/lit/ - Literature

>>5878074
When I think of anarcho-syndicalism, I think of a state that is directly accountable to the people, rather than a state that doesn't exist. Anarchism isn't necessarily a lack of a state, from what I've heard (Chomsky).

>>5878013
My position is that the enterprises need to be regulated. The problem is the lobbyists. All things being equal, lobbyists should be eliminated, and Congress should act directly on the will of the people, not on the will of private interests represented by groups of lobbyists. Citizens United was the worst thing that happened to America since 9/11.
>>5878052
But absolute idealism is literally the name of Hegel's philosophical system. Idealism involves a lot of hair-splitting, but there's a particular thing that absolute idealism is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_idealism

>>5877893
I'm just taking your argument to its logical conclusion. This is literally the thing we've been arguing about all thread, so I don't know what to say that I haven't already said.

>>5877858
>>5877858
>Lobbying is a problem
>If we eliminate government, there won't be lobbyists
>Therefore we should abolish government
Is this actually your logic?

>>5877799
The stock is owned by private banks. The fact that the chairman is appointed by the government doesn't invalidate the fact that the organization as a whole is owned by private individuals serving their own interests.
>So is there some abstract value of labor that exists independent of market conditions?
Yes. The value of the individual worker's labor and the time that labor takes is the only absolute value any commodity has. If you aren't familiar with Marx, that's not my fault.
'Value' and 'price' are not synonymous.

>>5877744
>Last I checked, Fed chairman were appointed by government.
Its stock is owned by bankers, i.e., private individuals.
>How exactly is capital parasitic?
How is it not? Capitalists profit by denying workers some of the value of their labor. I'm sure you don't like the labor theory of value but it's undeniable. We should have private property, but there are limits to the amount of wealth that can ethically and reasonably be allowed to accumulate in the hands of a massive minority of the population.

>>5877718
http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-federal-reserve/10489

>>5877695
B-but ISIS
>>5877711
Capital is a more necessary and more parasitic parasite than government. The state alone stands between the worker and and his owner.
It's an ignoble goal when it prevents people from being able to afford food or shelter.
The Federal Reserve is literally a private enterprise.

>>5877679
I agree, but government needs money to function, and if that money isn't coming from taxes it's coming from commercial endeavors. I don't have a particular problem with either, as long as the taxation isn't ridiculous and the government doesn't nationalize literally every industry.
Libertarians are opposed to both taxation and government involvement in the economy. I think that this is a bad position.

>>5877665
Complaining about the government spending taxpayer money is like complaining about having to buy your own groceries with your own money. If the government spends non-taxpayer money, that means it's involved in some kind of commercial endeavor, which you as a libertarian are presumably opposed to. If you don't want the government to spend taxpayer money, then don't pay taxes or become an anarchist. Don't get butthurt when a bureaucrat gets paid.

>>5877595
>What's more likely
Why can't they be equally likely? The conditions of poverty that caused his father to leave are the same conditions he's in. It only makes sense that a man would look at his father's example, from a psychological perspective. Maybe he would see a reason if some effort were put into eliminating the conditions that perpetuate his family's cross-generational poverty.
Like I said, I don't approve of the form of the modern welfare state. I would prefer a system that attempted to eliminate poverty by creating jobs.
>>5877600
I'm not advocating universal government employment. Everyone needs a job. Any system that maximizes employment is fine with me. The taxpayer can expect to pay taxes and has no right to complain about it. The purpose of government is government, and government involves caring for the governed. If that care takes the form of employment, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that.
Public works projects are fine ways to create jobs and increase commerce. Look at the American highway system, for example.

>>5877575
Also, the idea that there's a kind of upstanding character that's associated with wealth isn't supported by any kind of scientific evidence. Social Darwinism has always been a load of horse shit.
>>5877581
>Government jobs are bad, private sector jobs are good
Jobs are jobs, idiot.

>>5877551
People who are born into wealth are more likely to be wealthy than people born into poverty.
If you know you're not going to be able to afford raising a child because your family has been poor for six generations, you're more likely to desert your partner than someone in a similar situation whose family has been wealthy for six generations.
If your father couldn't provide a good childhood for you and his father couldn't provide a good childhood for him, and the constant along all these generations has been a growing degree of poverty, and if you see no reason to believe you're suddenly going to become the first member of your family to suddenly come into a consistent source of wealth, it makes perfect sense to think that you're not going to be able to support a child.

>>5877531
>Experts are usually wrong because they want to restrain my ability to profit
>But people who are out to profit at any cost should be trusted all the time

>>5877526
>Someone who makes enough money to support a wife and child is less likely to desert them not on account of his money, but on account of having had the character and sense of responsibility that is associated with affluence. Such a man has probably never received a government handout in his life, and doesn't expect his family to get by on them either.
Oh, I didn't realize you were trolling. My mistake.

>>5877475
>On the contrary! Desertion is one of the chief causes behind poverty.
Really? Source?
It seems to me like someone in poverty would be more likely to leave their child and the mother of that child than someone who makes enough money to support them.
It probably goes both ways to a degree, but what you're saying goes against literally everything I've heard or read about the subject.

>>5877453
>to deny oneself the chance of harming another.
Yeah, that's a large part of it. It's a combination of the feeling of lack and the presence of conscience.
Even the girl I consider to be my first love, I had to break up with because I knew that the form of love I'd experienced with her was fleeting and couldn't last, or even exist outside of a post-coital embrace. Lust + friendship =/= true love.
>(and I'm still hounded by guilt).
Kierkegaard thought that the man who went through with his marriage was morally inferior to him (Kierkegaard) because he was being inauthentic.

>>5877431
I would say that illegitimacy rates are higher because of the conditions that men who desert their spouses are forced to live in and not because of the institution of the welfare state, which has failed to eliminate the conditions that perpetuate and create poverty-which is the real cause of illegitimacy.

>>5877397
I don't think it was a matter of loving her so much he had to stay away from her. I haven't read Either/Or or whatever the one where he talks about love is, but I got the impression that he didn't love her enough to marry her and couldn't mislead her by following through with the marriage.
I can sympathize with him. I've broken off every relationship I've had for a similar reason.
>tfw you never like your gf as much as she likes you

>>5877318
Set the minimum wage at $0 and see if anyone wants to pay their workers enough to survive.
>Illegitimacy rates
What? Again, I don't necessarily support the form of the modern welfare state. I believe there should be some sort of safety net, but I don't necessarily believe in the kind of 'you don't ever have to do anything, we'll pay for everything' model that lolbertarians seem to equate any kind of government action with.

>>5877281
U mad, non-idealist?

>>5877282
>Implying we live in a free market society
Stay ign'ant, libfag.

>>5877276
>I'm saying that stupid government policies like welfare and minimum wage create more inequality than they remove.
How so? Do you have numbers to back that up? Statistics? Anything other than your libertarian bias against the state?
The modern welfare state is certainly bloated, but the minimum wage seems like it's an absolute necessity in a truly civilized society. The state of affairs before it was instituted (i.e., the American Gilded Age) was far worse for the vast majority of people than it has been since its institution.

>>5877271
They're noteworthy idealists, though, which is why I included them in the list.