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Have you ever had a course in Critical Thinking in any educational institution?
| I have taken formal philosophy classes, but I was not able to do so until college. Most of high school constituted a stultification of creativity and critical thinking. Most of what I learned of value was on my own.
By the way, I enjoy your posts a lot. They lay out the importance of critical thinking and of philosophy very well. Quote: |
On government and and people or people and business CT can lead to many unknown outcomes. For example, one can complain about wage or costs of products or government services as compared to tax paid to support the government...
| What do you mean? Presumably, critical thinking leads to more logical outcomes than the absence of it. Quote:
Wipe the blackboard clean and here you are hungry and there is a person with more food than he needs for himself... do you trade labor for some of his food, or do you provide him a service of some type for some of his food? In Korea when you shop on a street market there is no price on any item, all items are the "value" you are willing to pay for them. The CT in thinking about wages could say during the last eight years wages are stagnant but closer examination would reveal wages went up but they went up to cover increases in health insurance so the increase in wage was actually a transaction without you holding the money in your hand.
Money, what is it? It is a constant value to be matched to something you want that is in the possession of another person. In short it is stored barter tool for acquiring all that is not in your possession that you desire to have in your possession. So critical thinking would conclude you did in fact get a pay raise but your employer spent your money for you.
| Money is a form of capital, and capital is merely stored-up labor. Whether wages increase or decrease is irrelevant in an exploitative system where the worker is alienated from the product of his labor and his "species-being". It would be like arguing for slavery merely because the standard of living has increased (and indeed, Southerners did use such an argument).
Under what context are you saying wages have increased? In actuality the income gap has not only increased in the United States but it has also increased globally. Since the advent of capitalistic globalization, the poorest in the world are forced to live on less while the capitalists (i.e. those who are accumulating the capital [exploited labor]) have increased their profits.
If you're saying that America as a society has gained in capital then you're right. I think it's obvious, being the world economic super power. All that means is we're just exploiting more people. It would match the data too, considering the third world has gotten poorer. America is dealing with the absurdity of overabundance while the third world riots over a food crisis. Quote: |
What do you desire government do for you?
| It depends. This is a source of debate with myself. In short, is it better to take your problems to the labor board or to your union? This is the main source of division among the left. I think it's circumstantial and particular to the country in question. To me, how it's done is irrelevant so long as a democratic society is secured where the workers own the means of production, non-exploitative property is available, alienation is a thing of the past to a degree as much as possible, and the necessities of life are shared. "If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Economic Left/Right: -9.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72
Last edited by Katczinsky; 06-09-2008 at 04:53 PM.
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