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[umiman]

No offence to the dead, but Abraham Lincoln lived in a time before iPods and the internet. I can assure you that nowadays, you can have capital without any labour. In fact, it's probably easier to use capital to produce labour (or labour incentives) than to use labour to produce capital.

Neanderthals would disagree, but they obviously have not been in contact with banking systems or the stock market in general.

Simple proof: today's economy. Everyone got screwed over not because we're a labour-focused economy, but rather a capital-based one. Incidentally, countries that support a large labour force suffered the least from the economic downturn but countries that support a large labour force also don't have basic amneties like say... clean water.

I'm not saying one system is better than the other, but the simple fact is that anything more than (generally speaking) basic government intervention in this day and age is impossible from every perspective. As I am talking about governments, it should be worth noting that several billion dollars is still considered "basic". "Advanced" government intervention would be something like them allocating specific jobs to specific people or closure of private healthcare.

[mainiac]

Simple proof: today's economy. Everyone got screwed over not because we're a labour-focused economy, but rather a capital-based one. Incidentally, countries that support a large labour force suffered the least from the economic downturn but countries that support a large labour force also don't have basic amneties like say... clean water.

Needs Citation/Elaboration.

Keep in mind that developing economies tend to be very dependent on the export of low value resources (mineral extraction/agriculture/fossil fuels.)  Currency instability and reduced imports by developed economies thus can have a devastating economic effect.

[umiman]

Sigh... *grumble* why must I keep proving to everyone that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the economy *grumble* 3 years of formal business training *grumble* ignorant masses... *grumble* actual experience managing labour markets instead of just talking jack shit over the internet...

Adam Arvidsson. . "The ethical economy: Towards a post-capitalist theory of value. " Capital & Class  97 (2009): 13-29,179.

Abstract: Social production has risen on the agenda of the social sciences. Yet most observers have been reluctant to confront the question of the value of these practices. Instead they have mostly been characterised as 'free', 'common' or beyond value. This article argues that far from being free, social production abides to a particular value logic, an 'ethical economy' where value is related not to the input of labour time, but to the ability to give productive organisation to a diffuse connectivity or, which is the same thing, to transform weak ties into affectively significant strong ones. The article concludes that progressive politics should work with this new emerging value logic.

David H Autor. . "Explaining trends in wages, work, and occupations. " Chicago Fed Letter  1 Apr. 2009: 1-4.

Abstract: It is widely recognized that inequality of labor market earnings in the US has increased dramatically in recent decades. Over the course of more than three decades, wage growth was weak to nonexistent at the bottom of the distribution, strong at the top of the distribution, and modest in the middle. While real hourly earnings of workers within the bottom 30% of the earnings distribution rose by no more than 10 percentage points between 1973 and 2005, earnings of workers at the 90th percentile rose by more than 40 percentage points. Thus, the periods of 1973-1989 and 1989-2005 represent two distinct periods of rising inequality: the first one of diverging wages throughout the distribution and the second of polarizing wage growth. Employment polarization presents both challenges and opportunities for the US, as well as other industrialized economies. The rising productivity of highly educated workers is good news. But the growing importance of manual and service tasks presents a challenge.

Liu Heguang, Minoru Tada, Sun Dongsheng. "Changing patterns in comparative advantage for agricultural trade in East Asian countries. " China Agricultural Economic Review  1.2 (2009): 227-238.

Abstract: Economies in East Asia are at different development stages. Economic development has an impact on factor endowments and the intensities, then on the mode of agricultural trade. To examine the trade modes of these seven East Asian countries' agricultural products will give us some hints to understand the question how economic development impacts the changing patterns in comparative advantage (CA) of agricultural products. Therefore, this paper aims to test the question by using a four-quadrant method. Trade specialization coefficient is used to analyze the agricultural CA among aggregated agricultural products and two typical kinds of products: labor- and land-intensive agricultural products. Then a four-quadrant method is applied in this study, where trade specialization of agricultural products consists of 2D: labor-intensive and land-intensive. The study intends to test the changing routes of CA of agricultural products under the background of economic development and changing situation of factor endowments. The analysis result supports that economic development has impact on the trade mode of agricultural products. The four-quadrant method is firstly applied to analyze the changing pattern of agricultural products in East Asian countries. This study shows that the changing routes of CA of agricultural products will not limit to only one mode as found by current studies.

Nguyen Khanh Doanh, Yoon Heo. "Impacts of Trade Liberalisation Commitments on the Vietnamese Economy: A CGE Approach. " The World Economy  32.4 (2009): 606.

Abstract: This article quantifies the economic effects of tariff reduction following Vietnam's WTO accession. It differs from previous studies in several aspects. First, the model incorporates non-standard features of the Vietnamese economy (e.g. changes in the domestic tax system). Second, the model divides Vietnamese households into 10 groups, allowing for the assessment of household welfare and income distribution. Third, the model has been run employing the most up-to-date database available. The major findings are summarised as follows. First, Vietnam as a whole would benefit from trade liberalisation. Second, the overall gain would be accompanied by a redistribution of income and a moderate increase in inequality between the rich and the poor. Third, concerning sectoral output, export-oriented sectors, sectors with large shares of input in total imports, and those with increased domestic demands are likely to expand, whereas, in contrast, domestic-oriented sectors are likely to contract. Measures to increase labour mobility, target disadvantaged groups and areas, and further liberalise service sectors are recommended as the recipe for effective utilisation of integration, as well as a more equitable pattern of growth.

"World News: World Watch. " Wall Street Journal  [New York, N.Y.] 28  Feb. 2009, Eastern edition: A.6.

Abstract: Newspaper article.

"Lithuania. " Oxford Economic Country Briefings  : Lithuania 11 Feb. 2009: 1-5.

Abstract: Demographics. Example country of what I'm talking about.

Go read them. Furthermore, I said "suffer the least", not "don't suffer". What this means is that of course there will be an impact from global economic crisises but it won't have as bad a relative effect as it would have on major countries.

[mainiac]

I'm sorry, but those abstracts don't seem to be particularly relevant to this discussion.  The impression I draw from the abstracts is that these papers discuss the growth of emerging economies and the effect on economies that were already strong.  However, we are discussing contraction, when those factors aren't working...

And I really doubt I have the technical background to understand such discussions anyway.

[umiman]

Exactly, you don't have the technical background to understand the discussion.

...

  That was a joke. Sorry, was being a bit mean.

The abstracts give you an idea of the opinion. The opinion is formed from a conclusion drawn from multiple research sites. If you're familiar with university, then you should understand it. It's like writing a paper. IF you had the capacity to read the books and articles I linked, then you should be able to understand what I'm coming from. Considering that you probably don't have access to these kind of things, it bring about another stunning conclusion which I segway-ed in.

There's no point in me citing my sources because you guys couldn't access them.

I can elaborate like this:

"The ethical economy" discusses how we are moving from a labour intensive market, which would add weight to my assertion that we are moving away from a labour intensive market.

"Explaining trends in wages, etc." adds on to that by adding wage disparity among service industries and basic labour markets particularly due to lower demand for the product in these regions. It emphasizes a labour shift to capital assets.

"Changing patterns in comparative advantage" discusses the opposite, wherein Asian developing countries have a heavy emphasis on labour and manual work instead of capital assets.

"Impacts of trade liberalization" then talks about how economic disasters have relatively minor effects on the economies of these growing nations.

The other two provide real world examples of the discourse.

[Vactor]

the current economic crisis is exactly the reason why labor is superior to capital.  Thinking that you can sustain a system where one country makes its money of its money, and buys its goods from another leads you to a hollowed out economy that...as it turns out.. is just a house of cards. The country that is exporting goods has nothing to cash its money in for from the first, other than making money off their newly gained money.

In this scenario who ends up with the money that is making money?

[mainiac]

uniman, so basically, you want me to take it on faith that these sources mean what you say they mean and should be trusted?  can't you give a general gist at how the sharp decline in exports scenario I outlined is unlikely?

[umiman]

I can say the exact same thing for you. You keep asking me to prove and prove but I've yet to see you do anything of the sort beyond just saying things and asking other people to hold the onus.

I don't expect you to have faith on anything. You asked for sources, I gave you sources. Credible, legitimate sources that actually exist on a format other than a webpage written by award winning authors, mediums with readerships of millions, and sources trusted by multinational conglomerates like PepsiCo and Exxon. I can't be blamed if you, AFTER asking me for them, refuse to check the sources and just simply assume they can't be trusted.

It's unfair that you just keep piling on condition after condition. I gain nothing by convincing you of reality, only some level of appeasement. Seriously, why should I bother to go any further if you are completely convinced of your "rightness" and refuse to take any action on your own behalf to actually see if you can be wrong? Am I going to get money for it? I don't care if you don't believe the truth. It won't affect me in the least. You're obviously no leader of any real power in this world and as such, you thinking the way you do will have zero effect on the world itself as well.

I stand to gain nothing from attempting to appease you nor will I lose anything. Simply put, if you refuse to take steps to at least understand the case, then I won't bother attempting to dissuade your either.

[vitaoma]

I think a big revolution/war is happening in the next 10-20 years and you'll agree with me if you take a look at the economical crisis, uneven wealth distribution and global warming problems. People just can't see that we don't need that much stuff and we'll have to live a simpler life. Either that or many, many people are dying.

About the communist thing, I don't think it's so far away or unreal. I'm in (at?) the first year in highschool, in São Paulo, Brazil. Even though my family is not poor and I am in one of the best schools, I have many friends that agree that things aren't going the right way and a revolution is going to happen. I have like 6 friends that are communist, and I am a little bit too. Two of them even have meetings with another communists in the metro, every week.

People should look outside and see that their lives are so incredibly ridiculous and small in the world, stop being so selfish and start thinking about the others.
I agree with most of you: USRR (is this how you say in English?) and Cuba didn't go quite well. I tell you, it's because of selfish and violent people (e.g. Fidel and Stalin). And even with the superhigh corruption, you will have to agree that those countries have/had an optimal rate of education and technology. Also think about the people who were living miserably, dying of hunger and cold in First World War: USRR was a great thing for them.

Communist/Socialist ideas are great, but people aren't, unfortunatelly.

In any way I think my ideas are definite and I'll gladly discuss about this with anyone.

Sorry for bad English.

[mainiac]

I stand to gain nothing from attempting to appease you nor will I lose anything. Simply put, if you refuse to take steps to at least understand the case, then I won't bother attempting to dissuade your either.

I'm sorry.  Have I sounded particularly close minded here?  To clarify, I think you are probably right here.  After all, it's you who is the expert.  But I would appreciate some sort of cause and effect relationship.  To sumerize our arguments right now as I understand them:

Mine:  Make some falsifiable observations about developing economies and make a falsifiable claim that these observed properties leave them vulnerable to economic downturns.

Yours:  You are wrong because these people, who's works you have no access to say so.

I'm not saying that my argument is right because it can be understood.  But I'd appreciate it if you made a general effort to explain your argument without resorting to an appeal to authority.  Can't you give me a general, cause and effect explanation?  Because a completely blackbox argument convinces no one.

[Aqizzar]

Needs Citation/Elaboration.

A citation is not an appeal to authority.  (For reference, an appeal to authority would be the Lincoln quote Vactor posted as if it were an inarguable certificate of rightness.)  Inability to understand an answer does not mean the answer is wrong.  Being unable to argue with other peoples' works does not make them wrong.

What umiman was chastising you about was citing your own demand for further explanation as a problem with his answers without any specific criticism.  Refusing an answer by way of demanding a better one, especially without offering an alternative answer of your own, is an argument only by frame - it's certainly not a good one.  Now, if you were to instead just ask for an explanation, without the implication that the answer somehow has to pass your muster to be correct, you'd all be getting along better.

I really wish I could comment more on the subject of political outcomes of recessions and unequal wealth, but my field is argument not economics.

[mainiac]

But I'm not saying he's wrong!  I'm saying I feel left out!  This is an interesting topic for me, but he's hiding his points behind a curtain.   

If he feels there's a point in telling me what the right point of view is, why can't he tell me anything about that point of view?

I mean, suppose I was explaining natural selection.  I wouldn't need to start off by explaining how fraternal bonds act as an evolutionary device.  That's more dept then is needed.  But I could say:

You've got random changes and variations in the gene pool.  These differences in genetic makeup result in different traits in organisms of the same species.  These traits affect the odds of an organism surviving and reproducing.  Genes are only passed on by creatures that reproduce.  Thus over time, the genetic makeup of a population is going to be influenced by "selective" pressures.

Isn't that a much more interesting thing to say then something like:

Look, natural selection happens.  You don't know what you are talking about.  But this was explained by:
The origin of species (Darwin explains evolution)
The monk in the garden (a description of Mendel's work on hereditary factors)
The selfish gene (Dawkins explains natural selection)

The second kind of argument makes for a really boring discussion.  It has it's place if someone is being obtuse.  But I don't think it's obtuse to ask for an explanation that's actually comprehensible.  I still have no clue what uniman's argument is.  And that makes me sad because it's probably a really interesting argument.

[codezero]

Keep in mind that developing economies tend to be very dependent on the export of low value resources (mineral extraction/agriculture/fossil fuels.)  Currency instability and reduced imports by developed economies thus can have a devastating economic effect.

Just want to dispute this point. Which workers are laid off in economic instability, farmers or secretarys? Miners or bankers? And what can we more do without, food or ipods? Houses or movies?

Also note that Australia is a first world nation, and as far as I know our 2 main exports are in the agricultural and mining sectors. I'd guess China's main exports to be in the manufacturing sector.

Developed economies may reduce their import of resources, but developing countries will still win* out economically if they are producing the more nessesary goods and services, and that's labour assets, not capital speculation.

*Relatively, developed nation's will lose more than developing nations, thus developing nations will actually have more of the worlds money.

[yggiz]

Everyone knows labor strikes. It's worse when capital goes on strike.

Suffering in America is nothing like suffering under the Tsar, or some Generalissimo, or anything like that. Whine about the Patriot act, but no one is going to send you and your family to prison for posting or commenting in this thread. Get some perspective.

It is easy to use "the rich" as whipping boys for the ills in society, and in our lives. It does not make it true. Envy of a bunch of trust fund baby airheads, and ANYONE with a show on E! or MTV is understandable. If someone is a jerk to me, I get angry. I draw the line at contemplating revolution. Revolution is for Important Things. Not because of 300 dollar haircuts and gold dolphin fountain statues. More like the state imprisoning you for 25 years because your neighbor denounced you to the secret police. That way he could take your stereo. And even revolution for Important Things can lead to very undesirable results.

Read Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and John Halliday, to see this particular fellow's rise to power from very humble peasant family beginnings. And then the ruthlessness he treats people, not just class enemies or masses of unnamed peasants, but his own ideological allies. Even if you are a dedicated Maoist waving your little red book and murdering your teachers, you ought to read about the conflicts Chiang Kai-Shek was dealing with. Die hard ideologues will never be changed by this book of course( I'm sure that the BBC correspondent I heard bragging about waving the little red book around in England during their youth will never consider reading this obvious rightist propaganda. Maybe Mao's meeting with Nixon and Kissinger hurt his popularity more than the Cultural Revolution).

Read The Gulag Archipelago, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Read all three volumes, no abridgements. I cannot stress it enough. Although long, it is a very quick read, with a lot of personal anecdotes about secret police arrests and interrogations, the brutal nature of the forced labor camps (Solzhenitsyn and other testimonies attest that forced-death was the real goal for political prisoners (nicknamed 5-8's in honor to the article of the criminal code that enabled their imprisonment), and personal stories about cowardice and bravery among all the "zeks". Make sure to read about the differences in the way Criminal Offenders were treated as opposed to Political Offenders. I'd become a burglar just for the better treatment than the poor fellow who wrote a limerick about Lenin. Or looked like he was going to write it.

And the stories are true!

Read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, for a rationale that wealth in and of itself is not evil, but many of the pursuits of it are. Read about how producing something is good, and that it is also the goal of those capitalists that the real world loves to hate. Read about how picking yourself up, and DOING something with your live is way more moral than forcing others to support those who won't support themselves, through ignorance, greed, or whatever. I am no Objectivist, but the most important part, in my honest opinion, is the explanation that money is not evil. If you can read just one part, read that one. And maybe about how faith and force the the biggest sticks to beat honest producers over the head with. Surprising how many communists and anarchists would agree with that last sentence, eh?

But this one is a very difficult read for me. Rand suffers from verbal diarrhea. I get it, oppressive nationalization of other peoples' creations is akin to human sacrifice (ahem, "eat the rich"), you don't need to write another 20-page essay on it!

If you want classless greed pick up a newspaper. Read about robberies and gang shootings and all that. As much as an excuse for class warfare that the AIG guys or Paris Hilton is, they aren't leaving anyone bleeding to death in a gutter.

Revolution is not idle talk. Crazy extremists call for it in the developed nations, sure. Crazy Facists, Anarchists, and Communists. Crazy will be crazy no matter who is in charge. The Left gets into a tizzy claiming the Right in America is sewing the seeds of it with all their gun talk and criticism of Obama. They think that Rush Limbaugh, Fred Phelps, the KKK, the Vatican, Fox News, any church without gay or women ministers and believe in the devil, anything that espouses personal responsibility, limited government, and things that scare Europeans are all the same beast. Just because they believe it, doesn't make it true. I am no racist, I do not murder gays, I won't force quadriplegics to go to work. Just like not all Left wingers favor nationalization of industries, disabling the military or police, or abortion-on-demand. Glenn Beck, right wing radio guy, believes that disenfranchisement of citizenry of all types, Left, Right, Bi, and Non Partisan will lead to revolution. He's just a glass half empty sort of guy about this subject.

You want to see a real nut who I would love to see his civil rights get trampled on over and over again. Google Alex Jones, Google FEMA Camps, check out prisonplanet.com. I am not worried about this 9/11 Truther starting the revolution, he's too busy making money off of the racket. I am worried about the posters to his websites, and the callers whenever he is featured on Coast-to-Coast AM, the late night conspiracy theory radio program. I don't think the Left or the Right would be glad for enough of these guys to get together with stuff that explodes.

Great Thread
Full disclosure: I am a social conservative, believe in the free market. I am a Kounter-Revolutionary 4 life after reading about the Archipelago. I'll be going to the camps eventually, lol

[mainiac]

Just want to dispute this point. Which workers are laid off in economic instability, farmers or secretarys? Miners or bankers? And what can we more do without, food or ipods? Houses or movies?

It's not that people stop eating.  It's that the price farmers get for food goes down due to changes in the exchange rate, even as consumers pay the same price.

Read Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, for a rationale that wealth in and of itself is not evil, but many of the pursuits of it are. Read about how producing something is good, and that it is also the goal of those capitalists that the real world loves to hate. Read about how picking yourself up, and DOING something with your live is way more moral than forcing others to support those who won't support themselves, through ignorance, greed, or whatever. I am no Objectivist, but the most important part, in my honest opinion, is the explanation that money is not evil. If you can read just one part, read that one. And maybe about how faith and force the the biggest sticks to beat honest producers over the head with. Surprising how many communists and anarchists would agree with that last sentence, eh?

But this one is a very difficult read for me. Rand suffers from verbal diarrhea. I get it, oppressive nationalization of other peoples' creations is akin to human sacrifice (ahem, "eat the rich"), you don't need to write another 20-page essay on it!

Reading Ayn Rand made me want to slit my wrists.  The character she cast as heroic struck me as a shallow egoist whom I was much more afraid of then the villains.

IMHO, her entire premise is a load of shit because the world doesn't boil down to a simple producers vs. oppressors like she portrays.  If it did then we would all be, ironically enough, communists.