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baklava
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Mostly harmless
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posted April 19, 2009 02:11 AM |
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Edited by baklava at 02:18, 19 Apr 2009.
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But can you, in all common sense, tell me why is it that Beckham helps the society more than people who are saving lives?
I don't think it has much to do with that. The very idea that capitalism rewards according to social value is quite hard for me to believe. Maybe it even does - but not the kind of social value we think of in these discussions.
Capitalism, to me, seems far closer to the "bread and circuses" routine. It seems better to keep a mass happy than to save the life of an individual. You get more respect and wealth if you tend to the cheering horde than if you heal sick children.
There's another system that puts the mass so much in front of the individual.
I believe it's called communism.
About the economic end, the problem is that there is no end. It's a never-ending circle of earning and spending which keeps people busy, and which I don't consider a bad thing by itself, but which gets truly horrifying when it becomes the sole cornerstone of modern society and moral - which it's, more and more, striving to become.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 03:03 AM |
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Wolfsburg:
Competition is the basis of a free economy. A farmer who cuts costs benefits both himself and society.
Bak:
If I were the only consumer in the world, David Beckham would not make a cent. But I'm not. I accept the fact that I don't run the world. The fact is, more people are willing to pay to see him play than they are to get surgeries. And besides, there are thousands of surgeons, but only one Beckham. I bet if you put added all the money that all doctors in the world make together, it would be more than what Beckham makes. 
As for the end, that is what the individual decides to be the end. There's a system where others decide for individuals. It went under different names throughout history - feudalism, communism, fascism...
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Wolfsburg
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... the Vampire Doc
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posted April 19, 2009 07:02 AM |
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Quote:
Wolfsburg:
Competition is the basis of a free economy. A farmer who cuts costs benefits both himself and society.
Tell that to the skinny guy who sells lettuce for 1,40 reais at Praça da Liberdade - RJ, who is 28 although he looks like 45 and has no front teeth. He is certainly thrilled to "benefit" society with his ultra-cheap lettuce.
Be sure to ask for a discount if you take two.
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JollyJoker
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posted April 19, 2009 10:45 AM |
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You simply cannot discuss economic things with Mvass - he sounds indeed like a propaganda pamphlet. It's not the first time I notice this, and it's fine that others seem to note now too.
About capitalism and freedom. Capitalism would probably be a nice system - IF the conditions wouldn't have been so unequal and unjust in the time when the transition occured. With the inequalities in place - as wel in national economies as worldwide it simply magnifies the existing advantages/disadvantages.
The trouble is, the bigger a corp (and corps are getting really big since the big ones control a lot of smaller ones), the way things are now and have been for a long time, their decisions and doing influence the whole world. A good economical decision may be a bad decision in other respects, so logic would dictate that the bigger the corps the bigger the checks and controls since the things they do have so grave consequences.
Problem is, the bigger they are, the less controllable they become and the more damage they can do in their pursuit of profits.
On that level there is no market mechanism anymore - even if there was, there's always brute economic force to counter it, meaning that big corps simply can circumvent all or most of the rules regulating economics and the market.
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baklava
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posted April 19, 2009 11:48 AM |
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Edited by baklava at 11:48, 19 Apr 2009.
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I don't see an individual deciding, MVass. I see a mob deciding that football players will be paid a tenfold more. A mass.
And keep in mind that the same mass brought fascism and communism to power. That is what the mass wanted, though many individuals disagreed with it. Just like with Beckham's payment.
You yourself said that you wouldn't give him a single cent, but that's what the mass wants and you oblige.
How very socialistic of you 
And Beckham's just an example, there are thousands of similar sportsmen in the world.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 02:49 PM |
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Wolfsburg:
Better than him being dead.
JJ:
There is no such thing as "economic power".
Bak:
Not at all. The analogy between votes and money is not accurate in this case. When people vote, everyone receives the result that the majority wants. When people buy, only the buyers get the result.
So more individuals are willing to spend money on Beckham than on doctors. I don't. But I accept the fact that I don't rule the world and that it's their choice. He doesn't get a cent of my money, but I'm not going to take any money from him, either.
As Ludwig von Mises wrote in Socialism,
"Mankind does not drink alcohol because there are breweries, distilleries, and vineyards; men brew beer, distil spirits, and grow grapes because of the demand for alcoholic drinks. "Alcohol-capital" has not created drinking habits any more than it has created drinking songs. The capitalists who own shares in breweries and distilleries would have preferred shares in publishing firms for devotional books, had the demand been for spiritual and not spirituous substance. "Armament capital" did not create wars; wars created "armament capital." It was not Krupp and Schneider who incited the nations to war, but imperialist writers and politicians."
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tyraxor
Adventuring Hero
Ruler of the burning Desert
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posted April 19, 2009 03:06 PM |
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@Mvassilev: Okay, the crisis did started in the US but the bankers in the Netherlands have the task to watch money of people who have saving accounts by their bank. In commercials they pretend if its 100% save to put the money on their bank. Now a lot of people lost a lot of money. They betray the confidence of their clients.
Example: A few banks buyed another bank for 71 billion euro, while some economists said that a financial crisis was coming up.
PS: 'Netherlands bankers' has to be 'Dutch bankers'
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 03:08 PM |
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Putting money in the bank is a risk. The bank might collapse. (But doesn't the Netherlands have an equivalent of the FDIC?) The depositors accepted this risk.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:11 PM |
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While I'm for public property and so on, capitalism is just a failure when it comes to earnings of entertainers.
I'm not really good in politics, I don't even know whether I'm a socialist or liberalist, but I just don't get it.
Free market? Yeah, let it take over the reason, wait, it already did. A football player earning 125 000 euro per week? Wtf is this? This is beyond ridiculous. Is there ONE logical reason to let him earn so much? Why is it so luck-based? He is born with a talent to kick football, and say, I'm a brilliant doctor. I save lives, work so hard, study 12 years of college and earn 80 euro per week, he doesn't have to go to any schools, can do what he likes, works 2-3 hours per day ("works" because he in fact PLAYS) and earns 125 000 euros.
IT'S RIDICULOUS.
End of story. No matter how hard you'll try to convince me that "there is demand so it's ok", I still find it an overkill. A little bit of interventionism here would be PERFECT. Let him earn much, but for **** sake, not as much in a day as a doctor earns in whole year. This whole thing applies to musicians, actors and the general entertainment sector. It went totally out of control and we're supporting that madness, making it eat more and more cash every year.
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 03:17 PM |
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I don't like it either, but we have to understand that it's not our choice.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:20 PM |
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Fortunately, FIFA is already working on a limit to that madness.
It has to stop.
It's a good example that free market shouldn't be entirely free because it takes control of us.
It should be the opposite. We should control money. Leaving the market totally free, it ends up with money controlling us.
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DagothGares
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posted April 19, 2009 03:31 PM |
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Bah, let the entertainment industry have whatever they need to entertain me
Without it, there'd be no video games or full-time writers or the musicians I like...
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If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:32 PM |
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Of course there would be. They would just earn less. And it would be much, much more logical. The world can do well without Cristiano Ronaldo, but it can't do well without good doctors.
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DagothGares
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posted April 19, 2009 03:33 PM |
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How would you go on and limit them without crippling the little niche-markets I enjoy?
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 03:35 PM |
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Quote:
It's a good example that free market shouldn't be entirely free because it takes control of us.
You don't understand. People are choosing to pay him that much. Why do you want to restrict voluntary exchange? It's not like they're taking anything from you.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:38 PM |
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It's not possible atm, because they would immediately protest, they are so spoiled they can't really see that there is absolutely no reason for them to earn as much as they do.
There is no control over movies and music, too.
We can only hope for some limits in sports. And the best it can do is to prevent the payments from growing. There is no hope for reducing them to normal level now.
That's what I hate about capitalism. Absolutely no control of the market. It's the other way round - the market controls us.
Ordinary fellow doesn't even understand WHY the dollar gets down or something like that, for him, it looks like an entirely random, independent process, completely out of humanity's grasp, but he still has to face the consequences.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:38 PM |
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Quote:
People are choosing to pay him that much. Why do you want to restrict voluntary exchange? It's not like they're taking anything from you.
No they aren't. Ask them! Do a poll. Go ahead.
They just can't do a damn about it.
And it takes a lot from me. It makes me feel miserable that I wasn't lucky enough to kick football or learn to sing when I was young.
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del_diablo
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posted April 19, 2009 03:41 PM |
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Quote:
Bah, let the entertainment industry have whatever they need to entertain me
Without it, there'd be no video games or full-time writers or the musicians I like...
Its a shame that videogames mainstreamed in a way, it created the: "Make another crappy game and earn money" wave.......... But still there are a few good games betwhen the ages.
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Doomforge
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posted April 19, 2009 03:42 PM |
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It's fine that they earn money for doing it. It's fine that they earn good money.
It's not fine when they earn 100x times more than people who save lives. It's like, capitalism = priorities fail.
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mvassilev
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posted April 19, 2009 03:43 PM |
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Doomforge:
Yes, they can. They can stop going to his football games. That'd put a quick stop to it. If you don't like something, don't pay for it. If you want something, buy it.
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