Why Free Markets, Contracts, and Private Property Are a Joke - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

All general discussion about politics that doesn't belong in any of the other forums.

Moderator: PoFo Political Circus Mods

#15207411
The title is literal, not figurative, here.

Literally, capitalism is predicated on suspense. It's predicated on the manipulation not of money, but of minds. The idea of profit is truly based on how much information you can get out of others while minimizing your own revelation. It's from here that humor is key.

Humor is how people disguise information, encrypt information, destabilize information, and test others' resilience and familiarity with information. It's how people test for inside information. This especially applies not just in advertising, public relations, and human resources, but in the law.

In essence, this is why progressivism is correct. Progressives understand how the State is a business. Lawyering is a business. Courts are a business. That business will never be abolished because it won't pay for its self-destruction. Regulation isn't really about social program redistributive justice. It's about the usage of humor to handle language arts so legal codes allow lawyers to make as much money as possible by representing clients.

(For more details, read this: https://www.amazon.com/White-Shoe-Lawyers-Business-American/dp/1524743259 )

To be clear, I'm not saying progressivism is ethical. I'm simply saying progressives understand something most other people get cognitive dissonance about. Libertarians are obsessed with the economic consequences of regulation. Conservatives either go all out in manipulating legal regulation in local and state governments or get caught up in social policies that they're too lazy to follow through upon...

...and socialists... they're just utopian. You're never going to get rid of the business of legal apparatus. The working class revolution always becomes a deformed or degenerated worker's state. The very nature of democracy begets bureaucracy to find representation in communication. When you have so many people that people can't keep track of each other, some have to come before others when it comes to getting a say.

The future of politics has been shown to us already through memes. Whoever's the most funny controls the law. Whoever controls the law controls business.

To be fair, I don't think the future is bright because of this. I think there will be a dark age by the end of my parents' lives in 25-30 years. Humor isn't productive. It's a literal waste, but people don't care because humor is a distraction from caring.

I think that dark age will be a literal dystopia where unfunny people become actually tormented more than today.

It will take a few generations at least of that torment to go out of control before people realize humor has its place. It's really not a healthy defense mechanism I'm itself. Some forms are sublime. Other forms are dissociating.

When civilization stops dissociating, it will realize sublime discipline must be mandated, not volunteered, and it will realize how the common sense needed to define taste is not a matter of opinion even if different opinions agree on different tastes.

I don't think humanity is doomed to fall into an endless abyss of progressive capitalist humor because eventually, the consequences of that fall start to make people think even if they don't want to. It just takes an extremely long fall for it to happen. It happens because people realize they can't make anymore excuses to excuse humor whether in blaming race, sex, class, or mocking honesty, intellect, or physique. There comes a point when kids becomes adults and can't complain to Mommy and Daddy anymore about how they're hungry.

South Africa is the perfect example of this. The ANC keeps blaming others and letting crime run amok. Now, the former progressive Democratic Alliance is realizing it needs to change or it will literally die because humor doesn't put food on the table.
#15207495
XDU wrote:
...and socialists... they're just utopian. You're never going to get rid of the business of legal apparatus. The working class revolution always becomes a deformed or degenerated worker's state.



*Historically* it has, but that's because of the countervailing force of Western *imperialist invasions*, which took their toll on the nascent, invaded societies.


Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


Here's my favorite 'utopian' socialist author, Wilde -- it's a very good essay, and he discusses the 'utopian' issue quite adequately:



The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else. There will be great storages of force for every city, and for every house if required, and this force man will convert into heat, light, or motion, according to his needs. Is this Utopian? A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias.



https://www.marxists.org/reference/arch ... /soul-man/



---


XDU wrote:
The very nature of democracy begets bureaucracy to find representation in communication.



You're only talking about the 'superstructure' of how society organizes itself around its productive activity -- production.


Image


---


XDU wrote:
When you have so many people that people can't keep track of each other, some have to come before others when it comes to getting a say.



You're making the process of social-organization sound *complicated*, ad-hoc, and even somewhat mysterious.

If you acknowledge income-inequality / the wealth gap, then that's the-rich-get-richer, because of their private ownership of the means of society's mass industrial production -- factories, resources, etc.


Components of Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
Image



Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
Image
#15207671
Unthinking Majority wrote:I understood 0% of the OP. I read it twice. Sorry.

That’s because you don’t have enough humour. Try reading it again while wearing a frizzy orange wig, a red nose, and big floppy shoes. It worked for me! :excited:
#15207676
Try thinking of science, law and capitalism as different parts of the same thing, the Modern Era...

If you go back to the beginnings of capitalism, in Renaissance Venice, you see sophisticated banking managing risk. This allowed a dramatic increase in shipping. The profits funded the arts and sciences. They also strengthened the government.

I think of it as a 3 legged stool, lose a leg and it falls down.

One of things that gets missed is that law creates value. No one is going to invest heavily without being able to secure the property they bought, or the industrial process they created. Law creates stability. It's wildly imperfect, but there is nothing better at the moment.

I see a lot ideas here that don't quite cut the mustard.

Let you in on a little 'secret', global problems demand global solutions. Our little brains can't handle that.
#15207678
XDU wrote:The title is literal, not figurative, here.

Literally, capitalism is predicated on suspense. It's predicated on the manipulation not of money, but of minds. The idea of profit is truly based on how much information you can get out of others while minimizing your own revelation. It's from here that humor is key.

Humor is how people disguise information, encrypt information, destabilize information, and test others' resilience and familiarity with information. It's how people test for inside information. This especially applies not just in advertising, public relations, and human resources, but in the law.

In essence, this is why progressivism is correct. Progressives understand how the State is a business. Lawyering is a business. Courts are a business. That business will never be abolished because it won't pay for its self-destruction. Regulation isn't really about social program redistributive justice. It's about the usage of humor to handle language arts so legal codes allow lawyers to make as much money as possible by representing clients.

(For more details, read this: https://www.amazon.com/White-Shoe-Lawyers-Business-American/dp/1524743259 )

To be clear, I'm not saying progressivism is ethical. I'm simply saying progressives understand something most other people get cognitive dissonance about. Libertarians are obsessed with the economic consequences of regulation. Conservatives either go all out in manipulating legal regulation in local and state governments or get caught up in social policies that they're too lazy to follow through upon...

...and socialists... they're just utopian. You're never going to get rid of the business of legal apparatus. The working class revolution always becomes a deformed or degenerated worker's state. The very nature of democracy begets bureaucracy to find representation in communication. When you have so many people that people can't keep track of each other, some have to come before others when it comes to getting a say.

The future of politics has been shown to us already through memes. Whoever's the most funny controls the law. Whoever controls the law controls business.

To be fair, I don't think the future is bright because of this. I think there will be a dark age by the end of my parents' lives in 25-30 years. Humor isn't productive. It's a literal waste, but people don't care because humor is a distraction from caring.

I think that dark age will be a literal dystopia where unfunny people become actually tormented more than today.

It will take a few generations at least of that torment to go out of control before people realize humor has its place. It's really not a healthy defense mechanism I'm itself. Some forms are sublime. Other forms are dissociating.

When civilization stops dissociating, it will realize sublime discipline must be mandated, not volunteered, and it will realize how the common sense needed to define taste is not a matter of opinion even if different opinions agree on different tastes.

I don't think humanity is doomed to fall into an endless abyss of progressive capitalist humor because eventually, the consequences of that fall start to make people think even if they don't want to. It just takes an extremely long fall for it to happen. It happens because people realize they can't make anymore excuses to excuse humor whether in blaming race, sex, class, or mocking honesty, intellect, or physique. There comes a point when kids becomes adults and can't complain to Mommy and Daddy anymore about how they're hungry.

South Africa is the perfect example of this. The ANC keeps blaming others and letting crime run amok. Now, the former progressive Democratic Alliance is realizing it needs to change or it will literally die because humor doesn't put food on the table.


a) The process that you are trying to present and keep naming different things is called social engineering.
b) Social engineering has been accepted by almost 99% of society since forever really in liberal democratic societies and beyond. So calling it a joke is weird. The only party in modern politics that are against it is perhaps Libertarians but we all know that they get 1% or less during every election in Europe or Norther America so that is that.
c) What is your solution? I don't get it? You don't like Social Engineering but what is the alternative? How do you solve the problems that we solve using it in either economic or social or any other sphere for that matter.
#15207705
JohnRawls wrote:a) The process that you are trying to present and keep naming different things is called social engineering.
b) Social engineering has been accepted by almost 99% of society since forever really in liberal democratic societies and beyond. So calling it a joke is weird. The only party in modern politics that are against it is perhaps Libertarians but we all know that they get 1% or less during every election in Europe or Norther America so that is that.
c) What is your solution? I don't get it? You don't like Social Engineering but what is the alternative? How do you solve the problems that we solve using it in either economic or social or any other sphere for that matter.


What I'm talking about is the battle of who knows who within the middle and upper class. In law, lawyers are constantly jockeying for status while negotiating over the interpretation of words which suits their benefit. They want society to practice language arts towards their talents, lifestyles, pursuits, and opportunities.

I don't really get why you believe this is social engineering which is something applied to the working class. I'm talking about the careerism that lawyers, police officers, detectives, judges, and other legal personnel have in which they refuse to serve the public unless the public entertains them with humor by which language arts become entertained.

Social engineering is more a matter of how the media influences the working class masses, but professional lawyers and other professionals don't fall for that. If anything, they want to be charmed to see if others are manipulated by the media or not. Those who seem manipulated by it are deemed hopeless.
#15207707
late wrote:Try thinking of science, law and capitalism as different parts of the same thing, the Modern Era...

If you go back to the beginnings of capitalism, in Renaissance Venice, you see sophisticated banking managing risk. This allowed a dramatic increase in shipping. The profits funded the arts and sciences. They also strengthened the government.

I think of it as a 3 legged stool, lose a leg and it falls down.

One of things that gets missed is that law creates value. No one is going to invest heavily without being able to secure the property they bought, or the industrial process they created. Law creates stability. It's wildly imperfect, but there is nothing better at the moment.

I see a lot ideas here that don't quite cut the mustard.

Let you in on a little 'secret', global problems demand global solutions. Our little brains can't handle that.


The best solution I can think of is the permanent need for a linguistic revolution in which people are constantly trying to refine language to clarify uncertain expressions instead of playing games with that uncertainty just for the fun of it.

There is always demand for new words, tones, parts of speech, syntax, etc. in order to reveal people's true intentions, but legal professionals revel in how words can be interpreted in multiple ways in order to avoid doing what ought to be done.
#15207709
ckaihatsu wrote:*Historically* it has, but that's because of the countervailing force of Western *imperialist invasions*, which took their toll on the nascent, invaded societies.


Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


Here's my favorite 'utopian' socialist author, Wilde -- it's a very good essay, and he discusses the 'utopian' issue quite adequately:







---





You're only talking about the 'superstructure' of how society organizes itself around its productive activity -- production.


Image


---





You're making the process of social-organization sound *complicated*, ad-hoc, and even somewhat mysterious.

If you acknowledge income-inequality / the wealth gap, then that's the-rich-get-richer, because of their private ownership of the means of society's mass industrial production -- factories, resources, etc.


Components of Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
Image



Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
Image


There might... MIGHT... be something to what you're saying.

Imperialism does result in some culture impacting another culture's ability to express itself.

Capitalism can become a problem when the upper class seeks to create communicative chaos so those underneath can't speak clearly with each other.

Wilde's interpretation of "utopia" there wasn't the same as what I meant. I was referring to unrealistic ridiculousness. Wilde there is referring to ambitious dreams.

Production is one area in which what I'm talking about applies. What I'm really talking about is just ordinary policework among people. The situation is complicated because when everyone's talking and using the same words to mean different things, it creates a lot of noise and not much else.

Income equality might give everyone an equal microphone, but it has the same effect as capitalists pursuing communicative chaos. It doesn't really solve the problem.
#15207719
XDU wrote:
The best solution I can think of is the permanent need for a linguistic revolution in which people are constantly trying to refine language to clarify uncertain expressions instead of playing games with that uncertainty just for the fun of it.

There is always demand for new words, tones, parts of speech, syntax, etc. in order to reveal people's true intentions, but legal professionals revel in how words can be interpreted in multiple ways in order to avoid doing what ought to be done.



It's not words, and it is not lawyers.

Most Americans are reactionaries, and that includes most Dems. You need to look at structures, zoning, the tax code, the places where people protect their interests at the expense of the public, and the country..
#15207720
XDU wrote:What I'm talking about is the battle of who knows who within the middle and upper class. In law, lawyers are constantly jockeying for status while negotiating over the interpretation of words which suits their benefit. They want society to practice language arts towards their talents, lifestyles, pursuits, and opportunities.

I don't really get why you believe this is social engineering which is something applied to the working class. I'm talking about the careerism that lawyers, police officers, detectives, judges, and other legal personnel have in which they refuse to serve the public unless the public entertains them with humor by which language arts become entertained.

Social engineering is more a matter of how the media influences the working class masses, but professional lawyers and other professionals don't fall for that. If anything, they want to be charmed to see if others are manipulated by the media or not. Those who seem manipulated by it are deemed hopeless.


Social engineering happens through laws. What is the alternative that you suggest?
#15207741
late wrote:
Try thinking of science, law and capitalism as different parts of the same thing, the Modern Era...

If you go back to the beginnings of capitalism, in Renaissance Venice, you see sophisticated banking managing risk. This allowed a dramatic increase in shipping. The profits funded the arts and sciences. They also strengthened the government.

I think of it as a 3 legged stool, lose a leg and it falls down.

One of things that gets missed is that law creates value. No one is going to invest heavily without being able to secure the property they bought, or the industrial process they created. Law creates stability. It's wildly imperfect, but there is nothing better at the moment.



Law is the capitalist superstructure to capitalism's production of *commodities* -- there could be *some* kind of social production taking place without law, but it would obviously be shitty and backward in *economic* / material terms. Law, backed by the nation-state, allows more *complexity* and sophistication in overall production, more interchanges, etc. -- a more robust and interconnected society / civilization.

But, that said, both capitalism and its laws are *woefully* outdated, and the flipside to 'law' and its economic equivalent, exchange values, are that they becomes ends of themselves -- power and private accumulations.

What *would* be better would be for society to move past its dependence on impersonal, 'hands-off' market mechanisms everywhere, with all of their focus on *exchange values*, to the detriment of actual tangible *use values*, meaning what people need goods and services *for*.

The trick here is that people's varying *needs* ('potential use values', let's say) are a different *thing* / measurement, from what it takes to *procure* those goods and/or services. This goes for *any* political economy -- I think the classic scenario is water-vs.-diamonds.

So any system that simply decrees 'one coin equals ten goats', or whatever, is just obviously *arbitrary* and may not reflect real-world quantities of goats-available and requisite material-input on the part of the individual buyer. But neither, then, does *capitalism* suffice, because it *has* to uphold a hierarchical global authority, or 'coin of the realm' as I term it, which provides the social stability -- through militarism -- for the economic system (and government, culture, etc.) to be considered the standard for everyone.

Instead of such a reliance on militaristic hierarchies of power and law, society needs to move *past* this dependence on this 'monetary' realm which is unfortunately given a life of its own, and to which we're now *all* being subsumed to, almost as badly as if we were exposed to the elements of the weather, without shelter.


late wrote:
I see a lot ideas here that don't quite cut the mustard.

Let you in on a little 'secret', global problems demand global solutions. Our little brains can't handle that.



My 'little brain' handled it, and here's the solution:


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show
Image



labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

Spoiler: show
Image


https://web.archive.org/web/20201211050 ... ?p=2889338


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

Spoiler: show
Image


https://web.archive.org/web/20201211050 ... ?p=2889338
#15207851
ckaihatsu wrote:
Address *capitalism*, please. 'Carbon credits' -- ? Really? I think a simple 'fuck you' would be more succinct. (grin)



I "address" capitalism all the time, we've had multiple discussions about that versus your whatever that is.

Not why I am responding. I hate carbon schemes, while they can work for a while, they will always fail, and they are typically designed to fail.

Carbon Tax, Carbon Tax, Carbon Tax...

Did I mention that the first real step is a Carbon Tax?

Because I wanted to be sure I mentioned how we need a Carbon Tax...
#15207855
late wrote:
I "address" capitalism all the time, we've had multiple discussions about that versus your whatever that is.

Not why I am responding. I hate carbon schemes, while they can work for a while, they will always fail, and they are typically designed to fail.

Carbon Tax, Carbon Tax, Carbon Tax...

Did I mention that the first real step is a Carbon Tax?

Because I wanted to be sure I mentioned how we need a Carbon Tax...



Oh, yeah, speaking of that, how's the 'Green New Deal' doing, or the tax on the wealthy / corporations -- ?

And when's Trump going to see the inside of a cell -- ?
#15207857
JohnRawls wrote:Social engineering happens through laws. What is the alternative that you suggest?


Society needs a permanent linguistic revolution in order to prevent some people from dominating language. We need to constantly realize the words we use to express ideas are inadequate, so we need to always seek to refine what we really mean to say. That's the problem with law. Professionals anticipate how words are going to be used in laws, when discussing laws, and discussing cases in law. We need a way to break that anticipation.

That way, we don't end up with career based law-enforcement and adjudication. Society needs to realize that the law is everyone's responsibility instead of trying to professionalize it. We need a way to hold professionals accountable when they just blatantly don't care to do their jobs.
#15207861
late wrote:It's not words, and it is not lawyers.

Most Americans are reactionaries, and that includes most Dems. You need to look at structures, zoning, the tax code, the places where people protect their interests at the expense of the public, and the country..


I really don't agree with that. Libertarianism has had an effect on America over the past couple decades where people insist on live or let live paradigms. They don't believe in mandatory attendance in institutions. They're pretty comfortable with smoking weed and gay marriage. They believe the law is something people should be paid to uphold instead of doing it for the sake of duty.

Americans are very pragmatic people who don't uphold much if any tolerance for metaphysical considerations. They love to get caught up in the moment, and love to hurt one another when nobody's watching and saying that if you have no evidence, then you have to let whoever hurt you get away with it. If you don't, then people will accuse you of things you didn't actually do and you're expected to endure insult on top of injury.

I would say that Americans are very cruel people, but not reactionary. There's an obsession with superficial charity where Americans love to give too, but they don't do it because they care. They do it because they want to give the impression that they care. There's a lot of virtue signaling, but not much virtue.
Israel-Palestinian War 2023

@skinster Hamas committed a terrorist attack(s)[…]

"Ukraine’s real losses should be counted i[…]

I would bet you have very strong feelings about DE[…]

@Rugoz A compromise with Putin is impossibl[…]