Those are good points so far. I read enough to know people want to abolish 'personhood' also.

@Typicalowsguy:
Who is the "we" when you say "We Don't Want to End Capitalism. Not one Occupier has said they want to trun America into the former Soviet Union."

OK first of all, plenty of people I've talked to want to end capitalism. I myself despise capitalism and realize that ending it and replacing it with worker ownership of the means of production is absolutely necessary to end the exploitation and abuse of the non-wealthy in this country by the bourgeosie.

Secondly, please don't conflate the Soviet Union with anything that I am talking about. You need to find out more about the Soviet Union. It was nothing remotely resembling true proletarian socialism. There was no democracy, no worker ownership of the productive assets, just a big bureaucracy and top-down management. What I am talking about is true direct democracy and putting the businesses in the hands of the only people who won't exploit the workers, the workers themselves. Please realize that capitalism is an abusive, selfish, heartless, exploitative economic model and by keeping it in place but merely tinkering with it around the margins we aren't going to really emancipate the non-wealthy of this country. It doesn't work for the average person, doesn't empower the average person and really only helps those in the richest 1% to 5% of the population, the bourgeosie.

As for your other ideas I largely agree with them but for # 4 I would advocate something even stronger than repealing the incentives for outsourcing production. I would bar any company closing down its manufacturing assets here and reopening them overseas from ever selling its products in the U.S. again, period. For those that have already outsourced production, like Nike, I would levy such a heavy tariff on their products that it would eliminate the benefit they are getting in terms of lower overhead costs so that they wouldn't really be saving anything anymore by having their factories in Cambodia and selling their products here. As for # 5 I don't believe in the concept of having businesses that aren't owned by their workers anyway regardless of what nationality their workers are. For # 6 I agree about the lobbyists although in the interest of truly having a government for the people I would abolish the Senate and transfer its duties to the House. For # 7 though I agree with you and abhor the Citizens United decision we would have to remove the Supreme Court in order to repeal it as the Supreme Court has the last say on the constitutionality of laws. But of course the Supreme Court itself has to go anyway, in addition to everyone else associated with the government, and I would favor the replacement of Supreme Court justices by elections, not appointments. They certainly need to be replaced though.

Overall, I would be wary of claiming that this or that idea is supported or opposed by ALL of the OWS movement. It is a very colorful, vibrant movement with a lot of different ideas floating around. A few here want to abolish money altogether. I've even seen a few here who support someone like Ron Paul of all people and others that are talking about a flat tax, as inherently anti-progressive as such a notion would be. So I wouldn't claim that ALL of us support this or oppose that.

@brutaltruth . Thanks for chiming in on that and the way you did it. It is becoming hard to say what we all agree on, and has been. There are many different opinions out there. What would you say about getting behind a couple things first, not to dismiss your opinion for which I have read excellent arguments for it here, but to start with getting fundamental rights back, and build support of everyone. Things like getting money out of politics to secure we do not loose anymore control or influence over the situation and Citizens United. I had a post about hands off our internet, even the Tea party agrees on that, there is a link in that thread. There have been many voting rights attacked also.

Anyway what are your thoughts about a prioritized for gaining more support kind of incremental approach around these ideas. I agree capitalism has become inhumane, and monopolized into a plutocracy, or corporatism. It's just many people with much power and militarily power, and the money hierarchy of oil will fight to keep things under this system. It is what got us here. It may crash, and it may not they are keeping it going now on nothing. So who is to say how long. would it be wise to gain as much support as possible in this environment and situation we are in? Would you object to this kind of approach ?

@Gavemehope:
You are most welcome. You're right, it is hard to say what we all agree on but part of that is because there are SO many major problems with this country that need to be resolved and when we start talking about them all at once it may seem a little overwhelming to some as well as the fact that as I stated there are numerous widely varied opinions here which is in many ways a good thing. Isn't the easiest to organize however to get us all headed in the same direction for the same purpose. Whether it will coalesce around a few core points or not remains to be seen. As for getting behind a couple of things first to get fundamental rights back as you've said, well, I'm 100% in favor of getting rid of the Citizens United decision however within the current framework with the Supreme Court being deferred to on the constitutionality of laws I don't see a way around it without removing the Supreme Court's justices and holding elections to replace them because they've already ruled that it (according to their twisted views) "is" perfectly fine to allow unlimited corporate donations and they are given the final say. Attacks on voting rights are somewhat important but if for example we could guarantee hand-counted paper ballots with international election monitors and guarantee that everyone's votes count, that nobody is disenfranchised and everyone who wants to vote is able to do so, if the voting rights problem was fixed in isolation we would still have the other problems that would themselves guarantee that all those well-counted votes don't amount to anything whatsoever because all our choices would still be as controlled by the elite as they are now. We would just be sure that our votes for Conservative Puppet of the Oligarchs # 2 are counted and not wrongfully given to Conservative Puppet of the Oligarchs # 1, still a totally meaningless exercise.

You're very right that "many people with much power and militarily power, and the money hierarchy of oil will fight to keep things under this system". But the catch is, the system that they would so ardently fight to preserve is a system that is set up to make genuine, meaningful change effected from working WITHIN it impossible. In other words we won't be able to vote our way to the emancipation of the average non-wealthy person. Any incremental change that might be achieved by working within this rigged framework will either be so small as to not make much difference at all or would be quickly overturned by other elements within the rigged framework. That is why the whole rotten structure has to be torn down completely and rebuilt, being redesigned to operate in the interests of the vast non-wealthy majority. Nothing violent or anything like that, but I mean a peaceful, non-violent, well-organized campaign of civil disobedience, for example if the OWS demonstrators decided to really inconvenience the elite by peacefully blocking traffic in cities across the nation and keeping those cities shut down indefinitely. We can't wait for the system to collapse, rather we have to MAKE it collapse in order to then rebuild it in a way that suits us, the people. What needs to happen is to build a popular movement for radical change and when we have that popular support to then initiate the second phase that I just described, civil disobedience like the Bolivians did to remove their unrepresentative plutocratic government. When we inconvenience the bourgeosie enough they will call out the military to crack down on the demonstrators. But the military is not going to fire on its own fellow citizens, they will defect en masse to the demonstrators rather than have that on their conscience. At that point we will have won and the elite will flee the country, good riddance. Then the task of holding new elections begins and the process begins of remaking the country into something that benefits us instead of the average Rockefeller. If the Bolivians can do it we can do it. So to answer your question, although your heart is certainly in the right place and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, I can't agree with a go-slow incremental approach. That's too easy to be shunted down some blind alley where nothing ends up getting changed and even if successful wouldn't be strong enough medicine to cure what ails this country, not by a long shot, no offense intended of course. Basically the way I see it OWS needs to get more radical, not less.

Ok, In your plan you are assuming how many things could play out. In reality there is a better chance the military will follow orders than not, even if it's close. There are way to many variables there to insure that is what will happen. If you like I will go into more, but you are intelligent, so I think you could list quite a few yourself. Here is the thing I actually agree with much of the sentiment of all you said. Radical, outside of the box changes are needed. I agree. Where I can tell you the biggest obstacle will be is building a big enough movement on that premise. Too many are asleep, and I am suggesting not trying to slap everyone awake, but gently shake them first until there is a enough people that a bullhorn is acceptable, and if you think about it.

If we do do these things first and still hit a wall, are you not just making the case for your argument ? By saying that I mean, if we fight hard and accomplish things that have a opportunity to gain the whole county's support like getting money out of politics, and repealing Citizens United, and as your response suggest it still isn't enough, and there at that time we have a broad support from all. Doesn't that just strengthen your case to a bigger audience with a more open mind to except these things. Instead of the fear and rejection that can and will be met right now ? It will help this idea. Do you see what I mean ?

@Gavemehope:
Well, although I can't guarantee that the military wouldn't follow orders and start murdering its fellow Americans I would think that mass defections would be more likely, probably that so many of them would defect rather than be used as the elite's killing machines against their own people that any kind of violent crackdown on the movement would fizzle out before it would be able to break us. Or it could backfire in another way, with the most radical demonstrators arming themselves with guns and the whole thing could turn into a civil war. But I think it would be vastly more likely that the military would just refuse to follow orders, either parts of their officer class or just individual soldiers making the decision for themselves to not forfeit their own humanity.

As for building a popular movement about making radical changes, I think the worse the economy gets the more people are going to get fed up with their lack of opportunities under capitalism and be more open to more humane alternatives. Yes many MANY Americans are definitely asleep and some will remain so but the more we get a radical message out and articulate it intelligently and make it resonate with people the more chance we have of waking up the sleepers and turning this into a popular movement aimed at effecting the kind of changes that need to be made. Let's face it, capitalism is glorified slavery. The average American doesn't like their job, is underpaid, is overworked and has no real psychological connection to their workplace. They're made to feel that they are just cogs in the wheel of commerce and the vast majority see absolutely no benefit whatsoever from their employer's profits rising in any given quarter. Someone who is stocking shelves and being paid far less than the value their labor is adding to the company has no incentive at all to work harder to boost their employer's profits because they see no gain at all from their added effort when their employer's profits DO increase. As businesses in any given area tend to know what the going rate is for a given skill set at their local competitors' businesses a worker dissatisfied at being paid a low wage with no benefits at one place is not in a position to gain anything at all by quitting there and applying for a job across town at another business because he or she will almost certainly be making the same low wage with no benefits. Workers in this country, with the exception of those comparative few that are part of labor unions, have no clout at all, no leverage versus the ownership class to try to raise their wage, to gain benefits, in general to improve their standard of living. Capitalism needs to be seen as what it is, an economic model that literally could not function without the mass exploitation of tens of millions of people every single day in this country. A system such as that doesn't deserve to continue for one more day. We cannot reform wage slavery and make it into something that will work FOR rather than against the average person in this country, such a task would involve changing it so much that it no longer IS capitalism. As I've said before it would be like trying to make a sex offender into someone who can be trusted babysitting your kids, it's not going to happen. Better to remove the tumor entirely, all in one single effort rather than spread out over many years or decades, rip off the band-aid all at once and be done with it. In other words we need to carve out the tumor that is the root cause of the cancer afflicting America rather than leave it in place and constantly be dealing with its symptoms.

As for "gently shak[ing] them" as you said, that's what tens of millions of people thought they were getting with Barack Obama, someone progressive enough to (not destroy the system but) gently shake it into something more humane. Instead we got Bush-Cheney 2.0 because he's a marionette of the elite and if he was anyone who could be expected to change anything in any meaningful way the elite would have used a different puppet and Obama would be a community organizer we'd never heard of. Another "gentle shake" was the New Deal and the Great Society, both of which were designed to throw us a bone in the hopes of forestalling radical change that would upend the status quo. They worked for the elite's purposes but for us, well, America still isn't a respectable, liveable place, not a place to confidently raise one's kids, not a place where people's chances for success in life aren't largely determined by their zip code and surname and who their parents were. And the only thing that made the elite nervous enough to even throw us the scraps that it has thrown us is a bone-chilling fear of losing all their wealth and privilege.

Another reason why incremental reformism isn't the way to go is because we have to consider how well-entrenched the elite is in regards to its privileges and what has happened as a result. Because the capitalist ownership class has had things their way for so long, has had such a pliant puppet government for so long that lets it basically do whatever it wants, it has allowed such a gap to grow between a worker's wages and the cost of making ends meet that even incremental reformism would be seen by them like another Bolshevik Revolution and more importantly because they hold all the cards they would prevent economic reforms once enacted by government from actually being carried out. For example, let's say somehow we magically end up with a government that despite all the barriers that would lay across its path, somehow we get a government that is responsive to the needs of the average non-wealthy person. OK, that worker-friendly government says to the elite "Now don't get nervous, we don't want to get rid of capitalism, we just want to give your workers a more reasonable share in its success. So we're raising the minimum wage to make it approximate a living wage in every part of the country (Google "living wage calculator" to see what it is in your area) for a single person with no kids working 40 hours a week, and we're pegging it to inflation so that if the dollar loses 10% of its value this year his or her wages will go up 10% to compensate. You keep your business, you don't have to worry about worker ownership, you don't have to worry about paying for their health insurance, all we want is for you to pay them a living wage." Sounds reasonable enough right? Well what would happen is that the business owners would to an individual start laying people off so they can try to do as close to the same amount of work with fewer workers in order to still keep as much of the profit as they can. If that worker-friendly government tries to preempt that by passing a law that forbids any layoffs past a certain date (layoffs, not firings for legitimate reasons but layoffs that would be easily seen as directly related to the wage increase) then the business owners would throw up their hands and say "We give up! We're going out of business" and close their doors, essentially laying EVERY one of their workers off and there wouldn't be a damn thing that the government could do to prevent it. So we would still end up with tens of millions more layoffs and that would only be in relation to something as comparatively milquetoast and common-sensical as mandating a living wage. As long as the capitalist ownership class is allowed to hold all the cards as it does now and will continue to in a capitalist America then even if by hook or by crook we can somehow miraculously elect a reformist government that will try to at least do SOMETHING meaningful to make the average non-wealthy person's life more tolerable it couldn't stand a chance of really working because with the elite holding all the economic cards they would thwart it and it would only increase the economic pain on the average person. I don't see a way to leave capitalism in place and somehow change it into a system that operates on the premise of what's best for the average person as opposed to doing what it does, operating on the profit motive above all else and helping a tiny sliver of the population get more wealth than they can spend in several lifetimes while taking advantage of the rest of us. Maybe if the bourgeoisie hadn't been allowed to have things their way all this time and we didn't end up with such a huge chasm that needs closing we might be able to tweak it quite a bit without setting off their fear-of-losing-their-privilege reflex but it would still be an exploitative system by its nature, just less extravagantly so. In any case we have what we have, America with all its warts, and it is way too far gone to be corrected enough by nibbling around the edges of the piecrust, we have to go for the main problem itself, capitalism. Get rid of it and the rest will fall into place. But if we leave capitalism in place as this country's economic system all we are really doing is arguing for better conditions for our slavery.

@Brutal_Truth

I especially liked your point:

"I think the worse the economy gets the more people are going to get fed up with their lack of opportunities under capitalism and be more open to more humane alternatives. Yes many MANY Americans are definitely asleep and some will remain so but the more we get a radical message out and articulate it intelligently and make it resonate with people the more chance we have of waking up the sleepers and turning this into a popular movement aimed at effecting the kind of changes that need to be made."

A radical message - definitely. This of course could take one of many forms. It could also be more than one message, which could take many forms. I am excited to see how the OWS movement grows out of its infancy.

I disagree on some of the parts about capitalism - capitalism can be independent of political inclination (look at China), and while there are certainly bad points to be made about capitalism, we can certainly distil good points which could be made. Capitalism is not the underlying problem.

I'll make my point short here - in part because I'm exhausted from studying long discourses.

A fundamental underlying problem is a lack of economic rigor. If the economics problem is not addressed, our societies will experience the same economics issues time and time again.

There was a 150 year old mistake made in economics, perpetuated until this day.

Think about it. The academics WILL NOT easily admit to such a mistake. That a variable, "duration for consumption", is missing; this is a most human factor. Implementing it into mainstream economic theory will address poverty, unfair accumulation of wealth, in short the 'greed factory' which has brought every previous empire down.

If one could identify this formula, and make it public (while embarrassing academia if necessary), the government (and the elite) would be denied tools integral for their uneven distribution of wealth.

Economics is but one of many fronts the OWS could get behind. Alternatively, the OWS movement could get behind many fronts (economic reform being one of them). I prefer the later - once the OWS is associated with just ONE cause, that's not good for the movement.

It's hard not to write and write :)

@TomCarbon:
Thanks buddy. Regarding China, their elite's overriding goal is remaining in power of course and though they're definitely capitalist nowadays they will give lip service to socialism or whatever ideology they think benefits them and furthers their keeping their hold on power. As far as capitalism's good points and bad points, well yes, just about anything has at least a few good points which can be found in it, like an axe murderer that has a lovely singing voice, but its good points don't by any means equalize its bad aspects. I disagree with you about the root of the problem although I'm not sure I understand completely what you're getting at with a "duration for consumption" variable. But here's something that economists in academia or elsewhere are definitely loath to admit: that in order for capitalism to work there has to be a significant difference between the amount a worker is paid and the value his labor is bringing to the company. In other words, the worker HAS to be taken advantage of, HAS to be exploited to some degree, or else the business owner wouldn't be making any kind of profit and if the business owner isn't making any profit he'd close his doors and the worker wouldn't be working for him at all. This, the exploitation that is part and parcel with the capitalist economic model, along with the fact that in addition to being daily taken advantage of the average worker also feels no incentive whatsoever to work harder because he or she sees NO economic benefit from their employer's increasing profits going into their own paycheck for their extra effort, these are two huge reasons why capitalism needs to be retired and replaced by something more humanitarian and more responsive to the needs of the vast non-wealthy majority, something that puts the worker's future in his or her own hands instead of keeping this country's population divided into those with capital and those without. The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer and the middle class is well on its way to extinction. Is something that is based on greed and the exploitation of the underprivileged many by the overprivileged few the best that humanity can do? Really? Of course not. Capitalism is slavery by another name. It's a barbaric caveman economic model and it belongs in a museum next to Cro Magnon Man and Java Man. Let's put it behind us, the sooner the better. Leaving it in place isn't going to allow us to make the radical changes that need to be made to make this into a decent country.

I'd like to invite @marrand and @skoalbite onto this thread as I value their honest and insightful consideration. We met in a previous post named "CALLING ALL MATHEMATICIANS".

Good points, @Brutal_Truth.

We may differ a bit on the procedure, but I think we are ultimately aiming at the same target - protection of the masses from exploitation and greed. Let's try to identify our common ground:

To me, the underlying problem (regardless of the political structure) is the same: wealth (or utility, or capital) trickles away from the masses and consolidates into the hands of the few.

Regardless of the political system, there has been this historic tendency regarding the elite's incessant accumulation of wealth at expense of everyone else. I do not this think this is a capitalist exclusive. This indicates to me that "replacing" capitalism is not the complete answer.

From one perspective, the problem here is two-fold: 1) The 1% can be malfeasant and greedy, and seek to fill their coffers at the expense of everyone else, and 2) The 1% (and everyone else) may be ignorant of economic policy that could even the keel without revolution (revolution is the historical destination for uprising, and surely the elite do not wish to incite revolution, so 'ignorant' is probably a good word choice).

It is possible to solve problem #2 through implementing radical economic reform. Won't be easy - hard to imagine academia fessing to perpetuating a 150 year old error. Also hard to imagine elites willing to have the curtain drawn back on their ability to make awful (but self-serving) policy decisions. It will take time. The ideas need to be recognised, and policy ideas implemented. This can be thought of as the 'incremental' approach.

Here's the part I think we can both agree on: solving problem #2 may address less than half of problem #1. More dramatic reform may (or must) be necessary.

Let me know where we're at on this.

I also have a related inquiry:

I'm wondering if there are two camps on the ground in the Occupy movements regarding change - one favouring 'incremental' and one favouring 'dramatic' reform. I'm guessing that 'dramatic' reform is favoured but not exclusive - anyone else have input on this?

I'm not yet on the ground but will start visiting Occupy Los Angeles in the near future.

Warm Regards,
Tom

embed src="http://www.globalonenessproject.org/media/gop-player.swf' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='&videoId=1317&' height='338' width='480'>

Check out this video. I don't think anybody could argue with this.

I'm pro-capitalism, and free market, but under the rule of law that protects everyone--including the EPA, Consumer Protection Bureau, and Abusive Labor Practices International Abolition (which isn't around yet and I'm told would kill manufacturing companies--to which I say, "Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum"). Capitalism as originally defined requires an even playing field for everybody, and the break up of conglomerates who smother competition.

I believe advocates of communism and socialism actually slow down the progress of the Occupy Movement. I do not believe those who advocate communism or socialism will achieve their objectives today.

To answer the OP's question, we do not agree on anything other than, "Get money out of our Governance."

@Skoalbite:
"I'm pro-capitalism, and free market, but under the rule of law that protects everyone--including the EPA, Consumer Protection Bureau, and Abusive Labor Practices International Abolition (which isn't around yet and I'm told would kill manufacturing companies--to which I say, "Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum")."

Skoalbite, I mean no offense in saying this but to say you are "pro-capitalism and free market" is to say you are pro-exploitation of the average person without realizing it. How can you have capitalism without exploitation? If there wasn't a significant difference between the value that a worker adds to a company by his labor and the wage he or she is actually PAID for that labor capitalism wouldn't just collapse under its own weight, it would have never gotten off the ground. It wouldn't work. You HAVE to have the mass exploitation of workers or else the business owners aren't really making any profit and unless they're making enough of a profit to make it worth their while they will close their doors. You can't reform capitalism to make it non-exploitative, it won't happen. Exploitation is the bread and butter of capitalism.

"Capitalism as originally defined requires an even playing field for everybody"

No way, no how. Capitalism has NEVER been about everyone having a level playing field. In fact the very idea is anathema to capitalism. In what way did someone born in a shack in the foothills of the Ozarks back in the 1800s have the same opportunity for success in life as someone born to a father who is a captain of industry? In what way does a person who is nowadays born in the ghetto and goes to ghetto schools and faces a palette of job opportunities upon high school graduation consisting of going to work for Burger King, working for McDonald's or selling crack on a street corner start out with the same opportunity in life as someone whose daddy is a hedge fund manager and whose mom is a well-paid lawyer and who gets to go to private schools with competent teachers and up-to-date textbooks? No, sorry, capitalism has NEVER been about everyone starting out with a level playing field. To the contrary, capitalism says "I've got mine, to hell with everyone else."

"I believe advocates of communism and socialism actually slow down the progress of the Occupy Movement."

Um, no. Advocates of radical changes like those changes embodied in communism, socialism and anarcho-syndicalism are the ones in this movement that actually want to make the changes that need to be made in order to make this country into something worth being proud of and worth calling home. Anyone else, good intentions aside, hasn't yet raised their consciousness to that level and is still arguing for making changes that by comparison amount to tinkering around the margins and trying to fight for incremental improvements in the conditions of our slavery without being able to understand or letting themselves understand that it is the slavery itself that has to be removed, not just a few of its more egregious abuses.

@brutal_truth I disagree. I believe no market that exploits may be called free. In fact, I think we should reclaim the name "free-market" and call what we have the "exploitative-market." I understand the exploitative right-wing have adopted that phrase to serve their own interests, but I believe them to be liars, among other things. Capitalism came to exist under a system where slavery was allowed--however to remove slavery I still believe you have capitalism. I consent to be ruled by those with the most merit, not by those who cheat best. I believe you can still have a system where the child of one born in the foothills of the Ozarks in the 1800s have the same opportunities as those captains of industry (at least the ones in the 1800s because nobody from the 1800s can compete today). That can be accomplished by public schools that rival any private school. All of them.

I further defend my statement that those advocates of communism and socialism actually slow the progress of the Occupy Movement. Not everybody in the movement advocates radical changes--in fact advocates of radical change-historically-have only achieved those ends through violent revolution when reasonable changes are all that is necessary. Throwing the babies out with bath water is as old a practice as anything. Competition brings out the best in people and corporations alike; when they come from competitive backgrounds. We all have those members of our family who strive to do as little as possible with their lives. They deserve to live, of course, but not to lead. I seek to give everyone equal opportunity to perform. The absence of performance serves nobody.

Competition between economic sytems should be the norm in any free society; stop wasting time and effort trying to get rid of problems; and build the better mouse trap: that will defeat/overcome the problem by creating a superior system which runs parallel too the current one; and therefore the transition will be seamless and all arguments against change will be exposed as irrelevant: Co-operatives, will defeat corperations when people know and understand the difference between the two; and apply it too action!

Small business, for instance, is the backbone of the American economy. Small businesses employ some 60+ % of all American employees. They are challenged by those who cheat--using slave labor in 3rd world countries, or leveraging their political power to over-regulate small businesses-it's a game of poker where one player has all the money and just leans on the other. It's unfair, it's not competitive, and it's actually closer to socialism or communism because permitting it develops a collective economy. Capitalism, in true form, empowers competitors. That must be done with the rule of law, not economic anarchy as the corporatists claim.

@Skoalbite:
"I believe no market that exploits may be called free."

That's a good statement but what you're missing is the fact that capitalism cannot exist without exploitation.

"I believe you can still have a system where the child of one born in the foothills of the Ozarks in the 1800s have the same opportunities as those captains of industry (at least the ones in the 1800s because nobody from the 1800s can compete today). That can be accomplished by public schools that rival any private school. All of them."

Well education is a big part of it but it isn't the only thing. Opportunity is at least as important. Let's try a thought experiment: if you have the same circumstances as I described above but change the schooling to make it identical, with a kid born in the ghetto going to the same decent school as a kid born to wealthy parents. OK, that ghetto kid is going to get a better public school education, great, but when he graduates he's still going to be looking at the same rotten choices for jobs because he's still born to poor parents (or parent) and still is going home every night to his little tenement house apartment in the ghetto with the same lack of good opportunities for work facing him in his area whereas that kid whose daddy is a hedge fund manager gets his college education paid for by his parents and after college has a sweet cushy job at daddy's hedge fund all lined up even if he's dumb as a rock. They'll find something for him to do, as a glorified paper-pusher or a well-paid coffee/donuts errand boy. Meanwhile the ghetto kid who now has a decent public school education rivaling Sidwell Friends or any of the other high-dollar private schools is still flipping hamburgers or saying to passersby "Wanna buy some crack?" It is absolutely critical that we do away with the concept of social classes and give every baby that is born into this country the same good economic starting point opportunity for success in life by virtue of everyone being born to parents of the same social class, what would today be considered middle class. You can't guarantee that everyone WILL be a success at what they do, that's up to them, but it is possible to ensure that nobody starts out with a significant leg up on anyone else and that nobody starts out having to claw their way out of a hole their whole life. I don't think that's asking too much.

"Not everybody in the movement advocates radical changes--in fact advocates of radical change-historically-have only achieved those ends through violent revolution when reasonable changes are all that is necessary."

Remember J.F.K.'s famous statement: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." That is a very true statement. When you do see violent revolutions it is precisely because it was IMPOSSIBLE for them to peacefully effect the same changes because the elite in their country was keeping those avenues of peaceful radical change completely blocked off. Frequently what happens is that it DOES in fact start out peacefully but the elite gets nervous, they call out their country's military to disperse the demonstrators and peaceful people start getting shot. Instead of folding their tents and going home in fear the demonstrators who can then see that peaceful change isn't going to be allowed to happen in their country take up arms to effect the changes in the only way that appears available to them. I can't blame someone in that situation for doing that at all.

"Competition brings out the best in people and corporations alike; when they come from competitive backgrounds."

In some ways, and in other ways it brings out the most devious, underhanded, dishonest elements of humanity. Just as in warfare which brings out the very best and the very worst in humanity, with a full range of selfless heroes, selfish cowards and sadistic butchers all in the same huge activity. So I wouldn't say that competition ONLY brings out the best in people any more than I would say war does, but that it tends to bring out extremes of efficiency as well as dishonesty and ruthlessness. In the society I'm envisioning there wouldn't be an absence of competition but it wouldn't be such a "winner take all" society that people are throwing themselves out of a window if their business folds. All businesses need to be owned by their workers anyway or else we won't ever get rid of the exploitation of the workers that is part and parcel with capitalism and we won't give the vast majority of the workers in this country a real incentive to work harder, to do better quality work, to pay closer attention to their work etc. because they see absolutely no benefit in their paycheck when their employer's profits rise 10% this quarter over last. I ask again, how can we have capitalism that DOESN'T take advantage of its workers by paying them significantly less per hour than their labor is actually worth in terms of value added? Answer: we can't. And how do we give the average worker in the U.S. a reason to work harder and do a better job without making him or her a part-owner of their workplace? Because in a capitalist society the average (non-union) worker doesn't have that kind of incentive and their motivation to even do the bare minimum boils down to the fear of getting fired. The choices certainly seem to be either 1.) just accept the exploitation and inequality that goes along with capitalism and try to make the best of our slavery; or 2.) abolish the capitalist slavery economic model altogether and move into a future where everyone truly DOES start out with the same good opportunity in life and nobody is exploited.

"We all have those members of our family who strive to do as little as possible with their lives. They deserve to live, of course, but not to lead."

My family is certainly no exception and you're right, those who strive to do as little as possible do deserve to live of course and not starve. I'm not saying either that they deserve to lead, just saying that they deserve to not be exploited and taken advantage of. And here's a thought: I would wager that a great many of the people you describe are the way they are precisely because of their economic environment, by that I mean that they grew up in a society in which people's opportunities for success in life are rigged from birth in favor of the bourgeoisie, they know that if they can't afford college they aren't going to get a decent job nowadays and even a college degree as we can see is no longer providing an overwhelming advantage in getting hired. Plenty of people are working at a cosmetics counter at a mall who have a college diploma in this or that. I've read about architects with a degree in architecture from an Ivy League school sending out hundreds of resumés and getting only a handful of callbacks but with no job actually offered to them. But many people you described see all this, and if they can't even afford college they're resigned to working a crap job for insultingly-low pay and no benefits with no future and no hope for advancement. What I just described is not exactly an incentive to put your nose to the grindstone and work your ass off because it doesn't seem to offer that much of a chance at a different life. I can see why they would choose to just skate through life doing as little as possible given the economic reality of living in this country. Now of course there are also some people who are just naturally lazy and wouldn't take a job in a pie factory as the old saying goes. Even during practically full employment during the really unique economic situation of World War II in this country there were still about 2% of the working age population that was unemployed, because they're simply unemployable. Drifters. Layabouts. Every society has them. I just tend to think that if every person is given a wide range of opportunities that most people in this country currently lack we will see a lot less unemployably-lazy people because we will have removed the "environmental" factors encouraging their laziness and replaced them with opportunities they don't now have.

"I seek to give everyone equal opportunity to perform"

And that is admirable. But do you truly mean it in terms of everyone starting out with the same opportunity, a classless society where it doesn't matter what your surname is or your skin color or what kind of a home your parents brought you to after you were born? Because in order to achieve that society with everyone having the same opportunity to perform from birth we have to eliminate class stratification and replace it with a middle class lifestyle for everybody as a birthright. There can be variations in income depending upon the specialization of the job or depending upon the added responsibility, e.g. a person who wants to stock shelves in a retail store shouldn't be getting the same exact paycheck as someone who has decided to take on a little more responsibility and be a manager, but the difference between the two wouldn't be so great as to put them in two different social classes. This way there would still be an incentive to do the highly-specialized jobs and to take on more responsibility but we still wouldn't have the yawning chasm of inequality between two different people doing two different jobs. Some difference in opportunity is unavoidable even with a classless society in that there are differences in intelligence between people; some people are cut out to be brain surgeons and some aren't. But what we need is a society in which those differences in intelligence and ambition etc. don't equal one being rich and the other being poor but instead equal acceptable variations in income within a range that puts everyone on the same deck of the ship instead of some in luxury suites and others in steerage.

@Skoalbite:

P.S.-- Small business owners in America can be exploiters just the same as big corporations can, just on a smaller scale because of their much more diminutive capital. Believe me, I speak from first-hand experience. They just end up taking advantage of 5 or 10 people instead of 5 or 10,000.

@Brutal_Truth
"That's a good statement but what you're missing is the fact that capitalism cannot exist without exploitation."
I disagree and I believe it can exist without exploitation. Until you tell me why it cannot, I cannot fully understand your assertion.

"Well education is a big part of it but it isn't the only thing."
I agree about education only being a part of the opportunity quotient, but education may be the most important first step, improving living conditions is very important as well. Health care, too. Access and education of contraceptives. These are all very doable things. Social services exist just for that purpose. Many contemporary economists would argue with me that social services are socialism, or communism, but I disagree and believe those things to be necessary to achieve the ideals of capitalism. I'm working very hard to take back the ideals from those who've perverted the names. Family connections may be the one thing that cannot be undone, and for that there is nothing one can do, but while the dumb rich kid may be safe pushing papers and filing doughnuts the performing poor kid may still come to be his boss.

"Remember J.F.K.'s famous statement: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.""
Peaceful revolution is not impossible, we may still vote. We simply need to win hearts and minds to do that and we're not going to win hearts and minds by advocating violence or communism.

"[Competition brings out the best] In some ways, and in other ways it brings out the most devious, underhanded, dishonest elements of humanity."
I agree. The rule of law must be designed to protect individuals from this sort of behavior.

"The choices certainly seem to be either 1.) just accept the exploitation and inequality that goes along with capitalism and try to make the best of our slavery; or 2.) abolish the capitalist slavery economic model altogether and move into a future where everyone truly DOES start out with the same good opportunity in life and nobody is exploited."
Those are not our only choices. We have at least a 3rd: Abolish slavery from the economic model and move into a future where everyone truly does start out with the same good opportunity, nobody is exploited, but performance is rewarded. Remember EVERY SINGLE COMMUNIST COUNTRY IN HISTORY either way--attempting Communism inevitably leads to fascism.

"I would wager that a great many of the people you describe are the way they are precisely because of their economic environment, by that I mean that they grew up in a society in which people's opportunities for success in life are rigged from birth in favor of the bourgeoisie, they know that if they can't afford college they aren't going to get a decent job nowadays and even a college degree as we can see is no longer providing an overwhelming advantage in getting hired."
I agree. College should be free to those who cannot afford it. To any school in the nation, perhaps, even the Ivy Leagues.

"But do you truly mean it in terms of everyone starting out with the same opportunity, a classless society where it doesn't matter what your surname is or your skin color or what kind of a home your parents brought you to after you were born?"
Yes, exactly.

"Because in order to achieve that society with everyone having the same opportunity to perform from birth we have to eliminate class stratification and replace it with a middle class lifestyle for everybody as a birthright."
I agree. Government housing should be available, should be very well maintained, and kept safe (in large part because if people have the opportunity to succeed then they have something to lose rather than nothing). There will always be those who self-destruct, either spiraling out of control for drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or other--they should be treated for it if possible, kept safe from the world, and the world safe from them, if they cannot. Quite expensive, I understand, but with a capitalistic economy we can afford it.

"P.S.-- Small business owners in America can be exploiters just the same as big corporations can, just on a smaller scale because of their much more diminutive capital. Believe me, I speak from first-hand experience. They just end up taking advantage of 5 or 10 people instead of 5 or 10,000."
But many do not, and therein lies the proof of concept.

Many people feel that the Occupy Movement lacks a focal point. Perhaps one goal should be the reduction of our representative form of government. If this movement, along with all the other revolutionary activities that have succeeded through the use of digital communication, has been driven by the use of information technologies, then I wonder why we as private citizens can’t be more directly involved in the control and function of our government. There will always be a need for representation in our federal government, but if we took direct control of the major legislative and executive decision making processes, maybe we could reduce the number of representatives in Congress and the amount of lobbing and unfair influence that has corrupted our government.

@Brutal_Truth:
No offense meant either; I tend to agree with Skoalbite, but I add my own twist.

Capitalism is a system.
Exploitation is the result of wicked human behavior.

You can exploit a socialist system (look at Stalin), but is that the fault of the system? I humbly propose that exploitation of average people can take place under capitalism AND under socialism, or any other system of governance you imagine.

In sum, blame the people, not the system.

Many philosophers of good will tried to tinker with the systems or devise new ones to prevent such exploitation. Some like Chamberlain tried to formalize their thinking into a mathematical frame. Tough to do, especially when you need combo of intimate knowledge and training in human psychology, history AND mathematics.

I see the argument of which system "slows down" the progress, but conclude it's the people slowing it down.

@Evolution101 proposes that competition between economic systems should be the norm. Humbly I propose the alternate: let competition among humans be the norm, and let's choose that system which allows and fosters such competition.

@Brutal_Truth maintains: "Small business owners................end up taking advantage of 5 or 10 people instead of 5 or 10,000."
@skoalbite answers nicely: "But many do not, and therein lies the proof of concept". Again, to me it seems to prove it's the people who hurt other people, not the system.

@liebel15068 returns to the idea of us lacking a focal point. Perhaps we do lack it: because we see the world around us, we don't like it, we don't have quick fixes for it, and thus we want to return to basics. And in this thread, we are talking basics. Most professors in best universities are now fat and happy, their minds out of shape, and it's up to the people like us to work on these basics.

But when I look at the problem, even on national basis alone, I am awed by its immensity. Are we nimble enough to get beyond the basics? To really establish a clear focal point? Or will we be sidetracked by what happened today in NYC?

@Skoalbite:
""That's a good statement but what you're missing is the fact that capitalism cannot exist without exploitation."
I disagree and I believe it can exist without exploitation. Until you tell me why it cannot, I cannot fully understand your assertion."

I have already explained it Skoalbite in my earlier comment: "How can you have capitalism without exploitation? If there wasn't a significant difference between the value that a worker adds to a company by his labor and the wage he or she is actually PAID for that labor capitalism wouldn't just collapse under its own weight, it would have never gotten off the ground. It wouldn't work. You HAVE to have the mass exploitation of workers or else the business owners aren't really making any profit and unless they're making enough of a profit to make it worth their while they will close their doors. You can't reform capitalism to make it non-exploitative, it won't happen. Exploitation is the bread and butter of capitalism."
It is the difference between the amount of value added by the worker's labor versus the amount he or she is getting paid to perform that same labor. Unless there is a significant difference (in favor of value added) the business owner isn't going to be making any or hardly any profit and would close his business. Paying someone a fraction of the value of their labor is taking advantage of them, exploiting them. A huge amount of American workers aren't even paid a living wage, let alone anything remotely close to their actual value added. My point is that unless this occurs, capitalism cannot function. It wouldn't work if someone was doing $20 worth of work an hour and getting paid $19/hour to perform it.

"Family connections may be the one thing that cannot be undone, and for that there is nothing one can do, but while the dumb rich kid may be safe pushing papers and filing doughnuts the performing poor kid may still come to be his boss."
Ah, but there is something that can be done. Ban inheritance. Put a cap on salaries so that nobody's parents ARE wealthy. If everyone's parents are the same social class then nobody has that advantage I described. And the performing poor kid is not really going to have hardly any chance of being that well-connected dumb kid's boss. In the "capitalism is great" dream world that conservatives love to live in, yes. Where America is a meritocracy and everyone if they just try hard enough and pull themselves up by their bootstraps can succeed and be anything in this country that they want to be. A fantasy world. In the real world of a capitalist economy connections and influence and inborn privilege are what overwhelmingly determines a person's chances for success.

"Peaceful revolution is not impossible, we may still vote."
Bwahahahahahahaha. Oh man, you're not actually serious are you? Vote? In this system? News flash Skoalbite: if voting in this country held any shred of hope for changing anything, for even reforming anything significantly let alone effecting a real social revolution, do you think there would be thousands of people out in the streets? Couldn't people just vote their way to a decent country then? Here's the way it works in America: the tiny sliver of the population that has more wealth than they know what to do with buys out all the candidates for a given office then lets them fight it out. It doesn't matter who wins because all the choices are controlled by the elite. So it is insanely unrealistic to think that a peaceful revolution can be effected in this country by voting. Sorry, never going to happen. And I'm not advocating violence or communism. And if you would, please quit trying to conflate the two as it seems you can't help yourself but throw the word "violence" in there when you mention radical ideas. What I am advocating is a mixture of socialism and anarcho-syndicalism in which the best points of both are joined together to make the ideal system. In other words, a comparison with the Soviet Union, Stalinism etc. is totally irrelevant.

""[Competition brings out the best] In some ways, and in other ways it brings out the most devious, underhanded, dishonest elements of humanity."
I agree. The rule of law must be designed to protect individuals from this sort of behavior."
And who makes "the rule of law"? Oh yeah, the elite. Which explains why the minimum wage is set at $7.25/hour when nobody can afford to live on that, it explains why we have a Mine Safety and Health Administration that has literally never closed a single unsafe mine in its history, it explains why we have an F.D.A. that consents to allow barrages of pharmaceutical ads on t.v. and so on. Their laws are not our laws. Their laws are designed to protect their privilege, not us.

""The choices certainly seem to be either 1.) just accept the exploitation and inequality that goes along with capitalism and try to make the best of our slavery; or 2.) abolish the capitalist slavery economic model altogether and move into a future where everyone truly DOES start out with the same good opportunity in life and nobody is exploited."
Those are not our only choices. We have at least a 3rd: Abolish slavery from the economic model and move into a future where everyone truly does start out with the same good opportunity, nobody is exploited, but performance is rewarded. Remember EVERY SINGLE COMMUNIST COUNTRY IN HISTORY either way--attempting Communism inevitably leads to fascism."
OK first of all you cannot abolish slavery from the economic model for the reason I mentioned earlier, that capitalism revolves around it, it needs it in order to live, exploitation is what makes capitalism possible. Unless you can create a capitalist economic model that pays its workers a fair wage for their labor and I mean a FAIR wage, not a slightly-less-insulting pittance, you aren't going to remove the slavery from capitalism. Good luck convincing business owners to take an infinitesimally small profit margin so their workers can have a decent life. And no offense intended but I don't think you really understand what fascism is. How in the world does communism lead to fascism at all, let alone "inevitably" lead to it? What the Soviet Union was and what Cuba is and what North Korea is etc. are degenerated worker states and deformed worker states respectively, not fascist states. They don't remotely resemble fascism. If anything, fascism is much MUCH more like capitalism on steroids, not anything remotely leftist, since as even Mussolini stated, fascism could best be defined as corporatism. Find out what fascism is before you toss the term around OK? And secondly, I AM NOT ADVOCATING A STALINIST "COMMUNIST" COUNTRY. You should have been able to gather this from what I've already posted here. Please don't make me repeat this again. What I am talking about is a true workers state in which the workers own the means of production, not some bureaucratic state owning them ostensibly in the "name of the people". OK? No labor camps, no secret police, none of that crap. So you can put your straw man away, he's not going to do any good.

"P.S.-- Small business owners in America can be exploiters just the same as big corporations can, just on a smaller scale because of their much more diminutive capital. Believe me, I speak from first-hand experience. They just end up taking advantage of 5 or 10 people instead of 5 or 10,000."
But many do not, and therein lies the proof of concept."
Many do not? None that I've ever heard of. What business owner starts his own business so that he can make almost no profit at all in order to pay his workers what they deserve to be paid? And when money is tight decides to slash to the bone whatever profit he is making in order to avoid laying someone off? What business owner doesn't expect Cadillac job performance at Ford Pinto wages? None that I've ever worked for, met or heard of. It's common sense. Entrepreneurs start their own business so they don't have to be exploited working for someone else and so they can rake in the profits from other people's work. Pretty simple. I've never heard of an entrepreneur saying "I think I'll start my own business and make next to nothing from it so that I can provide well-paying jobs with benefits for my prospective workers." Maybe in cotton candy fantasy land with rockinghorse people and marshmallow pies. Not here in the real world. Sorry, but your vision of capitalism as some righteous, well-meaning, decent, fair economic system couldn't be further from the truth.


@ Marrand:
I've responded to your points in the response to Skoalbite above. The Stalinist Soviet Union is an incredibly bad comparison with what I'm talking about. The system I am talking about would prevent exploitation by putting the businesses NOT in the hands of a bureaucratic socialist state government and NOT keeping them in the hands of the exploitative business owners like they currently are but instead in the hands of the only people in the world who won't exploit the workers, the workers themselves. Under my system the workers would have an incentive to actually (gasp!) do a good job and work harder because they would actually see the results in their paycheck as they would be a part owner of their workplace. Exploitation isn't just a fault of the people within a capitalist system, it is that the capitalist economic model is DESIGNED for exploitation of those who lack capital, it is the way it works and it literally could not function WITHOUT exploitation. And please don't write back saying something about the existence of a non-profit here or there "proving" that capitalism doesn't have to be about exploitation. Non-profits are a flyspeck amid a sea of capitalist exploitation. They are the exceptions that prove the rule. Bottom line: entrepreneurs start their business so they can be the one raking in the profits and they can be the one who isn't being exploited out of the deal. The inevitable result is someone else IS exploited, several someones for every business owner. If your system can't operate without the mass exploitation of tens of millions of people every day it doesn't deserve to exist, period. Yes, people DO hurt other people but they do so because they are ABLE to do so. Capitalism enables them to do this. You make it impossible for them to exploit people by putting the productive assets directly in the hands of the workers themselves and you take away the exploitation. Someone could then fantasize about exploiting others but it won't matter because they won't be able to act on that fantasy. Whereas under capitalism they are able to exploit the hell out of other people and moreover are encouraged to do so because unless they do they aren't going to keep hardly any profit at all. Capitalism is morally bankrupt and needs to be removed, permanently, in order for humanity to have a decent future. Otherwise all we're doing is finding ways to make our slavery a little less intolerable.

Expect a reply when my wife isn't giving me dirty looks.

@Brutal_Truth
You make some good points. No, I am not going to deal with the exceptions; here we are talking about rules, the system you are proposing which will take the exploitation out of the system.

Yes, entrepreneurs start a business so they can get ahead of others, be richer and more powerful, and thus in position to exploit.

Yes, capitalism makes it easy for the successful to exploit those less successful, and on down the ladder. I wouldn't call it "enables" because a system is merely a set of rules, an abstract.

Yes, someone could fantasize about exploiting, but you say the rules will stop him?

What worries me are those rules which you will design to stop me exploiting you, just as example. I start with the proposition that it's human nature to compete, to have it better than others; and we judge civilizations on how well the people were able to control this impulse: to have it better but not to exploit, not to hurt, without complex rules preventing it.

It all comes down to people, what kind of humans will be thriving under your system. Because I maintain that if these people insist on competing, on having better and more than their neighbor, no rules short of draconian dictatorships will stop them from doing so.

In sum I maintain that some people will want to have more than others, will work harder to get it, and thus will have more than others. No system can prevent that. As the differential between me and my poorer neighbor builds up, where does exploitation start?

You insist capitalism is bankrupt. I insist any system can be bankrupted by peoples' baser instincts, and any system can be made to work when people control these instincts.

But you are banking all on a better system, which in your mind will make life better for most people. You are ahead of me, because I am not convinced that the system is the solution. Rather, the solution rests with the people themselves, and by pure chance we either prosper or suffer depending on the type of people we are living among.

@marrand:
you said: "What worries me are those rules which you will design to stop me exploiting you" ... and: "... by pure chance we either prosper or suffer depending on the type of people we are living among."

brutal_truth said: "You make it impossible for them to exploit people by putting the productive assets directly in the hands of the workers themselves and you take away the exploitation."

I think brutal_truth made the point quite clear. marrand, in capitalism people are being blackmailed into letting themselves be exploited, because in capitalism everyone is being denied even the most basic things to live (food, housing...) if he or she can not pay money for it. But the rules in a capitalistic system see to it that nobody gets money if he/she is not working for someone. And as brutal_truth explained, people give people only work to do if they can make profit from that.

If people would have the productive assets directly in their hands it would just not matter if they have no job (and no money).

Now imagine some "other system" (somewhat brutal_truth has in mind) where people do have always their basic needs (and probably more) because they have the productive assets directly in their hands.

And now someone with "exploiting instinct" wants to exploit someone. Well, what stops the to-be-exploited person to just walk away?
Do you see, that the big threat of being blackmailed successfully just has no power of impact?

Well, I would agree with you that probably "exploitation" in all kinds of emotional ways will maybe stay with human kind forever. But not exploitation in that way that one person has the power to destroy the physical needs of some other person like it is done and enforced (by law, police..) in a capitalistic system.

I like the intent behind the original post: what can we agree on? Obviously the capatalism one isn't making the cut :)

I think the thing that I'd like to float as a possibility is the urge that is driving this movement toward consensus as a modus operendi: Everyone's voice should be heard, and a good faith effort to meet their needs made in public process. This implies that corporations and the wealthy are not able to just run the show without regard for everyone else.

I'd also add that I don't think people would be wading in to this movement if they didn't believe in the right to peaceful protest.

I'd also like to say that the "100% American" sentiment is one I can't get behind. I don't think that nationalism has a place in a peaceful movement that cares about everyone. I think it is more about the ethics of how things play out: if we believed that everyone (American or not) deserved a living wage and non-exploitative work conditions, then the motivation for going overseas disappears. Let's bring jobs home through an emphasis on sustainable local economies, rather than nationalism. AND... I don't expect other OWSers to agree with that, so sadly, that one also drops off the list of "what everyone can agree on."

I think we'll have better luck getting a list of agreed upons by talking about values, rather than specific positions on these topics. Something like this, perhaps:

We believe that all people have a right to have their voices heard and their basic needs taken into account in political and economic decisions.
We believe in the right to peaceful protest as a means of check and balance when the status quo become exploitative.
We believe that all people have the right to earn a living wage for meaningful work, and that the environment for should should be non-exploitative and safe.
We believe that the planet is an entity worth protecting, and that corporations should not have the rights of "personhood" in our political system.
We believe that any resources we choose to use should be used in a way that benefits all and not only a small group.
We believe in everyone paying their share to support the good of the commons.

I'm sure this list is incomplete and imperfect, but that's my attempt to summarize the commonalities I've heard. My personal values would add about another 25 points of things I consider basic, but I don't think there is total OWS agreement on those things.

@Ira:
Thank you. I can see we are pretty much on the same page.

@Skoalbite:
Take your time bro. I'll be here.

@Marrand:
Thanks for saying I make some good points. Alright, you state that "I wouldn't call it "enables" because a system is merely a set of rules, an abstract."
I would disagree, in that the system or set of rules for capitalism (or most sets of rules for that matter) isn't an abstraction but a real, concrete model in which we all (with few exceptions) operate within at this time, subject to its vagaries and potential for abuses. Capitalism, as I've noted earlier, is a system that by its very nature not only enables exploitation but HAS to be exploitative or else what the business owner is getting out of the deal wouldn't be worth his while to keep his business open. If he pays his workers what they deserve to be paid or close to what they deserve to be paid he's not getting hardly any profit out of it. If the labor each of his workers are performing in other words amounts to, say, $20/hour and he's paying them $19/hour he's not going to stay in business. Capitalism incentivizes the exploitation by making it imperative that he either pays his workers $7.25/hour or $8/hour, or whatever pittance he can get away with paying them without them walking out the door in search of a better job, for their expected labor of $20/hour. Because the worker has no leverage with his prospective employer he or she has to take whatever they can get, which under capitalism won't be anything near their actual value that they're bringing to the company. Because there is exceedingly little variation in wages and benefits for similar jobs in a given area it isn't as if he or she can just say "Screw you, I'm going to make twice this wage across town doing the same thing." So the worker groans and grimaces and ultimately accepts his slave wage with no benefits because to choose otherwise means he isn't going to have a job at all. All this is not some abstraction on an economist's flowchart. This is the real world that workers have to deal with every day of the workweek. And the overall outlines of this pattern of exploitation are pretty clearly defined and easy to see.

"What worries me are those rules which you will design to stop me exploiting you, just as example. I start with the proposition that it's human nature to compete, to have it better than others; and we judge civilizations on how well the people were able to control this impulse: to have it better but not to exploit, not to hurt, without complex rules preventing it. ... Because I maintain that if these people insist on competing, on having better and more than their neighbor, no rules short of draconian dictatorships will stop them from doing so."

Well, what I'm suggesting Marrand would in fact be a different set of rules than what exists currently, yes, however they wouldn't be draconian rules for the vast majority of people in this country, which I will address in a moment, and we are talking past each other regarding competition. The system I am talking about would still entail plenty of competition. Businesses would still be businesses, the only difference would be in WHO is receiving the benefits of the operation of that business. Under capitalism the economic benefits all flow to the business owner and his workers get the crumbs, just enough to keep them coming back for more slavery the next day. Under a worker ownership society like I am envisioning the benefits from operating that business would all flow to the workers themselves who would each BE the part owners of that business. Naturally there will be some who will want to take on more responsibility as managers, foremen, etc. and by mutual consent of the workers they would be allowed to do so and would receive a larger share of the benefits of running that business than the regular workers, but not so much of a larger share that it puts them in a separate social class. That way it rewards those who show enough initiative, leadership ability etc. to want to be managers (and the same goes for those who want to and are able to take on highly-specialized jobs like surgeons) but doesn't reward them so much that they become a class unto themselves. But businesses would still be competing with each other to produce the best product, to get the most sales etc. However, unlike a capitalist America, there would be a genuine, robust social safety net there to fall back on if a business fails. Nobody would have to worry about going from being a part-owner of a business to being an exploited wage slave if their business goes under. The state would be there to ensure their kids don't go hungry, to help them get back on their feet and hopefully help arrange for other opportunities for them to replace their defunct business. Competition would still exist and furthermore, on an individual worker level, there would be a tremendous amount more incentive for him or her to actually be more efficient, to work harder, to concentrate more and daydream less etc. because they finally would be able to see the direct, tangible benefits of harder work in their paychecks because they would know that for example as a one-tenth owner of a retail store seeing their profits increase by 20% this quarter would bring 20% more money into their own pay envelope. Such a concept isn't close to being possible with the way things are now. Instead, the "highly efficient" capitalist economic model looks a whole lot more like the old Soviet Union by comparison in that it encourages the vast majority of workers in this country to do as little as possible, just the bare minimum, because they see NO economic motivation to do anything beyond that.

Further, the rules I am talking about won't be draconian for the vast majority of American workers and will only seem draconian to the bourgeoisie because we would be using the power of the state to remove from their hands the productive assets and put them in the hands of people who won't exploit their workers, i.e. those very same workers themselves. If you're accustomed to having everything your way, to having a government that caters to your wishes and lets you have the power to put other people with no capital under your thumb for as long as you feel like keeping them there, then yes, it is going to feel like a whole different world, one that is decidedly less friendly to abusers. But in exchange for inconveniencing the bourgeoisie who don't engender any sympathy from anyone who really knows what they're about we would be emancipating everyone else. In terms of bettering the quality of life for the most people, that would be a wonderful tradeoff. And anyway by comparison to the laws that are on the books now there would be many important rules that would be significantly LESS draconian. For example, the death penalty, the most draconian penalty imaginable, would be abolished. The police state powers that are currently available to various federal, state and local government agencies that are used to spy on ordinary Americans, tap their phones without a warrant, put tracking devices on their cars, intercept their snail mail and e-mail, investigate their library checkouts etc.? Gone, all of it. And the F.B.I. would no longer be a domestic spying agency that carries out espionage on peaceful protesters and uses informants to create phony "terrorist" plots out of whole cloth then spring the mousetrap shut on people dumb enough to blunder into it. Gitmo? Closed. Nobody is going to be made to live in a dog kennel in 110-degree tropical heat. Turning the United States into a free country with genuine elections and no police state powers would hardly be draconian. The "freedom" of those with capital to exploit those without would certainly be removed, that is true, as would be the "freedom" to accumulate so much wealth you can't spend it in several lifetimes even with access to a casino and cocaine. Yes, those "freedoms" enjoyed by the bourgeoisie would surely be gone. But their disappearance would be hardly draconian and would not negatively affect the average non-wealthy American.

"In sum I maintain that some people will want to have more than others, will work harder to get it, and thus will have more than others. No system can prevent that. As the differential between me and my poorer neighbor builds up, where does exploitation start?"

As I've stated above, for those with more motivation to be a manager or foreman, to work harder, to do highly-skilled specialized jobs and to undertake the intensive training/schooling that prepares them to carry out those jobs etc. WILL get paid more than those who are content to stock shelves or flip hamburgers or dig holes. That is fine and natural. But they won't get paid so MUCH more than a regular worker that it puts them in a whole different class. There will be a range of incomes with the minimum being quite a bit more than what the average worker is making now but with a cap on the amount someone can earn in a year or accumulate over several years by socking money away that is many magnitudes lower than what the wealthy currently earn. It won't be a nation of identical cookie-cutter track homes with identical clothes in the closets and identical cars in the driveway. It WILL be a nation in which there are no mansions, because nobody would be so rich as to be able to afford them, and a nation with no ghettos. In other words there will be variation in incomes but not so much as to foster class stratification. The differential between you and your neighbor won't be allowed to build up to a level that you are in two different classes. If you want to work 60 hours a week as a part-owner of your workplace and drive a Lexus and he wants to skate by and work 35 hours a week as a part-owner of his workplace and drive a Chevrolet, that's not a problem. But neither of you would be in a position to be taking advantage of others and both of you would be rewarded fairly for your efforts. My system won't prevent someone from taking on more responsibility or from working harder in a position of less responsibility, nor would it seek to do so. It would however prevent either of you from exploiting anyone else in order to get or keep what you have. In short, it would be a system that would, yes, inconvenience the bourgeoisie and take away their power to exploit. Cry me a river. In exchange we have a vastly better life and a world of greater opportunities for the overwhelming majority of people. Versus an economic model that is basically the exact opposite of that. The best choice for humanity is obvious.

Capitalism served its purpose. It smashed feudal absolutism and laid the groundwork for the next phase of human development beyond capitalism. It has long since outlived its usefulness and is a millstone around the neck of the average non-wealthy person. Time to retire it, evolve past it, put it behind us and move on in the direction of equality and a better future for the most people. This country and the world at large both have a bright and beautiful future ahead of them, of that I am certain. It's just that our beautiful future doesn't in any way involve capitalism.

http://www.conconcon.org/

We could at least try to get the rampant corruption out and reform what we have before we try to abolish it.

@Brutal_Truth - So much to like in what you said. I was reading and nodding my head. Now, I must type what's inside it.

Let me attempt to summarize what we both want:
We want to restore functional capitalism without exploitation of the less fortunate ones.

If someone accuses us of being too idealistic or searching for utopia, our answer could be:
Today we are going down the road of dysfunctional capitalism with rampant exploitation of the less fortunate. Our aim is to reverse the course, knowing fully well that perfection will never be achieved.

My aim was to cram maximum substance into minimum number of words. I wrote those words also elsewhere, as if to try them out for size.

You explained yourself clearly. Seems the workers would own the production facilities and businesses, but many would have chances to compete and become richer. The workers, as owners, then would hire managers in some sort of format to be decided on later. Fine. But I would add that we still could maintain the principles of capitalism in the sense that profits would be the goal. Oh, some would be plowed right back into expansion, some into higher salaries, some into a pool to operate the safety net, some into a fund for rainy day, and some into taxes to operate a government. In my mind, a robust safety net does not negate capitalism.

You proposed something which sounds marvelous. Yes, some will be paid more than others, but "But they won't get paid so MUCH more than a regular worker that it puts them in a whole different class". Well said. One doesn't need a higher or different or simply another class to prosper and live happily under capitalism. The "higher" class idea orginates in the ego, and is not needed for economically productive life. Oh, I have an ego alright, but it can get satisfied easily by, say, a loud applause for a song well sung.

When I heard on TV a few Wall street workers, dressed in suits, telling the demonstrators to get a job, I was thinking: why don't OWS ask how much they make? I bet they bring in over $500,000 every year. They are probably MBA's, superbly trained in accounting, but all they do is repackage toxic assets and derivatives, and devise new ways for banks to squeeze out more money from its customers. In sum, they don't earn what they get.

You see my friend, I like a system where I can compete and win, and have more to enjoy, but don't want what we have today. I agree, we do have exploitation, but I maintain the current system can operate without it. I keep returning to my old song: the people can change how the system works without discarding it.

You talked about FBI. But to me that's a matter of a detail: how we wish to be governed. For myself I like strict enforcement of agreed upon rules; I know others are more forgiving.

Thanks for paying attention to me. As to the definition of the best society, I am still groping in the dark.

@typicalowsguy, @gavemehope, @Brutal_Truth, @skoalbite, @marrand,
"Let me attempt to summarize what we both want:
We want to restore functional capitalism without exploitation of the less fortunate ones."

"If someone accuses us of being too idealistic or searching for utopia, our answer could be:
Today we are going down the road of dysfunctional capitalism with rampant exploitation of the less fortunate. Our aim is to reverse the course, knowing fully well that perfection will never be achieved."

"I agree, we do have exploitation, but I maintain the current system can operate without it."

There is no need to restore functional capitalism as it is very functional - in fact it is as functional as it has ever been. If you find any problems with it that is because you are getting the raw end of the deal (along with an expanding 99%). But as a class system (just like other class systems before it all defined by ownership of private property, and therefore money, and therefore profit, and therefore exploitation) capitalism has always been about exploitation. Show me a time that it wasn't - when it was "functional without exploitation of the less fortunate"!! You forget what the word "capital" means and what is its fundamental source of value. It is synonymous with profit, which is the value not compensated to the producer (i.e., labor / worker) and pocketed by the capitalist as the difference of his costs and what he is able to sell in the market. Since the worker is the main ingredient in production, and also its ultimate consumer, capital exploits labor on both fronts. And forgot to mention taxes too! - to feed the capitalist government which oversees the profit regime.

The 1% remaining capitalists look at today's situation and their lifestyle compared to their predecessors and they see wild success and functionality. If you see it "going down the road of dysfunctional capitalism with rampant exploitation of the less fortunate" it is because you are judging it according to your own personal reference whereas capitalism is just following its natural inexorable evolutionary course based on the laws of commodity exchange and accumulation of capital ultimately in the form of monopoly / world government due to the inherent competitive / exclusive nature of private ownership. To expect this situation to be reversed / reformed is to ignore the fundamental nature and defining features of the system - as if asking for time to move backwards, or capitalists to collectively stop behaving as capitalists i.e., defying the rules of profit and competition.

It seems that you are more concerned about your personal comfort level than finding out how reality functions (i.e., laws of economics and nature), and even the extent of horrors that capitalism (as with any class system) has inflicted on humanity from its very inception although never to such extent as today. Capitalism is not being mismanaged by some incompetent gangsters who have hijacked it giving it a bad rap. These gangsters are the very natural "successes" of the system - the winners of the monopoly game, a game that is part and parcel of every economic system based on private ownership. Before capitalism, feudal system had a similar course of consolidation and monopoly of power ending with the "absolute kings" and the tyrannical Church of "the inquisition", and before that during the classical slavery economic system the pharaohs and ceasars were worshiped as all-powerful gods towards the end of their rule. But such political manifestations of hubris and the reactionary political indignations they generated expressed by a myriad of protests and rebellions / "revolutions" overlie the deeper causal origin of such "dysfunctions" which was an evolutionary process manifesting the inherent limitations of every economic system as it changed the environment of human existence and created new conditions for which it was no longer appropriate or "functional". These fundamentally economic conflicts were then eventually "resolved" by the burgeoning of a new economic system based on alternative more sustainable economic principles i.e., a change in type of production / exchange / distribution (along with its corresponding political, cultural, and spiritual institutions) only to be undermined again eventually in a similar manner paving the course for a new transformation.

OWS up to now has been woefully ignorant of serious political economic analysis of even recent history, not to mention a serious reevaluation of capitalism. We need to look at the history including our evolutionary path, major milestones as well as previous struggles to understand the nature of change, and learn first what is necessary, and second what are the possibilities, before crafting our wish list. The world does not go around anyone of us. Our mind and consciousness itself is occupied by WallStreet and the capitalists who have filled it with mostly conditioned "within-the box" predictable responses for their rule. We must not treat even our ideas as "ours" and must look for ideas that based on analytical research, transparent genuine challenge, and experimentation prove useful for adaptive change not for us individually but with reference to the survival of our species and bioshpere.

I think the one thing we need to all agree on is voting! Even if you really do want to end capitalism - the only way that is going to happen in the United States is by electing socialist candidates. (http://www.sp-usa.org/)

Get registered, be aware, back up your convictions with your VOTE!!! Many past Americans in the past bled and died to protect our right to vote.

http://electionland.com/

http://www.rockthevote.org/