Wipe slate clean with debt amnesty

ninky_2

Dopester, your talk of warmongering and zealous conviction that creditors will win out says it all really. This is the problem. The current economic system is based upon competition and conflict. For there to be winners there must be losers - and vice versa.

What the "winners" fail to realise that the world their "success" creates really makes them losers. After all, who really wants to live in a world where one man can own more than the GDP of some countries whilst others can't even put food in their mouths?

It is a Nash Equilibrium (see economist John Forbes Nash and his game theory). The only logical solution (unless you are of the opinion you can actually enjoy the suffering of others) is for an economic system based on co-operation (as in the Economics of Humanity I muted earlier).

Human beings are totally capable of creating and living by such a system, it only needs for the majority to be convinced of the benefits and wake up to the horrors of the current situation.

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

It is a Nash Equilibrium (see economist John Forbes Nash and his game theory). The only logical solution (unless you are of the opinion you can actually enjoy the suffering of others) is for an economic system based on co-operation (as in the Economics of Humanity I muted earlier).

Human beings are totally capable of creating and living by such a system, it only needs for the majority to be convinced of the benefits and wake up to the horrors of the current situation.

Nice theory, but I don't see how it's possible. You cannot eradicate the human condition of self-interest. How are you going to get entrepreneurs to start up companies that take your economy forward if they get no reward for doing it? How are you going to avoid cronyism and those in power taking just a bit extra, as they did in supposedly socialist states? If reward is the same for everyone, how do you get people to do the dirty jobs and not just those that take their fancy?

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

Nice theory, but I don't see how it's possible. You cannot eradicate the human condition of self-interest. How are you going to get entrepreneurs to start up companies that take your economy forward if they get no reward for doing it? How are you going to avoid cronyism and those in power taking just a bit extra, as they did in supposedly socialist states? If reward is the same for everyone, how do you get people to do the dirty jobs and not just those that take their fancy?

You obviously didn't read my earlier post re Economics of Humanity. This argument that we need the profit motive to push the economy forward is extremely flawed. After all, what do you mean by "push the economy forward"? I assume you mean "wealth creation"?

Well, "wealth creation" does not mean a better world as there is precious little control on where this wealth ends up. In addition, it ignores the fact that the profit motive often does harm as it's only moral agenda is to make money (I gave examples before such as the tobacco industry).

In addition, what you are ignoring is that in an economy where people must work so that the excess value of their labour is drawn into profit and that to maximize this profit they must work longer and longer hours and pay more and more of their salaries for goods that ever increase in price means mass wage slavery. And this mass wage slavery means millions of lives and time lost for contributing to the good of society. How many children dream of changing the world, of helping the worlds needy, or curing illness, or working towards a more sustainable environment, and how many of them must lower this standard when they are face with the realities of adult life in our current capitalist system.

In the Economics of Humanity yes there would be less business start ups. Each would only be funded after prudent analysis. But this would also mean less business failure. Less waste of lives and natural resources. Fewer, and ideally no, McJobs.

You ask how the "less desirable" jobs would be filled. How are they filled now? Through necessity. Well this would be the same in the Economics of Humanity. There would be no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone would be expected to work. Jobs would be allocated on a meritocratic basis. Even criminals would be expected to work. There would be no unemployment benefit as work would be provided for all. The difference is that everyone (except criminals who according to crime would receive a pro-rata reduction in the "quality of life" section of their income) would receive the same income. Compulsory working hours would be reduced to around 20 a week for all, leaving high-flying driven achievers time to work on their own projects, research etc.

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

How are you going to avoid cronyism and those in power taking just a bit extra, as they did in supposedly socialist states?

Are you saying cronyism does not exist in the current system? It would not exist in the system I am suggesting because everyone would be rewarded the same. Therefore, how could anyone justify having more?

vivatifosi

Actually I did read your earlier post, I also, to give your theory its due, tried to search for it in google scholar to find academic papers about it. I couldn't.

I am not suggesting for one minute that the world is perfect or that the current government can't be considered guilty of cronyism, for that matter can any sane person in this country honestly say that the government is full of cronies?

However as someone who does run their own business, I don't see why, when I'm the one who takes the risk, I shouldn't get the most reward. Ask any of the people on this board who runs their own business, say Alan M or FC123 what they think if you don't believe me. The reason we are entrepreneurs will differ for all of us, we often march to a different drum, think outside of the 9-5 corporate box, don't like working for others, the motivators will differ. But when we are the ones willing to put our houses on the line, risk our life savings etc for the passion of our inventions, of our product, and those who work for us aren't, then why should we be paid the same?

I would genuinely like to see a world in which poor people didn't die young and where the life chances that I've had in education, health and stability terms were open to them too. For that reason I like the theories of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. However what you are proposing is unworkable. Have you read Animal Farm?

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

However as someone who does run their own business, I don't see why, when I'm the one who takes the risk, I shouldn't get the most reward.

I would genuinely like to see a world in which poor people didn't die young and where the life chances that I've had in education, health and stability terms were open to them too. For that reason I like the theories of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen. However what you are proposing is unworkable. Have you read Animal Farm?

Yes I have read Animal Farm. What I am suggesting is not communism. The problem with Marxist theory and its offshoots is that it is still based on the rhetoric of confrontation (‘class war’, the conflict between ‘proletariet’ and ‘bourgeoisie’) and the need for winners and losers. Hence, Orwell’s brilliant parable and the “four legs good, two legs bad” that comes full circle to become the very thing it decried.

The reason I brought up John Forbes Nash and his Game Theory is because this brilliant mathematician described how if all players in a ‘game’ (in this instance the economy) become aware of how their moves play out, they can actually come to the conclusion that co-operation is a better strategy than competition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

In the Economics of Humanity, self-interest is not ignored. It is in fact central. However, it is true self-interest based on an awareness of the bigger picture and a desire to live happily in a better world rather than merely be wearing the crown in a kingdom of dissatisfaction.

V, people like you would thrive in the system I am suggesting. You would be freed from the drudgery of 9-5 and with large amounts of free time and resources at your fingertips your creativity and drive would flourish.

As everyone would have sufficient income to meet basic and quality needs, there would be no need to morally justify living a life of comfort. There would also be no injustice as in the current system where many good honest people struggle to get by whilst criminals have these same basic needs met by the state.

Whether people agree with me or not the current system is unsustainable, based as it is on fractional reserve banking, effectively a giant pyramid scheme.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279

Now that the need to give credit has finally outstripped the “birthrate” for new debt, it will die. I am not a dramatist or a doomsayer, this is the rational outcome of the economy we have now. Wiping out current debt and starting again without fundamental change would merely be a way of sustaining things a little longer – so like others, I oppose this. Unfortunately, whilst the end of the current economic system is inevitable, what will replace it is not (unlike Marx, I do not see a utopian destiny). Like our current reliance on oil, when the reserves inevitably run out, we had better have a good alternative. Otherwise, future generations will not thank us.

You won’t find the Economics of Humanity on google academic scholar. It is my own theory and response to the problems of the current system and the fact I could not find a persuasive alternative already in existence.

vivatifosi

ninky wrote: »

Yes I have read Animal Farm. What I am suggesting is not communism. The problem with Marxist theory and its offshoots is that it is still based on the rhetoric of confrontation (‘class war’, the conflict between ‘proletariet’ and ‘bourgeoisie’) and the need for winners and losers. Hence, Orwell’s brilliant parable and the “four legs good, two legs bad” that comes full circle to become the very thing it decried.

Now this is where I can't see the difference between what you are proposing and a pure form of communism, which no government has ever managed to introduce.

You say that Marxism is based on the rhetoric of confrontation. Whether you like it or not, what you are proposing is redistributive and that will also lead to confrontation. Lets say, for arguments sake, that you managed to garner the support of 80% of the people. That would still leave 20% whose support you didn't get. That 20% is very likely to contain a substantial majority of those who own the wealth and the means of production. In order to achieve your plan, how are you going to get that off of them? If you try to force them, even using the courts rather than physical might, they are likely to fight you back (possibly physically) with their substantial wealth behind them. In game theory terms, they will see it that they only stand to lose, so how do you pacify them? If then the people rise up and take it from them, how is that fundamentally different to the Bolshevik Revolution?

Edited to add: while pondering the economics of humanity, it may also be worth considering the thoughts of Steinbeck, who wrote 'We now face the danger that has in the past been the most destructive to humans; success, plenty, comfort and ever increasing leisure. No dynamic people has ever survived these dangers'.

ninky_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

Now this is where I can't see the difference between what you are proposing and a pure form of communism, which no government has ever managed to introduce.

[/I]

oh vivatifosi you have baited me. thankyou for your intelligent and thought provoking response. what i am offering is very different to communism not least in what it offers to the current wealthy as well the current poor. unfortunately i don't have time at the moment to go into the full details. i hope you don't take this as a cop out but rather the genuine response of someone with one of those 'long hours' jobs that involves doing something not entirely satisfying (and yet i have one of those careers that others envy....) that takes me away from things that could, in fact, be more worthwhile.

i plan to return when time frees up....

vivatifosi

Please do. I have great admiration for anyone who thinks about the economy and society enough to draw up a whole new economic paradigm. If you think its a goer you should consider taking a PhD and submitting it to the academic rigour that it deserves. I think your views will probably need to change a bit (sorry), but economics as a subject does need thinkers with a conscience, that's why I like Sen so much, so why not give it a shot? Who knows, you could end up being the new Ernest Mandel.

ninky_2

thanks. maybe if this every becomes a financially viable or satisfactory possiblity (even with a first class degree it's expensive) i'll seriously consider it.