Excellent King Buzz interview from 10/25/2010

[bgpurzycki]

Reread what was stated.  I prefer good old capitalism to what most seem to confuse it with, which is what we have today.  You asked for an alternative, I provided it which a worker-owned model of business.  I gave you what you asked for and you couldn't critique it!  Rather, you wrote I was against profit and the prevention of bankruptcy.  Now I'm splitting hairs?  Give me a break.  If you can't address an argument, don't stay in one.  Here's yet another example:

"limited liability allows corporate personnel to violate criminal statutes".  I didn't make this argument.  I said limited liability protects individuals from being personally responsible for the corporate entity's bad decisions.  I never said immunity, nor did I say "allows personnel to violate criminal statutes."  The very fact that GE still exists after systematic violations and no one has been imprisoned for life (which we would be) for their crimes is a case in point.  We were talking about the nature of these institutions and their incompatibility with democracy.

"or evil or whatever" or "unfair".  Never said that either.  They're inherently undemocratic.  If people like determining their own destinies and they don't have a say, then yeah, I'd say that's unfair.  Generalized assumptions?  It's the way they work.  Milton Fucking Friedman says it!  And he was in the Chicago School!  They are amoral, legal people.  And as for the productivity "assumption" (it was a premise), I gave you a source for the evidence so you could check yourself. 

A lack of an MBA is no excuse for a poor argument.

Ah, jeez. Here we go again.

You said first: Limited liability "makes the individuals that compose corporations effectively immune from prosecution."
Then: "GM is slapped with a fine and continue to do so because it's more cost effective than NOT BREAKING THE LAW" (implying that
And then: "executives are protected." Because this immediately follows "NOT BREAKING THE LAW," this can only mean "protected from criminal and/or civil liability."

I just gave three real world examples of corporate executives who not have only been criminally sanctioned, but also have been defendants of civil suits as well. You gave me a Wikipedia article that doesn't support your argument. In the absence of an on-point rebuttal by you, the only logical conclusion is that limited liability is NOT a Harry Potter-esque cloak that renders corporate personnel invisible to prosecutors and plaintiffs attorneys, as you claim (in so many words) in your argument that the corporate model is unfair/undemocratic/un-whatever.

I have no idea what you mean by "good old" capitalism or "REAL" capitalism. It seems you don't either. The modern corporation's predecessor, the joint-stock company, in which investors put money into a business venture in the hopes of making a profit goes back at least as far as the 1600s. Farm co-ops, record labels and small-time publishers, which you mentioned earlier, are bad examples to raise in support of your argument. Please name one such "worker-owned" company that is able to raise the sort of capital needed to be competitive on an international or even national level. Can't do it? Well, I hate to break it to you, but an economy of a country the size of the U.S., in order to be sustainable, needs to be composed of something more than niche-market enterprises catering to the disposable incomes of hipsters.

Yeah, I'm real impressed that you're able to name-drop Milton Friedman and the "Chicago school" and everything. But the fact of the matter is your argument actually isn't that corporations are bad because they're "undemocratic." This assertion is actually false to the extent that shareholders of publicly traded companies elect members of the board of directors. Moreover, you've repeatedly argued that workers should own the companies they work for and so be able to set the terms on which they work. You're actually arguing in favor of more union-friendly collective bargaining laws. This has nothing to do with most facets of executive decision-making, i.e., what widgets to make, how, in what quantities and whom to sell them to. If this is not the true nugget of your argument, then you're saying such decisions should be made by a vote of the workers. You definitely don't need an MBA to realize that if this isn't lunacy, it certainly isn't the way to organize a national economy.

In conclusion, if I'm a little lost as to what you're talking about, then you're totally adrift at sea. Without a life jacket, no less.

Also, assumptions can be premises.

Sigh.  Effectively immune from prosecution when the corporation is responsible for a crime.  Read the externality part.  I gave you GM as an example.  They've got a long criminal record.  Go ahead and focuses on the relationship between shareholders and that they get to vote.  Good for them!  And then customers getting to choose whether they buy or not.  Repeat.  Rinse.  Repeat. 

You can can it "lunacy" if you want, but it's been empirically demonstrated to work. That was my point.  "Organizing a national economy" sounds eerily like Soviet Russia.  You have no idea what I mean by good old capitalism because you haven't read what I wrote.  Read Adam Smith.  Milton Friedman actually shares your position it sounds like.  Chief architect for neo-liberalism?  I was "name-dropping" him to point out that corporate cheerleaders, too, can acknowledge that corporations are amoral and undemocratic.  Sorry if you think that was snobbery.

"if I'm a little lost as to what you're talking about, then you're totally adrift at sea."

It's logic like this that makes me wonder why I try.  Or is this just dividing the losings?

[ManWithNoName]

You do realize that Adam Smith's work was mostly theoretical and that the capitalism he's referring to isn't an analysis of the actual system in place but how it should be, right?

So, in essence, this "good old capitalism" or "real capitalism" you're talking about isn't real and never existed -- it's an idea/concept.

Also, Adam Smith never claimed that corporations were amoral or undemocratic because no such thing existed in his time.

[bgpurzycki]

You do realize that Adam Smith's work was mostly theoretical and that the capitalism he's referring to isn't an analysis of the actual system in place but how it should be, right?

So, in essence, this "good old capitalism" or "real capitalism" you're talking about isn't real and never existed -- it's an idea/concept.

Also, Adam Smith never claimed that corporations were amoral or undemocratic because no such thing existed in his time.

Yeah, I said this earlier.  Good in theory, execution didn't work as well.  Same with communism.  What works is syndicalism...if we're privileging democracy, quality, and productivity over private power.

I'm not aware of Smith's saying that, I referred to Milton Friedman.  I suspect Smith was against them though:

[DCGod]

I thought Buzz was just fucking with this guy because he was Canadian.  Think about it, Buzz has never had a single good thing to say about Canada and was probably bummed about the lack of revenue because of the merch situation (none, remember?).  What this interview showed me is that Buzz is and has been committed to making money by playing shows, and these shows in Canada were not cost effective.  Oh, and he hates paying taxes, which I can cut him some slack on because he is an artist and I think they should get some kind of break.

[rictus]

Buzz has never had a single good thing to say about Canada and was probably bummed about the lack of revenue because of the merch situation (none, remember?).  What this interview showed me is that Buzz is and has been committed to making money by playing shows, and these shows in Canada were not cost effective. 

He doesn't have to play there.

[DCGod]

I know he doesn't have to play there and don't know why they did.  Pressure from the record label? I don't think so.  Probably felt obligated, it had been 10 years.

[Greasy Statement]

i'm certain they did alright overall up here. they were likely lured up by good guarantees, esp. given how much advance tickets were in toronto ($26). obviously they could have made a tonne more with merch and by not having to rent equipment (which i thought somebody here said they did), but i doubt it was a money losing venture....

[ManWithNoName]

I know he doesn't have to play there and don't know why they did.  Pressure from the record label? I don't think so.  Probably felt obligated, it had been 10 years.

And now it's going to be another 10 years. Where is the suicide button?

[MrLuck87]

Just gonna point out that libertararians have no problem not funding armies

Wait, what?  Where did you hear that?

http://www.lp.org/platform

3.1    National Defense

We support the maintenance of a sufficient military to defend the United States against aggression.
The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as
policeman for the world. We oppose any form of compulsory national service.

[Mad Arab]

The more demand for a given profession has the more value is placed on it. If there is a glut of a certain thing in a free market the less value it has. It is with this knowledge that one can negotiate their price. The more options you have through education, skills, experience, the better off you potentially are in gainful employment. The choice is yours then to sell your time and talents to a prospective buyer. Choice and democracy go hand in hand. No one is forcing you to settle.

[Mad Arab]

There are "Libertarians" and then there are libertarians. I seen a picture of Buzz sporting a Barry Goldwater shirt. That's pretty conspicuous. My guess is that he leans libertarian but is sympathetic towards a mainstream political ideology.

[Mad Arab]

Goldwater was an interesting fellow.

[MrLuck87]

There are "Libertarians" and then there are libertarians. I seen a picture of Buzz sporting a Barry Goldwater shirt. That's pretty conspicuous. My guess is that he leans libertarian but is sympathetic towards a mainstream political ideology.

Ever since the Tea Parties the word libertarian has become has meaningless as the word liberal.  It's gets thrown around way too much.

[Mad Arab]

Not really. That word has been around for some time. Another phrase for it is classical liberalism.

[dead mike]

Sigh.  Effectively immune from prosecution when the corporation is responsible for a crime.  Read the externality part.  I gave you GM as an example.  They've got a long criminal record.  Go ahead and focuses on the relationship between shareholders and that they get to vote.  Good for them!  And then customers getting to choose whether they buy or not.  Repeat.  Rinse.  Repeat.  

You can can it "lunacy" if you want, but it's been empirically demonstrated to work. That was my point.  "Organizing a national economy" sounds eerily like Soviet Russia.  You have no idea what I mean by good old capitalism because you haven't read what I wrote.  Read Adam Smith.  Milton Friedman actually shares your position it sounds like.  Chief architect for neo-liberalism?  I was "name-dropping" him to point out that corporate cheerleaders, too, can acknowledge that corporations are amoral and undemocratic.  Sorry if you think that was snobbery.

"if I'm a little lost as to what you're talking about, then you're totally adrift at sea."

It's logic like this that makes me wonder why I try.  Or is this just dividing the losings?

See, the thing is, you haven't backed up your arguments with anything that actually supports them. Not. One. Thing. You seem to think that name-dropping economists and telling me to "read" them will somehow convince me that you have any idea what you're talking about. Well, you haven't and you don't, and you have no one to blame but yourself. If you had actually provided at least a title to the Bowles/Gintis study that supposedly empirically proves you right, I might have been willing to at least look at it and draw my own conclusions. Turns out they wrote a lot together, and I don't have time or inclination to try to figure out which article or study you keeping pointing to as your Exhibit A, read it and figure out whether it actually proves what you say it proves. So the only thing I have to go on are your examples of farm co-ops and independent record labels. You argue that they are a viable alternative to the corporate model at a national or global scale, but you have yet to show me one concrete example.

And GM (or was it GE? You can't even get the names right!) has "a long criminal record"? Really?? What were they charged with? Were they convicted? When? More importantly, how does this prove that limited liability shields executives? Externality? Do you mean this part from the Wikipedia entry which claim says more than it actually does in support of your theory: "It has also been argued that it distorts the free market by allowing the entrepreneur to externalise some risk and impose it on society at large"? If this is what you're referring to (and I can't think of anything else you might be referring to) and even if this statement is true, it doesn't help your argument either. Because it clearly does NOT say executives, even when acting within the scope of their jobs, are "effectively immune" from criminal or civil liability, as my examples of Ebbers et al show. Go ahead and read the cited (sketchy) article. It doesn't say that either.

But here's my favorite quote from you so far: "'Organizing a national economy' sounds eerily like Soviet Russia."
So now I'm a Communist? Hahaha! You are really out of ammunition when you start taking quotes out of context and spinning them to mean something that would contradict your basic argument. Here I am, a dyed in the wool pinko arguing that publicly traded corporations are a necessary part of a large, modern, globally competitive economy. Not an effective use of irony.

I do retract my earlier comparison of you to a person lost at sea. You're more like someone trapped in quick sand: the more you flail about, the quicker you sink.

Dosvedanya, comrade.