incidentally, it's getting harder to say good things about the japanese economic model other than maybe they're good at making cars.

sorry, mostly just trolling. I know nothing about GJ. I like what I know about Ralph Nader, though. Does he still run?

and yea, safe bet anyone with a decent shot of winning a us presidential election is going to suck.

Nah but Jill stein running as green party. I have mixed feelings about her platform but I think she's probably not going to sell out to so that's a good thing.

The only people with a decent shot to win presidential elections for the foreseeable future will have either a D or an R by their name and will have gajillions of dollars donated to them by corporations and lobbying groups (thanks citizens united!) and yeah that is a pretty sucky thing.

To be clear GJ has an extremely small chance of winning the election. Maybe if like a week before the election, both Romney and Obama are accused of molesting dozens of little boys, then GJ wins by default. Simpsons would disagree with that tho.

Per the MB doctrine anyone who isn't a Republican but talks about Republicans is a moron anyways.

can we also apply this to people who explain what it is MB thinks that aren't MB (of whom I am one, i note)?

I think I missed some of the last page or two due to phone posting I agree that it is no doubt important to have a nuanced and in depth understanding of the rights of a person wrt his own body and what he and others can do with or to it, but i'm not sure that the way to do it is by indirectly debating whether someone 'owns' their own body.

This is essentially because I find that the line of argument that runs:
- take a commonly used word or concept,
- define it in common sense terms,
- apply it in a marginal/atypical situation
- 'prove' something counterintuitive
is usually some combination of sloppy thinking and or rhetorical sleight of hand.

I'm willing to believe that working from abstract concepts can be a good way of getting insight onto specific issues in this context, I'm just not sure that the concept of ownership is so universally applicable and general and consistent that it is going to be the best way of tackling the subject of rights over the human body. I'm equally willing to be proven wrong, i just don't feel an urgent need to prove myself wrong.

It's possible to argue both 'you're poor so of course you want a handout' and 'lol kropotkin was an aristocrat wtf anarchism', or in the opposite direction 'you're rich, of course you want to maintain the status quo', and 'you poor people have been tricked by the rich to believe this crap that hurts you'.

There's a degree of truth in some contexts of at least the first and the third, but equally i guess none of them really help to advance much of anything.

I think that there's a lot to like in this post.

Don't german companies also have much more labour involvement in management/board of directors?

The economist magazine has written a bunch of stuff about german middle-sized manufacturing companies in the last year or two. I think one thing that the UK has done badly in the last 20-30 years is to put too many eggs in the basket of finance, and to let manufacturing wither to a large extent. I think that there's good reason to think that an economy that is relatively mixed albeit with some specialisms and concentrations is perhaps going to grow slower in the short term than a more focused economy, but prove more robust over the long term, and provide a greater mix of jobs and opportunities to a greater proportion of the population.

a couple of points about the happiness/wealth distribution debate:
- it's important to distinguish between marginal changes and extremes - you can argue for a decrease in wealth distribution without demanding total elimination of difference, and the opposite
- there is often an implicit (or explicit) assumption, even by those who argue for more equality within society, that a system with more unequal wealth distribution will deliver more economic growth over the long term. I think I've said before that this is very far from proven, imo.

tap tap, is this thing on? tap tap tap...

It's on . I think there is a lot of a priori (Austrian/Mises) and a posteriori( Chicago/Freidman) evidence for the idea that there is a correlation between wealth inequality and economic growth rates, but yes it's not proven which is why many economists spill a lot of ink arguing for and against government intervention in the economy.

While atakdog makes a great point that there is a lot more to happiness than material wealth, I do believe having a more thriving economy where people spend less time working and more time playing makes it a lot easier for people to pursue happiness.

hmmm, skeptical face...

i'm also not sure that more equal wealth distribution necessarily has to be the result of government intervention - can it not result from a shift in the general labour/capital relationship, say, or other corporate factors?

yea but in practice that is never gonna happen without government intervention. well, not any time in the foreseeable future.

we can hope.

It's a bit like pog & the mods.

If you're skeptical that more leisure time makes people happier I don't know how to convince you otherwise. I know I am happier when I am playing as opposed to working (unless I have a job I enjoy doing or am doing it with people I enjoy being around).

As to your latter point, labor is valued based on it's value to society in relation to supply and demand. How do you expect the employer/employee relationship to change absent supply and demand? Every person on the planet is an entrepreneur/business owner. clowntable spoke earlier about your right to own your body. You dismissed this as semantics but he tried to stress how important the concept was. Because you own your body you are the owner of a business. The services you provide society is your product(labor) that has value. You can sell your labor on the market only for what price the market will pay for it. No one is forcing you to sell your labor for a lower price than you feel it's worth. But at the end of the day you've got to eat, and if you find yourself "forced" to sell for a lower price than you feel your labor is worth, that's the harsh reality of life, and life is harder for some people than others but in a system of free enterprise, and with a little bit of frugality, someone who works hard and saves can earn enough so that one day he doesn't have to work as hard, or at least so that one day his or her offspring doesn't have to work as hard.

I'm not well-spoken/knowledgeable enough to reply in a mature, respectful manner so I'm just gonna go with this...

What does being well-spoken or knowledgeable have to do with maturity? You can be inarticulate and ignorant and still know how to treat someone whose ideas you oppose with respect.

i'm skeptical that the society i see is good evidence that a richer society is necessarily one with more leisure time.

As to the second paragraph, I don't think it disagrees with what I wrote at all. There's been a big change in the ratio of wages of corporate leaders: wages of average workers over recent years in a lot of major developed economies. I don't see that as the result of government actions. Maybe it it's just the result of supply and demand, maybe there are more wrinkles related to culture and power. But either way, I see no way why it couldn't shift back over time. In fact, in an environment of aging workers and relatively large savings, I see good reason to expect that labour should expect to demand an increasing return in the future.

I'm too insecure to politely say I disagree if I don't think I can successfully argue my side.

Those lovable liberals.

http://victoriataftkpam.blogspot.com...lapped-by.html

gasp, there are intolerant democrats? Next you'll be telling us that not all republicans are selfish, money hungry bible-thumpers.

Fair enough. I hope you have success working on your insecurities. You seem like a nice poster. Let's play a game some time.

for like a good half an hour I thought ozymandias was obezyankanol and I've been so confused

well named

so wolfy! :P