BP oil spill
- Started
- Last post
- 649 Responses
- ukit0
Isn't "corporatism" the way it's currently being used just a convenient way for the right to apologize for extreme capitalism? It's great to complain about corporatism but how do you end it? People with lots of money will always have vested interests, and they will also try to influence politics, and there's very little way to really stop that at the end of the day. Other than through stuff many on the libertarian right would find abhorrent.
Of course, free markets do solve many problems, the trouble is when you have a problem whose solution has no short-term incentive, but that creates a long-term disaster. It makes perfect sense, in terms of free markets, for us to continue to lead high energy consumption, gas guzzling lives - we don't gain anything personally from ending that. Only trouble is, one day we could wake up and read that gas prices are starting to soar because the world's supply finally is running out, and the realization could come at such a late point that the consequences could be far worse than if it had started to invest in alternatives decades earlier.
- bliznutty0
TBO, its funny you dog on classical liberalism and free markets the way you do. Here you are on QBN, using all of the very products that come from new age freedom/markets while at the same time dismissing it because of environmental reasons or systemic power problems. You've obviously done a fair bit of reading in your past and have developed your theories and I can respect you for that.. but i'm having a hard time following you on this one.
Any modern day classical liberal (libertarian) at the highest of intellectual thought will tell you the exact same thing.. here is a breakdown of intellectual society as described by a philosopher with reason (right out of the Age of Enlightment)
- Free markets establish equilibrium through prices, wages, supply, demand, and competition
- Consumer goods, technology, jobs, wealth, and liberty create a happy society
- The intrusion of any state into the free market, whether by law or tax etc., will disrupt the equilibrium of the free markets. The state's only role is to provide justice on behalf of civil liberties
- We are all equal under God's eyes, however not necessarily in reality.. Free markets offer prosperity, which can lead to a better standard of living for the poor/uneducated
- No system will be perfect and that is understood
- Of all systems, which one allows more individual freedom?All I see is today is corporatism, which is far from free-market capitalism but somehow delusionally the same. So, I agree with you there is a systemic problem around the group effort to monopolize markets and such, however I also have a degree of faith in the free markets (if they were rightfully free) and that individuals can create alternative markets due to supply/demand, and that these markets will thrive (as long as corporatism doesn't). It sounds like we both have little faith in the abolition of corporatism though
- What free markets?
Just about everything
in the U.S. is controlled
by subsidies!utopian - Capitalism + Subsidies
= Free Markets!utopian - I dog on neo-liberalism. I agree with classical economic theory - Smith/Ricardo/MarxTheBlueOne
- And we don't have "free markets" no matter what they teach you in school.TheBlueOne
- A libertarian is NOT a classical liberal.TheBlueOne
- so you're a marxist? a communist? then i take it back i don't agree with you in anywaybliznutty
- classical liberalism = libertarianism
http://en.wikipedia.…bliznutty
- What free markets?
- TheBlueOne0
".. if we all looked to ourselves and adjusted ourselves / lives... I think we could make a dramatic change in overall consumption of our natural resources..."
-PonyBoyNo. No. No. All this is is a continuation in the magical beliefs of libertarian free market thinking. That "individual effort" is what makes us super special snowflakes. While individuals do matter, the whole premise of consumption/consumer markets (which you brought up by saying the problem is people consuming) is atomizing individuals and solving their independent little worries with mass market consumerism. The underlying basis of the entire psychology is the atomization of the individual - problems can only be solved by individual effort, reinforcing the value of the self vs. the group, while at the same re-enforcing the actual powerlessness of individuals.
For e.g. look at sports & sports marketing. It sells these figures as unique incredible athletes who succeed by massive individual effort and application of will - which is 95% bullshit. Yes, individuals do rise up, and application of will and character matter - but all these athlete have a huge million dollar support structure. Coaches, sports science, team building, administrative structures.
The average individual athlete - the guy cut from college ball but still putting in huge efforts indiviually to succeed most likely won't not because he's lacking willpower but he is lacking the access to the support structure.
But the myth is all focused on the individual effort and not on the system supporting it, which does most of the heavy lifting.
Humans are social creatures, our gifts & efforts are best realized within a group structure. We survived and bested nature NOT because their were some rare individuals who beat it, but we banded together and adapted our own social orders to make our chances in different environments more successful.
Our ability to create and adjust social orders in different hierarchies is our #1 human technology. The Spartans bested the other Greeks on the battlefield because of their social order, not technology. The US bested the Soviets because of social order, not technology. Any coach will tell you that he'll take the ordered motivated team with 2nd rate equipment over a bunch of indiviual stars with the latest endorsement deals. It's not the shoes. It's not the individual effort. It's the social structure. It's Google/Apple structure vs. Microsoft.
Everything in modern US consumer / political / industrial control culture is set up to reinforce and sell you on the idea that group effort is, if not ineffectual, is something odd and outside the norm. It sells you acceptable rebellion models that have no power anymore, symbols divorced from power (nice mohawk and rave lights there. Is that a Bukowski book under your arm. Very radical.) It's when groups form and radicalize that power structures take notice and are forced to adapt.
Sure Martin Luther King was a great man, but if he stood alone preaching without masses of individuals organizing in protest, and on the fringe some groups trying to take on the use of violence (always a right the State likes to hold for itself) in the effort of social change, then forget it, Civil Rights wouldn't have happened.
So to sit there and say "It's up to you, Joe Consumer to stop driving your humvee and filling up with gas" is just total bullshit. It's like telling individual Southerners in 1870 - "It's up to you to be nice to them balck folk". Sounds good, it happened. Didn't change jack shit. It took people marching in streets and guys dressed up in black carrying AK-47s in Harlem, Detroit, LA to wake up the power structure. It's a systemic problem that takes a group approach and a group realization and the ability of people to organize en masse to overcome. But the powers that be do not want organized masses, and use the soft power of social control & markets to make the idea of organized system criticism as taboo.
Think about it. It's what evolutionary science tells us. It's what behavioral economics is starting to tell us. It's what sociology and anthropology and even our own history tells us.
Not what people in power and the whole neo-liberal free market bullshit tells us, which is all fairy magic bullshit designed specifically to create a neo-fuedal lock-in of existing power holders. They sell you the idea that you can influence things as an individual, which you can't period. At least not on scales effecting social order.
And wake up from the Ayn Rand Special Fucking Snowflake Theory.
Aw, why bother. Go ahead, call me a commie or something.
- Anyway, just saying we need to change the system of energy use, not just change our lightbulbs.TheBlueOne
- yes! +1xcarlx
- georgesIII0
IT IS OFFICIAL, YOU ARE FUCKED,
(caps required)- I must be fucked, I can't make out a word he's saying. Pretty rainbows though.Orbit
- BattleAxe0
ok so far
worst case
400 foot tsunami
Deadzones
150k barrels a day into gulfany good news?
- Continuity0
Seems pretty relevant.
- ewww. cheesy shit. how do some people have the balls to do this kind of crap.VectorMasked
- A hippie metal band. Interesting mix.WrappedInBooks
- lowimpakt0
"As much as 1 million times the normal level of methane gas has been found in some regions near the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, enough to potentially deplete oxygen and create a dead zone, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday."
- lowimpakt0
@SarahPalinUSA
Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man's efforts have been futile. Gulf lawmakers designate today Day of Prayer for solution/miracle
---------------------------
just remember how close you were to having this lunatic giving you orders...
- stop giving her what she wants,
she need to be forgotten,georgesIII - awww ..
that idiot dummy means wellRamanisky2
- stop giving her what she wants,
- i_monk0
I blame capitalism.
- Ramanisky20
on CNN
Federal judge in New Orleans, Louisiana, blocks six-month federal moratorium on deepwater drilling in Gulf.
- there are an estimated 100,000 jobs in that area dependent on drilling.. life moves on..bliznutty
- sigg0
^That's one of the best posts ever.
It's saying "STFU" without actually saying "STFU"
- IRS0
I'm riding my hand forged steel framed bike with natural rubber tires, the chain is lubricated with snot, until I can get a solar powered car made with a palm frond woven frame and body
- sigg0
I've gone out of my way to reduce my carbon footprint on this planet. My gas bills are on average $20 a month and my electric bill just topped out at $43 because my new, energy efficient (17 SEER) air conditioner had to run because it got into the 90s. I'm unfortunately stuck with a car that averages 26mpg highway for another year, then it's onto a hybrid so actually, we CAN all do a little something to save the environment. Most of the time it's the little, non-expensive things that make the most difference.
- I am very serious about getting solar panels on my garage within the next year.DrBombay
- I would love to if I can swing the expense.DrBombay
- first thing i do when I buy a house next year - solar panels... ... you'd be a fool to not use them out here in phoenixPonyBoy
- How well does solar work in a high snow environment? You might be better off with a wind tower.sigg
- and 'hell yeah' at getting a hybrid... the next time I need to purchase I will go hybrid :)PonyBoy
- http://news.cnet.com…
less obtrusive than a turbine.sigg - Sigg they work well... ck it http://pvpowered.com… in a 2 or 3 snow zoneIRS
- it takes alot of energy to create those batteries for those hybrids.dasohr
- true, dasohr... but they recharge simply when you press on the breaks -- give and take... overtime it's cheaper?PonyBoy
- *brakesPonyBoy
- PonyBoy0
^^i apprecitiate that george... well put...
... if we all looked to ourselves and adjusted ourselves / lives... I think we could make a dramatic change in overall consumption of our natural resources...
... this is on US though (human beings - not the United States (: ) - not BP or the like... ... they're merely providing us w/that which we desire... they WOULD NOT EXIST if we didn't desire and damn near REQUIRE what they provide.
- georgesIII0
The question Pony is what can we do to save the earth,
but what can the earth do, to save her/itself from us.you know the bp thing is like emanuel Goldstein,
everyone has it's 2 min of hate but at the end of the day no one does shit or give a shit.
haters gon' hate
- PonyBoy0
ffs - I've yet to say ANYTHING about 'free markets'...
... I'm talking about personal consumption that WE RELY ON to live the lives we live.
When there's a tragedy - we throw a shitfit at those 'in charge' but don't stop and ask ourselves if we're part to blame... ... which we ARE in this situation - we CONSUME.
