Your perfect society

[formerly known as hf]

If Canada is not a free-market system then what is it exactly? All of the laws are based on the fact that people may enter into voluntary agreements between two people or groups of people represented by an agent.

-snip-

I agree canada is not a total free market/capatalist system is is a mixed economy, but it is still a pre-dominantly capatalist system with assumptions that it uses the free market model as a guide line if not actually using employing it as a whole.

Which is my point, and you seemed to have answered yourself.

If a little bit nitpicking, but, whilst many states (as in countries) spout hyperbole about free market economies, there exists no (ideal) free market on the planet. Such a situation, without any form of taxation, would deny the state social systems we currently enjoy. Hence the contradiction

Anyway as I have stated before, I do not think that capatalism and the free market system is the end of the line and the best economic system we can come up with. I merely think that it is currently the best system we have and as such it will be in my perfect society until humanity has come up with a better system.

I'm tempted to agree, if I put my pragmatist hat on - if only because I hate the authoritarianism that has come with the communist systems we have currently seen. I would point to the Zapatistas as an example of what I think is possible, and should be worked towards.

[Money]

Once I see a better system implemented with good results I shall whole heartedly support it. The Capatalist System shall never fully employ the entire population of the world because it puts more money into researching more efficent means of production then it does employing them. This makes it in my mind an imperfect system.

[Pie]

the only problem i have with the capatalist system is that it gives a select number of people total controll over the entire mony supply of the whole country.

"give me controll of a nations mony supply, and i care not who makes it's laws" - roschild.

(AKA, the federal bank and IRS are dumb ideas that Jackson was right in destroying.)

[SekoETC]

I was just thinking, if a person consumes then someone must produce the services and items being consumed, thus someone has work and gets paid for it. So if there is a class of people with a lot of money, they keep the society in motion just as long as they consume. The problems are when the people producing the items and services don't get paid enough to sustain themselves despite having work, or that the people with money don't consume enough to create jobs for everyone. If you buy a lot of stuff in your own country, they might have to hire more people to sell it to you, to put it on display, to take it out of cardboard boxes, but the biggest work, manufacturing, is done in China or Taiwan or India. And most of the money goes to who happens to own the chain or the brand, the investors who aren't doing anything except taking a risk with their money.

If you have enough money then you can make more money, you can even see that in KoL. If you get 4.9 million meat, you can buy a Mr. Accessory and buy an item of the month with that. Wait a year and the value has pretty much doubled, if you manage to sell the item then you can buy two new items, wait another year and you could buy four. Though what this has to do with a perfect society, nothing much.

[Tiamo]

How did those people with a lot of money get all this money? Probably by NOT spending it! So rich people have, in the past, been bad for economy!

All those products we use are manufactured in Asia because the people there are getting paid less than we would have to pay our own workers. Because of competition between companies most of the money thus saved makes up for lower prices, cheaper products, not extra profit by those companies.
In fact we profit because the workers in Asia get paid too little!

Making money out of money is indeed simple. Rich people can get richer by doing nothing, albeit not as fast as in KoL (is that a game?). The reason for this is the system of paying interest over borrowed capital. Paying interest over your loans is the basis of capitalism, and makes those who have money eventually own everything.
This is far from perfect; i even think it is intrinsically WRONG. I think people should own what they have made with their own hands (and trade this for a more diverse set of commodities), not own what OTHER people are manufacturing. Companies should be owned by the workers, not by people who happen to have a lot of money (the capitalists).

So this has a lot to do with a perfect society, Seko. Free trade, free economic competition are OK, but the reign of capitalists is not. In a perfect society we must find a different solution for ownership. And we must ban interest!

[UloDeTero]

I don't know much about Economics, but would it be beneficial to have a world-wide minimum wage? Obviously, differences in currency and local food prices, etc, would have to be taken into account. But other than that, if everyone has the same 'lower limit', surely it would remove the opportunity to exploit these people in China, etc.

[Tiamo]

I don't know much about Economics, but would it be beneficial to have a world-wide minimum wage? Obviously, differences in currency and local food prices, etc, would have to be taken into account. But other than that, if everyone has the same 'lower limit', surely it would remove the opportunity to exploit these people in China, etc.

That would be nice IF everyone would (and could, and wanted to) adhere to this rule. Currently this would not happen, not by people, not by companies and not by governments. A realistic minimum wage in China would currently be idiotic in the US, and vice-versa.
Even in my country, where the minimum wage has existed for a long, long time companies sometimes try to get around the rules by giving wages based upon production (where it would take 60 hours per week or more to reach minimum wage), or outright rip their workers off (people from Eastern Europe trying to earn some money in the richer Western European countries).

A single world currency would also be quite helpful, the Euro has already done us a LOT of good in terms of price stability and financial discipline. With a single world currency the current credit-crisis and housing crisis in the US would probably not have happened, and certainly would have hurt the US only, not all worldwide financial markets.


Equal wages for equal performances would be ideal, but this can only exist if prices of products would be equal too, and average wealth levels would not differ too much either. This is a long term goal of the GATT talks, but the richer countries are blocking progress because they want to stay richer, and poorer countries are blocking progress because free trade would mean the rich countries would buy their whole economy, ending up in neocolonialism (the capitalist problem i mentioned in my earlier post). Creating a worldwide free and fair market will be a really long-term process, taking a century or more. If it will ever be reached.
In fact the emerging markets are well on their way (wages & wealth are on the rise in India & China; Eastern Europe is already benefiting from entering the EU), other poor countries will have to follow the lead of those countries.

[Money]

The problem with enforcing a standerd currency for the entire world is the fact that many small and large countries, developed and third world countries will all be afraid of it. They will be afraid they are losing their independence and individuality. This means it seems near impossible unless the world is united into larger entities such as the EU.

[Tiamo]

I didn't say a word about enforcing. It will all have to be voluntary. Some EU-countries that didn't start with the Euro now see the benefits, and would like to join the Euro (Sweden, Denmark). The Euro already has replaced some local currencies in daily economic traffic outside the EU (Montenegro, Turkey!).
Make countries want the common currency, and it will grow.

[Money]

I realize that but it will take a very long time for the reasons listed above. Also Turkey wants to join the EU which means using the Euro makes perfext sense.

[formerly known as hf]

I don't know much about Economics, but would it be beneficial to have a world-wide minimum wage? Obviously, differences in currency and local food prices, etc, would have to be taken into account. But other than that, if everyone has the same 'lower limit', surely it would remove the opportunity to exploit these people in China, etc.

No, that wouldn't help. Even if it was set at a factor of the 'bread level' (whereby the cost of a loaf of bread, a cup of rice - or whatever the local staple is), it would cause wordlwide inflation. People who were previously in dire poverty would have more money, would have more purchasing power, which would inflate prices, which would in turn rise the minimum wage, an so on. You'd just have run away inflation.

Which, on an aside, is the reason why the UK government have refused the demands of the unions which represent the cleaners, porters etc. in the public services - they are some of the lowest piad people in the country, and have been denied a pay rise (depsite steeply rising cost of living expenses) for exactly the same arguyment - by making the poor ever so more slightly richer, you up the price of living costs for everyone and increase inflation.

Which is another reason why the current system is whack. The poorest of the poor have to stay poor for the system to function. Which is why there's a load of quibbling over a few quid for the poorest paid workers, but massive million pound bonuses in London City get ignored and hardly taxed at all. We have inflation in this country, and those who must bear the brunt 'for the good of all' are those who are already being fucked over. Now, I may be wrong - but that doesn't seem to me to be a good system at all...

[SekoETC]

I would rather work for much lower wages than have no work at all. Social security can fill the gaps, but everyone should be encouraged to get a job and taught how to find them. There should be more entry level jobs where you would be trained on the spot without having to spend years of studying something in theory, only to realize that you hate it.

When I was in high school, there was just one week of getting introduced to working life. There would've been a chance to work for another week in another place, but I had been in a library and when I asked the other library in my town if they could take me, they couldn't because they had training one day of that week. Or maybe it was just three days but anyway, they couldn't take me there for 2/3 days even though I already had some experience from the other library. So it left me with a fear of being rejected.

Still I wanted to become a librarian when I'd grow up, because that's the only job I had experienced. (I did go to my dad's job but all I was allowed to do is write down which stevedores had received work shoes and if some of them got two pairs.) But I changed my mind in upper secondary school and I wanted to become a translator. When I went to the entrance exam, I made a total fool out of myself. You see, I told them I want to translate fiction, particularly fantasy literature. Well only a few titles are translated each year so not many people get a chance to work on them. Mostly the work would be something very boring, that's what they told me, and I was disappointed. I want to find some way to use my creativity.

So anyway, the point was to say that if kids got introduced to different work environments and actually got to do some hands-on work, they would have some idea what to expect.

[formerly known as hf]

So anyway, the point was to say that if kids got introduced to different work environments and actually got to do some hands-on work, they would have some idea what to expect.

It's difficult enough getting most teenagers to engage with schooling. How would making them aware just how mind numbing, tedious, and hard real work is help this. I mean, 'Why should I bother with school work' gets even more pertinent when it's 'Why should I bother with school work when all I'm gonna do is work 9 to 5 in an office, in front of a computer?' And that's the lucky ones...

[SekoETC]

If there was more training on work places then kids who really don't want to be civilized and learn about things like how frogs develop or what different types of gravel are called could work on something that feels meaningful, just like they did a hundred years ago. It's ridiculous how much time is wasted trying to push information into the heads of children who simply do not want to learn and do not appreciate the value of education. A person cannot learn much unless they have self-motivation. And I bet a child would have better self-esteem if they were bringing income to the family rather than being a burden to society. I'm thinking about a Little House on the Prairie... where Laura's sister went to work for a seamstress because the family was so tight on money. And their family was much better than the shopkeeper's spoiled kids who did nothing but bully because they got everything for free.

[Money]

The current school system in canada seems rather flawed to me. Much of what we learn is not transferable from the classroom to our everyday lives or into the future jobs of the students. It makes the learning less attractive because when will I even need to know the various types of poetry structure if I work in a cubicle all day? Will the Sqaure Root of Pi help me figure out if these numbers add up in mr.xxxx's file?