Occupy Wall Street

Do you believe that entropy makes all action worthless?

 

I don't quite understand how you got that from what I said. What I am saying is that someone will find a way to monopolize different products, and will therefore be able to control the price of said product as they wish. This would keep up until the government acted on it, thus not making it a free market anymore.

 

Explain how one would gain such a monopoly without state aid such as patenting or loans.

 

Just because you have the monopoly, does not mean you have the patent. It works the other way around though.
I guess it wouldn't be an absolute monopoly, but if you own somewhere in between 90 and 100% of all, lets say corn producers, you will control the market. You may not control it the few places there are other producers, but you still control the main market. One would gain the monopoly by already having a great amount of money, which the "1%" already have.

 

Yes, under the current system, eventually another 1-5% will arise. Even if we change the system, we'll probably get a new 1%. The important thing is that period in between, when everyone starts from the same playing field. Look at Misty's graph; back in '79, it was relatively even. Classes existed, but not to the same extent. Even if it's inevitable, we can still strive to improve, because while the end point is unreachable, we can certainly get closer and closer to it.

 

The point of the 99% movement isn't to get rid of the 1%. It's to get rid of the gap between the 1% and the 99%. Instead of 1% of citizens having over 50% of the nation's wealth, they want it to be a larger percentage having that much of the country's wealth.

 

I see where you're getting at, but everyone won't start from the same playing field, unless the rich get their wealth stolen from them, which is my point in my previous post. Even if we would change the system completely, the 1-5% elite will still be there, because they have the high ground. Unless, of course, you are to take away the wealth of the rich, which in my opinion is unjust.

There is a lot more to it, but as I replied to P, that would mean stealing/taking money from the rich. That may be the ideal thing to do, but it would still be breaking the law.

 

It would be impossible to own that much of the market if anyone else could do the same thing as you in the same way with the same equipment. You will never rise higher than thirty percent other than in your specific area with your neighbors. Unless of course no one else thought that it was a profitable business.

How would one gain such money? Of course you can argue that we will have monopoly if the effects of it are still there, but then you are not getting rid of monopoly, just denying its 'legal' power. You have to get rid of the rich, start from nothing, to have true capitalism. No inheritance, fair use policy, and things of that nature that should help you understand.

If you cannot explain how one gets rich without forcibly transferring wealth or cutting out competitors with intimidation and blacklisting, then 'stealing from the rich' in sense of the 1% makes no sense. Their money is built on theft and manipulation. It is impossible to get to such an imbalance if anyone can do what you have done with no enforced penalties.

 

I don't understand how it would be impossible. I'm not saying that you as an individual should own 90-100%, but do you not think that a company with enough wealthy people in the lead, will be able to convince farmers to become part of a "brand"? Also, as you said, if someone takes the initiative to create something on their own, they would have a monopoly.

How would you get rid of the rich? Killing them or taking all of their money? Taking everyone's debt, loans, money and tell them that "because we want to start over, everyone has a clean slate"?

One can get rich by other means rather than transferring wealth (I suppose you mean inheritance?) or using intimidation or blacklisting. There are many people who begins from the bottom and works their way up. I'm not saying that they don't use questionable ways of acquiring their ranks, but they work for it.

As I said earlier, in an ideal world, Free market would work, but we do not live in an ideal world.

 

If the monopoly were profitable enough to make you dangerous, then others would try to cut in on your business.

That is true... Eventually, people will band together in such a way. But again, without enforcement, even the biggest of companies will not become anything like the one percent we have today.

You begin to argue entropy again. You can argue about the inevitable deterioration in any system, but that says nothing of the merits in the system while it exists.

Not quite. You have to kill the system that makes their money valuable, force them to change the currency, and who they rely on for value; preferably themselves, like with bartering.

There is an old Russian proverb that applies to this.

"The rich would have to eat money if the poor did not provide food."

You claim that those ways exist, but have not explained what they are or provided evidence. You believe that people can grow to be ridiculously rich without enforcement. And then you stated that I was being idealistic...

 

It would still be to an extent where you will have a big enough difference that people would start to feel lesser again.

The reason I'm arguing against this system, is that I believe that it would deteriorate faster than another. I will give the free market no more than 1 year, until someone will gain a large enough percentage of supply so that they can control the price, rather than the demand controlling it.

This would devalue everyone's money though. Unless absolutely every person part of this "1%" have the majority of their valuables in one certain product, in which no one else have their valuables in. And, as good of an idea bartering is, I don't really care for it unless it is absolutely necessary. That is because I think that different services have different values.

Those ways do exist. However, hard work is not all you need, you need some good fortune. You have many bands/artists who worked their ass off and were talented and lucky enough to be discovered.
One may argue that the music industry isn't a business, but we both know that is not true.

 

Not enough that they could never get to that level. Some people are just successful. People are angry now because corporatism is becoming painfully obvious, not because they are lesser.

Try over three hundred years.

You give it that without reason. If the majority of people were agorists, they would purposefully undermine bigger companies. Local levels would be preferred. You should take a values dissonance into account.

Perhaps I was not clear... We need the currency to fail. It is already doing so without help. People are losing their money. The faster they get over it, the faster we can move on. Money is paper. People need to realize that it only means something to them if they think it does.

Good, we thought of the same thing.

Without intellectual property, these artists would not become part of a one percent. They could make a living, surely, but intellectual property, or enforcement of monopoly on an idea, is what makes these artists and, more importantly, record companies so successful.

Thank you for proving my point for me.

 

Isn't that what I've been saying? Some people are successful, some are not. Corporatism has been quite obvious, in the US, and it has been obvious. I don't understand why people would react suddenly to something that has been present for decades.

You have explained the Icelandic Commonwealth to me several times, and though I agree, that in an idealistic world, it would work. I'll tell you once again what I've told you before; anarchy doesn't work with the world we have today. Religion, politics, greed and values are all things that stand in the way of Anarchy.

One of the reasons people are demonstrating is the unfair distribution of money. Obviously, people think that money means something.

I fail to see how I proved your point. Unless your point is that earning money off of intellectual property is a bad thing?
EDIT:
Ah, now I saw it.
Self-producing is difficult, but not impossible. Having an agent makes it easier, but you can still become a pretty huge artist if you don't have one.

 

No one seems to know what triggered it. Neither do I, but here we are with mass protests on our hands, and this is the reasoning that presents itself.

Did you ignore my point? It lasted longer than the society that of which we are speaking. It took a good sight more than a year to deteriorate.

And they should not, but again, they are not blaming the government for this problem, but big business. My point still stands.

Give an example of an artist that made anywhere near platinum without a mainstream record label.

 

I did not ignore it. What I am getting at is that if we were to fall back into anarchy, there would be more chaos than now. Can I prove it? No. The same way you can't prove it will work better.
My point is, the times have changed. If the Icelandic Commonwealth was destroyed by the Christian Church, how would an Anarchistic US withstand the religious belief of Americans? Oddly enough, 40% of Americans still believe in creationism.

I did not claim they are blaming the government. Do you think people will give up money and rather go with Bartering?

Valid point, the music industry is probably not the best example.
How about Apple and Microsoft, both which started out as garage projects?

 

It would take a generation or two to instill agorism in people, true enough... I can, however, reason with you as to how the very goals as well as the means of this system are unethical, making any attempt at anarchism 'better' than an attempt at this system, however successful each might be.

You still argue entropy rather than discussing the ethical merits of each system.

It depends on the area. Primitivists like the Amish already use bartering. Others, many others, would use things like a silver standard or Bitcoin. It would take a while to adjust, but people do not simply stop trading when they realize that their paper is in fact just paper.

Both of those are some of the worst copyright and patent offenders I know of. Look through the Discussion section for a few threads about them. Every business starts somewhere... But these two got there through enforced monopoly.