TFT snippet #5

A quibble. Capitalism controlled by Kleptocratic Oligarchs will be comparable to socialism. The form of ownership is far less important than voluntary exchange and free markets. I will concede that socialism drastically limits just how free a market can be as well as limiting the areas where there can be voluntary exchange compared to full and broad private ownership. So while socialism inherently limits free markets and voluntary exchange more so than capitalism, who owns the capital is less port ant than how the capital is used.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Capital is simply stored wealth. Capitalism is simply the protection and use of privately owned stored wealth. The only difference between concentrated privately owned wealth (oligarchs) and concentrated publically owned wealth (Socialists) are who owns the stored wealth.

Disagree. Under capitalism the wealth is mostly controlled by those who have demonstrated the ability to create wealth. Under socialism it's controlled for the good of the people, not by those skilled in it's creation. The result is that over time you end up with more wealth under capitalism than socialism.

The important element in the formation of the middle class is a free market and laws supporting voluntary exchange. When either government or the uber rich can force people to engage in economic activity, there isn't voluntary exchange and whoever owns the wealth(government or private) will be the only ones to prosper. Socialism is far less effecient than a free market that enshrines voluntary exchange. So labor unrest will be best addressed by encouraging free markets and voluntary exchange.

I don't think Charis will have a big problem--they have Merlin to advise them on how you need to handle it to avoid revolts.

Peter.

Seriously.

Learn what socialism is before you start going on about it.

I'm with Peter.

Capitalism is a completely amoral system its about the investment of capital (wealth). Its just the basic parameters on how the economy works. In it of itself isn't the end all be all, as Peter points out if you got Oligarchs controlling everything, and especially if they use the State (through favors, campaign contributions or straight up bribes) to control the wealth via laws or regulations so that they ensure that they are the ones who profit its a very bad thing. The question is who has the control on how resources get allocated. True Centralized economic planning has a distinct tendency to kill far more of their own people when it works catastrophically bad (looking at you Russia, China, Cambodia etc) and will pretty much destroy the economy and livelihoods of even prosperous nations. Some can peter along like Argentina (look into how wealthy they were at turn of the 20th century), others pretty much economically collapse like Cuba and more recently Venezuala.

Having a true free market is the real trick to make it all work, that's how the standard of living has risen so ludicrously high over the last century or so. Not saying there weren't speed bumps along the way, and some of the crap that went on in the late 1800s in factories was a bit of an issue, but its nowhere near as bad as the ludicrous levels of mass starvation that authorization government inflicted upon their own people, "for the good of the people". Most of the modern "concessions" to workers like a 40 hour work week and a 2 day weekend were implemented cause of a free market system, where people are able to control the capital of their labor and find a new job. Employers like Henry Ford had to offer them something to make people come work for them in the tight labor market.

There is no way you will see some kind of marxist, or its safeholdian equivalent, revolution happen in Charis. Their economy is based on free-market capitalism and its working quite well. Even the whole labor union movement that you see in the late 1800s early 1900s in the US has been pre-empted by people like Howysmyn who were smart enough to take safety and work conditions dead seriously even before they had access to all the history of earth. He already has stewards that are elected by his workers to speak for their issues and concerns.

That being RFC has already mentioned the Leveler's who were railing against Charisan capitalism in Siddimark. Granted they were some of the bigger supporters of the sword, so my guess is they did not come to the best of ends when all was said and done, but it was implied its not an isolated incident. Places like Harchong and Desnair? Where they live as slaves toiling away? Yea that is a whole different issue, and it will probably end just as badly as it did in places like Russia or China during the revolution.

runsforcelery wrote:

Randomiser wrote:Northern oil trees - Oh dear. Upwards of 15,000 men caught in this narrow roadbed with an impenetrable forest fire raging around them. Ouch! One feels sympathy for the poor soldiers.

Winter Glory is just the embodiment of "fat and happy".

As a simple security measure, the ammunition for all those rifles will have been sent with a different convoy, won't it?

<snip>
Just as matter of curiosity, if the rifles are being sent to mate up with a field force which has no rifles yet (and thus no ammo for the nonexistent rifles it doesn't have) why wouldn't a peacetime convoy with a powerful escort be used to send the needed ammo to the same force at the same time? Be kinda pointless to issue them all those nice, short, clumsy spears without any ammunition to shoot out of the spear shaft, wouldn't it?

1) I was reminding readers that you would have ensured an ammunition supply for the serfs

2) I was encouraging reflection on how complacent the government was in assuming that it was peacetime and their convoy was perfectly safe. (Sporadic uprisings have been popping up for quite a while)

3) I was anticipating the response of many of the Aristocracy in blaming the ministers (Aristos who would, of course, have done exactly the same thing themselves)

4) I was indulging in a bit of Shadenfreude (What does it say about a culture that it has such a word in its language, anyway?)

In other words, I was mostly having fun, but from North Wind Blowing's POV your comments are perfectly reasonable and business as usual.

Annachie wrote:Peter.

Seriously.

Learn what socialism is before you start going on about it.

Address the issues in the post if you disagree. Offer something for other posters to consider rather than behave as if this was Politics.

I don't see Charis have much of a problem with labor strikes because people like Howsmahn and others are getting ahead of the problems that prompted the labor unrest of the 1870's to the 1930's. Those strikes were mostly about wages, working conditions and safety. FYI it wasn't the unions that started pushing for the 40 hour week, weekends off and a living wage. It was Henry Ford who started it. It was not for altruistic reasons either. It was so his workers could be able to afford to buy his cars and have the time to do something with those same cars.

saber964 wrote:I don't see Charis have much of a problem with labor strikes because people like Howsmahn and others are getting ahead of the problems that prompted the labor unrest of the 1870's to the 1930's. Those strikes were mostly about wages, working conditions and safety. FYI it wasn't the unions that started pushing for the 40 hour week, weekends off and a living wage. It was Henry Ford who started it. It was not for altruistic reasons either. It was so his workers could be able to afford to buy his cars and have the time to do something with those same cars.

Alas, Charis is not going to be the only Safeholdian realm to industrialize, is it?

Just saying.

[Walks away, hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly. ]

runsforcelery wrote:

saber964 wrote:I don't see Charis have much of a problem with labor strikes because people like Howsmahn and others are getting ahead of the problems that prompted the labor unrest of the 1870's to the 1930's. Those strikes were mostly about wages, working conditions and safety. FYI it wasn't the unions that started pushing for the 40 hour week, weekends off and a living wage. It was Henry Ford who started it. It was not for altruistic reasons either. It was so his workers could be able to afford to buy his cars and have the time to do something with those same cars.

Alas, Charis is not going to be the only Safeholdian realm to industrialize, is it?

Just saying.

[Walks away, hands in pockets, whistling tunelessly. ]

Dohlar comes to mind, along with Siddarmark (of course.)

Do we reallllly have to wait 5 months to get the book? (insert whine) Tor needs to be convinced that eARCs are an extra sale, not a replacement sale.

NervousEnergy wrote:Dohlar comes to mind, along with Siddarmark (of course.)

"Workers and Peasants People Republic of Siddarmark?" Sound good)

P.S. Must also point, that due to massive amount of historical knowledge available through the Merlin & Co, any possible socialist states on Safehold hardly would repeat the mistakes of Earth historical ones. They would probably adopt the approach like modern-day Vietnam; the State control heavy industry and strategic areas of economy, but allow private enterprises in other areas.

Dilandu wrote:

NervousEnergy wrote:Dohlar comes to mind, along with Siddarmark (of course.)

"Workers and Peasants People Republic of Siddarmark?" Sound good)

P.S. Must also point, that due to massive amount of historical knowledge available through the Merlin & Co, any possible socialist states on Safehold hardly would repeat the mistakes of Earth historical ones. They would probably adopt the approach like modern-day Vietnam; the State control heavy industry and strategic areas of economy, but allow private enterprises in other areas.

Wrong on many levels, but mostly over the fact that Merlin doesn't control the governments of Safehold.

No, Desnairian Worker's Party, you don't organize your socialist workers paradise that way, let me show you how!