Didn't any boy cry? This girl certainly did...

[serious crayons]

Coming from a capitalist society, you won’t find many people who want a lot of government involved in the daily running of the economy and general living.

I don't know what this means, exactly. Our government is very much involved in the daily running of the economy and general living. And I don't know anybody who doesn't want this. (I did once know a right-wing extreme libertarian woman -- from Texas! -- who opposed government involvement in anything besides the police and military. Not schools, not libraries, nothing else. But notice that even she made those two exceptions.) The argument in this capitalist society tends to be not whether the government should be involved at all, but the nature of its involvement. Some, for example, want it more involved in helping poor people. Others want it more involved in helping businesses. Some want it to be involved in determining who can or can't get married or have abortions. And so on.

Again, the right-wing extreme viewpoint is that not everyone is going to make it, and it is folly to try to make it so.  My more religious right-wing friends even quote Jesus, “There will be poor, always.”

But obviously not all societies have equal proportions of poor people. Even if one agrees with Jesus that some people will always be poor, isn't it better if fewer are? And that varies by society -- sometimes for  reasons like presence or absence of natural resources, sometimes for reasons involving government and social policy.

People aren’t being put in jail because they’re stealing food to feed their kids or clothes to put on their backs.  Poor people see that life can be very very very good if you have a lot of money.  They aren’t happy living in a dump and eking out a living, knowing that they might never rise about their economic status and never have what wealthy people have.  Some poor people decide – choose – the easier option.  Instead of working hard, living within their means, which may not be much, they turn to crime as a quicker way to get what they want.

Sure. And others take on staggering debt -- household debt in the U.S. is at an all-time high. There's nothing intrinsically immoral about taking on debt, of course. I just mention it to show that I agree with you -- television (as you say below) and a tough economy have made people at all but maybe the very highest socioeconomic levels dissatisfied with their standard of living, and they're resorting to desperate measures to improve it.

It's less poor people producing criminals as greed producing criminals.

Yes. Greed is an unfortunate part of human nature. Rich people can be greedy, too, the difference being that they don't have to resort to street crime to satisfy their greed. Notice I say "street" crime, because of course rich people do engage in crime (see Enron, etc.). As well as in activities that are technically legal but harmful -- to the environment, to public health, to the economic security of others.

I don’t recall where I read this, but some older person was quoted as saying ‘We was poor growing up, but we didn’t know we was poor.  We had food, clothing, roof over our heads, life was great and we were proud of our hard work’. He went on to posit that perhaps the advent of television helped fuel greed and the feeling of worthlessness in poor people by opening up the world and exposing poor people to the fact that they were monetarily poor and that having money brought respect and attention and easy living.

Yes, I think this is quite true.

Crimes happen, poverty happens, so someone or something must be responsible, so one must point the finger to the causation in order to ameliorate it.

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Only to ameliorate a problem, you have to look at all its causes. In the case of crime, that means doing more than blaming the individual. You have to look at what caused that individual -- and others like him/her -- to commit the crime.

To view something doesn’t solve anything, agreed, but if classic American society is set up so that people are held responsible for their individual actions, then it does.

Individual people absolutely should be held reponsible for their individual actions. But unless we are content to have ever more crowded prisons or Death Rows -- keeping in mind that for every person in prison there is at least one innocent person who has already been victimized -- it seems smart to look at what causes those individuals to act the way they do.

The problem is, when individuals are not held responsible, because people say their actions stem from society or poverty or some great boogeyman, suddenly you have criminals justifying their individual actions as not their fault.

Again, who ever said anything about not holding individuals responsible? And yes, criminals may try to justify their actions as not their fault -- that's what people charged with crimes tend to say -- but we don't have to agree. I thought I emphasized that yes, of course, individuals are responsible for their own actions. If povery is one of the causes of those actions, it is an explanation, not an excuse. Do you see the distinction I'm making?

I'm not advocating letting criminals off the hook because their behavior has sociological causes. I'm saying we should study those sociological causes, seeking ways to change the patterns and influences, in an effort to keep people from committing crimes in the first place. Not to let them free once they've done so.

[delalluvia]

Don't you worry, France is also a capitalist country, and don't worry about the "they can't sack their employees" bit: employers have found a way around it, by giving now only short term contracts. Never fear, the turnover of employees is VERY high, and now almost everyone in France is in a precarious situation jobwise. There are more and more poor people (a sign that we are becoming more and more capitalistic?). More and more poor people, but we have the richest CEO's in the world! And how do they make all their dough? By sacking (yes, even in France!) thousands of employees in the big companies, because they want to outsource although they are making TREMENDOUS benefits! Come and live (and work, it is possible) in France and see for yourself that people get sacked by the hundreds and thousands every day.
Sorry, but I do not buy the whole "capitalism is so much better" thing.

Chrissi (penthesilea):I agree that caring more for the people from a social point of view (making sure they can live decently) makes for less violence. Radical capitalism certainly leads to more violence, as it is itself an incredibly violent system, socially speaking.

OK, that sounds much more reassuring.  We were like WTF?

Yep, you're right.  The more the employers have control over who works for them, their profit line and let the market and economy drive their hiring and firing practices, the more you have captialism. 

Very basic capitalism.  You work hard to build a company and hire people, then the economy goes down.  You want to keep your business profitable so you can actually make a living off of it, why should you be forced to hold onto business practices if they don't help you achieve your goal?

Forcing employers to keep employees when it's not profitable for them to do so negates their freedom to run their business to their benefit.  They are in business to make money after all. 

On the other hand, hiring employees, training them well, then hanging onto them long enough to reach a certain pay level, just to fire them and hire three very young workers who will do the same job for a fraction of the pay or laying off long-term employees just before their retirement because you don't want to pay them a pension and keep your bottom line healthy is a sucky business practice and so far, is mostly legal.

This is why in the US very few people stay with their companies long term any more.  They have no guarantee of a pension;  no guarantee their company is even going to be around long enough to grant them a pension.  So there is no company loyalty anymore.  People jump from job to job, for whoever is going to pay them more, then make as much as they can, while they can.  Companies try desperately to keep employees from going to their competitors by making them sign all kinds of exclusivity/disclosure contracts, which are easily negated by lying or failing to tell your old  employer who your new employer is.

Extreme capitalism sucks, that's why they have to keep passing all these worker protection laws.  But of course, any extreme economy does.  They have to be tempered with all kinds of laws that try to keep the playing field level without trampling on too many freedoms and rights.

[delalluvia]

I don't know what this means, exactly. Our government is very much involved in the daily running of the economy and general living. And I don't know anybody who doesn't want this. (I did once know a right-wing extreme libertarian woman -- from Texas! -- who opposed government involvement in anything besides the police and military. Not schools, not libraries, nothing else. But notice that even she made those two exceptions.) The argument in this capitalist society tends to be not whether the government should be involved at all, but the nature of its involvement. Some, for example, want it more involved in helping poor people. Others want it more involved in helping businesses. Some want it to be involved in determining who can or can't get married or have abortions. And so on.

Depends on the situation and the person is what I've found.  Personally, I certainly don't want the government telling me what to do with my body (abortion/contraceptives/who is 'OK' to marry/have sex with) or what to read or watch (censorship) or what religion is best for me and the country (Christianity), taxation without representation, but I don't mind the government in other places - defense, justice/legal/correction areas, regulation of air/water/soil quality/air traffic, social services, bureacracy in general, so I prefer a combination of a federal/privately run country.  My red-wing friends are adamant about the government NOT taxing them for other people's problems (social services), NOT telling them what they want their kids in school to be taught (secularism), NOT telling them who they can and can't hire, etc.

I don't think some people really know how deep the government is in US society, they just like to pretend it isn't as big as it is.

But obviously not all societies have equal proportions of poor people. Even if one agrees with Jesus that some people will always be poor, isn't it better if fewer are? And that varies by society -- sometimes for  reasons like presence or absence of natural resources, sometimes for reasons involving government and social policy.

Personally I agree with you.  It's always much much better to have a large middle class and less top dogs and less bottom dogs.  The middle class pays the bulk of taxes.  The very wealthy certainly don't pay a lot of taxes compared to their income, since they are not very numerous, and they have lots of tax shelters and other ways of avoiding taxes plus the govt wants to keep them in this country, rather than have them outsource their lucrative investments if the tax burden on them grows too high.  So the middle class - some of whom as you say below - are deeply in debt and just struggling to keep their standard of living - will be dragged down and become the new poor if social service laws are passed in any great number.  You will suddenly have a glut of new poor feeding on those new social services, which will put an even greater tax burden on the remaining, now smaller middle class.  It seems that one must encourage upward mobility in all economic classes rather than social services.

Yes. Greed is an unfortunate part of human nature. Rich people can be greedy, too, the difference being that they don't have to resort to street crime to satisfy their greed. Notice I say "street" crime, because of course rich people do engage in crime (see Enron, etc.). As well as in activities that are technically legal but harmful -- to the environment, to public health, to the economic security of others.

From what I read in college, white collar crimes are more damaging to society than blue-collar ones.  The guy home-invading for money to feed his drug habit is less dangerous than the crooks at Enron or huge polluting companies overall.  So obviously even having a lot of money doesn't free people from greed.  Some people who have a lot of money and make a lot of money, want even more money.

Individual people absolutely should be held reponsible for their individual actions. But unless we are content to have ever more crowded prisons or Death Rows -- keeping in mind that for every person in prison there is at least one innocent person who has already been victimized -- it seems smart to look at what causes those individuals to act the way they do.

Absolutely.  But what if one of those causes is something that people feel is basic to the idea behind this country?  The Almighty Dollar.  Unless we change entirely the mental state that being wealthy is great, being #1 is desirable, winning isn't the best thing, it's the only thing, the guy who dies with the most toys wins type of thinking, the problem of people trying to get ahead at other's expense - at any cost- isn't going to go away.

Capitalism at its most basic is a 'go fuck yourself' system.  Someone profiting at someone else's expense.  We would have to radically change the entire way our country operates and thinks.

Again, who ever said anything about not holding individuals responsible? And yes, criminals may try to justify their actions as not their fault -- that's what people charged with crimes tend to say -- but we don't have to agree. I thought I emphasized that yes, of course, individuals are responsible for their own actions. If povery is one of the causes of those actions, it is an explanation, not an excuse. Do you see the distinction I'm making?

Yes, I do but the rationale is still there.  If it's a cause then the blame will keep getting spread around.

[serious crayons]

Depends on the situation and the person is what I've found.  Personally, I certainly don't want the government telling me what to do with my body (abortion/contraceptives/who is 'OK' to marry/have sex with) or what to read or watch (censorship) or what religion is best for me and the country (Christianity), taxation without representation, but I don't mind the government in other places - defense, justice/legal/correction areas, regulation of air/water/soil quality/air traffic, social services, bureacracy in general, so I prefer a combination of a federal/privately run country.  My red-wing friends are adamant about the government NOT taxing them for other people's problems (social services), NOT telling them what they want their kids in school to be taught (secularism), NOT telling them who they can and can't hire, etc.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

It seems that one must encourage upward mobility in all economic classes rather than social services.

I agree completely. The question is, how do you do that. Sometimes social services can help. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, combined with Civil Rights laws, created a new black middle-class where none had existed before. Head Start has been proven effective. Social programs don't always work, but when they do, they can lead to upward mobility.

Absolutely.  But what if one of those causes is something that people feel is basic to the idea behind this country?  The Almighty Dollar.  Unless we change entirely the mental state that being wealthy is great, being #1 is desirable, winning isn't the best thing, it's the only thing, the guy who dies with the most toys wins type of thinking, the problem of people trying to get ahead at other's expense - at any cost- isn't going to go away.

Capitalism at its most basic is a 'go fuck yourself' system.  Someone profiting at someone else's expense.  We would have to radically change the entire way our country operates and thinks.

Yes, the culture would have to change. But I don't think everybody feels that way now, so it's a matter of the pendulum swinging. Conservatives tend to feel that way more than liberals, but conservatives do not hugely outnumber liberals. I know people who keep signs in their yard saying "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" for better schools, etc.

Yes, I do but the rationale is still there.  If it's a cause then the blame will keep getting spread around.

As it should be, if there is more than one factor. You can't solve a problem by ignoring some of its causes, or pretending they don't exist. But again, people who do the crime still have to do the time. 

[delalluvia]

I agree completely. The question is, how do you do that. Sometimes social services can help. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, combined with Civil Rights laws, created a new black middle-class where none had existed before. Head Start has been proven effective. Social programs don't always work, but when they do, they can lead to upward mobility.

They do work to some extent, but when they fail, it's a very expensive mistake.  How to encourage upward mobility is already in the works, pretty much most everyone believes - despite the fact it isn't really true - that a college education and hard work will lead to a successful life, one that will win you the American Dream.  Ask any kid and they will have been told to consider college.  Higher education does encourage one toward a career, bettering of one's self.  Everyone can tell by now that people with only a high school education have it very difficult.  That being a success in whatever field is the road to the good life.

Yes, the culture would have to change. But I don't think everybody feels that way now, so it's a matter of the pendulum swinging. Conservatives tend to feel that way more than liberals, but conservatives do not hugely outnumber liberals. I know people who keep signs in their yard saying "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" for better schools, etc.

Not everyone feels that way, agree, but I'm willing to lay money down that at least 50% or more of the population believes that competition is great.  That it has made our society very successful, that it is basic and inescapable in any living creature and that it is a key to the success of our very species.  And in a competition, for someone to win, someone else has to lose.

As for those people with signs in their yards, I'd be curious to see what percentage either have children or plan to have children.  They have a vested interest in schools.  It's trying to get the other part of the population interested.

As it should be, if there is more than one factor. You can't solve a problem by ignoring some of its causes, or pretending they don't exist. But again, people who do the crime still have to do the time. 

True, but what I was getting at, is that such claims can blunt the force of the accusation against the perpetrator's crimes.  "Oh, come on, yes, he slaughtered an entire family in their sleep, but what do you expect?  He was acting out, he's been abused since he was a kid, bullied in school, his race/gender/religion/sexual orientation was mocked, he went from job to job, fell in with a bad crowd..." and you will garner sympathy from people for these vicious killers because his jury is made up of relatively normal people who do feel compassion unlike the perpetrator for his victims.

Remember, despite confessing their crimes to a 3rd party, because they were young, cute and told a sad tale, the first jury on the Menendez brothers deadlocked and were unable to reach a verdict.  The jury wasn't trying to decide on their punishment, they were trying to decide if the young men were even responsible for their actions. That's what I'm talking about when I say 'spreading the blame' can blunt the force of accusations.