What a surprise, Mudede has a man crush on a fop.

@2 Greed is easy to deal with when it isn't constantly propped up as a virtue or a godhead.

Greed is a cultural norm as is contentment.

And Charles, I think 90% of what you write is self indulgent bullshit stacked on the shoulders of giants (not that you care what I think) but this little tidbit was a lovely thought.

Keep it up.

Well said, Charles.

I believe he turned to the wallpaper and said, "Well, one of us had to go."

A fitting end for a man who could resist anything but temptation.

Lovely, lovely. This made me smile. Cheers.

Socialism only lasts until you run out of other people's money.

I'll take liberty instead. You mind your own business, I'll mind mine.

Loved this, Charles. I think I'll steal your lines, "Being a capitalist is so crass" and "It is in bad taste not to be a socialist." I couldn't agree more.

Nice.

Wow, I don't want to spray Charles with a seltzer bottle today. Good job, sir!

I think the bigger question is how much greed is enough to channel the benefits of the market to the greater good?

I think the answer is a lot less than we have going on right now. But I also think that @2 is right. We need to acknowledge greed/competition and keep it explicit and central to the system. Otherwise, you'll probably end up with some other sort sort of social elite that's even less based on performance than the existing system.

It should be possible for one person to be rewarded above other people for working extra hard or being extra good at something. But the difference between the richest and the poorest in society should not be nearly as wide as it is. If you could be 25 times richer than the least affluent member of your society, but everything you made over that went to the collective to take care of everybody, would it really incline you to work that much less hard? Personally, I kind of doubt it. Isn't the money just how certain people keep score after a while? If there was status attached to how much you contributed to the collective above your 25 to 1 wealth ratio, wouldn't that give certain people the acknowledgement they crave while benefiting everyone more?

Hard to say I guess?

When I get enough money in the bank, I tend to stop worrying about anyone or anything.

Wow, Mudede, I don't want to give you a vigorous shake.

Human beings are too selfish to be good at socialism. They're too selfish to be good at capitalism either, for that matter. Actually, humans are just too selfish. period.

@15 Humans evolved by accretion of new traits. Most of the old traits are still in our DNA. Unfortunately, you don't have to dig very far down to get to our simian forebears. If humans act like a bunch of deranged monkeys sometimes, there's a reason for that.

Ah, every once in a while Charles comes through with such a lovely little gem!

So, to be thought police. I always thought so. It's just good to here one of the Party say so.

Socialism has many great concepts and goals. I agree that they are lofty and well meaning...

Unfortunately, humans require motivation.

When you remove the fear of doom, failure, and premature death, as socialism attempts to do, you remove the most profound motivating factors for human existence.

It is absolutely required for humans to be successful, that their heads and hearts fear the consequence of a lack of action. You cannot motivate one to work by providing welfare. You cannot take care of the earth by providing healthcare.

People need to fear failure, and not in a way that causes them great anxiety, but just enough to get them off their ass and working.

The earth needs people to die. We cannot continue the subversion mother nature's plans. We continually avoid pandemic flu, and other devastating issues. We provide life saving drugs and operations and the result is people living very long lives. This is not sustainable. We need massive die offs to continue a good quality of life.

It is apparant in nature...Too many Elk, and the Wolves move in to thin the heard, and then they eat too many Elk, and then the Wolves die off, and over and over and over...with every species on earth.

If this process is subverted, then the earth truly has no chance at survival. It is philosophies such as socialism that form the backbone of subverting mother natures plans.

For me, capitalism is best...I didn't sell out...I bought in...

Don't blame capitalism for the failure of the individual. We were all born with 10 fingers and ten toes, two arms, two legs and a head and a torso. We all have the same chances of making it, if we will only take the time to tap into the energy of success. Socialism is the opposite of success. Socialism is like saying, "eh, lets give up on those people, they can't do it, they need us"...or like saying, "eh, I can't do it, it's too hard, I was born poor and I can't get it done because I am far too disadvantaged"... Of course, I am oversimplifying the issue, and I do feel some tenants of socialism are appropriate in our society. Surely, the United States is not a "capitalist" society. At best, we have what I would call "tempered capitalism". I do believe the implementation of aspects of all philosophies and socio-economic theory is best. No one system is good. They are all fatally flawed. Only a mix of them all will grant us the success we need in the end.

I am not sure that people understand the concept of a socialist or communalist society. It does not mean you give up your freedom. Unfortunately simple, retail understandings pit economic models versus political. Capitalist countries can be absolutist too. The next generation of capitalist countries are the most ruthless--just ask Chinese dissidents.

@7 We're in this together whether you like it or not. You can also die on your own too. In fact you will. Money is made by governments for whatever purpose. It's not real. Things like poverty and war are real.

Haha, "Being a capitalist is so crass" indeed. Lovely post.

Charles,
I am an admirer of Oscar Wilde. I've read is biography. And, "Picture of Dorian Gray" remains a favorite work of mine. He was witty and dashing. I recommend "On the Importance of Being Earnest".

Sorry, but I'm sure that the rich don't think about money all the time.

Now what is socialism outside of Mudede's private world?

A political and economic theory of that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

And what is the ideology that Oscar Wilde is really expounding upon in the above cited essay (despite its title)? Anarchy. And it goes into much more than just "placing checks on poverty and placing checks on wealth." Truly it does; give it a read.

Oh, and that doesn't correspond at all with the Singaporean "socialism" that Mudede was wishing for just the other day.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar…

I don't think socialism means what you think it does.

Taxation and adequate spending on social welfare initiatives is not socialism. It's government support for social order and a society worthy of living in. It allows the well-off to live comfortably, without excessive guilt or fear of social unrest. Different story.

@23: If you actually read the piece linked in the post, you will see that Wilde was talking about non-statist socialism.

@24: I've been around many rich people and yes they do. Obsessively.

Yeah, that seems right.

All governments have power. The rejection of a socialistic form of government on the grounds that it possesses power is asinine.

@28 Um ... no .... if you have money why would you be thinking about it? You may be thinking about how to spend it .... but even then.

@31: I didn't say it was rational. Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't make it not true. I am saying I know it first hand, they are insane with obsession.

@ 31 - Damn, kk. You think that the rich just go around all day like "La de dah, I'm so rich, what am I going to BUY next? Oooo, I can hardly wait!"

Once again, your inexperience with the real world is showing. Unless they inherited, the rich are CONSTANTLY thinking about their worth: how to increase it, how to protect it, how to invest it. It is THE RICH who will obsess over the tiniest niggling details, in order to REMAIN RICH.

This is how it is in the real world, a place you seem all too unfamiliar with....

"So, Mudede: is it ok for fundamentalists to use aesthetics to deny gays the right to live their lives, or to reject interracial marriage? Or is it the privilege of the leftist elite to determine what is and is not obscene?" Funny that you bring up all this little issues, because I am sure that the most overbearing parts of the State eventually ensured these freedoms in subordinate domains. Not saying it's the best solutions but wondering if you have an actual workable alternative other than some form of syndicalist claptrap.

Because @31, at a certain point the accumulation of wealth becomes and end in-and-of itself. The super-rich don't NEED another $1B in their portfolio; most couldn't possibly spend what they have already in their own lifetimes. What they NEED is to have more than the super-wealthy person on the Forbes 400 list just below them, and their obsession becomes to overtake the next super-wealthy person on the list above them.

It has absolutely nothing to do with what they can actually DO with their wealth, since in most cases, the only thing they ARE doing with it is using it to generate even more wealth. The pittances they dole out to various charities, is again, for the most part merely a sop to make the rest of us believe they're doing something beneficial with their wealth, while they continue to amass ever larger quantities of it.

Capitalism is an absolute catastrophe. There will be no curbing of the criminal exploitation and expropriation in a system that does everything to encourage those very things. Capitalism is completely failing the masses of humans, animals, forests, oceans, atmosphere etc etc etc. The demanded 3% grow per year is unsustainable. Forget the collapse of our environment, it just can't continue to pay people the means of subsistence. Slums everywhere are exploding after those that formerly drew their bread from the land are thrown off that land and force to sell their labor are then pitched onto Capital's rubbish heap.

We know all this, we know we are in deep shit and yet we continue "because there is no alternative". Bullshit, this false realism is not a statement of truth, it's blind adherence to ideology.

It's not the job of socialists and communists to present a flawless way forward, only a an alternative ideology with which to find a way forward. And we can start by ceasing to indict the Kennith Lays and Bernie Madoffs and start indicting the system that creates them.

I disagree heartily that only the rich and the poor think constantly about money. I don't beleive I fall into either category, but nary a day goes by when I don't think about my savings, retirement, how/when I'm going to pay back my substantial student loans, whether I can afford to have children, etc.

@38 I'm in the same boat. Then you're poor. "Middle class" is a euphemism that deprives people of the awareness of the real value of their labor.

Or maybe "working class" rather than poor. Either way, the distinction between you and the ownership class is the same of magnitude with the poor.

I think @12 has a point, although I'm pretty sure it's not the one he thought he had. You stop worrying when you have "enough" money. For me, that would be about 30k a year - for others, depending on family size and resourcefulness and location, more or less. The project of socialism is about making sure everybody has "enough".

I see a stronger obsession with money on here than anyone else.

I think the difference between middle class and poor is this: the poor worry about money in the short term (how will I make my rent, how will I fix my car) and the middle class worry more in the long term (how will I pay off my debt, how will I retire).

I heard someone (can't remember who) say once: to be poor is to live in a series of moments. Don't worry about the future, and don't plan for it either. Spend what you have now, because you're going to lose it either way, might as well enjoy it before someone takes it away from you.

Incidentally, I decided to figure out how much money a family with two kids has to make to be comfortably middle class: a 3 bedroom house, typical bills, a minivan and a midrange sedan, one annual family vacation, one meal at a casual dining chain per week, day care, summer camp, college and retirement savings, health insurance and $25,000 in student loans. I think that adequately represents what middle class people might want to have, right?

In my zip code in Florida (not an expensive place to live, and one with no state income tax to boot), the pre-tax figure is about $106,000 per year. I think most people, especially in Florida, would not consider that a middle class income. It just goes to show you that, really, you have to be rich to be middle class these days.

@44 That's actually the most accurate I have ever seen. Kudos.

@45:
Where I live (midwest), that is definitely a middle class income. Most engineers I know make at least that and they are not rich.

"Taste" is in itself mostly a marker of social class.

Charles, if you have to read one thing today, read this.

What a wonderful thought. Many thanks for providing a lovely start to my Monday.

Who talks this way about money? Only aristocrats do. The saddest thing about socialism is that it fundamentally is based on making the world a better place, but nearly everywhere it is implemented it creates a hell on earth.

A system predicated on freedom from want inexorably leads to no freedom of any other kind.

@51 Proof? Please don't tell me about Russia or China. They're absolutist states...not really socialist or communist at all.

I'd really like to know how privatizing shit is not making a worse hell on earth. Britain certainly doesn't want to privatize the NHS for all it's certain faults.