perfidy

Alright. We'll start with this electronic philosophy journal article. I found it to be highly politicized, though politics and economy are strongly related to one another. So let's look at a few statements from the article: 

The thinking seems to be that the profits of business should either be given directly to workers through pay raises or be taken by the government to be given to workers indirectly.

Wow! What a great idea! I'm all for it. Oh wait there's more:

Producing greater profits is thought of as useless and immoral.

Right again! What a great article! Oh, hang on: “

However, if Say's Law is correct, life improves through greater production, not through higher nominal wages. Greater production requires greater capitalization -- money invested in machinery and training -- and the capital for that must come out of profits.

Well, you lost me there. Okay, so to simplify, fuck the poor. Yeah. I've seen this movie. I'll quote myself from at least two lectures last spring, "Profits for the wealthy come with the exploitation of labor." 

Perhaps I shouldn't quote myself. I could go blind. Back to the subject at hand, so to speak (*ahem*), supply side economics, or free market capitalism, benefit ownership and management over labor. This will not change so long as the system is maintained. Tax cuts, especially capital gains, invariably benefit those with the most money. They do not benefit wage-workers (or adjunct profs) who have no investments, no savings, and literally hang by their fingernails in a free market capitalist system. 

Steve will undoubtedly launch a thousand counter-arguments, if history is any guide. I will only deal with ones that I make up, here and now. Counter: tax cuts make a good economy. A good economy means more workers are hired. 

Then exploited. The aforementioned article states that profits have to be reinvested, and not in the workers. To stay afloat, businesses have to maintain a healthy bottom line in the free market system. To do that, they pay their workers as little as possible. If they make lots of money, they keep it, or invest it, then get tax breaks on their investments. 

I previously asked for quantitative analysis on this subject. That was a trick question. Economic issues are difficult if not impossible to quantify. Why? It's a matter of faith. People believe that when they hand over green pieces of paper or shiny metal round things, they receive goods and services in exchange. If a majority of people changed their beliefs, and decided that the green paper is for the wiping of asses and the shiny round things are fun to eat, the whole deal collapses. Faith cannot be quantified. It cannot be quantitatively proven that God exists; it cannot be quantitatively proven that free market capitalism, or any of the economic systems attempted thus far, work. 

Free market capitalism creates a permanent underclass. The individual members of the underclass might ascend, but ultimately, there is always an underclass. Capitalism requires a large number of people to work for wages beneath a level of comfort. I'll anticipate another counter: the poor in America do better than the poor in other countries. They have material possessions. 

Do they? There are still people in this country who are homeless and hungry. There are people who have not been apportioned according to their need. This is not me. I'm discussing people with families below the poverty level, who try as they might, cannot get their heads above water. As to material possessions, can many people actually afford them, or do they go into debt to acquire them, invariably sinking into bankruptcy? Poverty has not been eliminated anywhere in the world. Free market capitalism will not eliminate poverty, nor have centrally planned economies, because they do not produce a sufficient number of consumer goods or provide decent standards of living. Nothing seems to work perfectly. 

Counter: perfection is unattainable. To quote Matt Groening, from School is Hell, "you'll never get anywhere with that defeatist attitude." 

The solution? I've said it before. I don't have the answers. I have ideas.