Author Topic: Democratic Socialists  (Read 980 times)

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Offline TimG

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #45 on: August 28, 2018, 08:43:10 pm »
They could tax these people at twice the rate and the business would still happen.  Even the wealthy don't preach "trickle down" any more...
Raise the price of labour for everyone and the prices everyone pay will go up unless the costs are offset by importing more goods/services from places with lower wages. Higher prices means demand drops which means lower profits, fewer jobs and poorer quality/service. In the worst case, some businesses will close leaving less competition which means higher profits for the survivors and fewer jobs for the workers.

Offline Omni

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #46 on: August 28, 2018, 09:07:18 pm »
Raise the price of labour for everyone and the prices everyone pay will go up unless the costs are offset by importing more goods/services from places with lower wages. Higher prices means demand drops which means lower profits, fewer jobs and poorer quality/service. In the worst case, some businesses will close leaving less competition which means higher profits for the survivors and fewer jobs for the workers.

I suggest having a read of what Henry Ford did.

Offline TimG

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #47 on: August 28, 2018, 09:40:01 pm »
I suggest having a read of what Henry Ford did.
Ford had a problem with employee turnover because there were too many job opportunities at the time. He solved the turnover problem by offering more than his competition.

Offline Omni

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #48 on: August 28, 2018, 09:45:14 pm »
Ford had a problem with employee turnover because there were too many job opportunities at the time. He solved the turnover problem by offering more than his competition.

Which enabled his employees to afford to buy his cars. Up went production.

Offline TimG

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #49 on: August 28, 2018, 10:42:16 pm »
Which enabled his employees to afford to buy his cars. Up went production.
Only because his wages were  higher than everyone else's so get attracted the most motivated and competent employees. Costco adopts the same strategy today and it works well for them. But this strategy does not work if governments mandate wage floors. All that does is increase costs without any productivity benefit. These costs will be passed on the consumer which means no net increase in buying power unless consumers and businesses rely more on imports from low wage regions to offset the additional wage costs.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 10:46:37 pm by TimG »

Offline Omni

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #50 on: August 28, 2018, 11:13:57 pm »
Only because his wages were  higher than everyone else's so get attracted the most motivated and competent employees. Costco adopts the same strategy today and it works well for them. But this strategy does not work if governments mandate wage floors. All that does is increase costs without any productivity benefit. These costs will be passed on the consumer which means no net increase in buying power unless consumers and businesses rely more on imports from low wage regions to offset the additional wage costs.

So you don't quite get the concept that more money in the average Joe's pocket increases sales and therefore requires more productivity, as opposed to more money in ceo's pockets which they store offshore which benefits no one but themselves.

Online Michael Hardner

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #51 on: August 29, 2018, 06:31:08 am »
  These costs will be passed on the consumer which means no net increase in buying power unless consumers and businesses rely more on imports from low wage regions to offset the additional wage costs.

You said that but having cheap stuff and low wages doesn't seem to have satisfied the populists - why is that ?  Accumulation of wealth is also giving the investor class more wealth to engage in non-productive spending such as flipping homes, luxury goods that provide no general benefit and so on.

In my experience, this is the point at which the discussion of the economy turns to morality as in "it's their money to do what they want".  But accumulation of wealth isn't a general benefit across the board. 

Offline TimG

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #52 on: August 29, 2018, 10:52:58 am »
In my experience, this is the point at which the discussion of the economy turns to morality as in "it's their money to do what they want".  But accumulation of wealth isn't a general benefit across the board.
The cost of bread, meat and vegetables are not luxuries. They are directly connected to survival. In a closed system, if labour costs go up then the cost of of these staples go up which leaves people no further ahead. But no city/province/country is a closed system so price increases can be mitigated by depending more on people who make less elsewhere which is ironic given the rational for mandating wage increases that are not associated with any productivity increases.

Online Michael Hardner

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #53 on: August 29, 2018, 05:03:14 pm »
The cost of bread, meat and vegetables are not luxuries. They are directly connected to survival. In a closed system, if labour costs go up then the cost of of these staples go up which leaves people no further ahead.

Unless their wages go up enough to cover it.

Quote
But no city/province/country is a closed system so price increases can be mitigated by depending more on people who make less elsewhere which is ironic given the rational for mandating wage increases that are not associated with any productivity increases.

How did that work in Ontario when they raised the minimum wage ?  Is my Tim Horton's coffee made in Indonesia now ?

(Apologies for the snide and ludicrous comment but I'll leave it here anyway)

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #54 on: August 29, 2018, 05:55:16 pm »
I have been saying that this populist backlash goes against corporations too and has a leftist undertone.

Yes it can go left or right. One of the few positive things you can say about Trump is that he's so rich and can so easily get himself all over the media for free that he doesn't need to rely on donations from wealthy folks and corps/groups, so he is completely free to do whatever he wants and doesn't have to answer to his donors.

Unfortunately the rest of the congress can't say that, so they have to vote based on funding interests (bribes) that their election campaigns depend on.

Bernie Sanders just happens to be one of those very rare politicians that isnt super wealthy and has very high ethics to not take those bribes, so he can do different things against corporate interests like Trump can, though maybe even moreso since Trump himself is a corporation.
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #55 on: August 29, 2018, 06:00:23 pm »
I think I read the other day that Sanders is putting forward legislation to tax companies dollar-for-dollar the cost of social services that are used on their employees, e.g., food stamps. A brilliant strategy of implementing a living wage (why pay it in taxes when you can pay it to employees directly), while appealing to libertarian conservative ideals.

That's a really interesting idea.  It's like saying you're going to look after your employees, so pay it now or pay it a bit later.

But then that just makes the cost of having employees higher, makes automation and offshoring jobs that much more appealing cost-wise.

One of the worst things to happen to western workers is the globalization of labour, it's hard to compete when most of the world will work for peanuts and few if any benefits.  On the plus, it means lower cost of goods for workers too.
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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #56 on: August 29, 2018, 06:02:22 pm »
Companies only ever have as many expenses as absolutely necessary, including labour. They can’t function with less people. If they could, they would do it and make more profit.

The more expensive you make labour, the more affordable the alternatives become.

"When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't do." David Frum

Offline SirJohn

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #57 on: August 29, 2018, 06:06:04 pm »
Bernie Sanders just happens to be one of those very rare politicians that isnt super wealthy and has very high ethics to not take those bribes, so he can do different things against corporate interests like Trump can, though maybe even moreso since Trump himself is a corporation.

Bernie Sanders is the best friend Trump ever had. It's quite likely, given the small margin of victory for Trump, that had it not been for Sanders hammering Clinton she'd have been president.

Now he's going around the US working to nominate the most far left candidates he can find. I just saw a story on the **** the Republicans have nominated for governor of Florida. What a dick! What a suckup! Then I saw that the guy the Democrats nominated - with Sanders help - wants to abolish ICE. Or as CBS said, the Democrats abandoned their tradition of nominating a centrist candidate and took a hard left. Another progressive politician who's primary interest is helping non-Americans instead of Americans.  Suddenly I'm thinking that if I was in Florida I would have to strongly consider voting for the **** Republican.


« Last Edit: August 29, 2018, 06:07:45 pm by SirJohn »
"When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't do." David Frum

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #58 on: August 29, 2018, 06:11:09 pm »
If you read up on democratic socialism, it's still pretty marxist, just with a democratic twist, maybe too commie for me i dunno, unless I see it can actually work.  Not to be confused with social democracy which is the system Canada and the Scandinavian countries have, which seems to work well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
Quote
Democratic socialism is a political philosophy that advocates achieving socialist goals within a democratic system as opposed to what it perceives as undemocratic socialist ideologies such as Marxist–Leninist-inspired socialism which is viewed as being non-democratic in practice.[1][2] Democratic socialists oppose the Soviet economic model, rejecting the authoritarian form of governance and highly centralized command economy that took form in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century.[3].

Democratic socialism has promoted as economic solutions to capitalist systems public property through a democratically elected government of major industries, utilities, and transportation systems; a limit on the accumulation of private property; governmental regulation of the economy; extensive publicly financed assistance and pension programs[4]; and self-management and democratic management in companies sometimes incluiding wider schemes of market socialist, participatory and decentralized planned economy.

Democratic socialism is defined as having a socialist economy in which the means of production (including wealth) are socially and collectively owned or controlled alongside a politically democratic system of government.[1]

Some tendencies of democratic socialism advocate for revolution in order to transition to socialism, distinguishing it from some forms of social democracy.[16] For example, Peter Hain classifies democratic socialism, along with libertarian socialism, as a form of anti-authoritarian "socialism from below" (using the term popularised by Hal Draper), in contrast to Stalinism, a variant of authoritarian state socialism.
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Offline Omni

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Re: Democratic Socialists
« Reply #59 on: August 29, 2018, 06:11:52 pm »
Bernie Sanders is the best friend Trump ever had. It's quite likely, given the small margin of victory for Trump, that had it not been for Sanders hammering Clinton she'd have been president.

Now he's going around the US working to nominate the most far left candidates he can find. I just saw a story on the **** the Republicans have nominated for governor of Florida. What a dick! What a suckup! Then I saw that the guy the Democrats nominated - with Sanders help - wants to abolish ICE. Or as CBS said, the Democrats abandoned their tradition of nominating a centrist candidate and took a hard left. Another progressive politician who's primary interest is helping non-Americans instead of Americans.  Suddenly I'm thinking that if I was in Florida I would have to strongly consider voting for the **** Republican.

ICE needs to go anyway. They screwed up when they started ripping babies from their mothers arms. And yes I can see you being happier with Disantis and his "monkey up" comment since Gillum is Black.