... with the way you continue to defend the "right" of the few to gain unlimited power at the expense of the majority when it's no longer necessary. Denying the power that capitalists have while claiming it's only the bureaucrats, when it's quite clear which pays for who's services, you have a lot of nerve to call someone else delusional.

I told you the other day that it's getting ridiculous with the amount of energy you continue to pour into this off-topic subject, at the expense of time and energy that could be put into on-topic concerns that we can better unite on, instead of this one, which is only been causing you, me, and Baldur to lash out at each other. But you had to continue, so you must get a lot out of fighting over this. Fine, you can count on me continuing to smash this nonsense of yours every time you put it forth. Here we go!

= the Labor Theory of Value is false.

The Labor Theory of Value is that workers create all the value, basically. That is far from false, except in your own delusional mind that insists it's those with the money who create the value when money is an artificial concept that we could easily do without in a post-industrial age.

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I don't know if laugh, cry, respond (heavily), or what. Seriously.

You should laugh at yourself for continuing to support a system that forces a few to serve a small number of parasites. You continue to rationalize, and that's why you come off as a delusional joke.

ut at least you should see the cognitive dissonance of attacking accountants when regulation and taxation is what gives them work...

Which wouldn't be necessary in a system based on social ownership, because then taxes wouldn't be necessary. This has been my whole point all along, but you don't listen or read clearly because you can't detach your lips from the back side of anyone with money and power, or your teeth from anything that may be an impediment to them.

to a large degree corporate lawyers too...

Who wouldn't be necessary in a system based on social ownership, because there would be no small class of parasites whose depredations needed to be defended and protected. There would be no conflicting class interests at all.

or the other cognitive dissonance of saying hard work is the be all and end all and then saying mercenaries and professional soldiers are useless...

If you read me correctly instead of letting your own delusional loyalties get in the way of what I'm trying to say, you would have understand this point of mine: there is a lot of hard work in a capitalist system that is nevertheless anti-social and would not be necessary in a classless and moneyless system, because there would be no need for wars and conflicts over who owned who controlled which material resources. I didn't say hard work alone, regardless of its purpose, deserves to be rewarded. Stop with your intellectual dishonesty, because you're only making yourself look foolish. You should save your laughs for yourself.

Of course not. They create jobs because workers are needed for something. Generosity has nothing to do with it.

Workers are all that are needed. And my point is: if the capitalists have no use for workers, they lay them off and consign them to the ranks of the unemployed. Which wouldn't happen if workers owned everything collectively and produced to support each other, rather than to support a tiny class of owning parasites.

When I propose to lower taxes on companies and on capital, I am not proposing to raise taxes on anyone else instead. Why would I do that? I hate all taxes equally.

Which will have the effect of insufficient funds to pay for social services, thus enabling the capitalists the charge workers out of pocket for these services, thus putting more and more of them in debt. But this isn't a problem, of course, because in your worldview only bureaucrats are capable of this.

There is no "need" for competition.

It is simply what happens when individuals are left alone to figure things out and solve problems in their own ways as they discover them.

It is not imposed from above. It is the order which appears spontaneously.

Capitalism's laws definitely do not come down from above spontaneously. They are specifically built into the system. Competition is a major part of the system, because inequality causes everyone to fight each other to reach the "top," and different companies that produce similar products need to out-sell each other in order to remain solvent. Which means capitalism is all about ruthless competition, and is full of winners and losers rather than equal producers who all benefit. It's quite clear how these edicts carry over into the social sphere. What did you think I was saying, that competition exists in the system because capitalists want it and impose it? Read me more clearly!

Plenty of charities / NGOs testify to the contrary.

Most of them represent the good will of humanity, but the capitalist system does not let them solve these problems, or even alleviate them to a tremendous extent. There would be no need for NGOs or charities in a system where no one was poor in the first place.

People who are motivated to do some thing for another's good [that is the correct phrase; there is no such thing as the collective good] for free, are not going to be stopped, and are not stopped, by the existence of private property, capitalist run companies and functioning if distorted markets.

But sometimes the state that protects private property, and the right of the few to make a profit at the expense of the majority, steps in and stops them. There have been many instances of individuals arrested for giving out free products because it was interfering with the profits of local capitalists. Those who hand out free food have often been hit with numerous restrictions by the local government intended to make it difficult, if not outright illegal, to do what they do... you know, by the same government you think is against the capitalists rather than in power to defend their private property interests. A good recent example is this.

And as I said above: those motivated by the public good and the best aspects of human behavior who manage to form NGOs and charitable institutions are not able to put a major dent in the inequalities that capitalism causes, no matter how much capital is poured into them. And much of that money has to go to cover the overhead of the bigger charity organizations.

This is the falsest dichotomy of all I've ever seen from you.

Considering how you read so much of what I say through a distorted ideological lens, I can't even take that as an insult.

If anything, I'd say it's not either / or between a strong private enterprise and strong voluntary assistance; but either both or none. It is very well known and studied that Americans donate more than Europeans, and that conservative Americans donate more than liberal Americans. That Europeans more than Americans and liberal Americans more than conservative Americans don't donate "because that's what the state social programs are for". The same state social programs that spend 80 cents or more out of every dollar on bureaucrats.

I'm one of those who gives (what little I have to give), but I don't pretend it goes anywhere near solving these problems.

A lot prevents giving "freebies," because it constrains profits.

Freebies wouldn't be needed in an industrial society based on social ownership, because everyone would receive the full fruit of their labor, and there would be no profits to "constrain."

Walmart didn't care to lose them to help residents out during Katrina. Even though the residents only lacked flat screens, and not food or water.

And once the natural disaster was over, everyone was business and inequality as usual again. And I'm sure you know as well as I do that the executives at Wal-Mart was more motivated by brownie points than actual feelings of altruistic responsibility. If the latter was the case, it wouldn't take a major disaster--and only a major disaster--to activate the largess.

And yet, they do.

Most of the investment in art museums today is private.

Of course there are investments in people's private passions. Art often includes unique pieces where the reproductions lack the value of the original. But you do not seem them investing sufficient private funds in actually ending poverty or homelessness, because in these cases, profits would be constrained.

The private share of investment in nature reserves and habitat preservation today is rising strongly.

Yet the destruction of habitat for profit and the impoverishment of species and humans continues unabated.

Who would have thought that people may have valued other things than direct financial gains? Enough so as to throw out millions at museums and nature reserves!

Yet throwing out enough to feed everyone, to house everyone, and to enable everyone to achieve full security--something very possible with today's technology--is most certainly not done.

I love you, but your above post sounds like made on drugs. And the problem is, you were actually sober.

I love you too, dude, but the way someone as smart as you continues to read me wrong and twist everything I say forces me to wonder if you would be better off taking drugs when you make these posts. Sobriety does nothing for your ability to look past your own biases and misplaced loyalties.

Now let's get the next wave going, why don't we? After all, it's not like we have anything better to put our energy into on this board.