My thoughts on the deficiency of public education (and education in general), over at PJM.
65 thoughts on “You Just Might Be A Marxist”
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My thoughts on the deficiency of public education (and education in general), over at PJM.
Comments are closed.
If you actually read the President’s “spread the wealth around” remarks you linked to, you’d see that Henry Ford was a Marxist. Because that Obama wants is what Ford wanted – a base of customers who made enough money to afford the products they were working on. One of the specific quotes: you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you.
Except Ford’s idea was to make cars cheap enough that everyone could afford one. Obama’s is to make them so expensive that nobody can.
I don’t care if the rich get tax rate reductions as long as we’re pulling in enough money to cover our expenditures. Since we’re not, somebody has to pay.
Nobody’s arguing that we have to keep people in their homes if they absolutely can’t afford it. What is being argued is that it would be better for banks and the economy if loans were re-negotiated for people who lost their jobs.
“President Woodrow Wilson asked Ford to run as a Democrat for the United States Senate from Michigan in 1918. Although the nation was at war, Ford ran as a peace candidate and a strong supporter of the proposed League of Nations.[18]”
Why is it news that a Democrat might be a Marxist?
“If you actually read the President’s “spread the wealth around” remarks you linked to, you’d see that Henry Ford was a Marxist. ”
Yes, Henry Ford was a Marxist, and not only that, he was an anti-Semite!
Mines shorter (I may even have beat ya to print [same day]) but [hangs head] yours is so much better…
Free trade: A has something worth X (to A.) B has something worth Y (to B.) They meet.
If X is worth less than Y to B they do not trade.
If Y is worth less than X to A they do not trade.
Otherwise they trade so A now has something worth X or more and B has something worth Y or more. Whatever more they have is new wealth.
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Henry Ford was a Marxist
We’re all swimming in marxist ideology. It’s a miracle any of us come away unscathed. Education is an uphill battle. I physically flinch everytime a goldline commercial comes on and they talk about gold having an intrinsic value (thank you Rand for opening my eyes to that.) I’m still trying to come to terms with anti trust, but I’ll get there.
What is being argued is that it would be better for banks and the economy if loans were re-negotiated for people who lost their jobs.
In other words, we have to keep people in their homes even if they absolutely can’t afford it.
Paul Hsieh’s comment on your article at PJM properly corrects you Rand on the ‘needs are subjective’ bit.
Needs are objective. That people use the term ‘need’ to denote any kind of subjective want and conflate them with actual needs doesn’t change this.
Of course one man’s needs do not chain other men with a responsibilty to provide for his needs. If he were on a deserted island, he’d have to meet his own needs or die, in a society of equals it should be no different (it just gets easier since you can specialize and trade).
Ford’s $5/day raise doubled the average autoworker’s wage. It also came with a reduction from nine to eight hours a day. Ford ran in both Republican and Democratic primaries.
Explain, please, how one of the richest men in America coud be a Marxist? If Ford had Marxist tendencies, why didn’t he give his factories to his workers?
“Our” expenditures, Chris? Excuse me? I don’t recall signing up for any “our” expenses. So, you know, screw you. If the government doesn’t steal enough tax money to pay for your expenditures, then you can pay. Leave me the hell out of your crazy Ponzi schemes and mass delusions.
The thing that’s disgusting about this way of thinking is that it thoroughly debases the nature of voluntary responsibility. The thinking is that if 50% of the voters plus 1 agree to X, then all of a sudden X becomes the responsibility of 100% of the voters, including the big chunk who never asked for it at all. What is it called when one man can impose a responsibility on another, without the second man’s consent? “Slavery” comes to mind.
I don’t care if the rich get tax rate reductions as long as we’re pulling in enough money to cover our expenditures. Since we’re not, somebody has to pay.
I would hope that someone somewhere might consider the possibility that they are spending too much money. Rather than making someone else pay, why not find something of lower priority, eliminate that expense, and use that money to pay for the higher priority product or service?
Chris, do you believe you are paying your fair share of federal taxes? In other words, do you believe that you receive government services commensurate with your contribution? How would you feel if the government decided you weren’t paying enough and forced you to pay more of your hard-earned salary? From a family-finances point of view, you don’t have the option of saying “somebody has to pay”, you have to adjust your own budget in order to make ends meet. Why would you then feel that the government shouldn’t also adjust their budget in order to make ends meet?
Explain, please, how one of the richest men in America coud be a Marxist?
The idea that rich men love the free market takes a remarkable level of not thinking clearly. That’s like arguing that kings love democracy. Uh, no. A very wealthy man would like the market controlled. They like government, because government keeps things stable, keeps some whippersnapper upstart in a garage from breaking the rich man’s monopoly and making him work much, much harder for his income. Bill Gates feared Linus Torvalds, and would love the government to constrain the market so that scruffy Linux entrepreneurs can’t compete.
If Ford had Marxist tendencies, why didn’t he give his factories to his workers?
Because the Marxist never gives away his own wealth — he gives away the wealth of others. You need to distinguish between a Marxist and a Buddhist monk.
If you actually read the President’s “spread the wealth around” remarks you linked to, you’d see that Henry Ford was a Marxist. Because that Obama wants is what Ford wanted – a base of customers who made enough money to afford the products they were working on.
That’s a myth about Henry Ford. He wanted the cheapest labor force he could get. Problem was that he couldn’t produce high quality cars, if he paid prevailing wages. There was too much turnover and he wasn’t attracting good people. Afterward, the company sold the wage increase as allowing their workers to buy the very product they made. It was good propaganda (to the point that you and many others quote it as fact even today), but the direct monetary benefit to Ford from employee bought cars was and still is negligible.
Similarly, we see Obama spinning the same sort of myth, but from the other side. Obama chose to emphasize forced wealth redistribution, claiming that it is “good for everybody”, even though it is obvious that such efforts are harmful to those who lose the wealth.
Putting a floor on labor, AKA a “minimum wage” is not entirely about worth of labor. It’s also to put a floor on labor costs. There is always somebody willing to work for less money. It’s also to prevent the sort of abuses found in company towns (paying in script, paying by the ton of coal shoveled) which led to debt slavery.
If you believe that handing someone who pays no taxes a government check is a “tax cut,” you might be a Marxist. Every worker pays social security and Medicare tax. Giving a check is a rebate for low-income workers who don’t pay income tax.
If you believe that unemployment checks are the surest, fastest way to stimulate the economy, you might be a Marxist. So letting people starve is faster? The CBO disagrees (PDF link).
I guess Megan McArdle’s a Marxist too – she wants to treat capital gains as ordinary income. Remember – we used to do just that (under Reagan).
If you believe that you know better than someone else what they “need,” I assume you mean health care insurance. So, you are telling me you’ll never get sick or be in an accident? Must be nice to be immortal and invulnerable 😉 No, I think you’ll definitely need health care insurance.
The thinking is that if 50% of the voters plus 1 agree to X, then all of a sudden X becomes the responsibility of 100% of the voters it’s called “democracy.”
Jiminator – I’m in the second-highest tax bracket now. Yes, I do feel I’m getting adequate value for money. I’m actually not against spending cuts – even though I served in the Navy I think we’re spending more than we need to on defense.
De ja vu! I was just telling my boss the same thing. “Andrew”, I said, “My expenses are really getting ahead of my paycheck. Someone has to pay for that. Could I have a raise?” And you know what he said?? He said “No.” That bastard.
/sarcasm
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Good article. Just one quibble, and it’s about keeping people in their homes. There’s a non-Marxist argument for that. It goes something like this:
1. People have to live somewhere. For reasons of public policy (for both compassionate and public order reasons), we don’t want 20% of the population homeless.
2. Shuffling 20% of the population from the homes they’re in to different homes is really expensive. It’s a Full Employment Act for real estate attorneys and moving companies, but it’s a dead loss to society.
3. The homes people are in are already built. Letting them stand empty for months/years will impose even more costs on society as time & squatters do their damage.
4. The homes are going to lose 20-30% of their value no matter what we do.
5. The lowest-cost solution to society as a whole is just to knock off 20-30% of the mortgage value of the homes and let people stay where they are. Given a sufficient hit to their equity in the home (if any) and credit rating, it’s not a free ride. This allows society to avoid the costs associated with points #2 and #3.
Hey, I was wondering where Chris Gerrib went to! I figured he was probably busy with his online Chris Gerrib School of Bogus History. Or else standing by his computer, eagerly awaiting the next party line to parrot. You might know any criticism of the Annointed One would be the thing to bring him back. Only Chris Gerrib, with his, shall we say, “unique” logic, would see the Red Diaper Baby in the White House and Henry Ford as similar because Ford wanted people to buy his cars. Hey, maybe Ford was the Darth Soros of his day. Did he advocate looting rich people and giving the money to poorer people so that they could buy his cars? If so, he just may have been a Marxist. Just wondering.
While you other suckers waste time debating with the syllogistically-challenged Mr. Gerrib, I would like to add, on a serious note, that one sign of what one might call “unconscious” Marxism (and also a sign of the success the New Left of the Sixties had in radicalizing “liberalism” in the post-McGovern era) is portraying all pro-liberty dissent as the work of evil capitalists only interested in safeguarding their hoarded wealth. (I refer you, as only one example, to Keith Olbermann’s recent rant.) If you’re obviously not a rich person, and still pro-liberty, then you’re either a paid lackey of the capitalist classes, or a “dupe” operating out of “false consciousness.” (See the writings of Thomas Frank.)
Follows is a list of factually wrong things said by Chris Gerrib:
1.
Wrong. For a given quality of work, there is not always someone willing to work for less. At my previous job I billed out at $275/hour. Do you know how many Indians in Bangalore had the skills necessary to replace me at 1/10th that cost? Zero.
2.
Wrong. Debt slavery could easily be maintained by simply increasing the cost of groceries and rent at the company town until the increased wages from the higher minimum wage was wiped out.
Debt slavery is defeated by requiring payment in legal tender, bankruptcy protection, and a free market in labor.
3.
Technically this is a question, not a statement, but it’s still wrong because it suffers from a logic error. Rand said “unemployment checks are not the fastest way to stimulate an economy”, and Chris came back with “starvation is the fastest way to stimulate the economy.”
Does everyone see the logic error? Rand’s statement allows for multiple “non-starvation” methods for stimulating the economy. Like lowering taxes and setting 80% of the Federal Code on fire.
4.
This statement demonstrate’s Chris’s confusion on the subject of what is or is not Marxist. Treating capital gains as ordinary income under the tax code isn’t Marxist, and so neither is Megan McArdle (or Ronald Reagan). I’m really not sure how anyone could believe otherwise, but maybe Chris can walk us through his logic chain at more length later.
5.
This statement contains proof of Chris Gerrib’s Marxism. Pinko. It also contains a logical error, by assuming statements by Mr. Simber that he didn’t make.
Chris, Rand didn’t say he would never get hurt or sick. That sort of statement would be ludicrous. What he said was that neither you nor Nancy Pelosi know what kind of insurance he needs/wants. And you don’t. For all you know he might want no insurance from a company at all, and self-insure. Some people do that.
Putting a floor on labor, AKA a “minimum wage” is not entirely about worth of labor. It’s also to put a floor on labor costs. There is always somebody willing to work for less money.
Then why not let them? Keep in mind that a considerable portion of US workers are simply equivalent to developing world workers except they cost considerably more. By dropping minimum wage we could get them off of welfare, prison, or the government payroll.
It’s also to prevent the sort of abuses found in company towns (paying in script, paying by the ton of coal shoveled) which led to debt slavery.
Doesn’t follow. Minimum wage just is a regulation on minimum wage. I’m tired of current bad policy being rationalized by completely unrelated business practices that haven’t ever existed outside of isolated locations.
Every worker pays social security and Medicare tax. Giving a check is a rebate for low-income workers who don’t pay income tax.
They get out of the deal, a Ponzi scheme and higher health care costs.
So letting people starve is faster? The CBO disagrees (PDF link).
The CBO is a propaganda mouthpiece for Congress. In the same report that you link, they make some pretty outrageous claims about the effect of the ARRA (up to $700 billion boost in GDP! The low end $200 billion is basically just what happens if only the tax rate cuts worked). And of course, we have the false choice of paying people not work versus starvation. We could always have employers pay them to work, you know. That’s how it’s done in the US.
Shuffling 20% of the population from the homes they’re in to different homes is … a dead loss to society.
Removing squatters, even if it just “shuffles around” the use of existing homes without increasing their number, is not a dead loss to society, because it reinforces the structure of justice and incentives that keep society running. That applies whether those squatters broke the front door lock with a crowbar or broke the economy with unwise decisions.
Brock – at the quality of work covered under minimum wage, yes there is always somebody willing to work for less. I’m not sure what you do, but unless you’re Superman, I’ll take the oursource side of that bet.
What’s faster – giving somebody cash now or making them wait for a refund next year?
Treating capital gains as ordinary income is a tax rate increase.
Unless Rand is sitting on a couple of millions in cash, he can’t self-insure. Health care costs for cancer or other expensive illnesses can be multi-million dollar expenses. That’s why the health care reform bill took off lifetime caps.
Karl Hallowell – there really isn’t a large body of potential workers sitting on welfare. I’m not sure what the “empty the prisons” thing you recommend is about.
Whether or not you like social security, the fact is that it is a tax, and everybody pays it. So saying we’re “giving tax breaks to people who don’t pay taxes” is factually wrong.
If there were jobs, we wouldn’t have to pay unemployment benefits. Considering that unemployment benefits are less than half of what the worker would have made on their job, and capped at low levels, anybody on unemployment has strong incentives to work. The problem is that there just aren’t jobs.
There just aren’t jobs because there is limited demand for goods and services. Creating a demand for goods and services will (in the short run) lead to economic growth.
I don’t care if the rich get tax rate reductions as long as we’re pulling in enough money to cover our expenditures. Since we’re not, somebody has to pay.
Or stop spending so much. That is what we mere mortals have to do when not enough money comes in.
What’s faster – giving somebody cash now or making them wait for a refund next year?
Turns out the tax refund next year is faster. Seems there’s a huge amount of delay in giving people cash “now”.
The thinking is that if 50% of the voters plus 1 agree to X, then all of a sudden X becomes the responsibility of 100% of the voters, including the big chunk who never asked for it at all. What is it called when one man can impose a responsibility on another, without the second man’s consent?
Civilization.
What is it called when people mistake slavery for civilization? Depends on the existence of a second amendment.
Chris Gerrib wrote:
don’t care if the rich get tax rate reductions as long as we’re pulling in enough money to cover our expenditures. Since we’re not, somebody has to pay.
In a free country, that somebody would be the one receiving the benefit of the expenditures. Since the vast majority of those expenditures is welfare and of no use to the rich, the rich should not be forced to pay for them.
There is always somebody willing to work for less money.
And in a free country, that somebody would be allowed to do what he is willing to do.
Chris: That you so often and so strongly come down on the side opposite of freedom is why some people associate you with Marxism. It may not be a technically accurate term, but it covers the gist of the situation.
Mike
Jim wrote:
This actually demonstrates pretty nicely the liberal mindset regarding conservatives. They take their views as the definition of “civilization”, so anyone who opposes them is literally barbaric.
The mindset is quite common, but this is perhaps the most succint example of it I’ve seen.
Mike
The thinking is that if 50% of the voters plus 1 agree to X, then all of a sudden X becomes the responsibility of 100% of the voters, including the big chunk who never asked for it at all. What is it called when one man can impose a responsibility on another, without the second man’s consent?
I would have said “democracy”. And of course, you can have 60%+1 democracies, 70%+1 democracies, etc, but all democracies end up imposing responsiblities (such as declaring war, etc) on people in the minority. Right? If not, what kind of democracy did you have in mind? Or alternatively, what system do you prefer to democracy?
I am really really really hoping (with sugar on top) that someone answers “Republic!” 🙂
Chris Gerrib sez: “I’m in the second-highest tax bracket now.”
Well, Chris, I’m in the first-highest tax bracket — and I work for the Federal Government.
Thank you for your taxes!!
I do not like to pay taxes either. But I do enjoy having public roads, parks, low crime, universal education, universal health care and many other things US conservatives hate. I realize these services need to be paid. US conservatives seem to think everything should just be gated and fenced in with a ticket boot at the gate. Is this individual liberty?
Some local governments in the US are breaking up roads and tearing down services to keep costs down. If you freeze government income while engaging in multiple simultaneous wars in the other side of the world, do not be surprised when you see the deficits piling up. The US citizens are still around, so you can hardly shrink the budget for running the civilian state services without getting a negative impact in the domestic economy soon afterwards.
“‘The thinking is that if 50% of the voters plus 1 agree to X, then all of a sudden X becomes the responsibility of 100% of the voters, including the big chunk who never asked for it at all. What is it called when one man can impose a responsibility on another, without the second man’s consent?’
Civilization.”
Civilization involves protecting the individual from the mob. Wrong answer, Jimbo…
I’ve always considered “To each according to his need, from each according to his ability” as a mandate for a basic safety net in society, to eliminate need. Of course, it’s only natural for a government to take that power beyond basic needs.
But I do enjoy having public roads, parks, low crime, universal education, universal health care and many other things US conservatives hate.
US conservatives hate public roads and low crime?
I guess that “free” education of yours was wasted on you.
“…paternalism has no place in industry. Welfare work that consists in prying into employees’ private concerns is out of date. Men need counsel and men need help, oftentimes special help; and all this ought to be rendered for decency’s sake. But the broad workable plan of investment and participation will do more to solidify industry and strengthen organization than will any social work on the outside.”
Henry Ford, 1922.
Nobody tell Chris!
“…universal education, universal health care and many other things US conservatives hate.”
So- because YOU like them, I have to pay for them?
Whip out your own wallet, clown. If you like that sort of stuff, you won’t mind paying my share as well as your own.
Chris Gerrib wrote:
So, you are telling me you’ll never get sick or be in an accident? Must be nice to be immortal and invulnerable No, I think you’ll definitely need health care insurance.
That’s not your decision, Gerrib. Whether I find it suitable to purchase comprehensive medical insurance, or pay out of pocket and just have catastrophic coverage, or just pay cash for everything, is my own business.
If you want health care insurance, if you think it’s right for you, that’s your call. You have no right to tell others to pay for it, or to tell others to get a product or service that they may or may not want.
Karl Hallowell – there really isn’t a large body of potential workers sitting on welfare. I’m not sure what the “empty the prisons” thing you recommend is about.
Prison is a place to put uneducated workers. Given that the prison population is roughly 1% of the US’s total (not just employable) population and mostly poorly educated, I imagine it deflates unemployment rates for education at or below high school diploma by a significant amount. But the point here is former crooks have a hard time finding a job because their labor isn’t for most jobs worth even minimum wage. As I see it, minimum wage is a big contributing factor to recidivism among former prisoners. And once they’re back in prison, they don’t count as unemployed.
And as I understand it, the unemployment figure comes (almost 10%) comes from people who are on unemployment insurance.
Finally, while the federal government pays poorly for very educated workers, it pays quite well for poorly educated workers.
Thus, we have three ways of hiding the ill effects of minimum wage by inducing artificial scarcity. Social Security, as it used to be practiced (where the retiree had an active disincentive to work at all), used to be a fourth way of hiding unemployment by encouraging the elderly to drop out of the labor market.
Civilization
Wrong Jim. Majority rules is a method and not always the best. When the inalienable right of property is violated as it is in the U.S. with rampant redistribution and a dash of voter fraud you have tyranny. There is nothing civilized about tyranny.
there really isn’t a large body of potential workers sitting on welfare
Really? Eliminate all welfare and the minimum wage and unemployment would go below 1%. Even with less severe restructuring in Clinton’s second term we began to get a handle on welfare, but they’ve destroyed those gains in the meantime.
…saying we’re “giving tax breaks to people who don’t pay taxes” is factually wrong
Only one example is required to prove you wrong. Perhaps you should rethink.
If there were jobs, we wouldn’t have to pay unemployment benefits.
Bush extended unemployment payments past 26 weeks into Clinton’s first term. They didn’t have to extend them. If it really was insurance they’d fire all those people administering it. There would be no weeks. Instead those that paid the insurance would get a lump sum when they got laid off and it would be up to them to use it like an adult… or not. It’s not about helping anyone. It’s about making them serfs. Period.
Considering that unemployment benefits are less than half of what the worker would have made on their job, and capped at low levels, anybody on unemployment has strong incentives to work.
Apparently you are wrong since people tend to not find jobs for 26 weeks then suddenly they do. Any number of weeks is stupid. But they are acting rationally. The difference is $/time or $/zero time. That’s an infinite rate of pay. Bill Gates doesn’t even make that.
There just aren’t jobs because there is limited demand for goods and services.
Wrong again. Batting 1000. There aren’t jobs for exactly one reason. Employers are unwilling to add any expense in an unstable political enviromment. Obama calling business people evil isn’t helping. Ask Las Vegas.
Business people are not saints. When they are successful they want to limit others from joining the competition with them. They will often use politics to do it. These additional laws are not about protecting consumers (who as adults will protect themselves.) Lowering the barriers to competition helps consumers (who will continue to protect themselves.)
“But I do enjoy having public roads, parks, low crime, universal education, universal health care and many other things US conservatives hate.
US conservatives hate public roads and low crime?
I guess that “free” education of yours was wasted on you.”
Cecil,
Like his Japanese namesake, he only spews sound, fury and hot air everytime he opens his mouth.
test
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Dave Cooper, Just curious: Is mandating a health insurance purchase worse than taxation? Via taxation, we mandate all sorts of purchases from government. Do you think mandating a purchase from your choice of private insurance companies is worse than mandating the purchase of various services from a government monopoly?
Or alternatively, what system do you prefer to democracy?
This is the wrong question. It’s not about method, it’s about principles. Without honor, integrity and principles… no system works.
Inalienable right of life, liberty and property are principles. Free trade is a principle. Honoring the rights of individuals over the mob is a principle.
For example: When I buy insurance I am making a free choice to join a group to spread risk. This honors my right of liberty.
When a mob of 50%+1 doesn’t respect individual liberty and forces people to give up their right of property to join a group for any service provided what-so-ever… that’s tyranny.
When any power, king or mob, doesn’t respect the right of individuals those individuals are obliged to alter or abolish that power. Let’s hope civilization wins and we do it by vote. Defend and protect the constitution from ALL enemies foreign and DOMESTIC.
If Henry Ford was a Marxist, then when did he advocate displacing private industry with economic central planning?
Obama may or may not be a true Marxist, but he – along with the rest of the redistributionist crowd – was influenced by the scraggly German.
Henry Ford was a Marxist.
When in doubt, distract.
I’m in the second-highest tax bracket now.
Yeah, some of those government jobs pay pretty well.
Is mandating a health insurance purchase worse than taxation?
You keep asking irrelevant questions based on a wrong assumption. All violation of individual rights by government is wrong. If everybody in a city votes and unanimously agrees to take my property, liberty or life when I have harmed no other person they haven’t made theft or murder right or moral by taking a vote. That government and those people would be acting immorally.
Tyranny is tyranny even if the tyrants are nice about it.
Karl, I agree with what you say but societies are, well, societies. One person one vote leads to wealth redistribution, democracy becomes entitlement, so raising average prosperity becomes one of the few viable options to increasing the prosperity of the country. Hence the US really can not afford more poor people (unskilled people), they bring down the average and thereby the total.
The solution to poverty is not to make it endurable, but to make people rich – focus on wealth.
I see Bob still doesn’t know what a Republic is. Gerrib won’t except that he’s a marxist despite his kneejerk desire to defend it even when his name is not mentioned. And Jim is very comfortable with the marxist civilization.
What is being argued is that it would be better for banks and the economy if loans were re-negotiated for people who lost their jobs.
First let me say I do NOT believe this. Second, and I speak only for myself, why should THESE people be bailed out? Those of us who lost it all during the DOT Com bust didn’t get ‘bailed’. People who lost it all during past down turns didn’t get ‘bailed’.
Only someone who’s been there can really get it, can really understand starting over, with nothing, at 40 or 50 or not at all. But spreading this out over all of us is not the answer.
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There is always somebody willing to work for less money.
Yeah Chris? Try again. And I’ll even admit to having once thought that, long ago. I’ve had trouble off and on for years hiring people in various companies, and industries. But over the last two summers, it’s been insane. When people were (supposedly) scrambling for work / money, I could not hire people to work my concession tent.
I do Kettle Korn and soft drinks.
Guaranteeing 10 to 12 hours per weekend, I couldn’t hire people for $10, $12, or even finally $15 per hour CASH. I advertised in local papers, used the ESC, and had signs hung up where we were working. No bites, so I finally gave up. I’m parking my stuff until the economy comes back. Oddly, I had less trouble when people had jobs.
That’s what I’ll wait for.