J: First of all the District of Columbia is a part of the U.S. not a state, but still a part of the U.S. Framers didn’t want the national capital to be in a state fearing it would give that state extra power.

W: Why isn’t it called district of USA, then?

J: An economy is to serve the people,

W: Actually, its to start a rat-racing system, and to serve and protect the leaders. who these days, are the rich capitalists instead of Christian/moral folks. And as leaders, the USA people have a tendency to “look up” to them. Only with hierarchical structures (pyramids) is there an “up”. In a flat, equal, egalitarian system, we would look sideways to our leaders, for they would not be higher or lower than another, just doing a different role. But, I’ll go with your theory somewhat… as money COULD be used as exchange tokens, though they are rat-raced-for these days… as such things will obtain luxuries…. and that leads to enjoyment addictions and inequality.

J: as such an economy is not inherently evil; rather people within the economy are the ones whose greed, lust, sloth, and gluttony hurt people.

W: Yep. So if you outlaw the devices by which hierarchies, rat-racing, enjoyment addictions, etc… can happen, you eliminate the pyramiding.

J: You need some manner of exchanging services, for example an engineer does not have the time to grow food, but the farmer does not have the time to develop the irrigation system (dams, canals) nor the road system necessary to growing food. They depend on each other and as such some way of trading services is required.

W: If they were both providing for “Team World”, then they don’t depend upon each other. They depend upon Team World. This is how the USA military supply system works. Everyone works for “team” and never is trade needed. The only thing needed is keeping “team” inventory levels stocked properly. A huge debate with a military chap over at http://www.chancelitton.com/?p=131 and reading that might keep me from having to talk your ear-off here.

J: Money is the easiest, fairest, most unbiased,

W: Monetary discrimination is rampant, worldwide, actually.

J: and most efficient way of trading services, thousands of years of cultural development show this. Profiting is not evil. There are certain costs to doing anything so you need to cover those

W: You “cover” that with volunteer labor, not forced joining of a competer’s church like capitalism. Its not right to force 18 year olds to join or starve. That’s felony extortion and zero freedom of choice.

J: then you justly get more money, profit, in trade for your service. This is then used to go out and give to someone else for their services. Without profit the economy dies, jobs are lost, and then who can give their family their bodily needs?

W: In a proper commune, no need for profiting, no need for trade, no need for “jobs” as everyone is instead “set for life”, and “team” is where everyone obtains their needs. Things beyond necessities… are put into repositories and shared equally by all, just like the military’s “rec services”. There is no wages… all labor is voluntary… and one gets paid via Team World improving. That’s a true all for one and one for all system. Though they are being shoved-around by billers and invoicers (demanders), the Amish, Quakers, Native Indians, and maybe the Menonites… have/are tried/trying this better way. Its not utopia… its hard work… but more fair across all spectrums. No monetary discrimination. (yay!)

J: Money is not the root of all evil rather love of money is; greed is evil. Without money you have a much less just economy.

W: True, its not the money, its what people will do to get it. Eliminate it, and that factor is gone. Without money and ownership, you have NO economy, thus no pyramiding (getting a leg up on another) and no rat-racing, and no enjoyment/luxury addictions. This would be a GOOD thing, and far more Christian-like than the pyramiding done by capitalists. How about this? Allow ANYONE to print money that’s legal tender. That would be a fair thing, right? Christian money, Ed’s money, Sally’s money, all legal tender. That’s the fair way, right? No exclusives. If you did that, goodbye capitalism/pyramiding…. and then… you finally have fairness and a system where monetary discrimination is impossible.

J: So let me get this straight, I can own my own land,

W: Ownership is a man-made thing, and no other living thing on the planet… honors entitles of ownership, and especially not the Earth creator(s). Ownership is un-natural, and entitles of ownership are simply a side-affect of the great squatting festival that capitalists have been doing. No FOR SALE signs or titles of ownership… existed when mankind arrived on the planet. Its a “fake” thing…. backed by police guns. (Dial/hire-an-army to defend your nation-unto-self).

J: I can pick my own profession to develop, I can start my own business and yet I am in slavery?

W: As an 18 year old, were you forced to get a job or starve? In other words, were you extorted into joining the free marketeers pyramid scheme, or die? Most are. Where’s freedom of choice for the 18 year olds? By the way, about 5% of USA are born “set-for-life”, and will never know what a job is, never have to seek one, and never be under ANY monetary duress. Are you going to claim all men are created equal? Hardly. All men are created at the pyramid layer, and with the cronies, good name, and golden bloodlines… of their parents. Some are born set-for-life and some are born set-for-servitude. And some call pyramiding fair? hmmm. Seems a LOT discriminatory to me… and likely to the Earth creators as well.

J: The only slavery in regards to our economy is that of poor education and victomhood training. My free economics education in high school, flat out failure, but thankfully I have had enough working experiences to counteract that and I have sought to educate myself.

W: Are you going to try to be independent and self-reliant, or are you going to sign aboard a little pyramid (company) that already has a billing (hide gouging) department? Will you be working FOR another in subservience, instead of WITH others in equality and fairness? Will you be “punished” for that high school failure? Are “grades” and indicator of failure? Have you been “rated” and thus labeled for life?

W: These ARE good comments and concerns, Jim. And the original purpose of economies probably WERE the reasons you have stated. Unfortunately, it went pyramid instead of staying flat and fair. This is because of rat-racing and cookieplate chasing… or as you say, greed. But, greed is learned behavior, not human nature. (You didn’t state either way, its just an observance I’ve made over my 50+ years of researching people). Thanks for your friendly and intelligent comments, Jim. DO read that commercialism-free blog thread listed above, if you have the patience. I’ll be here to discuss more of this, if you like. I’ve enjoyed debating with you, so far. Thanks! Mr. Perry, thank you for your recent comments, as well. Best regards, gang.

Wingnut
Anti-cap (system fighter, not role-playing-people fighter)

To expand, whether any of the groups named were socialist amongst *themselves* (which is a debatable proposition), they certainly engaged frequently in capitalistic behavior when dealing with other people, even Native Americans, who carried on trade frequently with other tribes and with Europeans.

“As for your history comment, has there ever been an attempt at economy-less, hierarchy-less, socialism/communalism?”

Actually yes, quite a few. In America alone, look up New Harmony, Brook Farm, Fourierist phalanxes, etc. Pretty much all of them have failed, and most of them have failed quite quickly and spectacularly.

“The military supply system does supply/wellbeing distribution quite well, so I’d follow that system, at least somewhat.”

Not that I don’t have a great deal of respect for the military and most of the people who serve it it, but let’s get real: a.) the military supply system has plenty of corruption in it b.) it requires a level of control over people’s lives that most people rightly would not accept in normal life, and c.) it is ultimately dependent on money raised in taxation, which comes from people making money in–you guessed it–capitalist endeavor.

“Economic wealth, or the myriad of other “wealth” like love, reusability, repairability, friendliness, efficiency, equality, fairness, or any other criteria used to measure the “value” of things?”

Who says that you can’t have both? In fact, economic wealth rather tends to encourage many of the other things you list, in that it’s a lot easier to cultivate the moral virtues when society is wealthy and people have more time to devote to them. Not to mention, socialism is at least as materialistic as capitalism is, in that it
argues that if we all got our daily bread, we’d all be totally happy–an idea the Lord pretty emphatically says is an error, while we’re talking about Christianity.

“In this day and age, without basic medical insurance, there’s no way you can attain any of those “inalienable rights”.”

Funny, I was without medical insurance for almost ten years at one point. I managed to stay alive, I was free, and I experienced quite a bit of happiness during that time. I even got health care occasionally.

Which brings us to the mislabeling of the problem: the problem is not that people don’t have medical insurance, the problem is that people are unable to afford health care for long periods of time. Now for one thing, when you examine the “problem”, it turns out to be greatly overstated: many people who don’t have insurance either are without it for only a short time, or voluntarily choose not to get it in one way or another. But the other thing is, you could argue that medical insurance–at least the kind we usually have–is actually a large part of the problem. For instance, if we all just got catastrophic insurance, and paid for our regular doctor visits up front, it’s very likely that costs would go down, both from the elimination of bureaucracy and from forcing doctors to compete in price for once.

“The phrase, by the way, and more importantly, the spirit of those words, come from John Locke who expressed that “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” NOTICE he said “health”.”

And here we come to the great fallacy that ersatz modern “liberals” always fall into when trying to interpret classical liberals. Locke was talking about “negative” rights: when he talked about not harming health, he meant that you shouldn’t be allowed to go out and beat somebody up. He was not talking about “positive” rights, i.e., the idea that we should all be entitled to health care, even if that means that other people have to pay for it. Which does some damage to their liberty and possessions, by the way.

I agree to some extent, though our system is much less broken than most anywhere else. But before you propose a fix, you need to understand the cause of the problem, which is the gradual government takeover of medicine that has been in progress for over 50 years.

The argument that health care is a vital necessity so therefore it should not be left to the profit motive is a non-sequitur. Food is also a vital necessity, and it is precisely *because* it has been left to the profit motive that we have such an incredible abundance and variety of food in this country. Get government out of health care (and I mean completely out), and we would see an analogous variety of options in medicine.

For more on the argument for freedom in medicine, see the AFCM site (http://www.afcm.org/).

No, we don’t pay twice for the same care. It’s all done on a system of rebates. If you are not a welfare recipient or unemployed, you get billed by your GP, specialist, pathologist or hospital. You then go to the Government and/or your private insurer and get a rebate to help pay the bill. You end up paying a gap amount.

If you are a welfare recipient you get free treatment, but use the Government hospital system, which is slower and gives much less choice of doctor.

We all pay a 1.25% tax levy top pay for the Government’s part in the system. Of course this is no where near enough and the Gpovernment has to provide more money from consolidated revenue.

Our system is halfway between Private enterprise and socialist. It therefore doesn’t really work as well as it would do if the Government were to exit and leave it to the professionals.

I would argue that the example of other countries should show that the US should avoid Government interference in the health market like the plague.

If the US Government is so concerned with poor people not being insured, then it should just pay their insurance premiums for them and butt out.

Why can’t we just start small with an accounting change: Employer-paid health insurance is no longer tax deductible – only individual-paid is. Employers are not allowed to change existing policies for two years while moving the cost of the insurance to an individual pre-tax deduction (much like 401(k), FICA, Medicare, etc… deductions).

Then we will finally know how much we are paying now.

If we want to go to a single-payer govt system, we will also know how much we’ll be paying in taxes and how much of of a raise we should get to pay those taxes.

Right now, we’re firing blind. It’s stupid.

Harry Browne, the Ur-Gold Bug, is dead

What a brilliant refutation. Why didn’t I think of that? ♫If I only had a brain…♫

Actually, by no standard measure is medical insurance a necessity (I love how you put it in CAPS as if that makes you correct), and in fact the history of America demonstrates this to be true.

Unless of course you actually can’t understand that many, many people lived and died (some of them into their 80’s & 90’s) in this country prior to “medical insurance” and you incoherently deeming it a necessity.

Seriously, you must be a parody.

Nobody is this stupid.

I hope.

Laugh out loud funny.

So nobody, not one person, without “medical insurance” (note, not actual medical care) has no liberty? No life? They are not happy?

You, not too bright Internet commenter know this, how?

Upon reading your profound commentary, immediately I thought of a more apt
moniker for you: it’s actually very similar to yours: it has three letters and it also begins with the letter “A”. It even kinda sounds like your current one.

Um, and then what?
Note you can’t refute the fact that when very wealthy foreigners become very ill they always travel to America for medical treatment.

There is a reason for that.
One you simply can’t admit. Nor address.