Forum Post: What economic system and government system should we switch to?
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 27, 2011, 8:21 p.m. EST by Kevabe
(81)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I notice many comments from the OWS movement related to the perspective that capitalism and democracy have both failed.
As someone from the outside who has taken an interest to attempt to learn more about the OWS perspective I came to this site to learn more.
My understanding is that this movement has no centralized leader.
It seems to be made up of a lot of people who have an agreement that there is a problem related to the notion that the 1% have everything and the 99% has nothing.
As I have had various conversations on these forums I noticed that I am now even more unsure if this movement really has common perspectives amongst themselve as to what direction it is headed.
I see so many pro-communist ideology comments and have even seen many quotes from known communists. I also noticed a very strong antisemitic tone amongst some self claimed OWS members.
In other threads on this site, I have seen many people who claim that they are not anti-democracy or anti-capitalists but at the same time the deeper involved I got with their conversations it seemed as though they really were anti-capitalists and maybe just were not aware of it yet.
Anyway differences aside I would like to hear your big ideas. What government system should we make a switch to if Democracy and Capitalism is so bad?
Back to the Keynesian capitalism and liberal democracy of the 40s-70s please. No more of this Friedmanite privatization, deregulation, helicopter money, free-trade, supply-side/trickle-down, "deficits don't matter" systematic dismantling of society in the name of the free-market god profit.
Well-regulated capitalism is fine.
(this should be fun)
Yes, all of that. And, get money out of politics so that our democracy is returned to the people.
Well, Bush and Obama have both employed an economic approach much closer to Keynesian Economics than that of anything Friedman would have deemed as resembling supply-side economics. The bail-out goes against the concepts Friedman supported and fall within the shadows of John Keynes himself.
The bailout was based on Friedman's theory of a "helicopter drop" of money (which he proposed in a paper titled "The Role of Monetary Policy") and was championed by Bernanke in a 2002 speech on deflation, for which he earned the nickname "Helicopter Ben".
The idea that it had anything to do with Keynes is simply factually incorrect.
I have to disagree with you on this. The Helicopter Drop you mention is actually a parable Friedman used when discussing what is known as a Liquidity Trap. It is a situation described in Keynesian economics in which injections of cash into an economy by a central bank fail to lower interest rates and hence to stimulate economic growth.
Obama is using Keynesian Economics even Ben Bernake when talking about the liquidity trap attempted to quote Milton Friedman's Helicopter Drop parable, and is know referred to by some with the nickname as "Helicopter Ben".
Keynesian economic theory went in the opposite direction from the laissez-faire theories that preceeded it. Laissez-faire economic theory called for no intervention by the government into the economy. The market was to stabilize itself without government interference.
Keynesian economics also proposed the concept of the circular flow of money. What one person spends, another earns and what that person spends, yet another earns.
This created the “circular flow.” Saving money totally disrupts this circular flow of money by taking money out of the cycle and diminishing the total. Under Keynesian economics, this is where government would take action to increase spending by putting more money into the market or increasing the money supply.
Many world leaders have used Keynesian economic theories through government stimulus packages. President Barack Obama, most recently, used such fiscal policy with the stimulus packages to boost the economy and prevent key financial corporations from going bankrupt. Government spending also boosts the economy based on the theories of Keynesian economics.
It's a parable in support of the idea for dealing with a liquidity trap, which is how it was interpreted by Bernanke.
Keynes cannot be implemented in bits and pieces to be successful. If he's only turned to in a financial crisis when the economy's been operating at a deficit for decades, and when he's only turned to half-heartedly, it's obviously not going to work. Reagan set the tone for the past 30 years, and Friedman was his guide. This lays at his feet, much like most of the world economy does - along with his Chicago Boys.
This created the “circular flow.” Saving money totally disrupts this circular flow of money by taking money out of the cycle and diminishing the total. Under Keynesian economics, this is where government would take action to increase spending by putting more money into the market or increasing the money supply.
Increasing the money supply isn't part of Keynes' prescription, because it "debauches the currency" in Keynes' words. How spending and savings works under Keynes' understanding is that the higher your discretionary income, the greater percentage you will put into savings. The lower your discretionary income, the smaller the percentage. So if the velocity of money is too slow, the government can increase it by taxation (not borrowing and not increasing the money supply, taxation) taking some money from those who will save a greater proportion and putting it in the hands of those who will save little or none but spend it right away.
Definition: The Liquidity trap is a Keynesian idea. When expected returns from investments in securities or real plant and equipment are low, investment falls, a recession begins, and cash holdings in banks rise. People and businesses then continue to hold cash because they expect spending and investment to be low. This is a self-fulfilling trap.
http://economics.about.com/od/termsbeginningwithl/g/liquidity_trap.htm
John Keynes talked about his Liquidity Trap Theory in his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
We all know what a liquidity trap is, it seems odd you're just tossing a definition off for no apparent reason. Friedman never rejected the notion of a liquidity trap either, so it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of relevance either.
Oh yeah? We're in a depression. Where are the WPA, TVA, CCC? Where are the support for labor and protectionism and more regulation? Where's the truly expansionary monetary policy and stimulus that's more than 1/3 actually stimulative (and only then via for-profit corpos)? A real liberal does not get corporate donations. Market-based solutions and handouts to business are the epitome of Friedman's neoliberalism. Privatization and deregulation too.
Bailouts? Look up helicopter money. Friedman.
Keynes was about running surpluses and paying down debts during booms (countercyclical). Friedmanites are about starving the beast, even if that means running deficits (tax cuts and military spending) during booms to make sure real stimulus is off the table during the next bust.
It has been all Friedman since the 80s, whether you like it or not. Every policy has been about dismantling the New Deal. "Government is the problem" to "the era of big government is over" to "deficits don't matter" (during a boom). This is Friedman's world. Even the supposedly progressive healthcare bill is a thinly veiled handout to corporations. That is not liberal.
Actually it's been friedman style tax cuts with keynesian spending. Both are unworkable when done at same time. They always have led to large debt/ deficit.
Yes, the bail-outs are counter to friedman, but go hand in hand with corpratism. OWS opposes corpratism, and those here that oppose capitalism only do so because they haven't experianced it here in the USA for past 12-20 years.
What we have here is NOT capitalism, it is corporate socialism, or corpratism.
I believe most people would be in favor of capitalism if we ever tried it here in the USA. But to do so, it would need to be regulated, otherwise corporations eventually will gain too much power in the government. After that they would be able to get government to offset losses through bailouts, push deregulation, take advantage of poorer countries....
Heck, give them enough power, I bet they could get themselves declared persons under the law.........
Liberal Voluntarism. That's we should go for. It means that we, the people, take care people by ourselves voluntary, not by force, coercion, or violence. Instead of believing that the inefficient system, which is trying to do good for people but forcing others to pay, can work, we should believe that actually our goodness can really help poor and neglected people without force. To do so eventually we should eliminate all taxation, the roots of all governments' forces. You donate to your governments, or any other charitable organizations, but are not forced to pay tax. You donate your time for governments, or any other charitable organizations, but are not forced to work for. We should make our society better voluntary but not by force.
The ONLY anti-semetic undertones here have been from right wing fascists. Sometimes they even disguise themselves like OWS supporters........
Well, it has been widely reported that the American Nazi Party supports the OWS.
They support anything that is deemed somehow subversive to the US government. Doesn't change the fact they're a right wing organization which is pretty antithetical to everything we're about. Stormfront people support Ron PauI in large numbers. Is he anti-semitic?
capitalism has never existed. Democracy has never existed. we need to end the corporate oligarchy, have a genuine free market system, and have a genuine new democracy.
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Corporate_Oligarchy
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/THE_99%25_POLITICAL_PARTY
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CMbY87bB-qsCFUPt7Qod9HE8mQ
http://maplight.org/us-congress/guide/data/money?9gtype=search&9gkw=list%20of%20campaign%20donations&9gad=6213192521.1&9gag=1786513361&gclid=CP61oYbB-qsCFQFZ7AodcTF0jw
http://www.opensecrets.org/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-new-wiki/
http://occupywallst.org/forum/non-violence-evolution-by-paradigm-shift/
I can suggest a new kind of socio-political-economic system and a safe way to make the transition. It's called "Wise Democracy." It is based on a new social innovation, the Wisdom Council, which can facilitate the missing ingredient in our society: an inclusive, wise and responsible "We the People." The Wisdom Council strategy builds on the current system in a non-coercive, voluntary way. See www.WiseDemocracy.org
Two special references are: 1) 9 minute video ..."A simple solution to society's Big issues" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKB595yJdSI&feature=youtu.be 2) Front/back one-page handout for OWS. ... "How to create a world that works for all." http://www.wisedemocracy.org/page19/page26/page31/wise_democracy_strategy.html
The Messianic one, of course!
To be more concrete though, there's a new chance that civilization has never had before that the Internet allows. That system is not in place yet, but you can take a look at pangaia.sf.net. A neutral, transparent system for organizing activity at arbitrary large levels of scale. This allows a meritocratic form of governance that was never really achievable before.
But even this can't succeed if we don't change the basis of our economic system. See ascentofhumanity.com for that.
What has failed us is greed and the struggle of certain corporations warring against the public for unethical profit gains. Corporations are not people, let them die if they are not providing a need to the public.
Remove the corruption from corporations, (mis)representatives, and banking cartels. If this can be accomplished through capitalism and more importantly Prevented, great!
Otherwise we should begin looking more seriously into new models such as a resource based economy and testing aspects of it within the current system to confirm whether it is feasible or not. At worst, those high tech test cities would help create many many new jobs, provide clean sources of abundant energy, food. And it would prove once and for all that people can't get along without money and government telling them how they must live.
In terms of our economy, we're not capitalist, we have a mixed economy, and one with a high degree of corporate influence (i.e. corporatism). The main change we need is to reform the Federal Reserve, which controls the money supply and bears the lion's share of the responsibility for the asset bubble leading to the financial crisis. In terms of regulation of derivatives and other markets, capital requirements to limit leverage and transparency to reduce asymmetrical information would be a great start.
But I see a bigger problem with our political system, and democracy has many forms. In addition to publicly funded campaigns with free air time and full transparency in all campaign contributions, I would switch from our two-party system to a multi-party system. This is accomplished by changing our voting system from plurality to Proportional Representation (PR). This would decentralize power away from the two-power oligopoly that currently does a poor job handling issues like campaign finance and reforming corporate governance. Firms now face an easy time lobbying both parties, and would have a harder time if there were many. Each party would also face stiffer competition and would be more reactive to the voters.
Unfortunately, multi-party systems paired with presidential systems don't have a very good track record, so this change would probably need to be accompanied with other reforms. I dislike static coalitions, as I see them is a source of a lot of our problems, so I'm not fond of parliamentary systems that require governing coalitions. I'm more intrigued by semi-presidentialism, which has two executives, one directly elected (and I would suggest Instant Runoff Voting to select that one), the other appointed by the legislature.
One idea I recently heard that sounds interesting is to split the responsibilities of the executive between economic policy and social policy. Given the amount of economic illiteracy among the electorate (which is why low inflation correlates with central bank independence and many young developing democracies have trouble implementing economic reforms), I would put economic policy in the hands of the appointed executive and put the directed elected executive in charge of social policy.
In order to represent both geographical locations and ideologies, I think the legislature should be mixed-member, with PR in the form of the Single Transferable Vote used across the nation and then centrists selected by the Condorcet Method from individual regions. Condorcet is not a good way of selecting executives because it picks compromise candidates, creating incentives for candidates to not divulge where they stand on issues. But a diverse legislature would need centrists to bridge divides, not an executive to lead, so the mixed members should complement each other.
Note, I'm an economist, not a political scientist, but I am a big fan of comparative politics and alternative voting methods.
Something that would keep it separate from the political system.
Humanism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism...
Why can't we have system of benefit by what you contribute to humanity... I'm guessing the one reason we don't do it now, is that the people who benefit at this time aren't exactly connected to the rest of humanity and don't care to be..
Humanism is a philosophy that should be the basis of government. It is not a system of government or economics.
True..so it's time to continue what our forefathers envisioned in regard to individual (human) freedom and liberty.
this movement is not what it appears to be- ows is a small part of a global movement for world freedom- in the usa the main issue is 1% are greedy- other country's have different issues . its goal is world democracy- and that democracy is nothging like anything you have read about. --------------------------------------------------thrasymaque
Democracy and Capitalism are not bad. Democracy is sloppy and needs constant attention. Occupy is helping to broaden the discussion in America. In fact it has thrown the skunk on the table. Maybe we can do something.
Capitalism is great but from time to time the rules need to be tuned up to bring broader benefits to America.
[Removed]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w
Parliamentarianism is not democracy. It's the cave in the platonic allegory.
Economy of words, brilliantly put. This Democracy unlike other democracy we've heard about (Thrsaymaquf alludes to) should just be called what it is:bolshevism/socialism/communism. The 1%ers that spawned ows via the OSI (soros) would love to see us smash each other to bits so they can usher in the final chapters of The Communist Manifesto, close the book on our Republic. Focus to the core problem. Rothchild bank cartel-all global problems can be traced back there. Common denominator is fiat fraud central bankster mob rule.
[Removed]
Don't worry about it, the movement is done. Nobody gives a shit about their silly protests about nothing anymore
You are asking some loaded questions. An I bet you don't many real answers since most people around here have no idea what form government would take.
Point of fact-we are a REPUBLIC. We have allowed rhetoric and democracy to dismantle it from the inside. Our republic, and free-market capitalism are A-Ok with me, provided we rout out the fiat fiction that is The Fed. Review the history http://occupywallst.org/forum/interesting-read-about-the-constitution-and-corpor/ that brought us to this point. Ignore the hasbarats bashing Jews-the communists spouting ignorant rhetoric they don't believe or understand, and try to understand the Soros connection to this movement (and this site). Best little flypaper disinfo COINTELOP on the web. Encourage peace and education. Rock on
If we did that we might have a shot as Americans.
Ahh yea. I think we do. It's smoke and mirrors, and we can break through. I LOVE this sophisticated hasbararap session goin on between kevabe and edgewaters.
Get real guys. ALL the problems we have had, and will have derive from the fiat fiction infection OF THE ROTHCHILD BANK CARTEL. The choice as to form in debating such issues, has a logic to it. Imagine if hospitals, instead of calling the cancer ward, CANCER WARD, decided that it would be impolite to focus on their worst attribute, kinder and gentler, to call the ward by the sum of it's parts (Keynes, bernanke, helicopter drop, flying roundhouse triple whammy quantum derivitave hedgethumper...). So all the doctors, by mandate, now must refer to the daily roll-call any time they address issues related to the CANCER WARD (I mean, the Henry Jones, Jacob Richards. Sue Wilson, Jimmy Waters, Larry Anderson, Penny Nichols, Wilbur Smith, Andrew Poindexter........ WARD). THAT is how you propose to debate -when the issue is ROTHCHILD BANKSTER CANCER. You are now ready to face the facts. Really, though, it's some of the best COINTEL going on tonight. Bravo!
Look it's the goyim's fault that they aren't as smart...When was the last time we had a goy in the Federal Reserve? During Carter's administration?
One way to look at it-but I don't accept the framework. It's got nothing to do with intelligence, and there is no such thing as "goyim.". There are criminals with family histories that extend back 500yrs -family business is about keeping criminal secrets away from the mass of ignorant (unaware) patriots and regular citizens who easily believe what they are fed. I agree that people fall for these traps too easily-and need to wake up/wise up. Let's not pretend these 1% sociopaths (in every false 'ism category) are smarter than anyone. Face it, they have had the upper hand long enough to so something creative and unique. What you see is an accumulation of value subtractions, not value adds. They aren't very smart at all, when it boils right down to it. Downright foolish, actually.
Yes, I agree..especially about them not being sooo smart...But that doesn't mean they won't go the full monty. and this brings me to the latest posting from Clif High (Now take your grain of salt):
http://halfpasthuman.com/grace.html
No salt required-clif high pretty much nails it. I'm doing my part. You?
Man it's fear and loathing over here...I'm semi-prepped, that's all..
Everything you need is nearby. The thing is, you know the score. Whereas most folks don't have a clue. Have you spent any time on our thread here? http://occupywallst.org/forum/interesting-read-about-the-constitution-and-corpor/ we are putting it all together. We are gathering here.