mujeresliebres (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mujeresliebres) wrote,@ 2008-03-19 08:55:00 |
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To Mr. Sizemore,
Having just noticed your old reply to my comment, I decided to post my rebuttal here: where I would notice any of your responses. Original found here http://tom-sizemore.livejournal.com/3311
(1) In the first place the Act of 1833 - the actual text - does not say that it is going to pay the slave owners 20 million pounds and then the slaves will be freed. It says that the Parliament could raise the sum of up to 20 million pounds and that the slaves were to actually enter into an apprenticeship system for six years. Whippings continued, slaves were paid a wage but then had to buy their food shelter etc from their masters (The Abolition of Negro Apprenticeship in the British Empire, by Charles H. Wesley The Journal of Negro History © 1938 Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, Inc.). So it was hardly manumission. Secondly the Caribbean was ruined economically because there was no system to take its place and because the slave owners weren't actually paid "fair market" price, as hideous as that sounds. http://books.google.com/books?id=YGYwAAA
The British Empire freeing of the slaves was hardly in full or actually that effective at avoiding economic ruin or violence.
As to your second example, Haiti had a war of independence, so I'm not sure how that applies - the whites got money to resettle and such - it was like getting FEMA money (slave rebellion = natural disaster). And I'm having trouble finding information on the French situation probably because the best articles are in French. But I'm pretty sure that Napoleon III reinstated slavery. But once again - it was NOT the historical trend out of 39 countries in the New World. Of the 13 British colonies that received compensation every single one was in the Caribbean, along with the 2 French colonies. So one that is not even half, and two Caribbean economies were nothing like the other nations. For one, all of them were colonies at the time that the slaves were freed, so their basic trade apparatus was completely different from the US'. And two, there is the entire issue of scale - the US economy could not be compared to any one Caribbean Island or even all of them combined. At the time of the Civil War there were 4 million slaves in the American South. In the British Caribbean there were just over 540,000 when they were freed.
OK - so once again, there was no trend, when it did happen it was not demonstrated to benefit said economies, and for the final time wouldn't the government buying off the slaves be an example of government interference into the economy - something Ron Paul would want to avoid?
(2) Actually increased mechanization is associated with declining wages, in pure terms. The craftsman makes more money than the assembly line worker, and the assembly line worker who now operates the machine will eventually make less because of deskilling of the labor. The reason that workers have been able to work fewer hours, and receive increasing compensation is because worker's movements demanded them. The industrial revolution did not create better living conditions for the majority of people; it merely created a different type of poverty. Increasing capital and machines only increases the standard of living of the capitalists. Furthermore increased mechanization clearly causes unemployment . What do the assembly line workers do when they are replaced by a machine?
Your wage, in the purest terms is based on skill, other factors for example danger involved in the job factor in. A job that requires a degree is typically going to pay more than one that doesn't. One where you can get shot or maybe catch fire will pay more than one that doesn't. Normally. The employer has to pay a wage that offsets those other costs. Otherwise the cost of the job, except for the most dedicated people, would be too much to bear. That being said, no amount of education will ever guarantee someone a good paying job. In a capitalist economy, employers will always try to find someone who will work for less which also cause unemployment. Assembly line jobs went to Mexico then China; people were told to get education in computers instead of relying on the assembly line job, then those jobs went to India; and finally insurance companies will now sometimes fly surgery patients to India to get surgery because its more cost effective. Without government regulation or union protection, an employee can be outsourced or fired at any time. Its called "at will" employment. In a union job an employer needs to show "just cause."
I think you're ignoring some basic realities of labor in this country. Like the issue of unemployment v underemployment. People working union jobs pretty much work their one job. People in crappy minimum wage jobs often work 2 or 3. Unemployment and the minimum wage are not as directly linked as you seem to think. There are WAY more factors at hand. For example, both Hawaii and Kentucky have a minimum wage of $7.25 but Hawaii has an unemployment rate of 3.1% and Kentucky is at 5.2%. New Jersey and Michigan both pay $7.15 but NJ has a 4.5% rate and Michigan is at 7.1%. Secondly, unemployment is not necessarily a straight line to poverty rates either - Monroe county is below the state average in unemployment but has the highest rate of poverty (4.7%, 22% respectively in 2005). While Steuben had a 6.2% unemployment rate and a 10% poverty rate (lower than the national average). Finally a lot of unionization does not equal a high rate of unemployment. Hawaii has one of the highest rates of unionization in the country - at 24% and consistently has the lowest unemployment rate of all the states. Michigan has a high rate of unionization as well, around 20%, but has extremely high unemployment. But unemployment there was caused by manufacturing jobs fleeing overseas - something they do regardless of unionization.
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/saipe/saip
http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/docs/laus/l
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t
(3) Claiming origin of collective power in individual rights, whether it is the state or a social movement, does not prove that resulting rights are not collective ones which can be held independently from and sometimes in direct contradiction of individual ones. This is perhaps the dumbest part of libertarianism. Simply to deny the existence of something as an article of faith. You said, "when individuals are acting toward a common goal, and are in agreement, it is still only individuals that act, and only individuals that have motivations and responsibilities." Just because the libertarian position denies the existence of collective agency does not mean it doesn't exist. Why not ask the individuals belonging in such groups whether or not they think it exists. Your statement implies that every single member of the civil rights movement would have traded collective liberation for individual privilege which is clearly not true. Now some would - clearly there are scabs and informants etc, but collective agency does exist. And rights originate from agency - not from some idea of private property.
Men as a group do benefit from patriarchy. Now individually, an individual man can act in such a way in order to try and not oppress women. An individual man can do all sorts of things, but that doesn't change the fact that being a man in a patriarchal society grants privilege. Just as being white grants privilege or being straight. A man walking down the street doesn't typically fear being raped (a man in prison is of course a different story). With an identical resume, a white sounding name on an application will almost always be hired over a black sounding name. And straight people take it for granted that their sexuality will allow them the legal and financial benefits of marriage. Just because an individual chooses to act differently does not negate the existence of structural oppression.
After the Civil War, it was understood that some sort of reparations would need to be made (40 acres and a mule), but Johnson rescinded the order when Lincoln died. And since some form of direct to the individual reparations were never made, I would say African-Americans today deserve to receive some sort of collective reparation. You can't just say we're all magically created equal when in fact we do not have equal opportunity. In no statistical measure of living standards do blacks come close to equaling whites. Slavery leaves a mark. Just saying nothing is owed because all the original slaves are dead doesn't make sense. White people as a group still benefit from structural racism and latent bigotry, even though as individuals we can try to challenge it. I'm not really how to solve that issue but that doesn't change the fact that despite the absence of slave owners white people still benefit from the historical legacy of slavery.
"Individuals act with common goals sometimes, but it is still only individuals that act and that have rights." No. The idea that groups have rights is the foundation of democracy. It is the foundation of self-determination. People have the right to form their own countries. They have the right to organize.
4) If people think abortion is murder, then they will never accept scientific data, they believe that the fetus has a soul and that's the end of it. The question is of course agency, a full grown woman has the ability to make choices and her personal autonomy trumps that of the fetus. My point is that Ron Paul is all for the rights of the individual but does not grant complete personal autonomy to women because of his religious beliefs.
Ack I'm done.
Having just noticed your old reply to my comment, I decided to post my rebuttal here: where I would notice any of your responses. Original found here http://tom-sizemore.livejournal.com/3311
(1) In the first place the Act of 1833 - the actual text - does not say that it is going to pay the slave owners 20 million pounds and then the slaves will be freed. It says that the Parliament could raise the sum of up to 20 million pounds and that the slaves were to actually enter into an apprenticeship system for six years. Whippings continued, slaves were paid a wage but then had to buy their food shelter etc from their masters (The Abolition of Negro Apprenticeship in the British Empire, by Charles H. Wesley The Journal of Negro History © 1938 Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, Inc.). So it was hardly manumission. Secondly the Caribbean was ruined economically because there was no system to take its place and because the slave owners weren't actually paid "fair market" price, as hideous as that sounds. http://books.google.com/books?id=YGYwAAA
The British Empire freeing of the slaves was hardly in full or actually that effective at avoiding economic ruin or violence.
As to your second example, Haiti had a war of independence, so I'm not sure how that applies - the whites got money to resettle and such - it was like getting FEMA money (slave rebellion = natural disaster). And I'm having trouble finding information on the French situation probably because the best articles are in French. But I'm pretty sure that Napoleon III reinstated slavery. But once again - it was NOT the historical trend out of 39 countries in the New World. Of the 13 British colonies that received compensation every single one was in the Caribbean, along with the 2 French colonies. So one that is not even half, and two Caribbean economies were nothing like the other nations. For one, all of them were colonies at the time that the slaves were freed, so their basic trade apparatus was completely different from the US'. And two, there is the entire issue of scale - the US economy could not be compared to any one Caribbean Island or even all of them combined. At the time of the Civil War there were 4 million slaves in the American South. In the British Caribbean there were just over 540,000 when they were freed.
OK - so once again, there was no trend, when it did happen it was not demonstrated to benefit said economies, and for the final time wouldn't the government buying off the slaves be an example of government interference into the economy - something Ron Paul would want to avoid?
(2) Actually increased mechanization is associated with declining wages, in pure terms. The craftsman makes more money than the assembly line worker, and the assembly line worker who now operates the machine will eventually make less because of deskilling of the labor. The reason that workers have been able to work fewer hours, and receive increasing compensation is because worker's movements demanded them. The industrial revolution did not create better living conditions for the majority of people; it merely created a different type of poverty. Increasing capital and machines only increases the standard of living of the capitalists. Furthermore increased mechanization clearly causes unemployment . What do the assembly line workers do when they are replaced by a machine?
Your wage, in the purest terms is based on skill, other factors for example danger involved in the job factor in. A job that requires a degree is typically going to pay more than one that doesn't. One where you can get shot or maybe catch fire will pay more than one that doesn't. Normally. The employer has to pay a wage that offsets those other costs. Otherwise the cost of the job, except for the most dedicated people, would be too much to bear. That being said, no amount of education will ever guarantee someone a good paying job. In a capitalist economy, employers will always try to find someone who will work for less which also cause unemployment. Assembly line jobs went to Mexico then China; people were told to get education in computers instead of relying on the assembly line job, then those jobs went to India; and finally insurance companies will now sometimes fly surgery patients to India to get surgery because its more cost effective. Without government regulation or union protection, an employee can be outsourced or fired at any time. Its called "at will" employment. In a union job an employer needs to show "just cause."
I think you're ignoring some basic realities of labor in this country. Like the issue of unemployment v underemployment. People working union jobs pretty much work their one job. People in crappy minimum wage jobs often work 2 or 3. Unemployment and the minimum wage are not as directly linked as you seem to think. There are WAY more factors at hand. For example, both Hawaii and Kentucky have a minimum wage of $7.25 but Hawaii has an unemployment rate of 3.1% and Kentucky is at 5.2%. New Jersey and Michigan both pay $7.15 but NJ has a 4.5% rate and Michigan is at 7.1%. Secondly, unemployment is not necessarily a straight line to poverty rates either - Monroe county is below the state average in unemployment but has the highest rate of poverty (4.7%, 22% respectively in 2005). While Steuben had a 6.2% unemployment rate and a 10% poverty rate (lower than the national average). Finally a lot of unionization does not equal a high rate of unemployment. Hawaii has one of the highest rates of unionization in the country - at 24% and consistently has the lowest unemployment rate of all the states. Michigan has a high rate of unionization as well, around 20%, but has extremely high unemployment. But unemployment there was caused by manufacturing jobs fleeing overseas - something they do regardless of unionization.
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/saipe/saip
http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/docs/laus/l
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t
(3) Claiming origin of collective power in individual rights, whether it is the state or a social movement, does not prove that resulting rights are not collective ones which can be held independently from and sometimes in direct contradiction of individual ones. This is perhaps the dumbest part of libertarianism. Simply to deny the existence of something as an article of faith. You said, "when individuals are acting toward a common goal, and are in agreement, it is still only individuals that act, and only individuals that have motivations and responsibilities." Just because the libertarian position denies the existence of collective agency does not mean it doesn't exist. Why not ask the individuals belonging in such groups whether or not they think it exists. Your statement implies that every single member of the civil rights movement would have traded collective liberation for individual privilege which is clearly not true. Now some would - clearly there are scabs and informants etc, but collective agency does exist. And rights originate from agency - not from some idea of private property.
Men as a group do benefit from patriarchy. Now individually, an individual man can act in such a way in order to try and not oppress women. An individual man can do all sorts of things, but that doesn't change the fact that being a man in a patriarchal society grants privilege. Just as being white grants privilege or being straight. A man walking down the street doesn't typically fear being raped (a man in prison is of course a different story). With an identical resume, a white sounding name on an application will almost always be hired over a black sounding name. And straight people take it for granted that their sexuality will allow them the legal and financial benefits of marriage. Just because an individual chooses to act differently does not negate the existence of structural oppression.
After the Civil War, it was understood that some sort of reparations would need to be made (40 acres and a mule), but Johnson rescinded the order when Lincoln died. And since some form of direct to the individual reparations were never made, I would say African-Americans today deserve to receive some sort of collective reparation. You can't just say we're all magically created equal when in fact we do not have equal opportunity. In no statistical measure of living standards do blacks come close to equaling whites. Slavery leaves a mark. Just saying nothing is owed because all the original slaves are dead doesn't make sense. White people as a group still benefit from structural racism and latent bigotry, even though as individuals we can try to challenge it. I'm not really how to solve that issue but that doesn't change the fact that despite the absence of slave owners white people still benefit from the historical legacy of slavery.
"Individuals act with common goals sometimes, but it is still only individuals that act and that have rights." No. The idea that groups have rights is the foundation of democracy. It is the foundation of self-determination. People have the right to form their own countries. They have the right to organize.
4) If people think abortion is murder, then they will never accept scientific data, they believe that the fetus has a soul and that's the end of it. The question is of course agency, a full grown woman has the ability to make choices and her personal autonomy trumps that of the fetus. My point is that Ron Paul is all for the rights of the individual but does not grant complete personal autonomy to women because of his religious beliefs.
Ack I'm done.
