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posted by n1 on Saturday August 13 2016, @11:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the ren-said-it-with-authority dept.

NPR reports:

On Wednesday morning, the United States Department of Justice announced the result of a yearlong investigation into the Baltimore Police Department, which found that BPD habitually violates the civil rights of its residents. These violations, the Justice Department found, have an outsized effect on the city's black population.

[...] The report's findings were far-reaching. Between 2010 and 2015, BPD recorded over 300,000 pedestrian stops (a number the DOJ believes vastly underrepresents actual stops.) Those stops often lacked reasonable suspicion, and were mostly confined to black neighborhoods — 44 percent occurred in two low-income black neighborhoods that make up 11 percent of Baltimore's population.

In the same time period, the report found that BPD made "warrantless arrests without probable cause," stopped black residents three times as often as white, and arrested black folks on drug charges at five times the rate of white folks, despite comparable levels of possession. They were also found to have used unreasonable force against juveniles and people who presented "little or no threat to officers or others."

According to the investigation, the BPD has also failed to respond adequately to reports of sexual assault, resulting "in part, from underlying gender bias." It reported BPD detectives asked questions like, "Why are you messing that guy's life up?" when interviewing women who reported sexual assault.

The World Socialist Web Site reports:

The report finds that despite making up 63 percent of the city's population, African-Americans account for over 83 percent of all criminal charges and are regularly over-represented in arrest reports in comparison to their percentage of the population.

The DoJ found that the percentage of people arrested in a five-year period on the petty and highly subjective charges of "failure to obey" or "disorderly conduct" was 91 and 84 percent African-American respectively. Even starker, African-Americans made up over 83 percent of the area's traffic stops, despite being less than 30 percent of the entire metropolitan region's total driving population.

[...] The DoJ found that over a five-year period, BPD officers made over 11,000 arrests that were subsequently thrown out at central booking for being groundless. [...] Investigators found "BPD uses overly aggressive tactics that unnecessarily escalate encounters, increase tensions, and lead to unnecessary force".

[...] Then there is the first African-American president, who has handed out military grade weaponry to local police departments across the country--at the same time his Justice Department has routinely rejected calls for killer cops to be prosecuted under federal civil rights laws and invariably opposed every attempt to bring police violence cases before the Supreme Court.


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  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:17PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:17PM (#387484) Journal

    The police department won't change because the people's votes won't change.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by fishybell on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:27PM

    by fishybell (3156) on Saturday August 13 2016, @04:27PM (#387538)

    Last time I checked the police department in every city wasn't ran by politicians running for office. The "tough on crime" and "war on drugs" stance from the 80's is just continuing in the mindset of departments nation-wide.

    That said, while these are things that both democrats and republicans have championed in the past, at this point in time it's mostly just the democrats looking for change. Change won't happen unless you want it to.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @08:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @08:27PM (#387608)

      Martin O'Malley, governor of Maryland and formerly a Democrat candidate for president, was the one who came up with the Zero Tolerance thing in that state.

      ...and I'm pretty sure that having a Pachyderm in his place would NOT have made that state a more humane place.

      Democrats [note the capital D] looking for change

      The Donkey party has been continually drifting toward the warmonger|police state position since Wilson.
      (Woodrow imprisoned Eugene Debs for speaking out and saying that the draft and USA's participation in World War I were evil.)
      N.B. While Jimmy Carter's proxy militaristic activities in e.g. Latin America were not overt, they still happened; Obama's foreign policy is clearly NeoCon.

      The Donkey party has been on the march toward a racist police state since Slick Willie's Omnibus Crime Bill of 1996.
      (Hillary was his chief cheerleader.)

      Obama was handed an economy with massive joblessness.
      Did he do the only thing that has EVER pull a country out of depression (recognize the gov't as the employer of last resort and put people to work building/rebuilding infrastructure)?
      Did he make sure that folks had jobs to go to so they could make money and not have to find a way to make money illicitly and/or have huge amounts of idle time to get in trouble.
      Nope. Obama is a Neoliberal just like the Clintons.

      Obama picked up where his predecessors left off on the police state.
      If Hillary gets the gig, her term will be Obama's 3rd term--but even more NeoCon.

      .
      If you're not in a swing state|battleground state, do consider NOT voting for the second-worst candidate and instead cast your ballot for a third party.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 13 2016, @11:55PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 13 2016, @11:55PM (#387656) Journal

        Did he do the only thing that has EVER pull a country out of depression (recognize the gov't as the employer of last resort and put people to work building/rebuilding infrastructure)?

        The problem here is that merely doing nothing would also pull a country out of a depression. Recessions are just as temporary as expansions in the absence of government intervention. I do agree that if this money had been spent to efficiently generate jobs, it would have generated a whole lot more jobs than were even spuriously claimed to be created.

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 14 2016, @03:27AM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 14 2016, @03:27AM (#387709) Journal

          > Recessions are just as temporary as expansions in the absence of government intervention.

          You...are joking here, right? See I know what all those words mean individually, but when you put them in that particular order...well, the best one could say is a sarcastic "[citation needed]" you know?

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 14 2016, @04:16AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 14 2016, @04:16AM (#387730) Journal
            Keynesian policy is a 20th Century fad. Recessions prior to that often had to recover naturally because the political leaders of the time were too incompetent or venal to help.

            And of course, Obama badly botched the Keynesian strategy and yet the US economy is recovering anyway.
            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 14 2016, @05:03AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 14 2016, @05:03AM (#387744) Journal

              ...you DO understand, don't you, that the other half of Keynes' policy was "...and when times are good--DO YOU HEAR ME? Write this shit down, it's vitally important! When times are good, you use the payoff to close that big gaping debt-hole you opened up." The problem we have is everyone's so damn happy to spend spend spend, but not to put it back when the spending has the proper results...and most of the time it doesn't since the spending isn't happening in infrastructure.

              Mr. Hallow, I am not an economist, but even I can tell your economic worldview is made of half-truths and vitriol at best. Has it ever even occurred to you that there is a limit on growth, that raw materials are not infinite, and that at some point we are going to have to hit an equilibrium with the world around us?

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 14 2016, @06:50AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 14 2016, @06:50AM (#387775) Journal

                "...and when times are good--DO YOU HEAR ME? Write this shit down, it's vitally important! When times are good, you use the payoff to close that big gaping debt-hole you opened up."

                Sure. That's a common public spending strategy. We'll spend like drunk sailors now because there's a scary crisis. And we'll pretend that we'll be all disciplined later when nobody cares and the media spotlight is elsewhere. Keynesian economics was and is so popular because it rationalizes a huge amount of uncritical spending. The second half is just a rhetorical dodge to get the more fiscally conservative voters on board. Nobody actually has to deliver and it shows.

                • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 14 2016, @10:49PM

                  by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 14 2016, @10:49PM (#388002) Journal

                  Mr. Hallow, what you have a problem with is the misuse or abuse of Keynesian policy then, not the ideas itself. Be honest here.

                  --
                  I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2016, @06:33AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 15 2016, @06:33AM (#388107) Journal

                    Mr. Hallow, what you have a problem with is the misuse or abuse of Keynesian policy then, not the ideas itself.

                    The problem in question is twofold. First, it's a very obvious and very widespread failure mode for the policy even if this misuse is not intended. For a car analogy, the Pinto wasn't designed to rupture its gas tank [wikipedia.org] when rear-ended by another vehicle. But that was an unhappy consequence of the design and how the car was constructed. But should we advocating use of the Pinto because when it's not rear-ended by another vehicle, then it's not particularly dangerous?

                    Second, the Keynesian policy might be working (or "misused") as intended. Using crises to grab more power or to commit society to pet programs and spending is not exactly a new thing. Keynes might have been sincere, but I think there's strong evidence that most of the developed world never was interested in the boom-side part of the theory (for example, the enormous debt to GDP ratios of most of the developed world countries or the enduring nature of programs that outlived the crisis they were supposedly created to deal with. Some examples off the top of my head: Tennessee Valley Authority, Japanese postal savings system, basically all developed world agriculture subsidies, and NATO).

                    So yes, I do have a huge problem with implementation of Keynesian policy seeing as the above failure mode (not cutting back on government spending during times of plenty) is the usual outcome.

                    But I also have a problem with Keynesian economics as an idea. First, I think the theory places far too much emphasis on economic activity and not enough on the creation of value. This leads to Broken Window fallacy decisions where net wealth of the society is reduced in order to increase economic activity.

                    Second, short term interventions have short term effect and long term interventions create long term dependencies. My view is that Keynesian policies do nothing to address the cause(s) of a recession. Most recessions (at least prior to 1990) in the US were quick and already partly finished by the time any Keynesian policies could be applied. That includes the temporary increase in unemployment.

                    OTOH, in a severe recession (or "depresion"), especially one encumbered by some external effect, such as government regulation, recovery can take a while. Keynesian policy is particularly treacherous in this situation since the duration of the intervention may be unknown from the start (and considerably longer than expected), the parties receiving the intervention resources can change their behavior in a way that makes the intervention less effective, and a "Red Queen" dynamic can thus be created (where more and more intervention is required just to maintain the current status quo).

                    For example, the US Federal Reserve purchased somewhere around $4.5 trillion in bonds over a six year period (the matter is a bit more complicated than that, since a fair portion just ended up going straight into the US government general fund via purchases of US treasuries). But it started as a $600 billion purchase of bonds in late 2008 and ballooned from there. I doubt they thought they'd be at it for six years.

                    The Japanese have a particularly serious problem with that since apparently a considerable portion of the problem (the long ago creation of government-subsidized savings program via their postal service) is untouchable. But they can borrow lots of money to maintain the status quo and they have done so. Again, I doubt they thought they'd still be "priming the pump" a quarter century after the 1990-1991 recession.

                    Third, the boom-bust cycle has considerable value and trying to avoid it leads to some nasty unintended consequences. Here, the problem is two-fold. A Keynesian strategy tends to allow the worst businesses to survive while creating a great deal of moral hazard concerning future choices. For example, General Motors should have died in 2009. A bankruptcy court could then have sold its assets off and encouraged the creation of new automakers or expansion of the automakers that were better. A common complaint in these forums is the lack of long term vision in the business world. Keynesian economics encourages that by greatly reducing the risks from recessions. The boom-bust cycles create a strong incentive to look long term which a Keynesian strategy attempts to take away.

                    Even though it means a significant decline in economic activity, I think the traditional paying down of debts and more frugal existence is a better behavior than what Keynesian strategy would try to encourage.

                    Finally, a Keynesian strategy tends to make an economy more fragile through many of the effects already described. We have the control systems which generally don't work that well or as expected. We have the behavior changes in the economy that comes from the expectations and resources provided by the strategy. The existence of these control mechanisms can hide other problems and allow them to build up. That can result in a longer run up of prosperity followed by a massive recession due to all these problems coming out at once.

                    And we create the precedent of government intervention by parties who aren't particularly competent (and often don't care about that) when things are perceived to be wrong. They might intervene Keynesian-style today, but that opens the door to intervention on more spurious grounds tomorrow.

                    So in summary, I dislike the Keynesian strategy both as an idea and in its real world implementations. It's too easy to set up to fail and it solves problems that I don't think are a good idea to solve.

                    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 15 2016, @04:04PM

                      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 15 2016, @04:04PM (#388232) Journal

                      That was actually insightful, well-thought-out, and gave me a couple of new pieces of information to consider...bravo :)

                      I agree with you for the most part, too, although I still think the problems you're describing aren't Keynesian but human, i.e., the "failure modes" you're mentioning. Those are all true, and heaven knows we've seen them enough, but by this metric, representative democracy (USA voting system) is a failure too.

                      That said, I think we're converging on the same solution by different paths: at some point we're going to need to come to grips with the fact that growth isn't infinite and that we're going to need to settle at some equilibrium point. Personally I think that's going to make money as we understand it mostly obsolete, and it will *have to* involve at least partial post-scarcity economics; specifically, electricity and water at the very least. THAT is going to make a lot of people used to the old system very, very angry, because it will reduce the gap between them and the worst off and give them far less leverage over the hoi polloi like you and I.

                      --
                      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2016, @11:41PM

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 15 2016, @11:41PM (#388479) Journal

                        at some point we're going to need to come to grips with the fact that growth isn't infinite and that we're going to need to settle at some equilibrium point.

                        But that equilibrium point can be really far away. For example, we could be living in space, no longer age, no longer eat food, and have physical and mental capabilities far beyond our present and yet not consume more than we currently do. An equilibrium of the near future which doesn't let us progress to making ourselves far better than we currently are is stagnation and dooms many future lives to the suffering we currently undergo.

                        Growth isn't really growth. We don't need an exponentially growing pile of resources or people. Most of economic growth is really about finding new things or a better way to use existing resources.

                        Personally I think that's going to make money as we understand it mostly obsolete, and it will *have to* involve at least partial post-scarcity economics; specifically, electricity and water at the very least.

                        I disagree. Money is a very useful algorithmic tool without a good replacement. It allows us to trade without having to do NP hard barter computations. And we already tried post-scarcity electricity and water. Even then, it turns out that those resources are still scarce and there are still times that you would want to curb human consumption of those goods (California, for example, has had both water and electricity supply crises with fixed rate consumption contributing to the resulting harm). However, it is worth noting that I currently consume water and electricity on a post-scarcity model (not billed at all for them) and pay a fixed, rather low rate per week for food and shelter (one of the many privileges of working in Yellowstone National Park for a contracted resort concessionaire).

                        Near future equilibrium and post-scarcity are IMHO mutually exclusive. We aren't close to the infrastructure to deliver a lot of post-scarcity goods with significant material requirements. My view is that such a thing would require basic human needs to be a small part of the overall economy which would require a lot of economy growing in order to achieve. For example, the construction of human shelter can be seen to be a huge part of present economies, as seen in the recent recession. But in the post scarcity world it would need to be very small.

                        And I think that's relevant to my current situation. I live and work at resorts which collectively handle somewhere well above 4 million tourists a year. My additional small bit of consumption is negligible in comparison to the infrastructure that is required to support that number of guests.

                        My view is that the current economic growth leads to a cleaner, better world and is quite sustainable for a very long time. For example, a common current complaint, which manages to preserve developed world guilt, is that pollution is "exported" to the developing world. But what happens in 2050, when China has joined the developed world? This flexible system of blame will now claim that pollution is exported to Africa, which will be at that time the last bastion of widespread poverty. But what happens in 2100 when Africa becomes part of the developed world? Where's the pollution going to export to next? Nobody on the environmental front thinks ahead to the point where every part of the world has the inevitable developed world standards of living. At best, they ascribe to the Luddite notion that automation will, for the first time in history, make a large population of unemployed people. Hasn't happened yet, I note.

                        I guess my point here is that the current system has applicability far beyond the present. Even when our economic system breaks, often with considerable political interference, it still recovers and we still have a society capable of meeting our needs. I feel that trying to create a moneyless economy or a post-scarcity world is trying to solve problems we don't have (maybe combined with a little putting the cart in front of the horse). How about instead, we think of ways to improve the genuine problems of the current system?

                        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:19AM

                          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:19AM (#388550) Journal

                          And they say the techno-utopians have their heads in the clouds of unrealistic expectations...

                          No, Mr. Hallow, pollution, like the "jobs no one wants to do," will not just poof into the aether one day. Not under the current paradigm. Until we get sustainable and renewable electricity, water, and food at the very least going, today's problems are going to continue, and likely get worse. The whole thing is based on some untenable and frankly idiotic assumptions, such as that there will always be growth (by whatever definition you care to use), that there will always be a place to outsource *to,* that it's possible under the current system's limited raw materials and energy supply for every country to hit first-world standards of living, and so forth.

                          We either get the long-promised "electricity too cheap to meter" (that also can be kept up almost limitlessly and causes little to no pollution) or the system collapses all at once when one or more vital resources run out. End of story.

                          --
                          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:23AM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 17 2016, @12:23AM (#388911) Journal

                            No, Mr. Hallow, pollution, like the "jobs no one wants to do," will not just poof into the aether one day.

                            It did in the developed world.

                            Until we get sustainable and renewable electricity, water, and food at the very least going, today's problems are going to continue, and likely get worse.

                            We already have that. I don't think the worst of today's problems have anything to do with the scarcity or relative unsustainability of our activities. But they have a lot more to do with a lot of poor people who don't have the infrastructure or wealth to take advantage of today's incredible bounty.

                            We either get the long-promised "electricity too cheap to meter" (that also can be kept up almost limitlessly and causes little to no pollution) or the system collapses all at once when one or more vital resources run out.

                            Unless, of course, those vital resources don't run out and/or we come up with an adequate substitute. There's nothing about a capitalist economy that requires resources to run out. Nor does a "too cheap to meter" society sound like the kind of place that does resource management.

                            A fair portion of these "vital resources" are in the local landfills. Make them scarce or valuable enough and someone will dig them up.

                            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 17 2016, @05:30AM

                              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 17 2016, @05:30AM (#389009) Journal

                              I'm standing here with my jaw on the floor, trying to figure out what it is about people who think like you that insists on doing everything too late and in the most difficult possible manner. What kind of attachment could you possibly have to the current paradigm, especially if you think it's full of so many untermenschen compared to you? Do you truly hate vast swathes of the human race so much, that you want to shift the detritus and suffering of the "developing world" onto them? No, that's not making it disappear, any more than taking a shit down your neighbor's chimney makes the shit disappear.

                              Everything you're saying here points to the idea that you really *do* think large chunks of humanity are "useless eaters" and unworthy of their own lives. Do you have any idea how completely frightening and repellent that is to anyone who still has a conscience?! Worse still, you don't seem to want to change the current system, but rather let it consume billions of human beings in misery for not measuring up to your, frankly, poorly-understood standards as denoted by your definitions of K- and r-selected life strategies. This is plain old social Darwinism, J-Mo; it's the same negative-eugenicist drumbeat we've been hearing since the Civil War, and it leads to ovens and gas chambers.

                              What is missing in your life, what was done to you, to make you think this way?

                              --
                              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:04PM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 17 2016, @02:04PM (#389110) Journal
                                You have a lot of sexy stories in this thread. But the problem here is that they aren't real. I think I'd be more inclined to take you seriously here, if your response was "sure, that's true, but take these facts into consideration..." rather than loudly muse about what model of killer robot I must be.

                                ?! Worse still, you don't seem to want to change the current system, but rather let it consume billions of human beings in misery for not measuring up to your, frankly, poorly-understood standards as denoted by your definitions of K- and r-selected life strategies.

                                I don't want to break the current system. It's working marvelously well. I think 30-60% income growth over two decades after inflation for two thirds of humanity is pretty damn good. Sure, humans suffer under the current regime. But they'll suffer under any other approach too. The question is how much better are those other approaches? It's not worth my while to switch, if your supposedly better approach causes more suffering and other harms than the status quo.

                                There's a lot of huckster's selling utopia out there with no downsides [penny-arcade.com] promise! A litany of telling us how bad the present is (especially when that litany is very inaccurate), doesn't make those utopias work any better.

                                • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 17 2016, @04:16PM

                                  by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday August 17 2016, @04:16PM (#389162) Journal

                                  Only someone who isn't suffering the short end of this system would say it's working. My God, what is it like to be so completely selfish, to have such a closed-in, tiny orbit of awareness?

                                  --
                                  I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @10:44PM

                                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 17 2016, @10:44PM (#389347) Journal

                                    Only someone who isn't suffering the short end of this system would say it's working.

                                    You can say that about any system. Here, we have an objective measure by which far less than third of the entire world would be at the short end of this system. That's far better than anything we've had before.

                                    My God, what is it like to be so completely selfish, to have such a closed-in, tiny orbit of awareness?

                                    You tell me.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @03:40AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @03:40AM (#387719)

          Your comment only makes any sense in the context of the stock market rebounding where "recovery" == the Capitalist ownership class back to extracting wealth from the economy--while producing nothing.

          In the meantime, The Working Class continues to suffer 20something unemployment.
          The terms "depression" and "recession" don't take unemployment levels into account and, like the Capitalist economic system, are obsolete.

          I do agree that...

          Well then, there's some progress being made.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 14 2016, @04:39AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 14 2016, @04:39AM (#387739) Journal

            Your comment only makes any sense in the context of the stock market rebounding where "recovery" == the Capitalist ownership class back to extracting wealth from the economy--while producing nothing.

            In the meantime, The Working Class continues to suffer 20something unemployment.

            I disagree. While there is an external reason for such unemployment in the form of labor competition from the developing world, we have a variety of employment hostile regulations and costs as well, such as in the US, minimum wage, the $2000 per head minimum cost for 30+ hours per week employees from health care regulation, onerous, risk-inducing regulations for firing people, and Social Security (another 15% of cost added to each worker for vague promises in the distant future for those 20somethings).

            Keynesian policy is by definition short term. You need long term economic policy to deal with problems that don't go away just because the recession ended. That's where laissez faire comes in. You don't need enormous government intervention until the end of time to handle employment problems. You need a healthy job market where employers and employees can negotiate on equal terms.

            The terms "depression" and "recession" don't take unemployment levels into account and, like the Capitalist economic system, are obsolete.

            We need a better exit strategy than your previously mentioned toy social models which are heavily dependent on a capitalist economic system in order to function. At the national level, I see a huge amount of fail when it comes to socialist or communist strategy and policy. It's been that way for way more than a century.

            At least capitalism works and is stable over time frames longer than a human life. It strikes me that we should be talking about how to improve capitalism rather than replace it with vaporware. My view is that we can improve capitalism in this era by reducing the level of government nannying and control. It just isn't helping.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @07:13AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @07:13AM (#387783)

              your previously mentioned toy social models

              I've mentioned Mondragon and the thousands of worker cooperatives in northern Italy.
              These, representing hundreds of thousands of worker-owners, have been successful for decades.
              That you refuse to acknowledge their success simply shows that after losing the debate you are a poor sport.

              which are heavily dependent on a capitalist economic system

              Capitalism == a separate Ownership Class which exploits The Working Class.
              The owners in my examples are *exclusively* the workers.
              My examples use THEIR OWN money to get started and they don't try to expand in a way that their profits won't fund.
              Their workplaces are quite unlike Capitalist workplaces.

              ...and quit with the bullshit that insists markets exist -only- in a Capitalist system.
              Again, not acknowledging that your fictitious points have been shredded shows you to be a poor sport.

              capitalism works

              ...to increase inequality and to concentrate wealth in a small number of hands.

              60 percent of USAians are $400 away from a financial meltdown.
              For the majority, Capitalism has FAILED.

              is stable over time

              A mark of the Capitalist system is The Boom and Bust Cycle.
              If you had a roommate as unstable as Capitalism, you would have thrown his ass out long ago.

              improve capitalism

              Capitalism has outlived its usefulness.
              As with slave economies and Feudalism, it's time to leave it behind and move on to the next stage of economic development.
              As demonstrated by my examples in prior comments here, that is Socialism, a system without exploitation.

              reducing the level of government

              After Socialism has been wildly successful worldwide, having eliminated poverty everywhere and concentrating efforts on building stable communities, the next step is to declare governments unnecessary.
              Marx called that stage "Communism".

              -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 14 2016, @08:37AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 14 2016, @08:37AM (#387799) Journal

                I've mentioned Mondragon and the thousands of worker cooperatives in northern Italy.

                And I've mentioned the capitalist societies with tens to hundreds of millions of people in which Mondragon is embedded in and enabled by.

                Capitalism == a separate Ownership Class which exploits The Working Class.

                What's up with your insistence on redefining the term? Capitalism means private ownership of capital together with implied add-ons, the rules necessary to protect that ownership and some sort of market to trade that capital.

                ...and quit with the bullshit that insists markets exist -only- in a Capitalist system.

                I agree that markets can exist in just about any system. But what I keep hearing are claims that markets aren't valuable combined with proposals for seriously breaking those markets. Sure, if you make a market broken enough, it isn't valuable to anyone. But any market with a lot of activity clearly is useful to someone.

                For example, you went through the trouble of claiming that stock markets aren't valuable. Obviously, they aren't valuable to you. But there are other people in the world than just you. And for a lot of those people, stock markets have a great deal of value to the tune of trillions of dollars.

                ...to increase inequality and to concentrate wealth in a small number of hands.

                60 percent of USAians are $400 away from a financial meltdown.
                For the majority, Capitalism has FAILED

                This is the typical argument. Because US capitalism isn't perfect (completely ignoring, of course, how various parties break the system), then we need to scrap the whole thing and try out something which has last worked (maybe! it's only a few decade old experiment rather than a few century demonstration of capitalism) on the scale of a few thousand people (rather than a few billion people). Bonus points for including some ludicrous factoid which is clearly false (unless by "financial meltdown" you mean have to make some calls to transfer the funds over from another account or use the ATM machine twice).

                After Socialism has been wildly successful worldwide, having eliminated poverty everywhere and concentrating efforts on building stable communities, the next step is to declare governments unnecessary.

                That's a beautiful story. I can see the unicorns braying and the angel chorus singing at the end of that one. Of course, in the real world, capitalism is already doing that job, just a bit slower than you'd like. We don't need a fantasy story when the real story is good enough.

                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @06:26PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @06:26PM (#387920)

                  No, I'm not redefining terms.
                  The problem here is your ignorance, based on Cold War bullshit .
                  Your stubborn refusal to become enlightened adds to the problem.

                  Private ownership of the means of production is NOT exclusive to Capitalism.
                  Slave economies had that.
                  Feudalism had that.
                  The worker-owners of Mondragon (and the co-ops of Italy) also have that.

                  A situation that does -not- have private ownership is the State Capitalism system under which USSR, North Korea (DPRK), and their ilk have operated.
                  That you still think that that condition is "socialism" or "communism" simply shows your continuing ignorance and unwillingness to become educated and your acceptance of propaganda via improperly-named things .

                  Additionally, a municipality "collectively" owning its water system or broadband network is NOT "socialism"; at best, that is Liberal Democracy AKA Social Democracy AKA Christian Democracy.
                  Until a place has Democracy In The Workplace, that place does NOT have a Socialist system.
                  Socialism is Democracy EVERYWHERE.

                  Where the Socialist model differs from the exploitive Capitalism|Oligarchy model is this concept:
                  EVERYONE affected by a decision gets a voice in that decision.

                  -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 15 2016, @07:02AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 15 2016, @07:02AM (#388113) Journal

                    Private ownership of the means of production is NOT exclusive to Capitalism.
                    Slave economies had that.

                    I didn't say it was. I said private ownership of the means of production, accompanied by some infrastructure of legal protection and trade of said capital, is the definition of capitalism.

                    Socialism is Democracy EVERYWHERE.

                    Which is patently false. You even gave counterexamples such as the USSR. You can define words however you want. But until the dictionaries agree with you, you're wasting everyone's time. Here's the Oxford definiton:

                    A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

                    I don't see democracy in there though obviously it is a way to make those decisions. They explicitly mention "Soviet state communism" so democracy isn't even implied. This is the source of my concern about your redefining of terms. You're just doublethinking here. Some stuff is goodthink. Some stuff is ungoodthink. And these supposed definitions have nothing to do with the actual terms or the actual activities labeled by those terms.

                    And of course, you completely fail to discuss the main point which is that capitalism works and is an instrumental part of any advanced society of today. All your talk to this point ignores that we are seeing the largest improvement in the well-being of humanity ever, the most rapid and productive advancement in technology and building of infrastructure and wealth ever, the greatest accumulation of knowledge ever, etc. You need more than unicorns here. Now that we have working prototypes, let's see them work on a larger scale.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @07:28PM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @07:28PM (#388350)

                      you completely fail to discuss the main point which is that capitalism works

                      ...to increase inequality and to concentrate wealth in a small number of hands.
                      When the MAJORITY of the population is hanging on by their fingernails, that is NOT success, fool.
                      Evidence [from 2014] that Half of America is Broke [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]

                      Most Americans on Brink of Financial Disaster [January 2015] [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
                      ...and I have since seen an item with the numbers for 2015.
                      That takes the numbers of The Precariat up to 60 percent.

                      Your ridiculous Reactionary opinions are not backed by the facts.
                      The actual facts rebut your decades-old nonsense.
                      As you consume Faux Noose, more and more stupid, unsupported, useless shit goes into your head.

                      and is an instrumental part of any advanced society of today

                      My examples have already demonstrated that the opposite is true.
                      Capitalism, like systems before it, is one more phase through which humanity is passing on its way to something better.
                      You are simply an uneducated, poorly-informed denialist and are unworthy of further attention.

                      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:25AM

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 16 2016, @12:25AM (#388486) Journal

                        ...to increase inequality and to concentrate wealth in a small number of hands.

                        Which is not true presently let us note. You are using a developed world viewpoint from a rather flawed economy under stress rather than a global one. Sure, in countries like the US, there is some concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. In the world as a whole, however, there is a massive rise towards a developed world standard of living. For example, two thirds of everyone on Earth has seen a 30% or greater [voxeu.org] rise in their income, adjusted for inflation, during the period 1988-2008. And most of the third who didn't see rises of that size had developed world income. So there was a massive decrease in income inequality over a recent twenty year period (despite the very rich getting richer!).

                        I also note that focusing on income inequality is disingenuous. People are still better off in the developed world than they were despite the richer getting richer relative to the general population. Envy is a poor substitute for greed.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:22AM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @04:22AM (#388552)

                          1988-2008

                          ...after which, Capitalism completely fell on its face--as it does repeatedly.
                          Folks who were due to retire in 2009 found their pensions gone.
                          Thanks, Capitalism.
                          For Joe Average, not only has has the Capitalist economy NOT recovered, it's gotten WORSE.
                          (You previously asked for links and I have provided them, yet you are still in denial.)

                          disingenuous

                          You don't seem to understand the word, so let me explain it to you:
                          1) I give examples of successful Socialism.
                          2) You ignore the examples.
                          3) You instead compare USA's Capitalist system to some other CAPITALIST system that isn't doing as well for its 1 Percent.

                          ...and you don't seem to be aware of the concept of "The 1 Percent" (the only folks who are doing better since the crash of 2008).

                          You truly are a nitwit who has drunk the kool-aid.

                          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:56AM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 17 2016, @01:56AM (#388949) Journal

                            ...after which, Capitalism completely fell on its face--as it does repeatedly.

                            Yet somehow there's always more face for capitalism to fall on. One can't have periodic downturns without some sort of progress between. And there have been several such downturns in the period of time I mentioned. Yet somehow most people in the world ended up considerably better after all that. I bet most people in the world are already better off now than they were in 2007 despite the latest mess.

                            Folks who were due to retire in 2009 found their pensions gone.

                            Your apathy about your future is not my problem. The false promises you bought in your youth are not my problem. It amazes me how apathetic would-be retirees are about their pensions and the mess that those pensions have become. For a recent example, CalPERS (the California Public Employees' Retirement System), one of the largest public pension funds in the world has been squandering their funds for quite some time now. They have an ancient history of corruption, incompetence, and costly showboating going back decades [city-journal.org]. But where's the mass protests? I guess most members just think California or perhaps the US government will step in and pay. Sure they will.

                            Pensions are just another easy way to promise something far in the future that you don't have to deliver. Those promises would have disappeared anyway, whether there were a market crash in 2007 or not.

                            And I see you're still obsessing over the definition thing. I don't know what you mean by "Capitalism" or "Socialism" since you have yet to submit a rigorous definition rather than breezy platitudes. But I do know what Oxford dictionary means by those terms and I'm going with that. So no, socialism is not democracy everywhere. "State capitalism" is not capitalism (very Orwellian that). "Liberal democracy" != "Social democracy" != "Christian democracy". Capitalism is not "a separate Ownership Class which exploits The Working Class".

                            While looking back at these babblespeak assertions, I came across this gem:

                            That you still think that that condition is "socialism" or "communism" simply shows your continuing ignorance and unwillingness to become educated and your acceptance of propaganda via improperly-named things .

                            This is one of the worst examples of psychological projection I've seen on any community discussion forum. All you've done to this point is improperly name and define things. That's the core of your reasoning here and sorry, I'm not having any of it. Educate yourself Einstein. I suggest a quick perusal of a dictionary and following its advice concerning these terms would clear up a lot of your problems right away.