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My neoliberalistic tendencies
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
The central pillars of neoliberalism are the market and the individual. The principle goal is to roll back the frontiers of the state, in the belief that unregulated market capitalism will deliver efficiency, growth and widespread prosperity. How do you feel about the following statements?
- 'private, good; public, bad'
- 'there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families'
- 'private, good; public, bad'
- 'there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families'
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I'm caught between the neo-liberal and neo-realist schools.
I think the impact of free trade currently is exaggerated. Countries still do what they want to despite the consequences to trade, ie. the Bush administration and the steel tariffs. In the future, though, say in fifty years or so, trade will have a huge impact on policy.
"private, good public, bad"
Regarding what? A little explanation is necessary here.
I'm assuming that you mean global society in the second statement. Global society exists, in a very limited way already, it's something that will grow as networks of communication and commerce grow. However, it doesn't really affect us now, does Nike's business practices in SE Asia stop you from buying their shoes? It also has virtually no effect on government's foreign policy.
By the way, I see that you're new. Usually we post our feelings on the topic when we post a question. This is a board for discussion.
Actually I am a fifteen year old student doing my GCSEs with a feverish interest in politics and current affairs, not an international relations major unluckily. So where are you at university?
'Private, good; public, bad' : I meant the liberal New Right's concern with the politics of ownership, and its preference for private enterprise over state enterprise or nationalism.
It all depends on how you look at the statemeant "private good, e.t.c.". In a capitalist society, different companies should be competing to provide the best, and also the cheapest service. However that does not seem to be happening, with corporations frequently flouting the law, and getting away with it, or being fined trivial sums of money.
Many people forget that the government has the power to remove a corporation's charter and prevent them from trading in this country.
In an ideal society the corporations would have to exist with this threat hanging over their heads, but it is a shame that they don't.
Why? Let me present a contrary argument, for the sake of it. Corporations are groups of individuals, acting together to serve common interests. Theoretically, governments do the same but on an ever larger scale. However, governments are notorious for grabbing power where they can find it. It is preferable that as much power reside as far down the 'power chain' as possible i.e. a close to the individual. Therefore, the government should have no right to inhibit the conduct of business.
Just an argument. I can see some holes in it already, but I'll take the position of Devil's Advocate if you'd care to present a rebuttal. <IMG SRC="smile.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
In each charter were a list of aims, and how long they should take to complete. Many corporations were shortlived, and created to complete a specific task, i.e.shipbuilding.
The idea of capitalism is to have many companies competing to provide the best possible service for the cheapest price, however the corporations no longer seem to be playing by the rules, and instead are monopolising. This in itself is illegal, and technically companies that hold too much power in the market can be shut down if they are not seen to be giving the customers the best deal. this is what is happening currently with Arriva, and North-Western trains, who if they don't improve will cease to exist.
A corporation's sole aim is to provide a service, and not to make a profit. This is how it was, and how it should be. If thelaws were enforced then companies such as Mc-Donalds, Microsoft e.t.c. would be prohibited from trading within Britain if they were found to be not providing a service. And the good thing is, if this did happen there isn't a thing the corporation can do about it.
Any corporation, such as Arriva that fails to improve is stripped of it's assets by the government, and the company itself is either disbanded or put under state control.
I am at the University of Southern California, which has the third oldest school of International Relations in the world. I chose it because as an American I was unlikely to get into Abersewyth (spelled wrong, i know) in Wales, which is the number 1 and because it is a pipeline into the US State Dept. Oh yeah, and it's in L.A., much warmer than NY.
<IMG SRC="biggrin.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
As to the public-private debate:
I think that each has it's advantages, but that on the whole the advantage for the greatest number of people lies with private enterprise. It gives the most efficient production and in manufacturing industries sparks innovation in technology that benefits everyone. As I was arguing with some idiot (Steelgate, or whatever his name is) in another post, despite its faults, capitalism allows for greater advancement of the human race because if rewards individual risk. If there was no reward for taking the risks that lead to discoveries, people would have taken the slow, safe path and everyone wouldn't have been able to enjoy the advances we have now.
A really imaginative argument, I know, but I think it's true.
Okay, it is true that public companies help maintain higher employment and thus give the workers the social welfare benefits, not to mention the more equal wealth distribution, but have several drawbacks. First of all, the structure of these companies, with their enlarged payrolls and limited earning ranges, limit the quick flow of labor into growing industries, as workers are unlikely to leave the jobs that they are accustomed to for another. This is especially true when you consider they will not gain a significant rise in wages by doing so either. Thus, it is harder for the country as a while to gain the diversity of industry that protects its economy from swings in the prices of export and import goods- ie. like Cuba with sugar in the 60's, oil producing countries before OPEC, etc.... If the government tries to promote diversity in its industries it runs into the difficulty of examining a complex machine like the international economy, determining the trends correctly, and shifting resources around to best take advantage of them. Why have the huge, and inevitably inefficient bureaucracy, to do this when "the invisible hand" will do it anyway?
Well, I should say that this is based on my view that the human race's end goal should be advancement of knowledge and opportunity. If the focus is minimizing social conflict, then maybe you should look at the public system.
I can't wait until Steelgate posts some obscure article to counter this. <IMG SRC="rolleyes.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Sorry about the long winded reply.
Most likely, stealgate has exhausted his repetoire of cut-and-paste sources... all of his posts are eventually identical, word for word <IMG SRC="wink.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
Also under private ownership the money made by these companies is used to make profit not used for reinvestment in the service! The capitalist are not concerned about providing the best service at the cheapest price!
Socialist Worker the alternative to the capitalist press
Way to much government control for me. No offense but it sounds a little to much like fascism to me.
Steelegate - The American Airline industry. Well lets see up and coming ValuJet has a crash determined to be from poor maintance. Suddenly they are out of busness, not because of the government but because no one will fly on them.
Just because a few things in Capitalism don't go the way they are supposed to doesn't mean Capitalism is evil.
BTW, my thoughts are 100% my own, no cutting and pasting <IMG SRC="biggrin.gif" border="0" ALT="icon">
What are you talking about?
The companies cannot charge whatever they want, if they did that they wouldn't have any customers!
Yeah, so they charge as much as they can. Big deal. Sooner or later someone always figures out a way to make their product or service cheaper and then they become a competitor and force the price down. Look at telecom companies. Ten years ago they were gouging the public and making huge profits, now the field has become very competitive because everyone wanted a piece of the pie and many are struggling to make a profit.
As for profits not being reinvested, don't be so naive. If companies didn't improve their service they would be forced out of business by people who would. To expect thatall profits would be reinvested is ridiculous because it doesn't allow for two things. First, a hedge against hard times or capital investment, and second, to give the people who risked their money to invest in the company some sort of incentive to do so. Profit for the shareholders helps us get goods and services that we wouldn't have otherwise.
For God's sake, you use a computer to post to this board. The software you use and the hardware that you run it on were made possible by people like Bill Gates, Hewlett, Packard, Steve Jobs, etc.. taking a risk.
Don't complain about capitalism without talking about its benefits when you take capitalism's products for granted.
As communists we want no private ownership of industry instead we wantr all industry placed under democratic workers control!
It is capitalism that gave rise to fascism! Not communism. In Nazi Germany the first thing that the Nazis did was crush the trade unions and the communists. The Nazi party was backed by big business by capitalists. It was capitalists who gained by the Nazis scapgoating of Germany's problems on the Jews when infact those problems were the fault of the capitalist system! It was also capitalist companies that built the concentration camps and supplied the poison gas!
Globalise Resistance the voice of the anti-capitalist movement
[ 28-03-2002: Message edited by: stealgate ]
Listen, don't bring up the relationship between fascism and capitalism without talking about the atrocities committed by Communist regimes.
The Nazi government killed 12 million of its own and subjugated citizens. Then there are the millions killed by its military campaigns.
Estimates of Stalin's the fatalities caused purges range from 30-50 million- of his OWN people.
Estimates of Mao's purges range from 40 to nearly 100 million of his OWN people.
Perhaps the most horrific would be Pol Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia, where 3 million people in that tiny country lost their lives.
Quality of life under Communist regimes: deluded fantasy.
Of course, you're not willing to bring this up...why?
I'll take capitalist oppression over fearing for my life any day.
Stealgate,
I'm sure that you truly believe in your system, I have no doubt of that. However, it is people like you, who polarize the issues, who ignore the weaknesses in their systems (and there are weaknesses in your system- anyone to tries to be somewhat OBJECTIVE can see this), who can't see both sides of the issue, you lose sight of the end goal of political movements- to make change happen.
Has one person here changed their position one bit because of your "information". No. In fact, you have driven people who might be sympathetic to your ideas further from you.
You won't win a significant number of people over by appealing to their emotions. You win converts by appealing to their logic. Trying to shock them doesn't work. Arguing without addressing the weaknesses pointed out by the other side marginalizes your argument even more.
[ 28-03-2002: Message edited by: Lexicon ]
As Tony Benn said, "The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin's Russia: it's like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain".
Also, I'd like to highlight that the regime of Pol Pot was in fact ousted by an invasion of Communist Vietnamese troops, an invasion which America opposed and condemned Vietnam for. Surely America wasn't supporting Pol Pot?!?
Well, what other examples of socialist government have there been....
France in the 80's- not really a Socialist government
Sweden presently... too small of a country, homogeneous population, small economy
I've heard the argument before, it has its points, but how something works in practice is much more valuable for analysis than how it works in theory. You could always argue that socialism always degenerates into Communism in practice because of human nature.
Big surprise that the U.S. opposed the invasion of Cambodia, it caused instability in the region. The U.S. also opposed the China-Vietnam conflict too, although it could do nothing except weaken two enemies. I fail to see your point.
Re: Ideals
Well, it does seem that we have a small point to be settled here. Someone pointed out "the idea of capitalism is..." to which Steely responded "but that doesn't happen under capitalism..."
Vox has pointed out, with the aid of Tony Benn, that we are not on sound ground if we try to equate initial principles with practical results many years down the line.
So, Steelgate, perhaps you will forgive us if we laugh our heads off when you next harp on about how wonderful "pure socialism" is. Have some sense and recognize that once implemented it would degenerate in a fashion not dissimilar to the various ways it already has done in China, the USSR and Eastern Europe. If, however, you would prefer that we accord your "pure socialism" some respect, you will reciprocate by respecting the entirely laudable ideals of "pure capitalism."
And, from there, you will see why we opt for the system that harnesses the very human self-interest that makes "pure socialism" impossible. It may not be perfect, but it works.
Socialist Worker the alternative to the capitalist press.