On Jun 5, 12:54 am, Alexander Kalinowski
<a...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Brent <digital.br...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >>That needs to change.
>
> > Why?
>
> > Are you arguing against globalised football, or globalisation? Either
> > way, I stand in favour of globalisation.
>
> Alex:
> The question isn't one of being for or against globalization. The
question is one of whether
> globalization needs to be managed by politics and it cannot be
questioned that it does.
Yet question I will.
> 1. Countries are currently in competition for mobile global capital.
I disagree. On a couple of points. Countries are in competition for
much much more than mobile global capital. Capital is good, but
compared to demand, it is nothing. A better way of expressing the
situation is "Countries are in competition to meet global market
demands", compared to that, capital is just an afterthought.
> That means among other things that countries will dump taxes for the
rich in order to attract that capital.
This is not why countries dump taxes for the rich. The first thing to
understand is that capital is abundant, it can be created, grown, or
taken very easily. The second, the primary motive behind taxation
(apart from corruption) in principle is price elasticity of demand.
The more inelastic the demand is for a good, the higher the tax. Of
course it goes deeper than this, but this is the key point (cut the
rest short, governments being self-serving, self-imposed monopolies
look after their long term interests by leaning toward whatever
guarantees them the most power and security in the short and long
term. Economic understanding has developed to show privatisation and
lean governments serve both ends exceptionally better than
nationalised industries and sprawling bureaucracies). Finally, the
above considered, the reason the governments give tax cuts to the rich
ironically comes back to your aforementioned demand for capital. Rich
people by definition handle larger amounts of money than poor people
per capita. What this means is that a percentage tax cut, per capita,
equates to a larger lump sum, per capita, for a rich person than it
does a poor person (i.e. if in an imaginary society there are 10 rich
people, and 100 poor people, and each demographic had a net income of
$10000, giving a 10% tax cut to the rich gives 10 individuals $100
each. Giving the 10% tax cut to the poor gives 100 people $1 each.
Whilst the poor people will reinject the money back into the economy,
which is a good thing, it is better to give the tax cut to the rich
people because not only will they reinject the cash into the economy,
they have the capacity and tendency to provide capital with their much
larger slices of cash). Giving tax cuts to the rich isn't about
attracting other rich people to the country (perhaps on some minor
level it is, but rich people generate themselves domestically quite
easily anyhow), but rather, it is about encouraging investment in the
economy.
>In order to be afford those tax cuts, they push the philosophy of lean
government, which often comes in the form of >cutting on necessary
spending in order to be able to keep up with other nations.
Firstly, the only reason the government pushes the philosophy of a
'lean government' is the same reason companies push the philosophy of
a lean company. A government is, after all, simply a company with
enforces a self-imposed monopoly over a market which is obliged to
consume their goods and services. That is to say, governments push the
philosophy of 'lean governance' to serve their own interests in being
more efficient, and thus more profitable in the long run.
> 2. If cor****ations argue that implementing higher ecological standards
will bring them disadvantages against
> their rivals overseas or in China or India, the right response to that
is *not* to forget about implementing
> higher standards wrt protecting the environment. If global competition
is preventing the implementation
> of such in the described manner, then the way global competition
currently works isn't part of the solution,
> it is part ofd the *problem*.
Global competition itself does not conflict with the protection of the
environment inherently. Though you have cited a popular instance of
market failure, embodied as a global tragedy of the commons (the
environment being the commons). So what is the solution? The same
solution to the tragedy of the commons; privatise the commons. That
is, sell the environment. Have people who stand, as per level of
destruction, according to the long term preservation of their asset.
You will find that companies will quickly modify their business
practices in favour of the environment to avoid the cost of not doing
so. It all comes back to simple microeconomics. There must be an
increasing marginal loss per unit of marginal benefit, with the
equilibrium keyed (in this case) towards the preservation of the
environment.
> 3. You can see clearly how crappy the very mechanisms in s****ts too,
especially currently in cycling - which has
> a massive doping problem (but probably not more than many other s****ts).
Fearing to be left behind by competitors
> *and* lusting for money, fame and recognition athletes resort to
chemistry to push their bodies limits. And from
> this kind of fraud, it's not an all that big step to Tonya Harding.
I see no problem. The cyclists face a choice, to dope, or not to dope.
Of the marginal benefits you have increased performance and likely
hood of greater success in competition. Of the maginal losses you have
an increased risk of getting caught, banned, and disqualified, as well
as harming your body- your greatest asset. Let them make their choice,
according to the benefits an losses of said choice. If they are
choosing to dope too often, then the marginal losses need to be
increased (namely, by increasing the likelyhood of detection, and
consequences thereof). It has nothing to do with globalisation, and
everything to do with the simplest of economics.
> As a summary, all-out competition is f**ked up. It is a way of the
greedy to feel *superior* (as in Herrenmensch
> vs Untermensch) in comparison to those who have no accomplishments to
bring forth, which is just part of the
> global culture of *coolism*, a form of discrimination which is among
other things the driving force in creating
> people who go on a shooting spree.
All baseless value judgements. If you don't like it, and you expect
this to be true of man others, perhaps there would be sufficient
demand to fund a gated community behind an iron curtain, safe from the
globalisation the rest of the world demands?
> And then you have the conspricacy theorists that think that Bush or the
megacorps are driving this game when they
> are being driven themselves. The one who is in the driving seat is the
mechanism of all-out competition itself and
> even presidents and CEOs cannot but dance to its tune.
Correct. Bush and the megacorps are but slaves to global demand. Where
there is demand, there will be supply. They are just the lucky (or
unlucky) bastards who do the supplying. If you are looking for someone
to blame for it all, you need look no further than the mirror.
> That's not to say that I am against competition: I do recognize its
value. But I am against all-out competition,
> competition having gone beyond healthy bounds.
I do not believe there to be bounds to healthy competition. When
implemented across the board, it forms an unusual equilibrium with
itself. A benign equilibrium, which provides everything demanded, and
protects everything demanded. Curious, fascinating, and spectacular.
Capitalism is by far the most uniformly benevolent creation of the
human race, and by far the most influential. Thousands of years from
now, I expect future civilisations to look back, and measure the years
in terms of 'pre-capitalist globalisation' and 'post-capitalist
globalistation' (as the single greatest defining factor of our
civilisation as it stands).
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