I have to go but I don't understand how you can be the sole judge of what happiness is for everyone - this is essentially what you're doing when you say capitalism is the only economic structure that allows for the pursuit of happiness. Happiness isn't objective and I certainly don't find it in work, especially not work done only to gain more capitol and advance me on some fucked up hierarchy.

It seems to me there's a huge contradiction in your beliefs. You think capitalism is the only economic structure that allows for the pursuit of happiness but you think that happiness has nothing to do with money. If you can't see the absurdity of that I don't know what to tell you.

What your missing is that you don't need to conform.

Capital equals options, you can use that money to help advance less fortunate, save it for future generations or be a miserly bastard and spend every penny on yourself. The point is options. There is only a hierarchy if you create one.

i don't think that's really true, capitalism is stuffed to the brim with protocols, ways in which one is expected to behave and present themselves which might seem completely natural if you've been raised with them but which at the same time are completely ridiculous and irrelevant, an image with little content. wearing suits as just a mundane example. as the 'system' gets more complex and increases its own functionality, it gets better as identifying individuals as functional or non-functional, and even pressures them into those roles. we assume that a certain percentage of the population will always be criminals and the system accommodates them, funded by the rest of the population. art and philosophy, which walk the functional/functionless divide start to get absorbed by advertising. as they do, they become more and more standardized and template based. basically we have assimilated non-conformist roles into the system, thereby essentially killing them. at that point the choice is conformity or crime.

Basically what CA said. Capitalism necessitates classes and I believe classes are in themselves evil. To me socialism is about eliminating the need for money, property and so on which are silly materialistic things anyway. It's about taking the burden off of everyone and doing things for the love of your brothers and sisters and for the craft of it - not for the material gain.

JJJ, you keep referring to people having 'worked', or even 'worked hard', and therefore being rewarded for such work. Surely how hard you work depends upon your ability. It might be easy for one person to do something, but incredibly hard for another. So therefore people who find a task more challenging get a bigger reward for completing it? In fact you can't really measure how hard something was for someone, you can sometimes measure the actual output, but even that might not be possible when the work which was carried out doesn't result in any physical or clearly quantifiable output.
Think about the amount of money someone is making, and then how that money relates to the actual benefit the persons work is contributing to the general populous. A person with a high salary is not necessarily working hard for it, they are just getting paid much. Similarly just because you are on a low salary doesn't mean you are making less of an effort, in fact the opposite of this is probably true.
Also, there was a point made earlier, I’m not sure by who, that when you earn more you get taxed more. Within scaled taxation, you get taxed the same amount on income to a certain level, and then get taxed the higher rate only on any moneys which exceed the limit at which the higher rate kicks in. Of course you are paying more tax, but again ask the question, ‘is what I’m getting paid for in accordance with what it is contributing to society?’

I'm all for socialism and wealth redistribution (of course) and that's based on different things, but most importantly because it works so well in the country I live in. However, I can see problems in America. There are of course the problems relating to how your government has spent tax-payers money. It's used to fuel wars and recently billions and billions of money has gone into the private sector to save failing companies because the economic system was failing, a crisis that has serious repercussions also in Norway although we didn't fare as bad as countries like Iceland.

However, another potential problem is a possible positive feedback feeding the rightist way of minimal government thinking. It seems a lot of people in the USA are unhappy with the government, so they don't want to give it money or for it to gain power. They vote for changes that takes control and power from the government which in turn makes the government less capable of dealing with the sort of problems a government should be able to deal with .. which again feeds back to people's malcontent with it.

I think in order to be a socialist in America, you have to be able to see not what America is, but what it can be. JJJ doesn't want to pay taxes for repairing roads because the government does a crap job at it now, but Ethan can obviously imagine a more socialist America where the government does fix potholes and people do get their tax-money back in the form of safe environments for their children, good and free education, care for the elderly and those who are sick and so on.

I feel like in Norway, tax-money does come back to you that way and the system works. That makes it easy to support the same kind of thinking and politics for America although my words may weigh less being a foreigner and all .. ;)

edit :

Of course another problem with capitalism and democracy that I also could have mentioned is that with the inequity of wealth and the formation of extreme class differences in society, you create a nation which is run by the upper crust - people who can't relate to the everyday life of the lower classes of which they govern. Then you have a government in which the interests of all the nations people are not represented, at least not by the right numbers.

The ideal classless social democracy society would not have this problem of course.

It's great when someone gets it. I hope I'm not misrepresenting anyone's view here but Tore you put it perfectly in the third paragraph.

That's exactly how I feel and how I believe Ethan and those of a similar viewpoint feel.

I trust the individual more then the government. If American government was as efficient and productive with tax revenue as Scandinavian government I'd be likely to buy into to the concept of larger government. However I've watched a consistent downward trend in that era during my lifetime.


Small exception with this. Obviously we don't not have an ideal democratic society going here, but I still believe it's possible to overcome our inadequacies and thrive within this system. As I conceded to Ethan, there is no denying the class system and the lack of relate-ability between politicians and the working middle\lower-middle class. However I certainly don't think the interests of the lower class are neglected, it's more difficult to move up then it is to stay up, but there are numerous avenues for a responsible hard working and skilled individual to achieve higher finical class status while maintaining the perspective and identity they've always had.

When a nation is comprised of some many people spread out so far from so many different ethnic, religious and ancestral backgrounds I don't know that it's possible to create and ideal situation for everyone. So my feeling has always been lets work from common ground. Reduce as many restrictions as we can that divide people, and impose as few prerequisites on people as is necessary. The less invasive a government is the less it alienates it's people.

If I understand correctly, you argue that the interests of the lower classes are looked after because some of the lower class people rise up and become part of the upper crust. They can then govern with their humble beginnings in mind. It probably does happen and I think it's good and also probably an important political strategy for those who can - promote your humble beginnings so that you can gain popularity with the lower class people who feel they can relate to you.

It probably does help quite a bit, but it's still not a system where the lowest social classes fare well enough so that they are well represented in the governing bodies. Politicians here are not always from the higher levels of society. Some of them are students, some of them are fishermen, plumbers or even race car drivers. They come from all kinds of places and careers and aside from then relating well to the people they're supposed to govern, I think it generally fits better with the idea of a democracy.

edit :

Almost forgot to reply to your point about different peoples in society. I agree it can be a really big problem in a society, perhaps especially because it can create an "us and them" mentality with people where they really feel like different groups in a nation rather than parts of a whole. One group of people can then be governed by another group of people whom they see as "them" and not "us". It's a huge problem to tackle and at least I think having a sort of basic culture which does not discriminate or divide people is perhaps the first place to start. The separation of church and state for example - it makes sense that muslims will feel slightly alienated in a country where christian values and teachings are represented everywhere, in politics, education, health care.

I'm sure many christians won't agree, but it's obviously not about christianity, just about creating a society which is more open basically.

.. And then there are other things you'd have to do to tackle it as well of course - such as getting the different groups represented in the different governing bodies.

The Hindenburg perhaps?

Wealth distribution makes astronauts as well paid as grave diggers as I understand it.

The rammifications would be horrific.

i don't quite understand what's so horrific about that scenario, since astronauts do basically nothing all day and contribute absolutely nothing to society, while grave diggers provide a very needed service.

i suppose the grave diggers would get angry?
or the astronauts?