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At 6:23 PM 10/5/94, Ray Cromwell wrote: [...]
[...] Typical of socialists, they are unfamilar with economics and resort to semantic games. A monopoly is defined by (1) one seller, [...] I thought it was 49 cents an hour, however, no one ever accused a socialist knowing the facts. [...] [...]
Typical statements of folks who get thier politics from Heinlein novels and thier understanding of personal interaction from economics 101. [I do not get my politics from Heinlein novels, I got my politics from classical economists. My knowledge of personal interaction comes from years of interacting with net.kooks]
Perhaps it was a hasty generalization, but a typical tactic of leftists I have observed, from experience debating in political newsgroups and in their own literature, is that they like to redefine things so it suits their own purpose. When you're debating economics and politics, you do not get to make "monopoly", "coercion", "profit", "wage", etc mean anything you want. Another tendency is that they tend to be ignorant of economics so that they do not understand concepts like opportunity cost, comparitive advantage, rational expectations, and therefore discussing economics gets you know where because all the tools of analysis are removed. How can you analyze the statement "everyone will share everything, everything will be free" from an economic viewpoint? It is a religious statement with no content.
The point being that there is no place for ideological attacks like this in a 'rational' forum trying to discuss 'real life'. Wait, this discussion *is* to be considered valid intellectual discourse, right?
What if the original poster had said "5 cents an hour + daily whippings delivered by a wall street capitalist?" The point is, his figures were overblown. That is one of Chomsky's main criticisms of western media, such as their numbers on the number of deaths in cambodia. If you use propaganda language, expect to be flamed on it. NOW pulled the same when they clamed 150,000 women die every year from anorexia and SuperBowl Sunday has the highest rate of spousal abuse during the year. Both were completely made up figures.