Mass professor asks Freepers for help

11/16/04 | Republicanprofessor

[Prime Choice]

Your writing, sir, is one of the reasons I love it here.

Thanks very much for the kind words! You just made my entire week. Seriously! : )

[Republicanprofessor]

I am appalled that a Wright house was demolished. I realize, however, that often his buildings had severe technical problems: leaky roofs, etc. But developers and consumers need to be educated as to the value of history and great architects.

Saying that, I'm not even sure I could convince my large husband to live at Falling Water, Wright's masterpiece over a waterfall. The bedrooms are tiny and things are built for a 5'8" height, not 6'. But others would love to live there (if it was available for living, which, as a tourist site, it is not).

[Republicanprofessor]

I am not an affirmative action prof nor am I a lib. I simply wish to broaden my teaching perspectives, skills and arguments in a field only tangentially related to mine; and to open my liberal students' minds as well.

However, wouldn't it be great if liberal professors opened their minds enough to visit a right wing forum to broaden their ideas?

[Borges]

I think it's because, as far as the society is concerned, the Corporation is one person. It has all the rights of a person except the right to vote and a right to privacy right?

It's like asking why the human body is run like a communist tyranny.

[bvw]

Like many parts of the body, many parts of a corportaion can run autonomously -- totally independent of the corporation.

Ever hear of headless chickens? Back in the heyday of the guilliotine some French and German doctors attempted to keep men's bodies or the head alone alive after beheading. There are some reports of sucess -- they had demonstrated the ability to cut the head off a dog and sew it onto a second dog -- creating a two headed dog.

* * *

In addtion it seems pretty clear that humans (both evos and creationists agree, I think) derived from a common ancestor. Not so with corporations -- they are created in whole. More Creationist, that.

So what? Well, that means almost any internal structure is possible. But there are simply not that many used -- so it seems to me.

[bvw]

Then the Wright designs beg "editorial rewrite" -- where one captures nigh all of the original spirit and artistic intent and content, and even a good part of the original engineering -- yet completely redoes the struture for better service and longevity, etc.

[Heyworth]

Well, now you have to start getting into definitions and the recognition that there's never been a truly communist state (under Marx's definition) anywhere in the world. What we've seen have been a string of socialist states with varying degrees of economic control, and with some of them cloaking themselves in those utopian theories of Marx (which sound pretty good to a starving peasant) and calling themselves communist, even though they really aren't.

Then we have to define just what we mean by "better off" and decide "compared to what?" I'd have to argue that Swedes have a fairly socialist form of government and that their lower classes are indeed better off than someplace like Bolivia. I'd have to argue that, atrocious as Castro's Cuba is, very few people there would swap it for the Batista regime. Are the Cubans better off than they were? In what areas? Castro has pumped a lot of his resources into education and medicine. The Cuban people are, by any definition, fairly healthy and well-educated compared to neighboring Haiti or Jamaica. Of course, you've got PhD's driving taxi cabs. Is a Cuban cane field worker better off now than he was in 1950? Quite possibly. Would he be even better off under a capitalist system? Quite possibly. But then quite possibly not--see Haiti and Jamaica.

And there there's the fact that there are capitalist states that are repressive and corrupt. SIngapore is capitalist heaven, but they ban chewing gum. Ultimately there's a continuum of capitalism vs. socialism, freedom vs. repression. The simple act of paying taxes, to some, is seen as socialism--seizing my money to give to someone else. Pure libertarian capitalists would privatize roads, police and the military. But very few people want to go that far. Sharing resources to increase the common good is a basic building block of societies and civilization. The difficulty is finding the balance point.

[SupplySider]

A good coach would take a second string junior varsity runner and teach him the skills and discipline he needs to improve. He will also remind the parents that it is up to them to see that the runner eats right, stays fit, and reports to practice on time. As the runner improves he will automatically be promoted to first string, and then maybe to varsity and the Olympics, talent and hard work permitting.

A bad coach would promote the runner to first string varsity. The coach might feel great that he is being a nice guy, but that wouldn't do much for the runner when he lost his races. And he would lose, since basic skills take years to develop and are not magically granted with the varsity letter on the jacket.

[68skylark]

Well I'd use the United States as the example of what a good capitalist county should be -- not Jamacia or Haiti or Bolivia or anywhere else.

And by that standard, I don't think anyone is better off under any communist system (with the obvious exception of the very few who manage to claw their way to the very top of communist governments, like Castro or the maniac from N. Korea).

[Heyworth]

Sure, then it's a no-brainer. No one in a communist country, as a rule, is better off than they'd be in the U.S. But you use the term "good capitalist country," and that's the rub. They don't automatically go together. They should, and maybe the invisible hand of the market does eventually push countries toward greater freedom, but there are corrupt and repressive capitalist states. Chile after the coup is a good example. The US is probably as close to an ideal balance of elements as people have developed, but even here it's imperfect. Outsourcing of jobs is, arguably, good for the ecomony and helps society through lower product costs to consumers and increased profits to companies. But the 58 year old guy who worked at the factory is, individually, a loser. He wouldn't be better off under communism, but he's still a casualty of capitalism. The question is, would that same worker be better off in socialist Sweden, where the unemployment and retirement benefits are more generous?

[68skylark]

Outsourcing of jobs is, arguably, good for the ecomony and helps society through lower product costs to consumers and increased profits to companies. But the 58 year old guy who worked at the factory is, individually, a loser. He wouldn't be better off under communism, but he's still a casualty of capitalism. The question is, would that same worker be better off in socialist Sweden, where the unemployment and retirement benefits are more generous?

The U.S. economy has the best opportunities in the world. The 58 year old worker in your example could find any number of jobs here that would give him more value (take-home pay plus the value of government benefits) than the value of what he'd receive working a factory job in Sweden where the national income is much lower than the U.S. The guy in your example might see his standard of living drop relative to where he was before, and his living standard might drop relative to the average American. This may make him unhappy. But his living standard would not drop below his Swedish counterpart.

[N. Theknow]

Communism works best when those who oppose it can be killed.

[Paperdoll]

Backward countries have their gang of thugs (also known as the elitists) who rise above the masses by terrorists means to stomp their boots down upon them and make them slaves, until another gang.....

Prosperous countries have their gang of thugs (also known as elitists) who rise above the masses by insiduous means to stomp their boots down upon them and make them slaves, until another gang.....