Originally Posted by Zichao

FML. I'm in a lesson now, downstairs there are a bunch of socialistards yelling about pensions. When it's ordinary lycéens doing it it's just a little depressing. When it's people who are supposed to have a basic knowledge of economics it just makes you want to open your wrists.

Except of course they're doing the yelling precisely becuase they DO have that knowledge.

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God we have paid in full

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God we have paid it in

We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives
And we're told it's your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God we bought it fair


anon, 1908

Welcome back, Contra. Computer's problems are over?

And.. to repeat... when you say, "except of course they're doing the yelling precisely becuase they DO have that knowledge", you are actually imagining things.

None of these guys is proposing to do anything marxist-related. Nope. No proposal of taxing/expropriating the rich. Nope. Just "I don't want anything to chaaaange, whine, whiiiine, whiiiiiine"...

What the French are really saying is "We want to go the way Greece went". Personally, I'd rather take my austerity in small doses.

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Oh and to comment on your poem - Erm, even in the UK, an island most protected by Historical Fate, the list of the 100 richest people doesn't yield too many direct inheritors of William the Conqueror's comrades.

Find out about the Top 100 Richest people in the UK

I haven't done the whole list but the ancestor of the richest of the titled bastards, the Duke of Westminster, was a lowly baronnet and Tory MP in the 1600s... Hardly a ruler of kingdoms past... And Mittal or Abramovich come from dirt (or, as good as, compared to what they've achieved themselves).

What I am trying to say is that the rich, evil as they are, are not necessarily the same rich than a thousand years ago. Ditto the poor. So:

We have fed you all for a thousand years
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God we have paid in full

remains definitely poetic license...

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Err, i don't think the poem's or Contra's point is at all dependent on there being hereditary continunity in the ruling class for 1000 years, but just on there having been a ruling class for 1000 years.

Elites circulate. But there always are elites. Contra and I differ on the feasibility of changing this situation. Though it's of course true that some elites are better than others in promoting the general welfare....

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Originally Posted by Benjamin

Err, i don't think the poem's or Contra's point is at all dependent on there being hereditary continunity in the ruling class for 1000 years...

It seems to imply so...

Quote:

Elites circulate. But there always are elites. Contra and I differ on the feasibility of changing this situation.

Any system that does not artifically enforce equality amongst its members will have an elite. As long as the elite do circulate (and, to be fair to Contra or the marxist ideals, they do tend to stickify themselves) and they are based on genuine skill/talent/ability rather than inheritance, I got no problem with elites. On the contrary. I do want society and the economy to be run by the best and brightest.

The main problem I got, even in my ideal system, is to take away the 'luck' factor.

Quote:

Though it's of course true that some elites are better than others in promoting the general welfare....

General welfare shouldn't be a matter of the elites feeling like being generous with the dowrotten. Reminds me of a famous saying by a rightwing french politician: "The left doesn't have a monopoly on compassion"... Which, IMO, was the problem with the right,, right there. Designing a fair society has fuck all to do with compassion - Fairness is about maximising profit under constraints i.e. it's economically optimum i.e. it's rational. Compassion isn't. It's a moral/ethical/warm and fuzzy attribute.

If we get fairness, compassion may still exist - Or may not. And it won't matter. Not that it does now but that's another issue...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

It seems to imply so...

If you look for implications to disagree with you will always find them.

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Any system that does not artifically enforce equality amongst its members will have an elite.

Well, I would further say that any system that attempts to enforce equality among its members will have an elite anyway.

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

General welfare shouldn't be a matter of the elites feeling like being generous with the dowrotten. Reminds me of a famous saying by a rightwing french politician: "The left doesn't have a monopoly on compassion"... Which, IMO, was the problem with the right,, right there. Designing a fair society has fuck all to do with compassion - Fairness is about maximising profit under constraints i.e. it's economically optimum i.e. it's rational. Compassion isn't. It's a moral/ethical/warm and fuzzy attribute.

But without a fuzzy feeling that what you define as fairness is good, there would be no goal for your your emotionless, rational methods. So don't say 'fuck compassion,' you have no standing to do it. I suspect what you really should want to say is something like 'fuck the goody-two-shoes bleeding hearts who are stupidly, reflexively compassionate.' Who tend to be lefties. And I say fine, fuck them. But also fuck chauvinistic bigots who are stupidly and aggressively competitive, punishing and coercive. Who tend to be righties.

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Originally Posted by Benjamin

If you look for implications to disagree with you will always find them.

Fair enough. It just seems that "We have fed you all for a thousand years" is pretty personalised. Which is poetic license.

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Well, I would further say that any system that attempts to enforce equality among its members will have an elite anyway.

True, that.

Quote:

But without a fuzzy feeling that what you define as fairness is good, there would be no goal for your your emotionless, rational methods.

I don't think so. First, genetics tend to provide you with a moral compass that is automatically fixed on 'fairness' - i.e. the beautiful thing is that it is universal and more or less a reflex except in people whose genetic make-up is a bit screwed up (sociopaths).

Furthermore, I can demonstrate (at least to a large degree) that fairness lead to the best/better outcomes for everyone involved. Yes, cheating while everybody respect the rules can be a superior strategy but with nearly infinite reiterations of the game and punishment strategy in place to deal with cheats (and most people instinctively see the punishment of cheats as "fair"), cheating will only work in the short-to-medium term.

Quote:

So don't say 'fuck compassion,' you have no standing to do it.

See above. I think I do. The only way you can attack the above reasoning is to say that society should not aim to make life as good as possible for most of its members, within some constrains. But even that is dangerous - Exploited people will eventually rebel and then tend to massacre their exploiters. Which is sub-optimal for the exploiters...

Again, I find fairness works well because it is not compassion and does not necessitate anything beyond the golden rule (to be technical, as I just learned, it's the silver rule): One should not treat others in ways one would not like to be treated. And the reason for that is not compassion but long term well understood self-preservation and self-interest: If you abuse people, eventually, they'll pay you back.

Quote:

I suspect what you really should want to say is something like 'fuck the goody-two-shoes bleeding hearts who are stupidly, reflexively compassionate.' Who tend to be lefties. And I say fine, fuck them. But also fuck chauvinistic bigots who are stupidly and aggressively competitive, punishing and coercive. Who tend to be righties.

These will do too, as far as rules-of-thumb go...

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

And.. to repeat... when you say, "except of course they're doing the yelling precisely becuase they DO have that knowledge", you are actually imagining things. None of these guys is proposing to do anything marxist-related. Nope. No proposal of taxing/expropriating the rich. Nope. Just "I don't want anything to chaaaange, whine, whiiiine, whiiiiiine"...

Clearly untrue; banners carrying slogans to that effect were shown on UK TV. It was the policy articulated by multiple speakers. It was the explicit policy of the participating unions. I really don't understand why you struggle to see this.

Quote:

What I am trying to say is that the rich, evil as they are, are not necessarily the same rich than a thousand years ago. Ditto the poor.

And even so, every fucking penny held by the rich was stolen from the poor. The fact that some of the robbers have been robbed, that there has been churn in the membership of the exploitaive class, only confirms the aphorism that there is no honour among thieves.

Quote:

Any system that does not artifically enforce equality amongst its members will have an elite.

Precisely the opposite is the case. Only societies that artificially enforce inequality (through expropriation) have elites.

Quote:

On the contrary. I do want society and the economy to be run by the best and brightest.

Then in fact you DON'T want to be run by an elite, becuase that elite is inherently parasitical and exploitative.