socialism for corporations, private profits for corporations

[rickyb]

The Corporate Debt to Society: $10,000 Per Household, Per Year

That estimate is based on facts, not the conservative-style emotion that might deny the responsibility for any debt to the American people. Wealth redistribution to big business has occurred in a variety of ways to be explained below. And there’s some precedent for paying Americans for the use of their commonly-held resources. The Alaska Permanent Fund has been in effect, and widely popular, for over thirty years.

The Main Argument: Corporations Have Used Our Money To Build Their Businesses

Over half (57 percent) of basic research is paid for by our tax dollars. Corporations don’t want to pay for this. It’s easier for them to allow public money to do the startup work, and then, when profit potential is evident, to take over with applied R&D, often with patents that take the rights away from the rest of us.

All the technology in our phones and computers started this way, and continues to the present day. Pharmaceutical companies have depended on the National Institutes of Health. The quadrillion-dollar trading capacity of the financial industry was made possible by government-funded Internet technology, and the big banks survived because of a $7 trillion public bailout.

A particularly outrageous example of a company turning public research into a patent-protected private monopoly is the sordid tale (here) of the drug company Gilead Sciences.

Adding to the Argument: Publicly Funded Technology Is Taking Our Jobs Away

https://www.popularresistance.org/corporate-debt-to-society-10000-per-household-per-year/

 

[rickyb]

this supports noam chomskys assertion that america is state-capitalist.

 

[bleedinbrown58]

 

[BrownArmy]

View attachment 29505

Yet, he's correct.

It's the same thing (in a different realm) when banks make off like robber barons, but when they screw up, we bail them out.

Profit is privatized but risk, up to and including default, is put on the public.

I'm amazed at everyone who rails on the welfare kings and queens, perhaps rightfully so, when corporate welfare dwarfs public 'assistance'.

YMMV.

 

[rickyb]

Yet, he's correct.


I'm amazed at everyone who rails on the welfare kings and queens, perhaps rightfully so, when corporate welfare dwarfs public 'assistance'.

YMMV.

ill be damned if im not right about it.

another example would be oil companies who use public resources, make private profit, and the pollution is socialized.

people believe the welfare queen story because the corporate media and government relentlessly promote it because they want to get rid of the taxes the rich have to pay associated with those programs, and on top of it those programs push the ideology that people look out for 1 another.

 

[moreluck]

ill be damned if im not right about it.

another example would be oil companies who use public resources, make private profit, and the pollution is socialized.

people believe the welfare queen story because the corporate media and government relentlessly promote it because they want to get rid of the taxes the rich have to pay associated with those programs, and on top of it those programs push the ideology that people look out for 1 another.

I'll take your first 3 words....that's it !!

 

[rickyb]

greg leroy is one of the leading experts on corporate subsidies. talks for roughly 30 minutes.

http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/friend/9/...24898896&hwt=3dc94df870998edf9713f3c53876d82d

 

[rickyb]

capitalism devolving into corporate feudalism aka neo feudalism

orwell predicted this in 1984 novel. 85% of the population is barely hanging on, 11% is the managerial class, and top 2% are the ones controling everyone and owning everything.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...alt.svg/500px-1984_Social_Classes_alt.svg.png

thom hartmann does one hell of a radio program and also has his own tv show "the big picture" on RT.

 

[wkmac]

WAIT! The top of the pyramid where the power of the State exists eg Monarchs, which also wants feudalism and elite privilege for its own benefit and progeny will intervene on behalf and to the benefit and protection of the lowest class so as to protect them from the evils of feudalism eg modern capitalism which exists at the top by virtue of the State which then benefits the very top of the pyramid in the first place?

I consider myself an anti capitalist but even I reject that utter BS logic that those who built the damn system will thus now protect us from its harmful outcomes of which they vastly benefit!

I like Thom as I think his heart is in the right place on some occasion but his circular argument here leads us right back into the very trap of the people who built the damn thing in the first place. He's playing the role of gatekeeper not unlike a few others here on both sides of the fence.

Please Brer Fox, don't throw me again into the briar patch!

Come on Thom, if you are going to use the Anarchist pyramid of hierarchy and power, use the right one instead of twisting out of shape to support your own self interested narrative.

Even V.I. Lenin wanted capitalism in its State form for the Soviet Union:

The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.

Above is taken from a letter to North American Russians to counteract the claims that the New Soviet Union was anti-capitalist.

And the millions of dead from the struggles between the empires and their capitalism are testimony too its perfection.

 

[wkmac]

Ricky,

A quote or 2 for you to consider.

We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.

Would you agree and would you like to vote for the man who said this? Goggle the quote itself for the one who said it.

He also said this:

Why nationalize industry when you can nationalize the people?

State socialism at its best!

 

[rickyb]

WAIT! The top of the pyramid where the power of the State exists eg Monarchs, which also wants feudalism and elite privilege for its own benefit and progeny will intervene on behalf and to the benefit and protection of the lowest class so as to protect them from the evils of feudalism eg modern capitalism which exists at the top by virtue of the State which then benefits the very top of the pyramid in the first place?

I consider myself an anti capitalist but even I reject that utter BS logic that those who built the damn system will thus now protect us from its harmful outcomes of which they vastly benefit!

I like Thom as I think his heart is in the right place on some occasion but his circular argument here leads us right back into the very trap of the people who built the damn thing in the first place. He's playing the role of gatekeeper not unlike a few others here on both sides of the fence.

Please Brer Fox, don't throw me again into the briar patch!

Come on Thom, if you are going to use the Anarchist pyramid of hierarchy and power, use the right one instead of twisting out of shape to support your own self interested narrative.

Even V.I. Lenin wanted capitalism in its State form for the Soviet Union:



Above is taken from a letter to North American Russians to counteract the claims that the New Soviet Union was anti-capitalist.

And the millions of dead from the struggles between the empires and their capitalism are testimony too its perfection.

i really like this picture seen it many places before. im planning on posting a thread about the co-determinsm in giant corporations in germany to show that there are already more democratic forms of capitalism in highly developed countries around the world.

i think it was chomsky who said that countries like america developed because their governments implemented protectionist policies while they were developing and i think it changed in usa around 1950 according to him. he also said the third world had free trade (or something) and didnt develop.

the state is strange: ive heard chomsky say that it should be eliminated and that it considers its own citizens it's enemy, but while we have corporations chomsky (and hedges too) say the state may be the only countervailing force to even more runaway corporate power then we already have.

yea my major point is workers should have way more control and democracy over their jobs. i obviously dont think the government should own everything, nor do i think everything should be privatized.

i have a feeling thom hartmann is right about the natural state of capitalism concentrating wealth into the described pyramid above. richard wolff said that piketty's ground breaking book "capital in the 21st century" made the point that capitalism systematically concentrates wealth.

sometimes i think thom hartmann over emphasizes the blame on reagan when really some of those policies began under carter.

its too bad socialism has been so badly skewed by stalin, lenin, hitler, etc and gets a bad name because of it. same thing if someone has a gun to ur head telling u who to vote for and calls it "democracy". but o well, the tide is changing in america, i know this because of hte success of occupy, and the growth of richard wolffs radio program along with other socialists and socialist ideas gaining popularity.

 

[rickyb]

Germany's system of “co-determination”, under which companies with more than 2,000 workers must draw at least half of their supervisory board members either from the workforce directly or from trade unions.

if i recall, VW is planning on bringing this model to america very soon. richard d wolff mentioned it in his radio program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

heres an older article:
http://www.autonews.com/article/201.../at-volkswagen-labor-is-indeed-a-full-partner

Both politicians apparently don't know or don't care that both Volkswagen AG and BMW AG -- by German law -- have supervisory boards with half their members from labor unions.

It's right on the BMW Group Web site: "In accordance with the regulations contained in the German co-determination Act, BMW AG's Supervisory Board shall comprise ten shareholder representatives ... and ten employee representatives."

In Germany's two-board corporate structure, what does the supervisory board do? It appoints the management board and has veto power on any decision to open or close plants.

As managing editor of Automotive News Europe, I lived in Germany for five years. Germans take the co-determination act seriously. To them, the law's enforced sharing of power between labor and management is a foundation of their post-war economic miracle -- it's how Germans boot-strapped themselves back to prosperity.

And the poster child, the shiniest example, of co-determination is VW.

who says theres no alternative to capitalism and state socialism?

 

[Operational needs]

It's Saturday night. You're young and single. Why are you here and not out on a date?

 

[1BROWNWRENCH]

No money, no honey.

 

[1BROWNWRENCH]

Back in my single days, the ladies weren't too big on broke Communists.

 

[rod]

VW's suck--worst car I ever owned. Wife also bought a German made Pfaff sewing machine ($800). Big POS. Finally gave up on trying to keep it in adjustment and threw it away. German engineering my .

 

[Babagounj]

It's Saturday night. You're young and single. Why are you here and not out on a date?

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a female Canadian troll to date ?

 

[1BROWNWRENCH]

VW's suck--worst car I ever owned. Wife also bought a German made Pfaff sewing machine ($800). Big POS. Finally gave up on trying to keep it in adjustment and threw it away. German engineering my .

Nazi engineering at it's finest. For a time, mid-size Peterbilts were in fact made by VW in Brazil. Also weird to work on.

 

[MrFedEx]

Back in my single days, the ladies weren't too big on broke Communists.

Except this isn't an example of communism. VW wants a union because they get a better workforce, higher quality products, and improved employee relations.

 

[rickyb]

Except this isn't an example of communism. VW wants a union because they get a better workforce, higher quality products, and improved employee relations.

no, theyre bringing co-determination which puts average joe workers on the boards of directors to america. its a step past unions, and a step towards socialism where workers control their jobs...

i would guess that VW understands like most other corporations, that unions cost more to corporations than non unions. where VW stands on this, i dont know.