Boris' pissed off and he's telling you why

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
But does corporations, monopolies and plutocracy really have anything to do with free market. Is it not more like mercantilism today?

[Adam Smith]

I only have a couple minutes, and once again I cant begin to straighten this out.

Oncle Boris:

Frist, I think you need to read the source in my first post more thoroughly. Central Pacific began to hire Chinese workers in February, 1865, just two months before the end of the Civil War. Moreover, the hiring was in California, which was a separated from the eastern US by a several month journey by land or a long voyage around Cape Horn. There is no way that California and the eastern US could be considered at that time to be in the same labor market. There is simply no basis for saying that the work was so horrible that people would rather go to war at half the wage. My guess is that the fatality rates were about what you would find in mining, which also involved the use of explosives. [EDIT: I would remind you again that the Chinese were in California in the early 1850's, more than a decade before the Central Pacific started hiring.]

Second, I will give you that Chinese workeres were used on the western end of the Canadian Pacific, and probably on the Pacific Great Eastern too, for that matter. But this is only two more railroads. There were hundreds of railroads in the US and Canada at the time. Central Pacific accounted for less than 1000 miles out of 30,000 miles in the US in 1865, less than three percent. The Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern accounted for similar percentages of Canadian mileage by virtue of building from west to east through mountains, while the rest of the country had much more hospitable terrain to work with.

Third, your point about railroad land grants is simply wrong. Land grants accouted for just seven percent of US railroad mileage. Moreover, the "grants" were actually in kind loans, which were repaid through free of reduced freight rates on government traffic as late as WWII. Two separate federal studies, in 1943 and 1977, concluded that the government was more than fully reimbursed for the land, with interest. HERE are some of the details.

Agathon:

I agree with Stiglitz' asssessment of the failures in the Former Soviet Union, but I think his view is that the necessary institutions were not in place (e.g., accounting standards, commercial codes, enforcement of laws and contracts), so privitization could not help but have failed.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Adam Smith

Agathon:

I agree with Stiglitz' asssessment of the failures in the Former Soviet Union, but I think his view is that the necessary institutions were not in place (e.g., accounting standards, commercial codes, enforcement of laws and contracts), so privitization could not help but have failed.

Isn't that roughly what I said? My position is that people who think markets just arise out of the dirt are ignoring what you said.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by JohnT

Quote:

But have you ever heard someone asking for a loan he doesn't need?

Yes. It's called "credit cards" and it happens all the time. Hell, even going to another banks' ATM machine is a loan of sorts - you're taking money from one bank and expecting your bank to make payments on that loan. Hence the $2.00 "service fee."

Thanks for your brilliant comment, John. My post was obviously about state loans.

Y'know, have you heard of this Pinochet guy? Bought some tanks with a Visa card. Used Amex for his private palace. When they found out he couldn't pay, he fled in Thatcher's home. The Bank sure tried to seize his villa in Chile, but they went away, because the closets were smelling rotten corpses.

[VJ]

Evil Oncle Boris. I only checked this thread out to see why mr. Gudonov was angry.

[JohnT]

I responded to your poorly worded question as written. Given that in this thread some people purposely mis-understood Imran's use of the word "liberal", I thought such behavior was acceptable, even urged.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by JohnT
I responded to your poorly worded question as written. Given that in this thread some people purposely mis-understood Imran's use of the word "liberal", I thought such behavior was acceptable, even urged.

Do you speak any other language than English?

If so, you should know that such things as misinterpreting a word when debating in a second language is a frequent thing. It was not done on purpose.

I still fail to see in what way people misunderstood the use of the word liberal. If I personally had always associated this word with the right, and so did my friends, and so did Spiffor who lives in another country, is it reasonable to say that Imran did the mistake on this one?
Or does "liberal" has any meaning specific to America that we should have guessed?

[JohnT]

If so, you should know that such things as misinterpreting a word when debating in a second language is a frequent thing. It was not done on purpose.

Leave the attitude for somebody who gives a ****, OK?

It was done on purpose and you know it.

Or, another explanation, is that you are so unknowledgable in re: American politics as to make this discussion worthless as you're not even speaking the same language as Imran. However, as you "guessed*", 'liberal' in America is our word for the Left.

*And is there anybody here who really thinks that Oncle Boris didn't know what Imran meant when he said "liberal"? Not I.

[Oncle Boris]

Leave the attitude for somebody who gives a ****, OK?

It was done on purpose and you know it.

Or, another explanation, is that you are so unknowledgable in re: American politics as to make this discussion worthless as you're not even speaking the same language as Imran. However, as you "guessed*", 'liberal' in America is our word for the Left.

*And is there anybody here who really thinks that Oncle Boris didn't know what Imran meant when he said "liberal"? Not I.

Look John, I phoned my friend to ask him if he had ever heard of the word liberal used as left-wing term. He had seen no instance of it. I'm definitely being honest on this one (and with my other points too, okay?).

The point is, I said: "Still, I had always thought liberalism to be a right-wing ideology". I understood what Imran meant, but saw his word as an irony of the fact the left in America is the right in Canada. Literally. The most right-wing party in Canada is more on the left than the Democrats.

Make it brief:
1. first I was surprised
2. after a few seconds, I realized the irony and found it funny.
3. There is definite ambivalence over the meaning of liberalism. Google dictionary gives many definitions of the word. One of these is: " An economic theory in favor of laissez-faire, the free market, and the gold standard".

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Free market conflicts with unions because most proponents of free market demand the government to dismantle regulations over how companies and markets regulate. Which happens to include laws legalising unions.

UR, unions have been around a lot longer than factories. Trade unions probably have existed since classic times in order to provide means for passing on skills to apprentices. Unions were also a guanrantee of quality.

In essence, therefor, unions are critical to capitalism.

In the factory environment, unions are "important" to provide the worker some balance of power vis-a-vis management. To cite the struggle between unions and management over wages and working conditions as evidence that "proponents of free markets" ask government to dismantle unions is a joke. BOTH sides seek to use government to tip the balance in their favor. This is nothing more than democracy in practice.

Where we see a true ban of unions and no power in the average worker is in socialist countries. The socialist say this is OK because they favor the worker. But in truth, the workers are normally a lot worse off in socialist countries than they are in capitalist countries with unions.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I welcome your arguments.

There has been some misunderstanding.

I'm glad that even free-market advocates support the existence of Unions. This has not always been the case, as proven by history. Aristocrats and industrials used to say unions woulk destroy civilization! That is not a joke. Still today, I've heard many right-wingers claim how bad are unions. Obviously this is not the case of you guys.

My conclusion here is: let tycoons do what they want as long as their workers get minimal working conditions. Wherever that may be. Why is it that a Chinese desserve 1/12th of the salary of an American worker?

(You neglected to mention that the Irish built the RR's from the East.)

Put it otherwise: Socialism + free market is the way to go.

Why are you insisting that unions and socialism are the same thing? They are not. Unions have existed in Western society for thousands of years.

Socialism, as actually practiced, eliminates free trade unions.

[Imran Siddiqui]

When he was in charge, he had been ruthlessly running his empire in all of a tycoon's glory. Now that he is retired, he's become a leftitst.

Yes, now that he's retired... so that $1billion gift the UN (which he never paid, btw) while head of Time Warner... that was a conservative talking, right?

You obviously don't have a clue as to what is free market. Free market is when supply and demand is the ONLY rule. When a third party intervenes, the market is not free anymore.
If food quality is regulated, it's not a free market anymore. If the trade was really free, you would let people decide by themselves if they are willing to buy rotten meat or genetically modified carrots.

If there is TAXATION, this is not free a market anymore, because a third party is intervening in the transaction. (ie. the trade was not based on supply and demand alone).

I am kind of sick of this socialist/communist propaganda that once there is any regulation the market stops being a free market. The free market came from the works of Adam Smith, and contrary to what the left will have you believe, he did not believe in no regulation at all. He did allow for regulation if you read his works. Smith just wanted it minimized.

A free market transaction is one private individual and another private individual. Piece together these transactions and you get the full 'free market' which is seperate from transactions with the governement on one side. So, in essense a free market does exist in EVERY capitalist country. It is that part in which the government is not a party to an economic transaction.

describing how sweat shops are preventing children from going to school (education is a fundamental right according to the Declaration of human rights), how Chinese workers died laying tracks (NOTHING can justify an employer letting 1200 of his workers dying)

Yeah, education is a fundamental right, but you can always opt out of your rights. Why should kids be FORCED to learn if they need to work the farm so their family won't be kicked out of their house?

As for 1200 of his workers dying. The workers made the choice to work in such conditions. It is hard, greuling work where the risks were made known to them. They assumed the risk.

And you persist in believing that the American foreign policy is not to bring Free Market everywhere at the expense of laws defensive of human rights, through manipulation of the many international trade instances.

Hello Mr. Strawman... you seem to like that debate style a lot.

When did I say that the US wasn't trying to bring the free market everywhere? YOU said that the US government was the pawns of corporations. The Free Market is something the US government (and plenty of Americans) believe will INCREASE the standard of living in the world, as it has for Western Europe and the US/Canada. It is not so that big corporations can raid small companies

Sometimes I think I should have the X-Files theme on when I read this thread.

[Ned]

Originally posted by JohnT


I think the argument goes like this, written in the verbage of those who believe it:

Tripledoc: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Sava: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Kidicious: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

DuncanK: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Oncle Boris: The big corporations just want us to think that so we can go on our happy, complacent lives thinking that they're under control, when in fact they obviously are the ones in control.

Is there an echo here?

The one thing I have noticed about the far left is that they rely almost entirely on conspiracy theories to support their philosophy. The concept that government, responsive to the vote of the people, can redress the greviences of the poor and the worker is denied because, as they all know, the democratic governments are controlled by the corporations. This is the reason, they contend, why we must install socialism and end democracy because democratic capitalism is a fraud.

I don't know whether socialists truely believe in their conspiracy theories. But their philosophy is the most dangerous philosophy that has ever plagued mankind.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Did you know that the US ranks at number 31 in the world regarding press liberties?

Now this is an interesting statement. Who is making this measurement and how are they making it?

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
I only have a couple minutes, and once again I cant begin to straighten this out.

Oncle Boris:

Frist, I think you need to read the source in my first post more thoroughly. Central Pacific began to hire Chinese workers in February, 1865, just two months before the end of the Civil War. Moreover, the hiring was in California, which was a separated from the eastern US by a several month journey by land or a long voyage around Cape Horn. There is no way that California and the eastern US could be considered at that time to be in the same labor market. There is simply no basis for saying that the work was so horrible that people would rather go to war at half the wage. My guess is that the fatality rates were about what you would find in mining, which also involved the use of explosives. [EDIT: I would remind you again that the Chinese were in California in the early 1850's, more than a decade before the Central Pacific started hiring.]

Second, I will give you that Chinese workeres were used on the western end of the Canadian Pacific, and probably on the Pacific Great Eastern too, for that matter. But this is only two more railroads. There were hundreds of railroads in the US and Canada at the time. Central Pacific accounted for less than 1000 miles out of 30,000 miles in the US in 1865, less than three percent. The Canadian Pacific and Pacific Great Eastern accounted for similar percentages of Canadian mileage by virtue of building from west to east through mountains, while the rest of the country had much more hospitable terrain to work with.

Third, your point about railroad land grants is simply wrong. Land grants accouted for just seven percent of US railroad mileage. Moreover, the "grants" were actually in kind loans, which were repaid through free of reduced freight rates on government traffic as late as WWII. Two separate federal studies, in 1943 and 1977, concluded that the government was more than fully reimbursed for the land, with interest.

Some good points here. Still, the construction started in 1862. Thousands willingly joined the Army, but no one took a boat to go to the West, even if they could earn 2.5 times the wage? Both are huge decision's in a person's life, and I'm still surprised that almost no one wanted to join the Central Pacific workforce. Seems like the company was, too, because they waited 2 years and a half before resorting to Chinese labor.

Anyway, that is not much important. I see where you are heading: you are implying that the conditions were not that bad, for the times .

The whole point of this part of my reasoning, however, is that those times were bad in themselves. No amount of historical tinkering will change my mind regarding the fact that the industrial revolution period was a dark one concerning life standards and human rights.
Remember, those guys were working 72 hours a week, died by hundreds, and we are here debating about how this is normal. Yet we have people chanting the merits of the Tycoons, while it is obviously the great sacrifice made by these workers that counts the most.

What if they had hired engineers to handle explosives? What if they paid them the same salary as the white men? Tycoons would have made somewhat lower profits. The railroad would have been completed more slowly. But it would have been built anyway. Are you guys claiming that a country must necessarily be built on the back of the unfortunates?

Now on to my main argument. What I claim is that we have the chance to avoid this happening to countries that are still to be built. We live in democratic societies that have the power to force today's tycoons, whose words are backed by billions and billions, to give today's thirld world countries what the Western world didn't enjoy in the 19th century: social justice right from the beginning, without having to sacrifice the builder's generation lives to hypothetically improve their children's conditions.

And this leads us to what I've been claiming from the beginning: the US foreign policy is directed at lifting any trade barriers, including social justice laws, in making sure that the tycoons donating to the politician's campaign can make the kind of profits that means to them another billion on top of those they already have, while to some it might be the difference between drinking water and tuberculosis, food and starvation, child labor and education.

We are rich enough to avoid this happening again. And yes, I'm willing to give up to half of my salary prevent it. Above all, I'm not a "primitive ideologue", as JohnT pretended in another thread. I'm a humanist.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


A few things:

First, American railroads were built on a huge part with public subsidies. So when you claim that tycoons helped build America, it's true. It's also true that they were helped by public funds, which technically belong to every citizen. What you don't mention is that it took 50 years for this money to benefit to the working class, because again industrialization brought poverty and misery at its beginnings.
Who got enriched first? Dead chinese workers or the tycoons?

Who?

America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ned]

Originally posted by JohnT
I've gotta tell ya, this thread is pretty funny. The very same people who *****ed and moaned 20+ years ago about the crappy service they got from the ATT (government established) monopoly are now claiming that a world with near limitless options on phone services, with prices that are WAY below what ATT charged (both real and nominally), has lead to what was it... "worse quality and higher prices."

Obviously you never lived in a world where the long distance charges routinely 50 cents a minute and was a biyatch to connect to, and the idea of connecting to another country other than W. Europe? You might as well forget about it, and if you did, you were charged rates in excess of $2.00/minute. And I'm talking 1980 dollars, not 2003.

But then this one takes the cake:

Quote:

In fact the Soviet Economy was doing fine. It was actually the precise reason that the Soviet economy was able to provide consumers with goods that they started getting less nervous of rebelling.

Permit me to Ming you:

Apolyton always amazes me in its constant demonstration of how belief almost constantly triumphs over fact and experience.

JohnT, Dittos. The left, as you and I both noted earlier, live in conspiracy-land. They essentially have no clue about how economies actually work. They believe that monopolies are better than competition! What a joke!

[Oncle Boris]

A little precision TO EVERYONE CONTRIBUTING TO THIS THREAD


In all of my posts, I never meant "socialism" as an "economic system where the means of production are publicly owned".

Rather, I used it in the modern, Western sense that seems to prevail anywhere but in the US, in which it is "a social doctrine by which the government collects and redistributes part of a society's wealth to ensure an universal access to basic amenities such as healthcare, education, public transportation and unemployment insurance".

Please, no more mention of the USSR. I'm not even remotely talking about them.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Rather, I used it in the modern, Western sense that seems to prevail anywhere but in the US, in which it is "a social doctrine by which the government collects and redistributes part of a society's wealth to ensure an universal access to basic amenities such as healthcare, education, public transportation and unemployment insurance".

That's not socialism. If anything that's a mixed economic system which combines capitalism and socialism (or the free market and government control).

Marx would roll over in his grave if France was considered a socialist country. And btw, Social Democracy isn't socialism.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
A little precision TO EVERYONE CONTRIBUTING TO THIS THREAD


In all of my posts, I never meant "socialism" as an "economic system where the means of production are publicly owned".

Rather, I used it in the modern, Western sense that seems to prevail anywhere but in the US, in which it is "a social doctrine by which the government collects and redistributes part of a society's wealth to ensure an universal access to basic amenities such as healthcare, education, public transportation and unemployment insurance".

Please, no more mention of the USSR. I'm not even remotely talking about them.

We call that here in the United States the so-called social safty-net. We consider this to be an essential feature of modern society, not inconsistent with capitalism in any manner. In fact, we find that the Roman Empire somewhat invented this when they took care of orphans and provided pensions to elderly out of state funds.

Socialism here is the kind of polictical philosophy that says that the government must take over the means of production because, as you say, otherwise the corporations will run everything for their own profit and to the detriment of the worker. Socialist governments were found in the USSR and at one time in China. The only socialist government that I know of in the world today is Cuba.

Both parties here in the United States agree on a social-safety net. The argument is over the best way to implement it.

[Oncle Boris]

That's not socialism. If anything that's a mixed economic system which combines capitalism and socialism (or the free market and government control).

Marx would roll over in his grave if France was considered a socialist country. And btw, Social Democracy isn't socialism.

You are a one-of-a-kind retarded idiot.

WHAT I AM SAYING IS THAT THE TERM SOCIALISM HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING IN DIFFERENT PART OF THE WORLDS. NOW DO YOU CLAIM TO DETAIN THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GENUINE MEANING OF A WORD?

I don't care what Marx said in 1848. What happens right now is that SOCIALISM is synonym to SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY in many countries- EVEN IN THE DICTIONARY. I don't care what word we use. As long as we agree on the definition.

I AM MAKING SOME EFFORT IN ENSURING THAT PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT ORIGINS AND LANGUAGES CAN AGREE ON SOME COMMON DEFINITIONS TO HAVE A POLITICAL DEBATE. TO THAT END, WHEN I REALIZED THAT WE DID NOT AGREE ON THE DEFINITON OF SOCIALISM, I QUICKLY POSTED AN ERRATA TO AVOID MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

AND WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? YOU POST SOME DUMBASS **** TELLING ME THAT *OUR* DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM IS WRONG, THAT POLITICIANS, TEACHERS, PHILOSOPHERS ALONG WITH THE MASSES SHOULD STOP USING A WORD THEY HAVE BEEN USING FOR DECADES?

Who cares how many times will Marx ejaculate in his tomb, turn around or piss?

From now on, I will say social-democracy. Good. Next time this happens, instead of posting useless crap just say: "all right Boris, thanks for clearing the misunderstanding".
I doubt you would have done it. You'd rather have defended your position to the death.

[Ned]

OB, You never responded to my post on the first page obvserving what China is doing to modernize its country. I suggest that the third world ought to look to China, and perhaps, all of SE Asia and India, as models for improving their economies and the plight of the poor. The common factor in all of them is the massive investment from the West in new factories, etc., to produce products that are sold throughout the world.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris


You are a one-of-a-kind retarded idiot.

WHAT I AM SAYING IS THAT THE TERM SOCIALISM HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING IN DIFFERENT PART OF THE WORLDS. NOW DO YOU CLAIM TO DETAIN THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GENUINE MEANING OF A WORD?

I don't care what Marx said in 1848. What happens right now is that SOCIALISM is synonym to SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY in many countries- EVEN IN THE DICTIONARY. I don't care what word we use. As long as we agree on the definition.

I AM MAKING SOME EFFORT IN ENSURING THAT PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT ORIGINS AND LANGUAGES CAN AGREE ON SOME COMMON DEFINITIONS TO HAVE A POLITICAL DEBATE. TO THAT END, WHEN I REALIZED THAT WE DID NOT AGREE ON THE DEFINITON OF SOCIALISM, I QUICKLY POSTED AN ERRATA TO AVOID MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

AND WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT? YOU POST SOME DUMBASS **** TELLING ME THAT *OUR* DEFINITION OF SOCIALISM IS WRONG, THAT POLITICIANS, TEACHERS, PHILOSOPHERS ALONG WITH THE MASSES SHOULD STOP USING A WORD THEY HAVE BEEN USING FOR DECADES?

Who cares how many times will Marx ejaculate in his tomb, turn around or piss?

From now on, I will say social-democracy. Good. Next time this happens, instead of posting useless crap just say: "all right Boris, thanks for clearing the misunderstanding".
I doubt you would have done it. You'd rather have defended your position to the death.

Wow, I smell a BANNING coming on. Someone has a definate emotional problem if they get that worked up. Take a pill champ.

[Oncle Boris]

All right, guys.
And especially Imran.

If a "Free Market" is regulated, how do you call a market that is not regulated?
Anarchy- no. This word encovers political power, not economic.
Find the word I'm looking for and I'll be happy. For now, I'll stick with "Savage-market" if that can please you.

Now. It seems that your conception of Free Market is very similar to my own conception of "Regulated Capitalism", of which I have given all the details in my numerous posts (btw, do you read each one of them?)

We are using different words to describe a similar thing. There is one major problem that arises from the word "free market" (other than the use of the term free to describe what is obviously regulated is dubious), however.

This problem lies in the fact that the US has never supported social-democracy outside of its borders. It's more of the opposite really. Supporting Free Market without the Social Democracy component is like supporting, in our new terminology, "Savage-Market".

Can anyone give a single evidence of the US government using sanctions or brute force to impose Social Democracy upon anyone?
Inversely, how many instances of the US government using force or persuasion to impose deregulation on a country (thus reducing its Social-democracy aspect to the benefit of its "Savage-Market" part)?

If "Social Democracy" is an important value of your society, how come you've done nothing to encourage it? If free market is about regulations, how come "encouraging" countries to forgo their regulations is supporting free market?
(In my own terminology, I would say that the US is encouraging capitalism on its outsides and some form of Regulated Capitalism in its insides).

Little fact: did you know that the US denounced Chavez' increase of "social democracy" as an anti-economic, criminal measure, and that it fully supported the corporate-directed rebellion against him?

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Ned
OB, You never responded to my post on the first page obvserving what China is doing to modernize its country. I suggest that the third world ought to look to China, and perhaps, all of SE Asia and India, as models for improving their economies and the plight of the poor. The common factor in all of them is the massive investment from the West in new factories, etc., to produce products that are sold throughout the world.

And another common factor are the unusually low wages of the workers compared to the unusually high profits of the enterprises.

We can only laugh at the oligarchs' ludicrous hypocrisy when they claim that the free market is improving the poor's condition while they are filling their own pockets with millions.

Every human has just one life. Justice is an ABSOLUTE and IMMEDIATE requirement, that ought not be gradually bought through unnecessary sacrifice and perilous economic development.

[Oncle Boris]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Wow, I smell a BANNING coming on. Someone has a definate emotional problem if they get that worked up. Take a pill champ.

You don't get it. I'm a poet!

[Harry Tuttle]

Yeah, a poet who doesn't understand the words...

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Ned
The left, as you and I both noted earlier, live in conspiracy-land. They essentially have no clue about how economies actually work. They believe that monopolies are better than competition! What a joke!

Schumpeter I believe it was, a world famous Austrian economist, who was never a 'socialist' however that word is understood, but a conservative, thought monopolies to be a feasible way of running an effecient economy, since what really counts is not free-market competition, but the socalled 'entrepreneurial spirit' (I believe Bush is a believer in that too). Monopolies force people of an entrepreneurial mind to find new products to market instead of competing in a hopeless battle on the same product-line. In that sense monopolies actually increases the product line and hence are catalysts of economic growth.

So to accuse the left of conspiratorial thoughts is in this instance a little too harsh in my oppinion. And I don't think it neccesary to direct people's attention to the fact that quite recently the right have been very prone to believing in vast conspiracies.

[Ming]

Oncle Boris...
CHECK YOUR PM's...

And one more personal insult out of you and you are toast... AND CHILL TOO.

And other people... chill too

[Imran Siddiqui]

WHAT I AM SAYING IS THAT THE TERM SOCIALISM HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING IN DIFFERENT PART OF THE WORLDS. NOW DO YOU CLAIM TO DETAIN THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GENUINE MEANING OF A WORD?

Yes, yes I do . I'm saying equating Social-Democracy to Socialism is a fallacy and any true socialist would kick you kick the balls for that. I don't care if some uninformed people think SD = socialism, that ain't it.

If a "Free Market" is regulated, how do you call a market that is not regulated?

A prefered term is Anarcho-Capitalism (which is kinda like Rand-ism, as opposed to Minarchists such as Milton Friedman).

Can anyone give a single evidence of the US government using sanctions or brute force to impose Social Democracy upon anyone?
Inversely, how many instances of the US government using force or persuasion to impose deregulation on a country

Do sanctions for human rights count?

And the reason the US doesn't push for welfare systems, etc., is because most countries in the world don't come anywhere close to Anarcho-Capitalism. Why back social democracy when the government controls most of the economy anyway? That'd be silly. On the other hand, many countries have their governments controling the economy. So the US pushes more deregulation so their people can have more economic freedom.

It'd be silly to push for more social democracy in most countries because their economies are in the grip of the government. However, this same series of events makes it good to push for privatization.

did you know that the US denounced Chavez' increase of "social democracy" as an anti-economic, criminal measure, and that it fully supported the corporate-directed rebellion against him?

I want a definitive cite that the US fully supported the rebellion against him. When Chavez was deposed, the government decried the coup, even though it opposed Chavez's policies. And Chavez's social programs did go too far in the government controling the economy.