Gary Fisher

@Michael Balance between supply and demand may not be a "metaphysical law of nature" but it certainly isn't a product of the free market either. Just consider the fact that, under feudalism, there was a near-perfect balance between supply and demand, (that is, people produced exactly as much as they used or consumed, at least under normal circumstances) yet one would be hard-pressed to call such a system a "free market".

@jts I don't agree with that at all. It simply doesn't make sense when you think it through using simple common sense. How would the producer go about figuring out the profit-maximizing price? The trouble is that the profit depends both on revenue generated and the total cost of production, which in turn depend on the price as well as the quantity produced. There need not be a unique profit maximizing combination of production and price. It is possible for the producer to produce slightly less at a slightly higher price and leave profits unchanged, and he can also produce slightly more at a slightly lower price and leave profits unchanged. The way that economists deal with this problem is by assuming that all firms are "price-takers" and then they only have to worry about how much to produce, which is easy to do. But this doesn't work in real life, because if every firm is a price-taker, then who are the price-makers? Real-life businesses have to decide both how much to produce and what price to charge, but there is no simple guide like in economics textbooks such as "maximizing profit" or "utility". My whole point is that, in doing so, they can make decisions which are just as economically inefficient as a bad government regulation. To tie all this back to the original discussion, sometimes, private businessmen can't figure out the best wage for their employees or they might face incentives which cause them to make decisions that can seriously damage the economy as a whole. If they pay too much, they won't make enough profit to invest, and if they pay too little, then there won't be enough demand to grow the economy. In these cases, the government has to step in to correct the problem.

@jts How can a high or low price possibly serve as a signal to the producer when the producer himself sets the prices? That makes as little sense as saying that a sentence you yourself write tells you something you did not already know. Prices cannot be signals. Prices are more like a kind of control valve which regulate how much is exchanged between different segments of the economy. For example, if the producer raises the price of eggs, then people will either spend a higher portion of their income on eggs, or they will buy less eggs. It's usually the first eventuality that causes all of the problems in a free market. If the producers of essential goods and services such as food and electricity increase the prices of these things, then people will still buy about the same amount. This will make the business more profitable, and so they will have an interest in raising the price to absurd heights. The producer benefits, but his customers and all other sectors of the economy are harmed, because the customers now have to spend a higher portion of their income on essentials, and this, in turn, greatly reduces the demand for all other kinds of goods. By instituting a price ceiling, the government could greatly improve economic activity, since a lower price for essentials would generate a lot more demand elsewhere. That's why the government controls the electric and water companies. Something similar happens in labor markets. If you pay people too little, then they will spend most of their income on things like food and housing. This would be fine, for an agrarian economy, but it is obvious that an industrial economy could not exist if the market was totally free. Because an industrial economy can and should produce things other than food and housing, the government must institute a minimum wage in order to create demand for industries in non-essential consumer goods. Additionally, unemployment is a natural consequence of a capitalist economy, and has nothing to do with the minimum wage. Even before there was such a thing as minimum wage and other kinds of labor regulations, there was unemployment. Why? For the simple reason that when people work, things get done, and, for some kinds of work, when it gets done, it doesn't need doing again for some time. In the olden days of Medieval Europe, all the peasants worked but they did not work all year long. Once the crops were sown, there was really nothing left to do until winter was over. There was "universal unemployment" in a sense, but since people didn't need to work all year long, this wasn't seen as a problem but a benefit. Things changed when the industrial revolution started. Because of free labor and labor contracts, people needed to work all year long in order to feed themselves. Even today, you can't just work for part of the year, and save up enough money so you can quit your job for the rest of the year. It just doesn't work that way. So now, instead of spreading out unemployment across time, like in the feudal system, unemployment was loaded off unto, well, the unemployed. If the economy is in a situation where everybody needs to be employed, then as things get done, less and less people need to be employed. The people whose jobs are necessary for the whole year get to keep their jobs, and the people whose jobs need doing only once, don't.

@jts How can a high or low price possibly serve as a signal to the producer when the producer himself sets the prices? That makes as little sense as saying that a sentence you yourself write tells you something you did not already know.Prices cannot be signals. Prices are more like a kind of control valve which regulate how much is exchanged between different segments of the economy. For example, if the producer raises the price of eggs, then people will either spend a higher portion of their income on eggs, or they will buy less eggs. It's usually the first eventuality that causes all of the problems in a free market. If the producers of essential goods and services such as food and electricity increase the prices of these things, then people will still buy about the same amount. This will make the business more profitable, and so they will have an interest in raising the price to absurd heights. The producer benefits, but his customers and all other sectors of the economy are harmed, because the customers now have to spend a higher portion of their income on essentials, and this, in turn, greatly reduces the demand for all other kinds of goods. By instituting a price ceiling, the government could greatly improve economic activity, since a lower price for essentials would generate a lot more demand elsewhere. That's why the government controls the electric and water companies.Something similar happens in labor markets. If you pay people too little, then they will spend most of their income on things like food and housing. This would be fine, for an agrarian economy, but it is obvious that an industrial economy could not exist if the market was totally free. Because an industrial economy can and should produce things other than food and housing, the government must institute a minimum wage in order to create demand for industries in non-essential consumer goods.Additionally, unemployment is a natural consequence of a capitalist economy, and has nothing to do with the minimum wage. Even before there was such a thing as minimum wage and other kinds of labor regulations, there was unemployment. Why? For the simple reason that when people work, things get done, and, for some kinds of work, when it gets done, it doesn't need doing again for some time. In the olden days of Medieval Europe, all the peasants worked but they did not work all year long. Once the crops were sown, there was really nothing left to do until winter was over. There was "universal unemployment" in a sense, but since people didn't need to work all year long, this wasn't seen as a problem but a benefit.Things changed when the industrial revolution started. Because of free labor and labor contracts, people needed to work all year long in order to feed themselves. Even today, you can't just work for part of the year, and save up enough money so you can quit your job for the rest of the year. It just doesn't work that way. So now, instead of spreading out unemployment across time, like in the feudal system, unemployment was loaded off unto, well, the unemployed. If the economy is in a situation where everybody needs to be employed, then as things get done, less and less people need to be employed. The people whose jobs are necessary for the whole year get to keep their jobs, and the people whose jobs need doing only once, don't.

Supply and demand being "equal" is a trivial consequence of producers and consumers not being wasteful. It has nothing to do with the free market. If the "free market price" of a widget is $3.00 and if exactly 10,000 widgets are produced and sold, and then the government decides that the price of the widgets should not be higher than $2.50, then, presumably, producers will not produce 10,000 widgets. Maybe they'll produce a little less, but all of the product will still be sold. Supply and demand will be balanced. It works the same way if the government commands that the price should be at least $3.50. Then, producers might produce more with the additional income, but why would they since consumers are going to purchase less? So even then supply and demand will still be balanced.

Anyway, we can see that fascism is clearly and explicitly collectivist, according to the definition above. Except that it is even more extreme, because not only does it hold that individual interests must be sacrificed for the good of the whole, but that individuals must identify themselves with the nation or race so that they do not even have any individual identities or interests in any real sense.

Well don't get me wrong, they're certainly not individualists either. If we define "collectivism" as Then, first of all, any kind of Liberalism cannot be collectivist. Liberalism with a big "L" is a philosophical tradition in politics which holds that essentially, the well-being (however that is defined) of the individual is the purpose of society. This includes classical liberals, libertarians, American liberals, Objectivists, and almost all American conservatives.The main differences among ideologies within these groups concern what counts as individual "well-being" and how to achieve it. Socialism is based on materialism and a conflict theory of society. Materialism in the social sciences is the view that material conditions (i.e. geography, overall wealth, history, technology, etc.) determine the structure of society. These structures change over time, and the driving force of these change is inherent conflict, usually class conflict. This differs from Liberalism because it places social conflict center-stage. Whereas Liberalism holds that the interests of individuals are in a natural harmony because they all enter society for the purpose of promoting their well-being, socialism sees any talk of the well-being of all individuals (either through individual rights or welfare-state liberalism) as disingenuous since people do not have a choice about being born and raised in a human society (which is characterized by social conflict) or their social class. The main goal of socialism is to resolve social conflict through a radical restructuring of society. Reformist socialists, such as Social Democrats (most of the European Left), think that this can be achieved by gradually reforming capitalist society until it becomes socialist. Revolutionary socialists, that is, communists, believe that this can only be achieved through a revolution. Once all social conflict has been resolved, and we get to a communist society, only then, the socialists say, can we sensibly talk about the well-being of all individuals. So socialism, in its own weird way, finds its way back to Liberalism, and that's why I don't think it is fundamentally collectivist So then who is collectivist? There are two closely related groups. Revolutionary conservatives and fascists. Revolutionary conservatives emerged in Germany after WWI. Like all (European) conservatives, they believe in political realism. This doctrine holds that the state of nature is a war of all against all, and that a strong leadership combined with a hierarchical society is necessary to maintain order. And also that the elites in society are interested in maintaining their position. But unlike reactionary and moderate conservatives, they believed that society was not merely a collection of self-interested individuals, as in Liberalism, or a machine whose operation is determined solely by material conditions as in Socialism, but as a kind of living organism. This organism is capable of dying, and in order to survive on the international stage, it must be as strong as possible. It consists of inter-dependent parts, all of which exist for the sake of the organism and which cannot exist without it. Since they also base their thinking on political realism, and since there all individuals are self-interested and amoral, if the organism is to survive, individual wills must be suppressed, and everyone must sacrifice his own well-being for the good of society. This type of thinking would eventually be inherited by the Nazis and other fascists. And whereas revolutionary conservatism was inherently elitist, the fascist movement borrowed some political elements from the left, and combined mass politics with nationalism and became a mass movement

Waterboarding is torture, and the CIA used a lot more than waterboarding, and also lied to the government about it. The torture did not make us any safer and now our international rep is shot to pieces. Good job.

In my experience, the more you try to persuade people, the less they listen. Maybe because on a primal level they think you're trying to trick them. So I stopped doing that at an early age.

Oh come on, don't tell me you actually hopped on board with the media rape train against Michael Jackson? All the "evidence" against him was just a bunch of little kids saying he diddled them, but you can clearly tell they were paid off by the Reptilians who are trying to do NWO. Michael Jackson was so saintly that God would let him give baby Jesus a bottle of Myrh and not have to ask what else was in it.

@Brant You're looking at it the wrong way. The women, if Cosby is innocent, would know that they would lose the court case if Cosby decided to take them to court for libel and slander. That's why they wouldn't accuse him of anything if he isn't actually guilty.

It's not at all the same thing and I just explained why. My "standard" is not "a bunch of people say". If Cosby did rape several women, then it is very likely that they would all accuse him of such. If he didn't rape any of them, then it is very unlikely that ANY of them would have accused him of anything.Let's look at the other side of this. If the women are lying, then people who don't know the truth will doubt their story. On the other hand, if they're telling the truth, then people will still doubt them because they still don't know. So the fact that there are people who are doubting their story tells us absolutely nothing about whether or not they are lying. All that we know from that is that there are a whole bunch of people who either don't know what really happened or refuse to see what's right in front of them.Michael, you still don't have an answer to my objection that if the women are lying, then they are opening themselves up to suits for libel and slander, and if it did come down to a court case they would either have to back down or perjure themselves.If he's innocent, all Cosby has to do to clear his name is to file a lawsuit against any one of his accusers. The rest would get the message. This brings me to:@Brant There was a case a few years ago where Cosby was accused of rape and there was to be a trial in which the prosecution had thirteen witnesses against him. Thirteen. Guess what? He chose to settle out of court, because he knows he's guilty.

We're not using the same "standard". Not by a long shot. My reasoning makes sense. Yours doesn't.

@Michael You do realize that they would be slandering and libeling him and could face serious charges if they're just making it up? If I were Bill Cosby and if I were actually innocent, I would come down on these charges with everything I have. Lawsuits left and right. That doesn't even make any sense. Even if they're lying you don't know that they're lying, so the fact of your doubt is not evidence. Unless you know that they are lying for some other reason, in which case you wouldn't have to doubt because you would know. Yeah... it's a conspiracy by the Clintons... Right....The far simpler explanation is that Bill Cosby is a rapist.

Why would a whole bunch of women accuse him of sexual assault and rape unless he actually did it?

I just call it like I see it. I wouldn't trust leaving my daughter alone with a man who has a history of being accused of sexual assault and rape over a long period of time by multiple women, and let's face it, neither would you.

The fact is that at least 13 women have accused Cosby of sexual assault or rape. That's not gossip. That's a pattern. Pointing to a single obvious conclusion. That he's guilty. It's as simple as that. Unless for some reason you believe that Cosby is beyond reproach and that the media for some reason is trying to destroy him for no apparent reason. But let's be real here. You're not accusing the media of lying. You're accusing Cosby's victims.

Probably more than you, and yet I never spiked any of their drinks or forced myself on them and told them to keep quiet about it afterwards. What's the idea here, Michael? Do you believe it is ok to have non-consensual sex with loose women?

The only rapist here is Cosby.

It doesn't matter if a woman is a Playboy Bunny or even a prostitute. Rape is rape no matter how you look at it.

The media is not "smearing" Bill Cosby. They are, for the most part, simply reporting on the allegations of rape and sexual assault brought up by several women. This started after Barbara Bowman wrote in the Washington Post about how she was raped by Cosby at the age of 17. Then, other women started coming out with their stories. At least one woman filed a lawsuit against Cosby, but Cosby's lawyers settled the matter out of court. Another was pressured by Cosby's lawyers to not write about her experience in her autobiography. Some report that they were drugged when they were alone with Cosby. Others say they were told to keep quiet after the assault so that they wouldn't upset their careers.

Absurd. Just because the justice system fails to convict someone who committed a crime doesn't mean that they didn't do it.

Are you guys even serious? There are eighteen different women all describing the same MO. He's probably guilty. It's quite surreal that the first place this thread goes to is a leftist media conspiracy.

Ha! I like your style.

I'm still not convinced that the primary purpose of language is to allow people to think. By her own admission, Rand says that concepts precede communication, and I agree with that. But if we already have concepts and cognition, then we're already thinking. Language adds nothing to this except the ability to communicate our thoughts to others. I think Rand is making some sort of mistake when she uses the world "primarily". Ordinarily, one would think that the primary purpose of something is the purpose it is usually used for or the purpose for which it was originally designed for or the thing it is best at doing, and in the case of language that would be communication. But the way Rand uses the word "primarily" here, it seems to me that she wants to say "cognition is a logical precondition for communication". These two statements are very different. I agree with the second, but not with the first. In the first sense of the word "primary", communication with others is definitely the primary purpose of language. In the second sense, cognition is the primary purpose of language. As MM equivocates the two, what bothers me is that he accepted the idea that the primary purpose (in the usual sense) of language is not communication while completely ignoring the most obvious definition of language. That is, that it is a means of communication between people.