The Unequal Distribution of Wealth & Power

De Gaulle : not only in militar expertise (off topic fisrt to study in France Blitzkrieg, tanks, etc ... against ALL people, including his godfather ... Marechal Petain !!!!).

18 of June 1940 : NO FRANCE, only ONE free french in London

1945 : de Gaulles fires american importation money for France, takes the power legally, contains communism (25 % of voters) by promoting welfare program no one could face, even USSR! 

1958 : he takes the power again to solve Algeria war, he didn't want muslim majority, and gave for this ONLY reason independancy to Algiers people. 

Then he started to rebuild modern France, till 1968 : he wanted deach worker to be OWNER of his home with garden (giscard Pdt did it 1974-1981), he created "participation" :each worker got a part, with shares, of power, in private firms. He developed EU 6 countries, with Konrad Adenauer, incredible love story of the two biggest enemies in world history (France and Germany started TWO WWars!!!). He was  respected or hated (5+ attempts to kill him). Without him, France would have been country of Germany, or 53th US state.

 He left the country after having defeated ultra left Cohn Bendit, to send him fired from France, being Mayor of Francfort and build Mosquees there, going as ecolo deputy in Brussels. Today Cohn Bendit wants to go back in France, system of retired money is better here..

all are facts : third way de Gaulle offered was really 1step in post capitalism.  Unfortunately the only one who get the picture, Chaban Delmas, was caught for some fiscal trick and not got elected.

Giscard was good genius in everything, really installed popular capitalism, but was caught for having kept diamonds from BOKASSA African, instead of giving them back to State treasure, and was fired. Then Mitterand, ultra RIGHT inside, and false socialism outside, conducting bad aeconomics, only success was FIREWELL op, concluding cold war with Reagan. 

To stay on your topic fully, de Gaulle was almost achieving for real most of H. George's ideas. And de Gaulle was honest, sentenced to death by Petain, he avoided Petain to be executed. 1950's.

Ty

Ok, even though he's been thrown overboard I'd like to make five points in reply to this. OP might consider lifting the block so he (she?) can reply in turn?

 

1) First of all I'm not a simpleton. Notwithstanding, the OP has made it clear that he doesn't want any name-calling on this thread and it also violates the Terms of Service of this website. If you insult me like this again anywhere on these forums I'll raise an abuse ticket with staff immediately.

2) You should consider not using block capitals to emphasise a point - apart from being more difficult to read IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING, and that is never helpful in a debate.

3) We live in a Capitalist society. Capitalism is a recognised and coherent economic system. This system is now thoroughly globalised. If you dispute any of this I think you'll very quickly find that this discussion will fly over your head.

4) Yes, I have heard of Somalia and I'd expect anyone of moderate intelligence to recognise that the content of Black Hawk Down can't be assumed accurate just because one paratrooper says so. This is a fairly obvious point really, but it's one that appears to have bypassed you completely.

5) This follows on from point 4. In fact, it's my opinion that you don't know anything about the US invasion of Somalia in 1992 (apart from what you've been spoon-fed by the corporate media) and that you would benefit hugely from a crash-course in US imperialism. That's only my opinion of course, and I'm entitled to it.

OP: wasn't Malthus the fella that wrote a precis called: "The Philosophy of Poverty"?

And didn't Marx demonstrate his scathing sense of humour by titling his response: "The Poverty of Philosophy"?

Apologies to Malthus if I'm confusing him with another dude.

Do any of our UK churches open their doors to the homeless people at night to give them a safe place to sleep? If not, why not?

"anything good " : for whom?

well, your question fascinates any historian, from Portuguese Revolution to Mao cultural and perpetual Revolution, etc ....From 3 victims in Lisboa 1974 to millions in China 1948-1966+. American revolution will fascinate as some Independance move creating country after  success, not similar to revolution in UK (Charles Ier losing his head, people keeping the concept of kingdom! more ad hominem fight than deep changes they already got from Montfort creating constitutionnal monarchy, still effective today). France Revolution brought enemies avoided since Attila 0440 to Champs Elysees, country just staid alive because UK decided it, to face Germanies and coming Prussia.

Nothing comes good from mass murder and terror, except creative destruction, Schumpeter founded the answer to your question : the only way to get growth is ... to have destruction before. No one says it is good or bad, it is just the way it goes since Neandertalians delt with .. Cromagnons. Plenty of people tried to get things different : Henry Dunant (SADOWA and Crimea, etc...XIXth cent. , Gandhi before Pakistan 1947 etc ... Aristide Briand and NAtion's society , sort of UNO ......before WWII, Kissinger Nobel Prize and Vietnam War, etc .

Many are examples there are plenty ways to prepare post capitalism with few victims, if none, unfortunately plenty of examples of such changes include 99% mass neutralization and years where status of people is lower than before changes (1917 Russia). Aeternal pb of reforms vs revolutions.

In that point Stalin vs Trotsky is some thinking I had : if Trotsky won, were the amount of victims of change bigger or lower than with Stalin defeating him ? for that paradoxal result, Stalin would have been saving millions of life, just think about that, each one may have his opinion, difficult to rewrite history. Even if history stammers sometimes..

Only victory is beautiful, post capitalism could come without victims, it is allowed to doubt , but if this is the condition of mankind survival, where is the pb ?

  Here it is, April Fool's Day, which brings to mind the saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted."  It also makes me think the OP would be kept very busy redistributing the wealth to make sure no one was more equal than the fool.

Basher, I'm saying that yes for progress sometimes there is destruction, but when the destruction is unleashed with nothing holding it back there is little if any progress. For instance, in the American revolution, mass murder of loyalists never happened, (that I know of, and definatly not on a massive scale) because Americans of the time had morals, I.E. Thou shalt not kill for instance. (nice if we still had that) Both Trosky and Stalin where horrible people, the bolshevik revolution replaced one evil with another, no good came of it. 

I thint that the problem is not nessassarily that capitalism needs to change, (Not sure 100% on that, so dont quote me for it) I think the American government is too big, and needs to resize a little. (You can quote me on that )

We should close all of our foreign military basis,and use the savings to reduce our defecit. The progressive income tax needs to go back up 45% for the super rich,and that money should go to the poorest.

Not sure what you mean by "We should close all of our foreign military basis"?

But we should think "The Rich made a million dollars and we got --- much out of it, lets hope he makes more next year" Not "He made a million dollars, lets take more of it." The economy grows slower with that kind of thinking. 

  How would the OP make sure no one was more powerful than another?  (That would be an anarchist's dream.)

As a thought experiment, I proposed the chess players' ratings on this site be taxed to reduce the "rating inequality." See posts #14 and 15. I wonder if we could apply that logic to ratings and have a thought experiment and try to see what happens. :)

After all, if you think about it, there are those who have a very high rating and then there are those who have a lower rating. How about trying breaching this gap? Making chess world a less brutal, less capitalist one? :) Surely we can have this fun thought experiment and see where it would lead us. :)

Yes I think that would be fun actually but.would it be useful? How does it relate to the topic?

It is indirectly related to the topic. Just as discussing why some guys can pick up more girls while others can't, etc. Similarities may be helpful understanding the topic. My proposed example is a simplified version of a much more complex, real-life issue. Perhaps looking into that and seeing possible complications with the idea will give a better perspective on social and economic issues. I started with some ideas in posts #14 and 15. You guys can build on that. Perhaps some new, interesting ideas & side effects will be discovered.

As to me, I'll end my participation in this thread for now. Matter of fact, in all the threads. I'm going back to pushing my rating higher. I wanna be in the top 1% of rating club. Hopefully, by the time I get there, my idea won't be implemented and my wins won't be "progressively" taxed. :) Good luck to all, don't take things too personally, keep it civic and have fun with the discussion! :)

dtf15 

+1000

one thing more : 

POST CAPITALISM HAS TO BE DEFINED : is it like "post impressionists" who includes some IMPRESSIONISM inside ? reformed capitalims

is it totally brand new, with ZERO capitalism inside ? revolution

is it third peaceful way, like de Gaulles 1967 in France, share and participation in the management for workers ? property for everybody, one house per worker , etc ...

Concerning wealth, what is post capitalism to equalize distribution? 100% brand new, revolution or reformed capitalism?

Concerning POWER? it is weaker as far as it is shared. Do mankind need weaker power in case it is more redistributed ? 

weaker power to ask politely China to reduce pollution ? India CH4 ?

who has answers ? the stronger the power, the more efficient it is, the most inequal too, difficult since Montesquieu to answer. Alas !

  The money supply should be tied to production, as opposed to gold, etc, and as the production increases due to technology advances, population increases or whatever, then the money supply needs to increase, but instead of the debt issued money loaned to the gov't with interest due, putting us into slavery to the Global Bankers, money should be issued, debt free from the gov't itself as a dividend check to it's adult citizens.

 No middle-man skimming off the money for himself, no trickle down effect like catching whatever crums the elite decide to let fall off the table on to the floor for people to fight over, but, directly to the citizens.  From there, it would go straight into the economy when we buy bread or anything else.

  That way, everybody would at least have something with which to try to initially subsist on, especially if people were allowed to actually own land instead of renting it from the gov't in the form of property tax, which they can and do raise at their whim even if it means pushing an old person into the gutter to get their land or more rent out of it. 

 Furthermore, the gov't shouldn't be donating our money to foreign countries under any disguise they can dream up, especially if they don't have a surpluss with which to do it.

  Gouging the rich to even them out with the deadbeats or less talented, motivated or what have you is not the answer.  Also, close the tax loopholes and use a flat % tax for all.  There should also be a cap on what the maximum % the gov't should be allowed to take, and no more than that!

Our bases in Europe,Korea, Panama,anywhere we are not fighting. Close them and operate exclusively from the United States. 

I think that might have been Proudhon - GL

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/philosophy/

Some churches are doing it Kayak. 

http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Churches-throw-open-doors-year-cold-homeless/story-28228620-detail/story.html

http://www.westcliffbaptistchurch.org.uk/outreach/open-door-homeless-project/

Wow I'm impressed . A civilised coherent thread . Congratulations Nikprit I like your style . My own feelings are what matters truly is what is not what should be . But I respect of course that part of societal evolution is to investigate what's happening and this certainly is a subject that's in dire need of being considered seriously . Anyway I just wanted to say well done .

Oh my own view . Well I believe that wealth should be shared equally like a birthday cake at a party .

Of course those that are willing to work harder should be rewarded but generally I feel that people should share .

I think that democracy is extremely poor but the greater truth is that most people are so scared of losing out on basic comfort they resist charity . We need a safety net .

Anyway you guys are all way smarter than I am . I hope I won't get blocked Nikprit for expressing these views but I've said all I wanted to anyway