Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rusty Shackleford]

[No_hite_pls]

[mmstyle]

Yeah, I'm not political, I even hate debating...Obama is a figurehead (IMO only, no support, nothing...whatever, complete assertion, if you will). Never claimed he could fix the system. He can't. Just glad that if I find out I have heart disease or cancer next year, I can go home to Australia (cuz I can say that now) and be taken care of. Cuz if I went to America, I'd probably die. Or be saddled with hundreds of thousands in debt. I'm debt free, so, well, no. It won't be perfect in Aus, but in the US it would just be "denied."

Don't even get me started on when I lived in Sweden. Talk about huge taxes, and CHEAP health care, and free higher education (yes, I have a nearly exact comparison). Of course it all comes out in the wash. But everyone gets treatment.

To be completely frank, I will be willing to pay more in taxes, even if it means that the guy who lives next to me, who may only sweep the gutters, has health care as good as mine. That's the thing, I am willing to sacrifice some hard earned cash to take care of the guy next to me...even if it's you. Maybe that's the difference. Dunno. Cheers y'all.

Yes, smee's first post came off as crazy....I love him for it. Can you imagine if you had to get an agent to approve the (previously tax funded, newly privatized) fire truck before they came to put out the blaze at your house?

I'm rambling. Back to my "ladies, what to pack?" threads for me!

[Rusty Shackleford]

[smee18]

Rusty, I saw the evolutionary biologist Richards Dawkins recently on Youtube talking about how he refuses to debate creations, because, as he says, to have a reasonable argument you need to have some basic standard of rationality, which they (the creationists) evidently do not measure up to. He likened it to a reproductive biologist debating proponents of the "stork theory" of reproduction. That's kind of how I feel debating this issue with you. Where did I pick up my "pathological" theory of capitalism, probably during my 4 years of social theory at Uni. By any objective measure, the American health care system has the worst cost/benefit ratio in the world. Economist Dean Baker estimates that paying American doctors the same as Western European doctors (not Eastern European) would save America $58 billion dollars a year. America spends 17% of GDP on health care, most first world nations spend around 10%, and is still ranked 37th in the world in terms of outcomes, directly below Costa Rica. In terms of actual cost to individuals, Americans pay:

Higher Hospital Costs

American hospitals have an average cost per day per patient of $1,666 which is four times higher than its industrial cohorts.

Higher Drug Costs

Drug companies charge, on average, 60 to 70 percent more for branded prescription drugs in the United States than abroad.

Higher administrative Costs

The administration alone of America's private health care system eclipses Croatia�s national GDP. Approximately $32 billion of this goes into marketing and pricing premiums.

Now, with regard to the theory of capitalism, I actually posited a substantive definition: capitalism is the society that posits as the highest good (its highest ideal, hence its willingness to identify itself as such) the private accumulation of wealth. What else can capitalism mean? Please, do tell me? As for the idea that "the freedom to pursue legitimate profit is a prerequisite of liberty," (visitorq) I find that idea fundamentally problematic, because one person's freedom to pursue profit can evidently lead to another servitude. What is legitimate profit anyhow? Is extracting wealth from another�s labour legitimate profit, and doesn�t that in and of itself deny their �legitimate profit?� If the highest ideal, the highest good, is the accumulation of capital, then yes people will screw each other - they will do whatever they can to make more money. It's the logic of the system. Free market capitalism, as in markets without government intervention, does exist today - it's called the 3rd world. What you are calling corporatism I see as "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor." The solution is not "more capitalism," but actual socialism, which basically means actual democracy - society "by the people for the people." Essentially, what you are proposing visitorq is a complete annihilation of democracy (no government). Put simply, you seem to hate democracy. Why is that? Don't you think democracy, participation in the meaningful self-governance of society, gives people more liberty and power than some right to pursue "legitimate profit?" Or did you vote for Ron Paul?

Oh, and Rusty, please don�t hit on my wife!!

[visitorq]

[Rusty Shackleford]

[Reggie]

According to Harvard University, 2,266 US military veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 due to a lack of health insurance. 1,460,000 other veterans don't have health insurance. So much for the yellow ribbons and American flags.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2009/november/over_2200_veterans_.php

[Rusty Shackleford]

[smee18]

Clearly you both (Rusty and Visitorq) are against democracy. You know, words like democracy and capitalism don�t mean whatever you choose them to mean. They actual have content. Democracy literally means �rule of the people� (demos = people, cracy = rule), so it�s no platitude. Likewise, capitalism means the form of society that is governed by the rule of capital (money). That is literally what it means. To argue that capitalism is a value neutral concept is moronic. Any notion of how society should be (socialist, communist, capitalist, democratic) is evidently value laden. The term capitalism in and of itself denotes nothing about liberty. Adam Smith, who is usually considered the father of free market capitalism, DID NOT equate the free market with liberty. He argued that liberty, meaning participation in a meaningful democratic polis, was a necessary prerequisite for the �free� market to function as it should. Without this necessary prerequisite of political liberty, the free market, he rightly saw, would only lead to tyranny. Thus, Smith was against the division of labour that forms the basis of modern capitalism, on the grounds that it would turn people into sub-human automatons, as ignorantly stupid as a human is capable of being.

Anyhow, the question is, as I see it, why are you guys against democracy? Democracy puts power in the hands of the many, rather than the few. Yes, America is not and was never intended to be a democracy. As James Madison saw it when he helped write it, the purpose of the American constitution was to protect the minority of the opulent � the �best of men� � from the majority. Democracy was rightly seen as a threat to their wealth and power. Likewise, a democratic healthcare system, one designed �by the people for the people,� radically threatens the power of the opulent. Democracy � real democracy, which can�t end at the factory gate � frees us, the majority, from domination and oppression. The fact that you two want to argue for domination and oppression, for power being held in the hands of the few, deeply disturbs me. As I see it, you�re basically apologists for fascism, for tyrannical oppression and domination, and I feel no real qualms in telling you that. This is what no democracy means for the majority: no actual political power, no capacity to determine in any meaning way the shape of the society in which you live, no say in anything, other than whether you want coke or pepsi with your McMoron happy meal, or whether you want to pay $1200 a month for health insurance with company �X�, or $1500 a month for insurance with company �Y,� or whether you want to work the checkout or in the back.

Of course, this thread was originally about American health care, which is an evident failure (please Rusty do not tell me that the World Health Organisation statistics don�t account for all the fat Americans with guns � that degree of stupidity really is laughable). The statistics aren�t hard to find � it IS the most expensive health care system in existence with extremely low outcomes. It IS radically inferior to any other modern health care system. Go on, defend the indefensible.

[caniff]

The gauntlet has been thrown.

(caniff goes to pop some popcorn..)

[visitorq]

[mises]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

^ A pretty good overview different systems. Worth watching.

[smee18]

visitorq, this is how blatantly contradictory your argument is:

I'm for liberty ... which means freedom ... yay!!!

Democracy is evil, the majority can't be trusted because they are all slack-jawed racists. We can't have "the majority" deciding for themselves how they should live.

Thus, its up to us, those "who know better," to impose conditions of liberty and freedom on "the masses."

The masses should be forced to be free. Though, they should not be free to rejected the conditions of freedom that we the elite are choosing to impose upon them, because WE KNOW BETTER.

The theorist who has most influenced my own thinking is not Chomsky, but the French philosopher of autonomy and democracy Cornelius Castoriadis. Democracy for Castoriadis means the autonomous self-institution of society, which leads to responsible, political subjectivity (not the mindless horde you depict).

You're an English teacher, right? Well, in English, "capital" is one of the word used for money. So, it would simply stand to reason that a self-proclaims "capitalist" society (see Castoriadis on the autonomous self-institution of society) would be one that is centrally concerned with money, with its circulation and accumulation ... a society that puts "economy" above anything else. I mean, self-evidently this is the state of the contemporary world. Am I wrong? Please, if you can, provide an example in contemporary politics of any ideal, like human welfare or justice, taking precedence over money. I could site numerous examples of exactly the opposite thing happening, if you like.

[mises]

Capitalism was the name that Marx gave to market economies. It stuck, but it isn't a perfect description.