I am intrigued how this:

"I know the positives... I've thought about it for ages. According to all of you, thinking optimistically while maintaining a realistic view on what I can get is naive. So what's the negative that I apparently don't get about socialism or corporatism? They're bad words to each other, but what's so bad about either?"

eventually gave birth to this

"But Pete commits a subtle fallacy when he says that you thereby "[leave] 3% of your population with no means of support...." The fact is, you don't necessarily leave ANYBODY with no means of support. Say you get down to a 2% unemployment rate. What exactly shows that that 2% is static? At any given time, 2% of the populace may be unemployed, but that doesn't mean that there's even one single person who has to remain unemployed for a year. Much of the unemployment will be new entries to the workforce -- young people and new immigrants -- before they find jobs, and some of it will be people between jobs. This may be a good argument for short-term assitance, but it's certainly not an argument for more, at least without additional statistics or arguments that Pete hasn't provided."

Usually the quality development of a thread is the contrary.

@semck - I'm not talking about socialism - as I said earlier, 100% employment is a socialist dream - which is why it's only been claimed to happen in socialist/communist controlled economies. The simple fact is that (as far as I understand), a functioning capitalist system requires a pool of free labour (otherwise wages will increase, through simple supply and demand - the effect can be seen in the scarce speciality du jour). Which makes your argument that as wages increase as demand outstrips supply, the last unemployed will agree to work for less than the going rate rather at odds with captalism (both in theory and in practice) - as something becomes scarce, nobody says "Oh well I'll drop the price now there's only 2 left". The key word here is functioning - capitalism with full employment would lead to spiralling wages, especially if you have any skill or knowledge. Which in turn drives inflation, restricts profit and slows growth. A bubble is a bubble after all (you only have to see the effect of under then over supply on some IT skills in the 90s the see the impact)

And while many (or most) within that labour pool will only be there for a short time, some people are going to be there for a long time

However, you've at least asserted there is a good argument for short-term assistance. Some earlier posters were taking the position that no-one should get any help, which is what I regard as an indefensible position for the reasons I laid out.

Now, I agree we should be seeking to get as many people working and make sure that as few people are on welfare benefits for extended periods. But the safety net should be there, and it should be provided by society as a hole, through the medium of the state.

Pete,

People will indeed agree to work for less, even near 0% unemployment, IF THEY CAN'T FIND JOBS OTHERWISE. Of course, if you're implicitly assuming that the latter is unlikely, then we are on the same page. Which means there is nothing in theory preventing close to 0% unemployment from happening, at least if there were no sources of external labor. You are right that this would cause inflation, etc., but plenty of things cause inflation, and nothing in the capitalist system forbids those from happening. Again, we probably both agree that in reality, an equilibrium would be reached somewhat higher than 0%. I just don't accept that this is certain, or (apart from the very brief vagaries of people moving, etc.) a foregone conclusion under all circumstances.

Our main disagreement is your seeming implicit assumption that the unemployed are a fixed class who thus need to be helped because capitalism has condemned them to be unemployed. In fact there is no such person in (at least ideal) capitalism. You seem to back away from even that in your last post, though, accepting short-term assistance as perhaps sufficient. While I haven't given a lot of thought to arguments against it, and so wouldn't want to make any long-term commitments, I'll at least agree that (quite) short-term unemployment insurance is, at worst, very low on the list of evils that concern me at the moment, and I indeed see the above positive arguments for it.

semck

I agree the majority of the unemployed are transient, but there will always be long term unemployed (and some who are unemployable). Minimising this is not achieved through limiting support.

To put it in context, currently around 2.5 million people in the UK are registered as unemployed (let's not debate what the real figure is). Of those, around 1/3 have been unemployed for more than one year, and 1/6 for more than 2. Where would you draw the line, given the current economic situation (low growth, large deficit, massive cuts, banks not lending).

When the jobs simply don't exist, limiting welfare to a time period is going to leave people with no income.

I dunno Semck, you can talk about ideals all you want (lord knows it works for the commies), I'm more interested in practical answers.

YJ,

My answer was completely practical, as you will realize when you reread it without looking for gotchas. I just idealized one point in order to avoid talking of issues that are only vaguely related, like anti-discrimination laws, the disabled, and the like. Goodness knows these are important issues that need to be addressed, but they're not intimately related to the core question of employment under capitalism, which is what was under discussion. There was no idealization otherewise in my answer, and it's sad you had to take that remark out of context in order to respond.

Pete, looking at statistics in the UK is a little problematic, because it already has a fairly robust welfare system, at least by US standards. That muddies the incentives. Suffice to say once again that, for those people who can't be employed due to something beyond their control, I'm happy to talk about options.

I also agree that more time may be needed in a weak economy, though I'd probably still cut it off before many would (at least in a lot of cases).

@Bo_sox: since you are now resorting entirely to ad hominem attacks I will be dropping out of the argument against you. Rational reasonable people debate with facts and refute the arguments of the opponent. You refused to refute most of the points in my argument and so I refused to refute yours and now your calling me a 12 year old. If I ever debate you in the future I hope you can be more reasonable.

@Pete and Yellowjacket: Not once have I ever said that there needs to be 0 government. The system that I like is that your social security fund can be used in times of emergency. When unemployed or have large unpaid medical bills, you should be allowed to get a portion of your social security early, in exchange for retiring a little later. This system would of course be subsidized by the government.

I also support free education and a regulated banking system. I understand the need for government action on environmental issues as well as when private property rights cannot be easily identified.

I support a very limited welfare state and probably the most anti-government person on this site with exception to President Eden.

See, I respond to him, as he "requested," and he drops out of the discussion... I'll miss you, buddy.

Semck makes some good points. Pete's thought has some merit if those conditions can be met..

"you know my little sister is twelve and she says that all the time, right? You must not realize how pathetic that is. Unless you're twelve, in which case I understand completely..."
That is not responding to an argument, that is resorting to ad hominem attacks, I didn't bother reading the rest of your post.

I can't help you not reading my response... that's all your choice. And yes, it is an ad hominem attack. I can't say I care much about it as of late.

I've cared about it more recently. When I first started political debates on this site I was here the troll. Now days I am just here for an intellectual discussion.

Can someone please educate me by giving me examples of a socialist economy

France.

"...again, we probably both agree that in reality, an equilibrium would be reached somewhat higher than 0%."

"Our main disagreement is your seeming implicit assumption that the unemployed are a fixed class who thus need to be helped because capitalism has condemned them to be unemployed. In fact there is no such person in (at least ideal) capitalism."

The thesis of your entire second paragraph. Tell me more about how I'm taking it out of context?

"The thesis of your entire second paragraph."

You're taking it out of context, YJ, because the difference when you leave the idealization is between "no such person" and "a few such persons," and the solution is largely unrelated to the central critique of capitalism that Pete was making. I've already explained this in my last post.

Also, the thesis is the first sentence, not the second. In this case, that means the thesis sentence was this:

"Our main disagreement is your seeming implicit assumption that the unemployed are a fixed class who thus need to be helped because capitalism has condemned them to be unemployed."

And indeed, even in the real world, I reject that the unemployed are a fixed class, as Pete was implying, and Pete has accepted this criticism, again in the real world. The second sentence was going much farther, in a way that was an idealization, but which was relevant since Pete's and my discussion had been focused on theoretical capitalism. I made clear in my response post to you, as should have been clear already from my whole post anyway, that the difference between that and the real world is minor, and unrelated to the point I was making.

"Tell me more about how I'm taking it out of context? "

By calling it the thesis sentence when it's not, to begin with?

Incidentally just to clarify, lest I be taken out of context again -- when I say the difference between the real world and my idealization is minor, I obviously don't mean to trivialize or treat as unimportant the life situations of those people who fall into the category of being unable to find work for whatever reason. I've already made clear a couple times now that I think it's important to address that issue.

It's _numerically_ minor.

@bo_sox - why is France a Socialist country, please don't stop at the fact they recently elected President Hollande.

Just for information even when the natural rate of unemployment is deemed to be zero you will always have other factors such as frictional unemployment and some structural and geographical unemployment which are reasonably constant, these numbers could be as high as 1-2% of the total workforce. At these times of high unemployment (relatively speaking) these other types of unemployment are less significant.

A quote from a good guy on Yahoo....

"Actual socialist states, with very scarce (if any) capitalist aspects include North Korea and Cuba. These countries are normally considered Communist, and while this is the common assumption, no actual communist country (as described by Karl Marx) has yet existed, and the countries which have claimed to be communist are in fact socialist countries with emphasis on government control."

He's just about right in that regard. Nobody's ever pulled actual Communism. Russian Communism is the one that we see, and it's more of an extreme socialism masked by the work of Karl Marx. Russia certainly took away from the spots of brilliance within his thinking, but what can you do...

To rephrase my response a little bit, Nigee, just about every first-world country has both capitalist and socialist aspects about it. If the world ran solely on capitalism, we'd have a very large majority with nothing. If the world ran solely on socialism, we'd be subsistence farmers again - that's the only way to keep *everyone* on the same playing field. They are balanced by consensus.

People are going to call me out by calling the United States socialist... get over it. Some socialism's not a bad thing. Unless you're a die-hard Tea Party anti-everything-that-isn't-born-rich-white-and-Christian person, it's not hard to weigh out the benefits.

So, in short, both nations are democracies, only that France sways further socialist and the United States further capitalist. I guess Britain would probably cut that down the middle...

Semck:

In your first post, I challenged you because you seemed to be (and still seem to be) applying an idealized vision of capitalism as though it did reflect something at or near reality. It does not. Therefore, I scolded you, because you're applying a hypothetical scenario to justify an unrealized premise - hinting that unemployment under capitalism should or will be at or near zero. You present this as fact, and draw from that the conclusion that therefore there is no "fixed unemployment" class.

I reject your premise. History has never shown any indication that peacetime free market capitalism can sustain unemployment rates below, what, 3%? Therefore, Pete's premise, (that there is a fixed unemployment rate significantly higher than 0%), since it reflects REALITY, is the more valid of the two. You're free to challenge the conclusion he draws from that (that capitalism is dependent on that structure), but the premise is pretty rock-solid.

So no, since this "ideal capitalism" sentence is the crux of your false-premise fallacy, it's not at all "out of context" to challenge it.

Even if it wasn't your thesis :P (I gotta cede one point)

YJ,

Pete's claim was not that history has shown that peacetime capitalism could not sustain unemployment rates below 3%, and my claim was not that history had shown that it could. Pete made a theoretical argument about why it COULD NOT, and I responded with a theoretical argument about why his theoretical argument was wrong. It is hypocritical of you to applaud his use of theory but reject mine.

I also did not argue that unemployment under capitalism either should or will be near zero -- merely that it could, or at least that Pete's argument that it could not failed. So once again, I question your reading comprehension in the context of my posts.

Moreover, you say, you reject my "premise" that unemployment can be near 0%, while accepting Pete's "premise" that there is a fixed unemployment rate higher than 0%, which "reflects reality." In fact, that was Pete's conclusion, not his premise, and likewise for me. That conclusion was based on theory, once again, and I challenged it on that ground -- as a matter of possibility. Nowhere did I mention liklihood.

He does, of ocurse, go on to draw another conclusion from that one, and I responded to that as well. You've almost entirely ignored that whole strand of the discussion, except to yank part of it out of context.

"So no, since this "ideal capitalism" sentence is the crux of your false-premise fallacy, it's not at all "out of context" to challenge it. "

Your discussion of fallacies would be so much more telling if you could distinguish a premise from a conclusion. And as I've already made clear, the "ideal capitalism" remark -- well, first of all, that was not even in the part of the discussion dealing with whether there could be full employment (another sense in which you've yanked it out of context), it was in the part of the discussion analyzing what happens when there ISN'T full employment.

The ONLY "idealization" being made there has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the unemployment rate can reach 0% -- it's just about choosing to sweep aside issues like employment discrimination and disability -- again, not because they don't exist or aren't important, but because they can be dealt with (thus REMOVING THE IDEALIZATION) without fundamentally altering the economic argument I'm making, and it would have been more tedious to say all that than just to add the parenthetical.

I think Pete pretty much got what I was saying. You on the other hand have continued to completely misread, miscomprehend, and make bad arguments. So here's a suggestion. Rather than continue this silly argument wherein you proudly exhibit your ignorance of various logical terms, why don't you say exactly what about my idealization makes my argument invalid when applied to the real world? (Hint: it won't have anything to do with hypothetical 0% employment, because the original remark came in a context where I was already assuming there was higher unemployment in the real world).

*sigh*

"In fact there is no such person [condemned to unemployment] in (at least ideal) capitalism."

"The ONLY "idealization" being made there has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the unemployment rate can reach 0%"

Oh, do be careful, sir.





"I also did not argue that unemployment under capitalism either should or will be near zero -- merely that it could"

You didn't argue it, you stated it. You used the words, "in fact." When one says, "in fact," the statement is supposed to be accepted prima facie. Therefore, that is a PREMISE. Now you can qualify that by saying "ideally," or "could," all you want, my good sir, but I reject it all the same, pending further support.

That kind of "maybeing" doesn't belong in a premise. If I said,

(premise) "In fact, in the IDEAL communist society, everybody has enough of everything."
(conclusion) "Therefore, communism wouldn't really be so bad for the wealthiest 3% of Americans."

Nobody but Putin is going to accept in this day and age that my premise is true prima facie, so the conclusion is fallacious. It might still be TRUE, but it's fallacious, and it's exactly what you did. Now, you kinda snuck your premise in stealthlike behind the conclusion, but you don't fool old YJ.



Though he didn't say it in exactly these words, if you'll allow me to paraphrase it seems clear to me that Pete's premise was that there is a fixed nonzero unemployment rate. His conclusion is twofold, 1) that capitalism requires this to succeed, and 2) that we ought to help them out. Or would you like to offer an alternative since/then interpretation of his original post?

Now, you are welcome to challenge his premise, hell, we both know that a conclusion drawn from a false premise is fallacious. I'm inclined to accept it, but then it conforms to my ideology. You, clearly, do not accept it, but it seems to me you've offered nothing in your counterargument besides "Well, when capitalism is done RIGHT, it doesn't happen that way," with n=0 examples of this actually occurring. All of which is thoroughly unimpressive if that's really all you've got - hence my challenging you on practical grounds.



Man, I must be channeling Obi.

Also, don't challenge me on fallacies, boy :)

Actually, I just read a post you made way upstream.

OK, better argument. I missed it entirely. I got page-bottomed.

Open mouth, insert foot, and all that - at least where I claimed you didn't offer anything substantial. YJ is a dummy, Semck is smart and good looking.

Haha, it happens to us all YJ. I'm just glad I didn't see your former post before your latter or we'd be here all night. ; )

And this makes sense, really. You were seeming denser than I typically expect you to be.

I'll assume unless you state otherwise that you now see why I wasn't either stating or assuming, in the context under discussion, that the employment rate would ever get to 0%.

Well, it still seems to me that in your assertion that "no such person exists" you're effectively saying the same thing - that capitalism doesn't necessarily require an unemployment rate. Still disconnected?

Yeah YJ. See my post (first page) starting "There's one other problem...."

In summary: let's assume for the sake of argument that the unemployment rate will always be 3%. Does that mean that there has to be some person who remains unemployed? No. It means that at any given time, 3% of the population are unemployed. It does not mean that any SINGLE person stays unemployed. Remember that new people are always entering the work force (young people and immigrants), and there are also people between jobs. So it's perfectly conceivable that, while 3% are unemployed today, and 3% will be unemployed in 2 years, there is nobody in today's 3% that will be in that 3%.

OK, it's not really conceivable from a statistical standpoint, but apart from probability theory, what I mean is that there's nothing to _prevent_ it. It is a fallacy -- one which Pete committed for a post or two, and which you've been committing for the last few -- to assume that, because the unemployment RATE stays the same, there is some individual PERSON who stays unemployed. It might just mean that the job market and the workforce are growing at the same rate, causing a delay for new workers.

The conclusion? Even if you assume unemployment stays at 3%, you can't assume that capitalism necessarily creates a class of people who can't get jobs. There's no argument to connect the two. That's where the argument comes in -- there is no such person in ideal capitalism as somebody who CAN'T get a job and who therefore necessarily stays in the 3%.

Now you're right that that's an idealization. There probably are people who are at least disadvantaged in getting jobs, due to things like discrimination, disabilities, and other factors. And so that's where I've been pointing out that, yes, you can address some of those things to make the system work better. But that fact does NOT change the main argument, which is that fixed n% unemployment (for n low) does not imply the existence of people who can't get jobs (those people are there for other reasons, not because of the steady unemployment rate), and so does not imply the need for long-term assistance.

See?

semck - your argument is valid up to a point, and also relies on the assumption that the entire labour pool is equally employable (or suitable for the vacancies that come up).

However, the UK data (as an example) suggests that 1 in 3 people are unemployed for more than 1 year, and 1 in 6 for more than 2. It follows that there is a small, but significant number of people who will not work for 5 or 10 years, or even more. And that doesn't even begin to consider those who cannot work through illness, disability and so on.

So there will always be people who require long term assistance. And to pick up on something you suggested earlier, that support should not be at the expense of what they may need later in life. Poverty now or poverty later should not be the choice you have to make.

The system I prefer is one where support is available, working makes you better off, and there are things in place which address the causes of long term unemployment, and look to reduce it.

Still, I've enjoyed the discussion, which has been thoughtful and reasoned

Pete,

I don't think I assume that everybody is equally employable. My argument relies on some assumption about employability, but something much weaker than that.

Your position is not crazy, though I don't share it. As I mentioned earlier, the numbers in Britain are not necessarily the best to look at for this, given that long-term assistance does exist there, so incentives are already different from what they would be in a more capitalist world. That said, I'd certainly be interested in looking into what causes long-term unemployment in those cases. One can easily imagine that for some of them, some help might indeed be appropriate.

Democratic Socialism, maybe we're all more left-wing than we think:
Definition:
Most democratic socialists typically advocate a mixed economy with generous welfare provision, and re-distribution of wealth. People or groups who describe themselves as democratic socialists, are generally further to the left and more radical than the more moderate social democrats.
Many people see Scandinavian countries such as Sweden as a model of democratic socialism.

When we talk about welfare, unemployment benefits and re-distribution of govt taxes to the poorer sections of our society we advocate democratic socialist policies.
Could I be so bold to suggest that China/Russia/India are more capitalist than America. Mature capitalist economies with great wealth such as the USA develop a mature/sophisticated economic and social approach to the poorer sections of their society (the have nots), this ties in well with the caring conservatives who advocate care for poorer sections of the community.
Capitalism makes you wealthy, socialism makes you civilized. (I put a 'z' in to build rapport with my democratic socialist cousins across the pond).
You may think you live in a capitalist state but capitalism like communism are economic theories, reality is your probably about 50/50.