What's Greed?

[Minister_of_Information]

I just don't see the point of discussing "rights" outside of a social setting from which acknowledgment of said rights could lead to meaningful concessions by a community. Without that community you're only talking about force, not a "right."

[Burke]

Lawdog,

That's just mindless.

[Lawdog88]

Burke, show me a subjective, created value.

Go ahead.

[T3goalie]

Originally Posted by Lawdog88

That makes them capitalists. Not virtuous.

And insofar as they created lousy paradigms to exploit at the expense of better ideas, greedy.

Ah, Rhetoric that can't be defined... Paradigms... Exploit...Better Ideas...Virtue.

Lawdog88 sounds like the lawyer in the musical Chicago trying to Razzle/Dazzle them.

Creating jobs, creating wealth, creating industry world wide, is not exploitation or greed. It is creative genius... But alas, the imperfect reality of creative genius of the physical world is never as good as the Ideal or better Idea: one that never actualizes anything in the shape or in the form of matter.

The ideal idea is better, has virtue, exploits nobody, benefits nobody and has the paradigm of perfection. The problem is that it does not exist in any place other than a morphing idea, does not employ anybody, does not feed anybody, does not create wealth, does not create industry..... The ideal idea benefits only those who design such or claim a moral high ground that can't be accessed by the non virtuous and it is used as a claim take from those who produce. High ideals indeed.

[Burke]

Law,

I have no idea what you mean. A subjective, created value?

[Lawdog88]

Originally Posted by T3goalie

Ah, Rhetoric that can't be defined... Paradigms... Exploit...Better Ideas...Virtue.

Lawdog88 sounds like the lawyer in the musical Chicago trying to Razzle/Dazzle them.

Creating jobs, creating wealth, creating industry world wide, is not exploitation or greed. It is creative genius... But alas, the imperfect reality of creative genius of the physical world is never as good as the Ideal or better Idea: one that never actualizes anything in the shape or in the form of matter.

The ideal idea is better, has virtue, exploits nobody, benefits nobody and has the paradigm of perfection. The problem is that it does not exist in any place other than a morphing idea, does not employ anybody, does not feed anybody, does not create wealth, does not create industry..... The ideal idea benefits only those who design such or claim a moral high ground that can't be accessed by the non virtuous and it is used as a claim take from those who produce. High ideals indeed.

Nice spew.

I am simply one disaffected conscript of Bill Gates, i.e., the computer Messiah, as evidenced by his latest iteration of genius, Windows 8.

[Lawdog88]

Originally Posted by Burke

Law,

I have no idea what you mean. A subjective, created value?

You had no idea what you were saying, then, when you said: "People live by creating the values they need to do so. The right to use these values to live and be happy is known as the right of property." ?

If you don't know what you are talking about, when you are talking about it, just say so. Then I will understand you better.

Uh, actually, I think I do already.

[T3goalie]

Originally Posted by Lawdog88

Nice spew.

I am simply one disaffected conscript of Bill Gates, i.e., the computer Messiah, as evidenced by his latest iteration of genius, Windows 8.

Conscript? LOL.

Gates created objective value and industry. He created real wealth, real jobs, real product... He is unlike your subjective industry of nothingness of those "undefinable virtues, paradigms and better ideals" you appear to worship. The better idea people who create nothing and are the subjective sophists of zero. I'll take the producer over the sophist.

[Lawdog88]

Originally Posted by T3goalie

Conscript? LOL.

Gates created objective value and industry. He created real wealth, real jobs, real product... He is unlike your subjective industry of nothingness of those "undefinable virtues, paradigms and better ideals" you appear to worship. The better idea people who create nothing and are the subjective sophists of zero. I'll take the producer over the sophist.

You know, your take on this is the all-to-common, "unthinking apologist in awe for capitalism," one. I hope you are truly happy with it in serving your imaginary masters, because you intellectually have obviously settled for much less than what is available.

Not all capitalism for the sake of capitalism - as if it is some sort of wondrous, virtuous ideal in and of itself - is necessarily a good thing, as any 10th grade history book teaches. Gates had an idea, and because of a special opportunity and some creative work on his part, did in fact get in on the ground floor of making technology available to everman. I don't fault him whatsoever on taking advantage of the opportunity and putting in the time to develop (I almost typed, perfect ! Boy that's a joke) and exploit his ideas.

Of course he - like all of the other folks you read about in the 10th grade history book - put his interests in profiting from his ideas above all other ideas and to their competitive exclusion wherever possible. I mean, if you were not on the Gates' team, you were the enemy. This was amply revealed in the anti-trust suit and later settlement, finding that indeed, Gates was a morally corrupt capitalist . . . if you accept capitalism as having some identifiable anti-competitive boundaries, as indeed, courts have done many times in the past and did so in his case. And those allegations focused on just one aspect of Gates' way of doing business.

All of the stuff you suggest above as "real," i.e., "wealth, jobs, blah, blah", is simply - like life - transitory stuff, and not the slightest bit "real" or "valuable" in the ultimate sense. Neither living richer or poorer materially, or working or non-working, makes us lesser or greater human beings.

Thus, Gates basically is no different, as a person, than any other person who put his ambition foremost as a life value above all others, and life is not necessarily "better" for all of us because of him. In fact, that he later was scolded, punished, rebuked, reminded or whatever, sufficiently to cause him to throw some dimes to the bums later, is really a sad - but recurring - commentary on the human condition, IMO. For the twinkle-starred capitalists, however, it makes for legend and tall tales of worshipful wonderment.

So hey pal, I don't want your money or Gates', and I don't advocate anybody receiving any imaginary money from anybody else without getting it the old fashioned way, i.e., earning it, so relax with your anxieties. Your inferential attempts to relegate me to the "money is free" camp, is as misguided as it is laughable.

[Swampmaster]

Greed means having more money than I do and not giving it to me.

[Minister_of_Information]

Regarding Bill Gates' anticompetitive practices, Atlas Shrugged p. 937, John Galt speech:

It is a conspiracy of all those who seek, not to live, but to get away with living, those who seek to cut just one small corner of reality and are drawn, by feeling, to all the others who are busy cutting other corners-a conspiracy that unites by links of evasion all those who pursue a zero as a value: the professor who, unable to think, takes pleasure in crippling the mind of his students, the businessman who, to protect his stagnation, takes pleasure in chaining the ability of competitors, the neurotic who, to defend his self-loathing, takes pleasure in breaking men of self-esteem, the incompetent who takes pleasure in defeating achievement, the mediocrity who takes pleasure in demolishing greatness, the eunuch who takes pleasure in the castration of all pleasure-and all their intellectual munition-makers, all those who preach that the immolation of virtue will transform vices into virtue. Death is the premise at the root of their theories, death is the goal of their actions in practice-and you are the last of their victims.

[Lawdog88]

Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information

Regarding Bill Gates' anticompetitive practices, Atlas Shrugged p. 937, John Galt speech:

Oh my Gosh !

Thou hast quoted the holiest passages of the Randian Holy Scriptures . . . and (impliedly of course) found the anti-competitive capitalists to be vile, greedy, and wanting !

Away Knaves, away !

[T3goalie]

Originally Posted by Lawdog88

You know, your take on this is the all-to-common, "unthinking apologist in awe for capitalism," one. I hope you are truly happy with it in serving your imaginary masters, because you intellectually have obviously settled for much less than what is available.

Not all capitalism for the sake of capitalism - as if it is some sort of wondrous, virtuous ideal in and of itself - is necessarily a good thing, as any 10th grade history book teaches. Gates had an idea, and because of a special opportunity and some creative work on his part, did in fact get in on the ground floor of making technology available to everman. I don't fault him whatsoever on taking advantage of the opportunity and putting in the time to develop (I almost typed, perfect ! Boy that's a joke) and exploit his ideas.

Of course he - like all of the other folks you read about in the 10th grade history book - put his interests in profiting from his ideas above all other ideas and to their competitive exclusion wherever possible. I mean, if you were not on the Gates' team, you were the enemy. This was amply revealed in the anti-trust suit and later settlement, finding that indeed, Gates was a morally corrupt capitalist . . . if you accept capitalism as having some identifiable anti-competitive boundaries, as indeed, courts have done many times in the past and did so in his case. And those allegations focused on just one aspect of Gates' way of doing business.

All of the stuff you suggest above as "real," i.e., "wealth, jobs, blah, blah", is simply - like life - transitory stuff, and not the slightest bit "real" or "valuable" in the ultimate sense. Neither living richer or poorer materially, or working or non-working, makes us lesser or greater human beings.

Thus, Gates basically is no different, as a person, than any other person who put his ambition foremost as a life value above all others, and life is not necessarily "better" for all of us because of him. In fact, that he later was scolded, punished, rebuked, reminded or whatever, sufficiently to cause him to throw some dimes to the bums later, is really a sad - but recurring - commentary on the human condition, IMO. For the twinkle-starred capitalists, however, it makes for legend and tall tales of worshipful wonderment.

So hey pal, I don't want your money or Gates', and I don't advocate anybody receiving any imaginary money from anybody else without getting it the old fashioned way, i.e., earning it, so relax with your anxieties. Your inferential attempts to relegate me to the "money is free" camp, is as misguided as it is laughable.

Hey Pal? Really? LOL! Is this a flashback to Don Johnson from Miami Vice? Are you going to break out the white suit?

Serving an imaginary master? You were the self described "conscript" not me.

I'll take the productive man (and all of his warts) who creates value and affects lives over the high ideal people who can neither define/quantify his ideals or the shiftless non-worker. FYI, The idealists have warts too. They tend to talk big, but produce little (Note- Usually they end up in DC for one of the 2 parties). The productive never claim to be perfect. On the contrary, they can't be perfect when they get your hands dirty working. It is only the ivory tower idealist who live in the land of your worhshipful wonderment who claim perfection.

Your original post in response to me read like some mystic talking about "values, higher ideals and paradigms". To use your words "spew". Life may not be better for all of us because of a Gates or a Steve Jobs. But, their vision has put a lot of food in people stomachs, roofs over peoples heads, raised standards of living and money in the accounts of others. Did they Gates and Jobs get rich? Sure. How many sub industries were created because of them?

There is an enormous difference between those that have had this type of effect and those who impact almost no one. Transitory? maybe. Life by definition begins and ends. But those capitalists you apparently love to hate have brought a lot along for the ride and raised the standard of living for many.

This dialogue reminds me of the story of the two chickens. The 1st laid imperfect eggs and the 2nd thought of perfect eggs but laid none. The 2nd viewed himself superior to the first because his thoughts of perfect eggs were superior to the ordinary egg laid by the 1st. For my money, I'll take chicken number 1 every day of the week. You can have chicken number 2. Just don't try to scramble anything. Sooner or later you will realize that its only value is on the grill.

[Lawdog88]

Goalie, there are better capitalists and there are worse capitalists, and all of them are imperfect, every one.

I think your problem is, you apparently confuse and conflate the idea of criticism of capitalism and faulted capitalists, with the idea that any person doing so, must necessarily support some other type of economic system . . . and God knows what else.

And . . . it is your problem.

[busigator96]

Has technology outmoded capitalism the way it was forged 200 years ago? I think it has...labor and money are not valid units of measure anymore...at least the most efficient. GDP gains are really decreases in efficiency.

[Minister_of_Information]

Originally Posted by busigator96

Has technology outmoded capitalism the way it was forged 200 years ago? I think it has...labor and money are not valid units of measure anymore...at least the most efficient. GDP gains are really decreases in efficiency.

LOLWUT

[T3goalie]

Originally Posted by Lawdog88

Goalie, there are better capitalists and there are worse capitalists, and all of them are imperfect, every one.

I think your problem is, you apparently confuse and conflate the idea of criticism of capitalism and faulted capitalists, with the idea that any person doing so, must necessarily support some other type of economic system . . . and God knows what else.

And . . . it is your problem.

Not my problem Crockett. (could not resist the 80's reference, Pal).

I just get a kick out of the idea when people start talking about ideal world, paradigms, and values and equate the do nothings with those that do.

The arena as Teddy Roosevelt defined it, is a place of struggle, failure and success. The critics (and the do nothings) who pine for a utopian idea are not what matters.

I'm happy to take chicken number 1, no matter how imperfect her eggs.

By the way, don't ever forget that those gov't officials who prosecute business are imperfect as well and their agenda is not profit, but power. And it coercive power at that. The use of coercive power should be held to an even higher standard not to settle political scores. In reality it is much easier to walk away from a product as a consumer. They do not have the power of enforcement.

[Minister_of_Information]

So are you saying that market leaders should be able to use their competitive position to stifle competition, as long as the government stays out of it? Because that is what Gates did, at least to an extent. He is certainly not above criticism.

[WESGATORS]

Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information

So are you saying that market leaders should be able to use their competitive position to stifle competition, as long as the government stays out of it?

This is the question I have as well. I don't recall Burke's answer for this in the past, but I would love to see it addressed (again?) by he or anybody else.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

[Burke]

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Minister_of_Information
So are you saying that market leaders should be able to use their competitive position to stifle competition, as long as the government stays out of it?
This is the question I have as well. I don't recall Burke's answer for this in the past, but I would love to see it addressed (again?) by he or anybody else."

Outcompeting rivals in the free market is not "stifling" competition. It's engaging in it.

A silly rationalization for the use of the govt gun to engage in really stifling competition.

Is there any stupid lefty myth that you guys haven't swallowed hook line and sinker?

Have you ever even thought about the BS they gave you in school?