By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Microsoft admits to dodging $29B in taxes. Yes, billion with a B.

VanceIX on 23 August 2014

It's sad, but that's the way almost all the huge corporations operate now. Doesn't excuse Microsoft at all, but it is an industry-wide problem for American companies.



                                                                                                               You're Gonna Carry That Weight.

Xbox One - PS4 - Wii U - PC

Around the Network
DevilRising on 23 August 2014

And yet working Americans have to pay taxes. If all these super rich and big corporations paid their fair share, this country would be in fine shape.



sc94597 on 23 August 2014
Zackasaurus-rex said:
sc94597 said:
Zackasaurus-rex said:

sc94597 said:

 Of course Wall Street does, it is by its very nature corporatist, and it supports corporatism (the merger of corporations and states.) Wall-street continues to support legislators and regulators who support corporatism in opposition to free-markets. 

 

"Corporatism" is the natural evolution of capitalism whenever there is a state. It is a market advantage to use the state, and it is a political advantage to use the markets.

 

Fascism (and thus the creation of an exceptionally bad state) is the natural evolution of capitalism without a state. Anarchy and private hierarchy are incompatible. 

 

The fallacy that the "free market" can exist in a bubble outside of politics needs to be laid to rest. If you want to preserve the neoclassical status quo, you first need to acknowledge that fact, so that serious legislative, constitutional, and cultural changes can be considered.

Your definition of fascism seems off. Fascism cannot exist without a state, because it is defined by a totalitarian state. And fascism has nothing to do with capitalism, but rather much to do with the syndicalism which opposed capitalism in the early 20th century, often tethered with populist rhetoric. Corporatism is just syndicalism that doesn't oppose the traditional marxist definition of "capitalism" but more-so free-market economies (which most socialists supported in the 19th century - because most socialists were mutualists not marxists.) 

You misunderstand me, and I don't need Wikipedia links. I do political philosophy for a living. But thanks! c:

What I am saying is that capitalism and anarchy cannot co-exist, as any attempt leads to private tyranny, the formation of a state, and thus some variant of a fascist or perhaps monarchist institution. Private control, unleashed, expands exponentially. Your "free market" is dependent on a state. And, yes, that state also has the potential to destroy said market. It's a balancing act. The very formation of the capitalist economy depended on statist mercantilism in order to even get started. I wrote a paper on it not long ago, actually, as it's a history I find full of interesting implications.

Syndicalism is a form of union-based socialism, with the means of production democratically controlled by the workers, with elected management and institutions to protect that. It's a theory of democratic economics which is indeed opposed to privatised economics.

Mutualists, for the record, opposed private economic control. Mutualism is a socialist-anarchist philosophy advocating a communal culture based on voluntary contribution. It's decidedly an anti-capitalist philosophy and was created by an anti-capitalist philosopher (Proudhon, who claimed that all private property is theft from society).

Fascism is absolutely not syndicalism. It in fact stands in absolute opposition to it. For one thing, syndicalism is related to the anarchist school of thought. Some syndicalists are in fact anarchists, and others propose a very minimalist democratic state for managing legal/production conflicts. Whereas, fascism is a super-statist ideology based on the idea that capitalism is good, but that it eventually decays under decadence. Fascism thus takes a strongly centralized right-wing government with a nearly limitless leader and uses that to manage and assist the capitalist class while attempting to uplift lower classes into a middle class status (as long as those lower/middle class individuals meet the terms of the fascist, be they religious, racist, ideological, etc.).

Thus, syndicalism is workers' management of formerly capitalist production, while fascism is statist management of capitalist production.

Corporatism is also a radical departure from syndicalism. Corporatism is modern capitalism, to which syndicalism is entirely opposed. With the growth of the capitalist class into a super-capitalist class owning/maintaining enormous corporations on an international level and reaping profits at previously uncomprehensible levels, capitalists found that it made good business sense to use said money to influence the state in their favour. At the same time, those politicians who are courted benefit from the bribes and support. Effectively, corporatism is the stage of capitalism in which the oligarchy is made concrete, eradicating practical democracy and limiting competition wherever possible. At the same time, it limits the cooperation of anyone not in that ruling body.

If you want to be a defender of lower-stage capitalism and oppose higher stages of capitalism like corporatism and imperialism, then you need to advocate cultural and political change in order to limit how much power private individuals can acquire. You might find Robert Reich's book, Supercapitalism, to be in line with your views. c:

Personally, I think the idea that this balance can be struck is foolhardy, and that more radical change is in order. We probably disagree on that matter.

Capitalism, according to 19th century socialists, was not a free-market economic system though, it was a mixed-economy in which government and private entities "exploited" the labor of the proleritat so that the borgiouse could accumulate monetary wealth and private property. Mussolini (arguably the father of "fascism") was also a syndicalist and corporatist (you cannot have democratic economic planning of the means of production without a state or a corporation.) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_syndicalism

That is the form of syndicalism present in fascist states. 

"In the early 20th century, nationalists and syndicalists were increasingly influencing each other in Italy.[5] From 1902 to 1910, a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists including Arturo Labriola, Agostino Lanzillo, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, and Sergio Panunzio sought to unify the Italian nationalist cause with the syndicalist cause and had entered into contact with Italian nationalist figures such as Enrico Corradini.[6] These Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeoisvalues, democracy, liberalism, Marxism, internationalism, and pacifism while promoting heroism, vitalism, and violence.[7] Many of these national syndicalist proponents would go on to become Fascists"

 

National syndicalism was intended to win over the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) to a corporatist nationalism. Ledesma's manifesto was discussed in the CNT congress of 1931. However, the National Syndicalist movement effectively emerged as a separate political tendency. Later the same year, Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista was formed, and subsequently voluntarily fused with Falange Española. In 1936 Franco forced a further less voluntary merger with traditionalist Carlism, to create a single party on the Nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War. It was one of the ideological bases of Francoist Spain, especially in the early years.

As for proudhon, while he opposed the private ownership of property that wasn't obtained through homesteading (he had no problem with homestead property) he did not want to force people to give up ownership. Mutualism was all about voluntary interactions, and while it is socialist in nature, my point was that free-markets aren't exclusively admired by capitalists, but also by socialists. 



sc94597 on 23 August 2014
thx1139 said:
sc94597 said:
thx1139 said:

Recently I listened to a talk about a recent study and it came down to this. All poor scores are all about poverty. Was something like in districts with 80 or 90% of children 150% or more above the poverty level the US leads the world in scores.  It is children in poverty that bring the scores down.  Most of the rest of the 1st world have much stronger social safety nets and because of this poor children dont perform well at all in the US.

If we are to speak of absolute poverty and not relative poverty, the United States does not have many more poor people (as a percentage) than a lot of these countries that succeed it, even if we speak of social safety nets. I really don't see how poverty can be the major determing factor when education is mostly socialized in the U.S. One can argue that less of an emphasis is put on education by poor parents and neighborrs, but that is a cultural quality, and certainly not something that can be fixed by more spending or social safety net. The only solution to that is greater economic prosperity that emphasizes the role of self-improvement and education, and which motivates these poor parents and neighbors to influence students toward better education. 

Most of the countries that have better scores do better with social safety net programs like feeding kids. A kid that is hungry doesnt learn well. Like either subsidies for single mother or poorer familes so the kids have care givers rather then people working multiple jobs and the kids being taken care of by the TV.  So our direct spending for the schools are higher, but the indirect taking care of the poor children results in poorer results.  So our poor kids go to school hungry and go home to an empty home. Other countries poor kids get fed and go home to a caregiver who has the time to work on studies with the kid.

So children under the poverty level don't receive food stamps and free school lunches in the United States? I grew up in the bottom 5% and never went hungry. I'm finding it hard to believe that any poor person does in fact. My mother got $600 in food stamps a month, and I got free lunches everyday in school. Hell, in some states they send home vouchers so that kids can get lunches on the weekends from the supermarket. I honestly don't believe that poor people go hungry with the current welfare system in the United States, as I've experienced it first hand and know a multitude of people who have as well. 



thx1139 on 27 August 2014

Just so happens Rolling Stone just published an article about the tactic I talked about. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-biggest-tax-scam-ever-20140827



Its libraries that sell systems not a single game.