Is Capitalism theft?

[Campion]

37 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

I'm a Malthusian. I think the problem is people have too many children. Contraception is the solution to not all, but most of the problems in the Third World today. 

 

Do you think there's an ideal population level for each country, related to its economy? I'm not knowledgeable about the 3rd world particularly, but I'm thinking of the history of 1st world countries.  Once the fertility levels start to drop, they seem to carry on dropping below replacement levels which causes further economic problems and it's hard to increase the fertility back up to a sustainable level. Even if there's a political will. We've had a stagnant economy in the UK since about the credit crunch, and they're only managing to keep a small GDP growth figure because of population growth through immigration.  Whatever the 3rd world does, simply copying us isn't the best idea. 

   

There's a mainstream belief that people will voluntarily use contraception when they get more education and better jobs.  Otherwise, if people remain in poverty and can't rely on government welfare, education and health services, then having a large family around you becomes the strategy.  

[Miltonic]

11 minutes ago, Campion said:

 

Do you think there's an ideal population level for each country, related to its economy? I'm not knowledgeable about the 3rd world particularly, but I'm thinking of the history of 1st world countries.  Once the fertility levels start to drop, they seem to carry on dropping below replacement levels which causes further economic problems and it's hard to increase the fertility back up to a sustainable level. Even if there's a political will. We've had a stagnant economy in the UK since about the credit crunch, and they're only managing to keep a small GDP growth figure because of population growth through immigration.  Whatever the 3rd world does, simply copying us isn't the best idea. 

   

There's a mainstream belief that people will voluntarily use contraception when they get more education and better jobs.  Otherwise, if people remain in poverty and can't rely on government welfare, education and health services, then having a large family around you becomes the strategy.  

Malthusians agree the time for economic growth is over. James Lovelock the noted scientist and environmentalist estimated the optimum global human population should be no greater than one billion. I'll let you breakdown the math. I completely agree with him. Conservationists such as David Attenborough and biologists such as Paul R. Ehrlich have been warning about the danger posed by overpopulation for decades. We're already seeing in South Africa (a prosperous country until 1994 when the white minority government was kicked out by ANC gangsters) how rapid population growth has exacerbated a water crisis.

Edited April 28 by Miltonic

[Talorgan]

3 minutes ago, Campion said:

 

Do you think there's an ideal population level for each country, related to its economy? I'm not knowledgeable about the 3rd world particularly, but I'm thinking of the history of 1st world countries.  Once the fertility levels start to drop, they seem to carry on dropping below replacement levels which causes further economic problems and it's hard to increase the fertility back up to a sustainable level. Even if there's a political will. We've had a stagnant economy in the UK since about the credit crunch, and they're only managing to keep a small GDP growth figure because of population growth through immigration.  Whatever the 3rd world does, simply copying us isn't the best idea. 

   

There's a mainstream belief that people will voluntarily use contraception when they get more education and better jobs.  Otherwise, if people remain in poverty and can't rely on government welfare, education and health services, then having a large family around you becomes the strategy.  

Well wasn't  Malthusian idea to lower the masses of population whilst protecting the elites  who believe  they have superior genes 

from competition by the masses.

 

So if this  Eugenicists strategy was implemented and is still on the go with estrogens,WiFi  ,chemicals , vaccines , pollution,wars  and culturally too.then we  see the population declining  which it is I think as fertility levels plumit .

 

[Miltonic]

11 minutes ago, Talorgan said:

Well wasn't  Malthusian idea to lower the masses of population whilst protecting the elites  who believe  they have superior genes 

from competition by the masses.

If you've read the essay on population Malthus wrote, you'd know he wasn't opposed to piecemeal amelioraton of the lower classes, he was simply elucidating a principle which is population has the capacity for exponential increase and will outstrip the resources available to it. Malthus urged moral restraint. Neo-Malthusians such as myself urge birth control and lots of it.

 

Of course Marx thought Malthus was an agent of the landed gentry.

Edited April 28 by Miltonic

[Mr H]

8 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

Malthusians agree the time for economic growth is over. James Lovelock the noted scientist and environmentalist estimated the optimum global human population should be no greater than one billion. I'll let you breakdown the math. I completely agree with him. Conservationists such as David Attenborough and biologists such as Paul R. Ehrlich have been warning about the danger posed by overpopulation for decades. We're already seeing in South Africa (a prosperous country until 1994 when the white minority government was kicked out by ANC gangsters) how rapid population growth has exacerbated a water crisis.

Why do you think 1billion is optimal?

 

Why do you think we're over populated?

 

You can get in a plane or car and travel over lightly populated areas for hours.

 

Problem in this regard seems to be government resources get directed to cities, people move to cities, more resources to cities, more people go. So cities seem overpopulated but I don't see it anywhere else.

[Miltonic]

1 minute ago, Mr H said:

Why do you think 1billion is optimal?

 

Why do you think we're over populated?

 

You can get in a plane or car and travel over lightly populated areas for hours.

 

Problem in this regard seems to be government resources get directed to cities, people move to cities, more resources to cities, more people go. So cities seem overpopulated but I don't see it anywhere else.

Human chauvinist retort. 

 

Humans have encroached upon the natural habitats of other species which has led to an unparalleled loss of biodiversity. 

[Talorgan]

5 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

If you've read the essay on population Malthus wrote, you'd know he wasn't opposed to piecemeal amelioraton of the lower classes, he was simply elucidating a principle which is population has the capacity for exponential increase and will outstrip the resources available to it. Malthus urged moral restraint. NeoMalthusians such as myself urge birth control and lots of it.

 

Of course Marx thought Malthus was an agent of the landed gentry.

The elite followed Malthusian idea to eliminate the masses ,the Club of Rome had the same task of coming up with a strategy to make humans the enemy , whilst the elite would go on unhindered 

 

Edited April 28 by Talorgan

[Miltonic]

Just now, Talorgan said:

The elite followed Malthusian idea to eliminate the masses ,the Club of Rome had the same ask of coming up with a strategy to make humans the enemy 

Well we are the enemy. I know not everyone is going to agree. Elon Musk certainly doesn't.

[Talorgan]

Definitely the pollution must stop and better ecological systems implemented but we were herded into the industrial revolution by the same group that now blame us for it , the answer is freedom to decide our future for once not 

not an elite always deciding it for ever, especially now with transhumanism and synthetic everything ,they are insane and the quicker the human race wake up globally the better and chose their own paths ,not a dominant small elite plan for" the next million years"

,to quote the book by Charles Galton Darwin who was one of them

 

Edited April 28 by Talorgan

[Mr H]

1 minute ago, Miltonic said:

Human chauvinist retort. 

 

Humans have encroached upon the natural habitats of other species which has led to an unparalleled loss of biodiversity. 

And this has specifically happened during the expansion from 1 billion to 8 billion?

 

Yes you have a loss in some aspects of human growth but gains in other aspects. Bio diversity is not static either. The plants you wish to protect and off the working classes for probably weren't here a 100,000 years ago and won't be in the future.

[Miltonic]

1 minute ago, Mr H said:

And this has specifically happened during the expansion from 1 billion to 8 billion?

Yes, our fecundity is precipitating a mass extinction. It must be stopped. 

https://populationmatters.org/

[Mr H]

3 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

Yes, our fecundity is precipitating a mass extinction. It must be stopped. 

https://populationmatters.org/

Ok. I don't know. It seems like on one hand you are criticizing humans for interfering with nature and biodiversity, but not recognizing human behavior is not separate, and the results we see are part of the activity of nature and biodiversity. 

 

[Mr H]

So I would say the changes in biodiversity is nature. It's subjective whether the changes are good or bad. If 1 or 2 people dissociate themselves and humanity with nature, and decide we are overpopulated, they are taking up the role of Gods and interfering with a natural system based on subjective preferences...

[Campion]

20 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

Yes, our fecundity is precipitating a mass extinction. It must be stopped. 

https://populationmatters.org/

   

World population is already slowing down and most predictions suggest it will go into decline later this century or the next, the example below puts the peak at 10.289 bn in 2084.  

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-projections/   

 

Predictions can be wrong of course, but the existing trend is on a slowdown.  So your wish for a decline is probably going to happen at some point even without some policy changes in the 3rd world. It'll just be a more ethnically African world as that part of the world is the last to slow down.  Why should we slow down more quickly than we already are?  It'll probably end up as yet another criticism of the developed western world lording it over the poor 3rd world.  

Edited April 28 by Campion

[Miltonic]

18 minutes ago, Mr H said:

Ok. I don't know. It seems like on one hand you are criticizing humans for interfering with nature and biodiversity, but not recognizing human behavior is not separate, and the results we see are part of the activity of nature and biodiversity. 

 

Interesting point. I suppose it depends how much you care about the myriad nonhuman biota we share this planet with but the crucial link between environmental degradation and overpopulation has been forgotten. You only have to go back a few decades and there was quite a focused Malthusian lobby and even George H. W. Bush was talking about overpopulation. Now the argument is framed around consumption and not numbers and this is a mistake. 

 

Eventually the human global population will have to be voluntarily reduced by "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" (the great American ecologist Garrett Hardin coined this phrase) or the natural environment will prune our luxurious numbers itself.

Edited April 28 by Miltonic

[Talorgan]

Humans could go in many different ways to the path we are guided  to by a very small elite group ,it is up to the people to realise this and go a more natural way 

[Miltonic]

5 minutes ago, Campion said:

    African world as that part of the world is the last to slow down.  Why should we slow down more quickly than we already are?  It'll probably end up as yet another criticism of the developed western world lording it over the poor 3rd world.  

You could argue and many have that without foreign aid and relief the population in sub-Saharan Africa would never have reached this size. 

[Talorgan]

3 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

You could argue and many have that without foreign aid and relief the population in sub-Saharan Africa would never have reached this size. 

Who knows how many people are on the planet really ?

Also who really knows how many could live here ,it would take a different way of living which imagination could in conjunction with universe allow,

[Mr H]

7 minutes ago, Miltonic said:

Interesting point. I suppose it depends how much you care about the myriad nonhuman biota we share this planet with but the crucial link between environmental degradation and overpopulation has been forgotten. You only have to go back a few decades and there was a quite vocal Malthusian lobby and even George H. W. Bush was talking about overpopulation. Now the argument is framed around consumption and not numbers and this is a mistake. 

 

Eventually the human global population will have to be voluntarily reduced by "mutual coercion mutually agreed upon" (the great American ecologist Garrett Hardin coined this phrase) or the natural environment will prune our luxurious numbers itself.

I see what you're saying. But the non human biota is not static. Is a moving piece. So it wouldn't be sensible to fall in love too much with one particular piece, as it will be replaced even if humans are not here. And not accepting this extinction process which is nature, is to fight against nature itself. In a sense.

 

Yes humans too I suspect like all species will eventually be extinct. That will also be part of the natural processes. And something to accept and embrace. Life is a continual letting go process, allowing space for anew.

[Talorgan]

Humans might be immortal even one day soon  not machines but materialised  spirit , who knows

,but is capitalism theft , perhaps it's the system that has been set up by merchants that has to change ,to allow freedom of human imagination to flourish without debt without entropy even too

Before merchants arrived with money tokens we had a natural system ,which was decentralised .

Now we are herded into megacities and  becoming totally redundant it seems ,so the answer is  decentralisation again or into smaller community societies ,

Edited April 28 by Talorgan

[Mr H]

@Miltonic

 

I would also say. That whatever we chose to call it, nature, god, intelligence, does not give a fk about Pandas, plants or humans. Energy flows towards and creates systems that have the most coherent or effecient structures. We could call this evolution. In terms of humans. I think we can see they will evolve into trans humans, not the ladyboy type. But merged with machines. Not because of some dystopia, but because intelligence/nature will find it a more coherent and efficient system for the energy to flow too. And then something else thereafter....

 

Just my thoughts on that topic. Seem to have gone off tangent a bit from Marxist economics, but I did enjoy the conversation

[Miltonic]

16 minutes ago, Talorgan said:

Humans might be immortal even one day soon who knows ,but is capitalism theft , perhaps it's the system that has been set up by merchants that has to change ,to allow freedom of human imagination to flourish without debt without entropy even too

I'd go along with this. Economics isn't really my bag but perhaps it's time for Keynesian policies again?

[Miltonic]

5 hours ago, Talorgan said:

Definitely the pollution must stop and better ecological systems implemented but we were herded into the industrial revolution by the same group that now blame us for it , the answer is freedom to decide our future for once not 

not an elite always deciding it for ever, especially now with transhumanism and synthetic everything ,they are insane and the quicker the human race wake up globally the better and chose their own paths ,not a dominant small elite plan for" the next million years"

,to quote the book by Charles Galton Darwin who was one of them

 

That text by Charles Galton Darwin is one of my favourites. The problem I have with conspiracy theories is its essentially class warfare. You might as well just become materialist. Every proletariat movement has been materialist or led by virulent materialist ideologues from the French revolution to the Russian revolution. Whereas the aristocratic counter-revolutionary current is vehemently anti-materialist in character. 

[Talorgan]

3 hours ago, Miltonic said:

That text by Charles Galton Darwin is one of my favourites. The problem I have with conspiracy theories is its essentially class warfare. You might as well just become materialist. Every proletariat movement has been materialist or led by virulent materialist ideologues from the French revolution to the Russian revolution. Whereas the aristocratic counter-revolutionary current is vehemently anti-materialist in character. 

All the likes of the Huxley's, Darwin's, Berlund RUSSELL etc were for their  belief of superior genes to be carried forward and to manage the herd  in which ever  schemes they believed were necessary to not be a perceived threat to them .

These groups had for generations interbreed closely it seems and we're perhaps for future science to iron out the genetic damage this causes.

Bacon in "the New Atlantis" mentioned all these sciences way back 

Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book called this next revolution the Technetronic Era like RUSSELL the mass was to lose it's abilities to think for themselves and they believed that their job was to do the planning for them ,hence now we have , synthetic genetic engineering, Technocracy ,technates ,dark enlightenment etc or whatever the next name is...

 

They were also was for dumbing down the herd to a manageable degrees to be either useful or eliminated as Plato had also written about way before in breeding useful types of humans,some tall for picking apples some short for going down mines and so on.

It seems to have started with the priests /merchants  introducing money systems into indigionous tribes way back ,.

Hence capitalism*

Perhaps also a group that had survived previous changes or were heirs to this knowledge , techniques and/ or tapped into some 

other force beyond too ?

 

* So perhaps capitalism is theft because in the long run it privatised everything,even water and DNA if the trend continues,

(see WEF new front man for his ideas for the water.)

Whereas a natural system does not as the resources are available for people to use wisely and not involving  middle people to intercede between them .

& Plan the next revolution which we are going into whereas we should choose the direction of humanity ourselves.

Edited April 29 by Talorgan

[pi3141]

On 4/26/2025 at 8:16 PM, Mr H said:

I'm not sure how this would work. Would a capitalist(51% owners in this model)  be happy about paying $10,000 per share with 5% return, when the cleaner gets 1 share and 5% for sweeping up?

 

Is it fair that someone who works at the company who contributed to the profit gets the same as someone who just put up capital? (The main Marxist observation I can gather)

 

On 4/27/2025 at 8:28 PM, Campion said:

Presumably you mean a % of shares rather than just one share, as many companies have millions, if not billions of shares.  

 

Owning shares also gives you a vote at the shareholders' AGM, which gives some control over the company and the directors. But I think your voting strength depends on your % of the total, 51% is a controlling stake.   

 

 

The way I see it, the share scheme could easily be tailored.

 

I own a company, I employ 49 people, I print 100 shares.

The employees each get a share, they also have 49% voting rights in the company.

 

I receive 51% of the profits, the employees receive 1% each.

 

Not enough?

 

Fine, i'll print 149 shares, I give 1 share to each employee. The employees now only have a one third controlling vote and I receive twice the profits as the entire employees - they get a third share divided among them, I get 2 thirds.

 

Not enough.

 

I'll print 249 shares, I'll allocate 49 shares to my employees and I'll keep 200 shares, I now profit 4 times more than the entire workforce combined.

 

Not enough or want to sell shares?

 

Ok, I'll print 549 shares, I'll allocate 49 shares as 1 share to each employee, I'll keep 2-300 shares for myself and I'll sell the remainder to investors.

 

Now I still have a controlling share, its my company I get most of the profits, the investors get a return on their investment, the workers get a share of the profits and some say in the company but their controlling share is quite low. The profit share to employees would be more like a bonus dependant on company performance.

 

Distribution of wealth built in to the company, easily tailored to suit the company model.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29 by pi3141