The End of Michael Moore

[SeattleUte]

Capitalism is extraordinarily stable, and once a country moves to it, it is very rare for that country to give it up. Marx claimed that movement from capitalism would only come through class warfare and revolution, and the very fabric of sciety would need to be rent in order to escape the pull of capitalism. Lenin thought you could skip capitalism and move directly to communism, but the communist economic model seemed to give out at about 70 years, with relatively little cost or bloodshed.

A communist model is theoretically more efficient than a capitalist one, but the decision makers in communism have to have near perfect information, and absolute discipline and control over the means of production and the labor force. There are so many assymetries of information, no human could achieve this much perfect information and discipline.

We studied a case of the wily plant manager of a soviet factory that produced nails. He was given a 5-year plan quota of a certain amount of nails. He blew his quota out of the water and produced many times more nails than he needed to. What he did was produce a nail that was tiny and useless, similar to a pin.

The soviet planners changed the criteria. Instead of bonusing plant managers by beating quantity quotas, they changed the benchmark to the weight of the nails produced. In response, this plant manager fabricated a single nail of immense size, and picked up his bonus at the end of the year.

By the way, I am not convinced capitalism requires liberty, but I'm not sure. I'm watching China closely.

3D, reading this will give you a sense of what it's like to read about 500 pages of the Kindly Ones (absent paragraphs, blocks of words). It grows on you, though; the idea is to convey the banality of evil, which KL does quite nicely here. "Planned economy" of course is a euphamism for stasi/prison camps/murder.

[RobinFinderson]

There is no such thing as capitalism just as there is no such thing as socialism. We have a world of pragmatic governments, applying 'capitalist' principles where we would get the most benefit from the good things that go with capitalism, and apllying socialist principles where we would get the most benefit from the good things that go with socialism. This is true everywhere, no?

If this is the case, then Moore probably isn't ripping apart capitalism entirely. His points are going to probably be:

1. Capitalism should not allow businesses to get so big that they undermine democratic government.

2. Capitalism needs to be regulated enough so that businesses pay the full, real cost of their business (i.e. if a company makes a widget and releases a ton of pollution, the price of cleaning up the pollution will need to be charged to the company in some way.)

3. There are some areas, like health care, where capitalism doesn't serve the best interests of the people.

SU, you should watch the film before you attempt to dismantle the argument.

[RobinFinderson]

I said that liberty requires capitalism. That I'm more sure of.

How much real liberty does a poor, uneducated man or woman with dependent children really have in America?

[falafel]

How much real liberty does a poor, uneducated man or woman with dependent children really have in America?

You're taking the argument in reverse. He didn't say that capitalism ensures liberty.

[RobinFinderson]

You're taking the argument in reverse. He didn't say that capitalism ensures liberty.

He said that liberty requires capitalism. In other words a person in a socialist country can not have liberty. I disagree. If you have food, shelter, healthcare meaningful work, and discretionary time, I think you have liberty. You may not have liberty to do everything you want, but no one has that.

[SeattleUte]

How much real liberty does a poor, uneducated man or woman with dependent children really have in America?

All I'm saying is that you can't have civil liberty absent free markets. You can't. There's not a single example to the contrary. The countries that historically have been the most humane, been at the vanguard of representative government and liberty, have had the freest markets and been most involved in global trade.

[SeattleUte]

There is no such thing as capitalism

Tell that to your friend Michael Moore.

[RobinFinderson]

All I'm saying is that you can't have civil liberty absent free markets. You can't. There's not a single example to the contrary. The countries that historically have been the most humane, been at the vanguard of representative government and liberty, have had the freest markets and been most involved in global trade.

Some of the most interesting, uninhibited artwork being made in the world today is coming out of communist China. Why?

And why does freedom of speech, a civil liberty, require a free market? I can't tell if you are making a causal link here, or if you are simply pointing out that countries with relatively free markets have also had more civil liberties.

Would it follow that the most capitalistic countries would have the most civil liberty?

[SeattleUte]

If you have food, shelter, healthcare meaningful work, and discretionary time, I think you have liberty. You may not have liberty to do everything you want, but no one has that.

You don't have liberty unless you can have a vote in selecting your leaders and say whatever you want to say without going to prison or being killed and worship or not worship as you please. Your hypothetical, which more times than not fails absent capitalism and liberty, is not liberty. Get your newspeak out of here!

[RobinFinderson]

Tell that to your friend Michael Moore.

He also calls his movie a 'love story.' Do you think it is a love story? Or do you think that maybe he is employing a couple of rhetorical tricks to make a point about some of the problems that occur when countries give too much power to corporations which then undermine democratic governance?

This is the problem when you decided to make an argument about what you think the movie is about, even though you are the least qualified person on this board (even exie has probably seen one Moore film) to comment. It is a shame, SU, after the heights you achieved yesterday in calling Mormon prophets an effeminate lot, your posts in this thread are pretty lame.

[SeattleUte]

Some of the most interesting, uninhibited artwork being made in the world today is coming out of communist China. Why?

And why does freedom of speech, a civil liberty, require a free market? I can't tell if you are making a causal link here, or if you are simply pointing out that countries with relatively free markets have also had more civil liberties.

Would it follow that the most capitalistic countries would have the most civil liberty?

The only countries that are truly free, that have representative government and freedom of speech and religion (the defining elements of liberty), are capitalist.

We need not even start comparing levels of infant mortality, pollution, deforestation, etc., in captialist vs. non-capitalist countries. But this analysis would favor capitalist countries as well.

[RobinFinderson]

You don't have liberty unless you can have a vote in selecting your leaders and say whatever you want to say without going to prison or being killed and worship or not worship as you please. Your hypothetical, which more times than not fails absent capitalism and liberty, is not liberty. Get your newspeak out of here!

BOOOOO! So what about democratic socialist countries where the vote, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are paramount, but which have far more socialized services than countries like the U.S.? You make it seem like more capitalism = more civil liberty, but that simply isn't the case.

[SeattleUte]

BOOOOO! So what about democratic socialist countries where the vote, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are paramount, but which have far more socialized services than countries like the U.S.? You make it seem like more capitalism = more civil liberty, but that simply isn't the case.

What countries are you talking about? I suspect you are overstating your case identifying many of these countries as socialist. Do they have planned economies? I doubt truly socialist countries exist anymore, the system is such an abject and universal failure. WHy do you think socialism is such a dirty word? It means (in the popular imagination) mass murder, tapped phones, and bread lines.

[RobinFinderson]

What countries are you talking about? I suspect you are overstating your case identifying many of these countries as socialist. Do they have planned economies? I doubt truly socialist countries exist anymore, the system is such an abject and universal failure. WHy do you think socialism is such a dirty word? It means (in the popular imagination) mass murder, tapped phones, and bread lines.

This is the straw man that makes your who critique of Moore's film absurd (well, the idea that you would make such a spirited argument against a film you haven't seen (and won't see) is the most absurd thing.) Do you think Moore is advocating for planned economies? If so, you are whipping a straw man.

As for specific countries, I don't think it really matters. I don't think that Moore would disagree with me when I say that there are exists no true capitalism in the world. Moore is going attack what capitalism has come to mean in the present sense, and not some theoretical idea of competition and private property. He is going to outline the problems that have resulted by giving corporations the same rights as people. He is going to show what happens when corporations get too big to fail, and when corporations exercise more influence over policy than average citizens.

You are attacking straw men here, and your arguments don't even make sense because you aren't ripping apart the Moore's points, but rather what you think they will be. Why don't you just watch the film and make an educated argument against or for what Moore actually says?

[SeattleUte]

Robin, let me remind you that the acronyms Nazi and USSR both have "socialism" in them.

How ironic that I'm saying there's no such thing as socialism any longer (becuase it's failed spectacularly worldwide) and you are saying there's no such thing as capitalism. I wonder if citizens of Western European countries and the US and Japan and even China agree with you.