and in plain English rather than gobbledygook that no ordinary person can hope to comprehend. Mind you, "efficient", that could be explained in other ways and not necessarily in the way above.
Christian Graus wrote:
I favour the AU system,
Yep, and I also appreciate the UK's NHS. There is private healthcare available in the UK and sometimes our NHS uses (as in purchase) such facilities as well.
Christian Graus wrote:
You guys pay a lot more than we do.
National Insurance in the UK is expensive. The monies collected from National Insurance and general taxation has, to some extent, got blurred by our Treasury. The money going into NHS maybe more or maybe less than collected from National Insurance contributions.
modified on Sunday, May 30, 2010 4:13 PM
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Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Private insurance company's need to produce a profit for their shareholders. The greater the efficiency the greater the potential profits can be.
Bollocks. You're living in a dream. Private insurers need to make a profit. A state run insurance, does not. That's the first point at which it is cheaper. The second is the point at which the risk is shared by more people, b/c everyone is in it. Every inefficiency that could exist in government, can equally exist in the business sector.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
But what would be reasonable is if the "fine print" was written in larger text and in plain English rather than gobbledygook that no ordinary person can hope to comprehend.
A private insurer does not have the interest that government has, in society being healthy. The clauses are designed to increase profit, not to meet people's needs.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
Christian Graus wrote:
Every inefficiency that could exist in government, can equally exist in the business sector.
Not unless the private insurer is acting as though they are a monopoly. In the business sector, the inefficiency of dead wood is not usually tolerated, and chopped out, otherwise it affect the bottom line.
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RichardM1 wrote:
Did you have such a boring weekend that you decided to troll?
No. It is a serious response to Captain SeeVee's post. He did not respond to a request for his concept of Social Darwinism, so I posted my concept, the working of free market capitalism, to which the term was originally applied.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
the working of free market capitalism, to which the term was originally applied.
I thought it came from the likes of Herbert Spencer and was used to justify unbridled free market economics. It seems to be a conflation of misinterpreted Darwinism and a particular political stance. And, as GE Moore rightly pointed out, it's founded on a logic that commits the naturalistic fallacy.
Regards David R --------------------------------------------------------------- "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." - Alan Perlis The only valid measurement of code quality: WTFs/minute.
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Social Darwinism is the philosophy of true free market capitalism. It holds that the main purpose of government is to defend the nation against foreign invasion and to protect citizens and their property from criminals. It decries the payment of benefits as inculcating an attitude of 'entitlement', and thus being conducive to idleness and stupidity. It maintains the rights of property owners. It opposes laws that regulate housing, sanitation, and health conditions, together with working conditions, maximum hours and minimum wages, as interfering with those rights. It supports the freedom of individual workers to negotiate their terms of employment, rather than have them imposed by unions. It rejects the concept of a government funded school system, which places the burden of education on the taxpayer. Simply put, parents are responsible for the literacy and numeracy of their children. Should industry require specific skills in its workforce, it must meet the cost of selecting and training individuals through scholarships and apprenticeships. It rejects the concept of government funded healthcare, again placing the responsibility upon the individual to make provision for their, and their family's, health. It encourages the characteristics of industriousness, frugality, the desire to own property, and the ability to accumulate wealth, as being beneficial both to the individual and society. Social Darwinism thus ensures the evolution of civilization towards a peaceful, industrious, society, by a form of 'natural selection'.
Bob Emmett
Bob Emmett wrote:
It decries the payment of benefits as inculcating an attitude of 'entitlement', and thus being conducive to idleness and stupidity.
In theory, in practice it's the most blatant display of entitlement by those who consider themselves to be above everyone else, who are obviously simply idle and stupid, otherwise they'd be successful and have money too. Because what is there possibly that could cause someone to not be able to have money? While at the same time is used to declare that those successful people should not have to pay those stupid, idle loafers any more than a pence a day because if they were worth anything, they would have money. It's fucking asinine. Personally, I just say take the safety labels off anything short of industrial equipment. That should curb stupidity fairly quickly.
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Bob Emmett wrote:
It decries the payment of benefits as inculcating an attitude of 'entitlement', and thus being conducive to idleness and stupidity.
In theory, in practice it's the most blatant display of entitlement by those who consider themselves to be above everyone else, who are obviously simply idle and stupid, otherwise they'd be successful and have money too. Because what is there possibly that could cause someone to not be able to have money? While at the same time is used to declare that those successful people should not have to pay those stupid, idle loafers any more than a pence a day because if they were worth anything, they would have money. It's fucking asinine. Personally, I just say take the safety labels off anything short of industrial equipment. That should curb stupidity fairly quickly.
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I saw an interesting label on a bottle of English mustard yesterday, under the allergens section on the back, it stated: "This product contains mustard". :|
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
I've seen similar labels on peanut bags: "May contain traces of nuts". NO SHIT SHERLOCK? :-D
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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I've seen similar labels on peanut bags: "May contain traces of nuts". NO SHIT SHERLOCK? :-D
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
"Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion. 'It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a packet of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.'" -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Bob Emmett wrote:
But there is no right to be the best you can be, merely an aspiration on one's own part.
It's not a question of rights, it's a question of what benefits society as a whole. It benefits society for people like the Wright Brothers and Bill Gates to be able to invent and innovate. OK, not Bill Gates. You get my point.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Parents are responsible for ensuring that their children are literate and numerate. That does not mean that they have to teach the children themselves. As stated, the equivalent of a Dame School is all that is required to teach the basics.
Well, again, you're saying that the poor cannot afford schooling, so their kids stay poor. The issue is not one of right, it's that society wins when people are educated.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Secondary education is obtained by applying for scholarships awarded by corporations. Similarly, further and higher education are provided by apprenticeships and scholarships.
So, capitalism is our friend, the companies shower us with benevolence, etc ? Why did they not do this then, before an element of socialism in government forced them to not exploit workers ?
Bob Emmett wrote:
Scholarships and apprenticeships are awarded on assessment of aptitude and ability. The education obtained is free at point of entry, but the successful are indentured to the corporation providing the education.
Ability and aptitude are not inate. They need to be nurtured. Those who cannot afford schooling will never show their ability or their aptitude,
Bob Emmett wrote:
There will always be uneducated manual labourers, and they will always be exploited, because they are not very bright.
So long as they can expect to have a roof over their head, and to be decently fed, and to not have to risk their lives at work, I have no problem with that.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Reworded slightly as: Lots of people looking for work, they get paid the market rate to do it, before being replaced by someone younger with newer credentials, and it describes IT. Not many uneducated manual labourers there.
Well, does it ? That's not my experience. I was 30 when I started and am 41 now, and my wage just keeps rising
Christian Graus wrote:
It's not a question of rights, it's a question of what benefits society as a whole.
And what benefits society as a whole is the generation of wealth. Didn't the Wright brothers build bicycles and so finance their innovation in aeronautics?
Christian Graus wrote:
Well, again, you're saying that the poor cannot afford schooling, so their kids stay poor.
You are also failing to note that we are starting from 21st century - not the 19th. We now have a large number of literate and numerate pensioners capable of providing a basic education.
Christian Graus wrote:
So, capitalism is our friend, the companies shower us with benevolence, etc ? Why did they not do this then, before an element of socialism in government forced them to not exploit workers ?
Capitalism is not your friend and is not benevolent. When the need for a numerate and literate workforce became apparent, government began to provide schooling, corporations were not required to provide it themselves - other than as craft apprenticeships. Capitalism will always make use of a 'free' resource. Workers are not exploited by being offered the market rate for their skill set. Offering any more renders a company less competitive in the market place. Unions become as exploitative as corporations, damaging the country's economy.
Christian Graus wrote:
Ability and aptitude are not inate.
They are. They are revealed by circumstance. Hence Gray's contemplation of the unrealised potential among the occupants of the Country Churchyard. Some Christian Grauss inglorious here may rest. Some Bill Gates, guiltless of his Microsoft. Any chance of a programming career in 1751? Where a corporation requires skills it will nurture them. It will provide the schooling (or poach from others who have done so - hence the indenturing).
Christian Graus wrote:
So long as they can expect to have a roof over their head, and to be decently fed, and to not have to risk their lives at work, I have no problem with that.
Great, then you will be among the first to contribute to the charitable concerns that will make this so. Though, as for risking their lives at work, that is a choice they must make for themselves.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Every inefficiency that could exist in government, can equally exist in the business sector.
Not unless the private insurer is acting as though they are a monopoly. In the business sector, the inefficiency of dead wood is not usually tolerated, and chopped out, otherwise it affect the bottom line.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
n the business sector, the inefficiency of dead wood is not usually tolerated, and chopped out, otherwise it affect the bottom line.
So the story goes. But, it's not really true. So long as the business makes money, there are all sorts of reasons for inefficiencies to be allowed to exist.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Christian Graus wrote:
It's not a question of rights, it's a question of what benefits society as a whole.
And what benefits society as a whole is the generation of wealth. Didn't the Wright brothers build bicycles and so finance their innovation in aeronautics?
Christian Graus wrote:
Well, again, you're saying that the poor cannot afford schooling, so their kids stay poor.
You are also failing to note that we are starting from 21st century - not the 19th. We now have a large number of literate and numerate pensioners capable of providing a basic education.
Christian Graus wrote:
So, capitalism is our friend, the companies shower us with benevolence, etc ? Why did they not do this then, before an element of socialism in government forced them to not exploit workers ?
Capitalism is not your friend and is not benevolent. When the need for a numerate and literate workforce became apparent, government began to provide schooling, corporations were not required to provide it themselves - other than as craft apprenticeships. Capitalism will always make use of a 'free' resource. Workers are not exploited by being offered the market rate for their skill set. Offering any more renders a company less competitive in the market place. Unions become as exploitative as corporations, damaging the country's economy.
Christian Graus wrote:
Ability and aptitude are not inate.
They are. They are revealed by circumstance. Hence Gray's contemplation of the unrealised potential among the occupants of the Country Churchyard. Some Christian Grauss inglorious here may rest. Some Bill Gates, guiltless of his Microsoft. Any chance of a programming career in 1751? Where a corporation requires skills it will nurture them. It will provide the schooling (or poach from others who have done so - hence the indenturing).
Christian Graus wrote:
So long as they can expect to have a roof over their head, and to be decently fed, and to not have to risk their lives at work, I have no problem with that.
Great, then you will be among the first to contribute to the charitable concerns that will make this so. Though, as for risking their lives at work, that is a choice they must make for themselves.
Bob Emmett wrote:
And what benefits society as a whole is the generation of wealth.
Rubbish. If you remove the existence of a middle class, you remove the possibility of wide spread wealth because you remove the market for most non essential services. The generation of wealth benefits the person who is wealthy, not society as a whole.
Bob Emmett wrote:
You are also failing to note that we are starting from 21st century - not the 19th. We now have a large number of literate and numerate pensioners capable of providing a basic education.
So you're saying they will do so for free ? Or you're saying if we don't pay a pension, they'll be forced to do it for whatever money people can afford to give them ? You're also neglecting that a truly free system resulted in boys being hired to do manual work from age 8 or 9. The issue is not just finding teachers, it's that if the market is free to exploit basic labourers any way it wants to, their kids will often be co-opted in to work at an early age to help make ends meet. At the end of the day, the differences between the 21st and 19th centuries, are the result of society NOT pursuing the policies you suggest.
Bob Emmett wrote:
Workers are not exploited by being offered the market rate for their skill set. Offering any more renders a company less competitive in the market place. Unions become as exploitative as corporations, damaging the country's economy.
Well, that depends on if you believe humans have any intrinsic value or worth, or if they are merely fleshy robots, free to be exploited for the good of the system. Walmart wants to sell goods as cheap as it can. So, it wants to keep it's costs down. If they can pay as little as they like, and if people have no other options, then the price they pay will push ever downwards, until people are working for less than it costs to live. Hell, I think that's already happened. People who have more than enough money to live benefit, because they can get cheaper goods as a result. A fair society has a real, livable minimum wage, which pushes prices up at Walmart, but the people with better jobs can afford that, they are simply required to pay a price for goods that reflects the people who make it possible being paid enough to live. That is a form of socialism, but it is also fair. That is an example of how pure capitalism works to ben