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Bill: Train Operating Companies (TOC)
Details
Submitted by[?]: Traditions' Party for elitocracy
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: April 2544
Description[?]:
| There is a single publicly owned national train operating company |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Train Operating Companies (TOC).
Old value:: Private companies operate TOCs throughout the country.
Current: Private companies operate TOCs throughout the country.
Proposed: There is a single publicly owned TOC.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 05:50:03, March 08, 2008 CET | From |  Dolgarian Federal Party (DAAS) | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | How many times must the economic policies of TPE and CSA be proven as failures? The people of Dolgaria cannot stand for this or any other blatant intrusion on entrepreneurial freedoms. |
| Date | 09:13:23, March 08, 2008 CET | From | Libertarian Coalition | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | Agreed |
| Date | 11:52:07, March 08, 2008 CET | From | Free Liberals Party | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | The Dolgarian Liberals agree that the most efficient allocation of transportation services and resources occurs naturally in a competitive market, something which this bill tries to dismantle. |
| Date | 22:32:27, March 08, 2008 CET | From | CSA Pax et Socialism | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | ...That's not true. |
| Date | 23:56:17, March 08, 2008 CET | From | Free Liberals Party | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | Far be it from the Socialists to be objective in this matter, but then what do Socialists know about objectivism anyway? All the evidence points to the truth asserted in my statement made previous to the Socialists': Not only is the market the most efficient way of allocating services but it's also the most responsive to change. Unlike any bureaucratic control of the railways which would be far too deliberative to act quickly to change or to heed the correct demand for supply of transport. Why should it? It doesn't have to compete for survival. Nor does it have any need to moderate prices. No, why should the government provide quality transport services when there isn't anyone else that will take away it's customers. All this bill is proposing is just another unfair socialist monopoly on transport, innovation and service up with which the good Dolgarian citizens will not put. |
| Date | 06:56:09, March 09, 2008 CET | From | Dolgarian Federal Party (DAAS) | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | All the socialists can come up with as a counter-argument is whining and complaining, with no substantiative argument or discourse. They show that they, and their neo-nuncirist allies in the TPE care nothing for the development and well-being of Dolgaria. |
| Date | 20:44:37, March 09, 2008 CET | From | CSA Pax et Socialism | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | I've invited you to debate me at least 20 times in relpy, and create a permanent announcement on the regional page to debate me. The conservative part up above is the only one that came and made at least 2 replies then left, so don't talk to me about any argument because it will not be done on this page. |
| Date | 20:49:46, March 09, 2008 CET | From | CSA Pax et Socialism | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | So when socialism = ownership of the means of production by the people, and public ownership also = a monopoly of socialism Then the people have a monopoly on their own production? Yes, I agree. When the workers own their own means of production, they have a monopoly on it, versus when 1% of the people, the non-workers, who own all of the means of production... they don't have a monopoly, the have shit. How skewed can you be to think 1 owning all is freedom, but all owning all is a monoply by the all? Damnit, I HATE when the people own everything and have a monopoly over everything they own, it pisses me off when I own something and don't let Steve Jobs own it for me and sell it to me. |
| Date | 22:40:59, March 09, 2008 CET | From | Free Liberals Party | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | Competitive markets don't have a monopoly, which is why it isn't called a monopolistic system. Private entities (individuals, corporations, collectives etc) own the means for their own production. The people then set demand and, in the pursuit of profit, the private entities set supply. In the process, the people get choice and abundance and an income with which they can make choice. The people then have an extraordinary power which they wouldn't normally have in any other economic system, the power to vote with their money, after all, people aren't going to buy what they don't want which means only the services that are the best use of resources will survive in such a market system. And in pursuit of their profit, the private entities are compelled to do the 'right' thing by the people in order to maintain their good standing with customers and potential customers. This is called the 'invisible hand'. I don't understand how you skew the concept of private ownership as a monopoly over everything. That's what a government is. Also, a monopoly owned by the 'people' isn't any better than a monopoly owned by a private entity of government. The popular monopoly is still dictated by majority rule which is always never beneficial. |
| Date | 23:05:33, March 09, 2008 CET | From | CSA Pax et Socialism | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | 85% of the wealth in the US resting in the pockets of the top 1% (yeah, I have to update my argument because it increases each year). Is that not a monopoly? Viamcom and Disney owning all teen media sources, not a monoply? You must be mistaking the definition of a monopoly my friend. "Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service" - the corporations. Competition persists, yeah, between those in that wealth bracket. No, there is not monopoly between the top 1%, who you constantly carress like a little baby without a bottle, but there is when you DON'T selectively look at the facts. The entire world is under a monopoly. When when everyone gets in on that monopoly - the next 99% of the US population at least, then no, it is no longer a monopoly by "everyone" - such a thing does not exist, (unless you take in account non-humans and if you want them to get a share of the means of production... then it is a monopoly of mankind over animals). Why do you keep throwing the government in? Socialism has nothing to do with any government, it's an economic system. Economic! There is no need for a government for socialism to function. Libertarian socialists... anarcho socialism... get this Stalinist crap out of your mind. The people owning the means of production is not a code word for "the government." From an essay a respected individual wrote on my site: "The contention that capitalism breeds initiative, whereas socialism leads to slothfulness is entirely academically bankrupt. The hallowed “incentive” of the capitalist world, and its sad lionisation of what it deems “competition,” reveal to us that its only means of justifying its results is through conscious denial of the facts. In reality, capitalism is a competition in which different people start on different footings, in which incentive is impaired through the glass ceiling of the economic class system, and in which innovation only serves the seedy purpose of corporate expansion, rather than satisfying the common aims of all human beings. To assert that native human intelligence and intellectual enquiry would cease under socialism is without basis, and to cite the economic decline of the USSR as evidence of this is to fail to recognise that its failure had much more to do with the cruel, state-capitalist system it employed, than the egalitarian ideals of socialism." Where is this idea that there NEEDS to be competition. We NEED it like we need food. Actually, no, WE don't need food - the rich do. Have a good long handshake with your invisible hand, after even my libertarian professor can't hold in but spew how much the cost of living rose up exponentially since her childhood while real wages exponentially got driven into the ground. My kids won't be able to survive unless they are a godamn validictorian at Harvard, unlike 30 years ago, when a high school diploma and job in the union called you a middle class man. "The popular monopoly is still dictated by majority rule which is always never beneficial." C'mon, are you serious? What's your point here? If less people own the means of production, the economy is better off? Or perhaps society? Either way, they're interconnected and I'll let you off with a hint - no to both. |
| Date | 00:40:40, March 10, 2008 CET | From | Free Liberals Party | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | The U.S Economy is not a competitive market, or a free one. Corporate welfare keeps companies alive which should fail, state welfare keeps people unemployed when they should be working for themselves and restrictive regulations on trade and employment squeeze the small businesses out of the market which in turn allows big business to price and to do anything as they wish. To exemplify price inflation and megalomaniacal corporations in the US as a failure of free market economics is completely flawed because it does not possess a free market at all. Your definition of monopoly is spot on. However, the corporations aren't the only 'group' (or dystopian force) with 'exclusive control' of the 'means of producing or selling a commodity or service': a people's monopoly is just as bad as a corporate one. There is no incentive to keep prices low, to make production efficient, to improve processes and services or allocate resources properly. A competitive market inside a free market gives everyone a chance to own property and the means to production. In this system all the types of contractual ownership can occur from top-down managerial hierarchies, trustees or even worker-owned enterprises. A free market benefits everyone, even non-statist socialists. Competition is needed if anyone is able to afford a morsel of food ever again. Economists can show that competitive markets are more efficient at producing things with the resources available. This efficiency reduces the cost of production which in turn brings down the prices needed to maintain profit-making revenue. All this keeps them in competition with other providers trying to do the same, but better. This behaviour demonstrates that this is the only way to get the best out of scarcity and also demonstrates that awareness of consequences is the best way to guide people to do the most economically responsible thing. This is Smith's 'invisible hand'. Monopolies, as you're aware, don't have this incentive or imaginary force of good - whether they're working for the 'people' or their own corporate, profit-making purposes. Though, I find it peculiar and even hypocritical that socialists criticize capitalists of pointing to the failures of the USSR and socialism because they're often the first to point out a hazy connection between the Great Depression and capitalism. The lesson about both of those economic failures concerns government interference and not ideological failures. And finally, a note in favour of free market economics: a free market benefits all involved - even the socialists, for contained within a free market is the ability to own in any manner, to trade in any manner and to have equal, reciprocal rights without personal, corporate or government interference. To conclude, monopolizing the railway industry makes no good use of a national transport system unlike a competitive system where competitors will be looking for ways best to serve their customers to maintain their loyalty. Sounds like a pretty good reason, to me, to decentralize and privatize railway services and to keep them that way. |
| Date | 05:52:23, March 10, 2008 CET | From | CSA Pax et Socialism | To | Debating the Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Message | Who is your idea of everyone? Again, the top 1%? Maybe more broad than that, the top 5? 2/3 of the world is in poverty BECAUSE of capitalism, nothing else. Because of capitalist globalization to add. Corporations don't care about any but making the biggest profit using the least amount of resources. Lower prices, or the outsourcing of a random man who came to American and opened a hat store because he heard of "opportunity," is a temporary side effect giving the illusion that the free market is doing good for mankind. That random man cannot "compete" with any Conglomo-Mart. He does not provide any benefits to any of his employees because that would be taking money out of his pocket. Instead, wages are decreased, prices invariably decreased (for a moment) until enough is enough. That's the end of competition for this bankrupt guy. Prices have not dropped in the United States, but gradually increased since (the date I'm taking a gander at) the 1950s, perhaps later by a decade. The dollar menu is not the dollar menu, it's the 5 dollar menu. Real wages have dropped drastically. What someone could aford 10 years ago, they cannot today. That is real wages. The standard of living drops each year, following the next, and the next, and the next. Norway and Sweden, real examples of socialism, rise and rise and rise. But how? So why should private companies increase the standard of living, when it costs them? They don't. You don't like it? Work somewhere else. But there isn't anywhere else, competition drove everything out, unless I want to work as a slave. Incentive - is not human nature, just a creation of capitalism. This is constantly cited, and probably the number one and first argument against socialism. Like the argument slave owners had - "well, if slavery doesn't exist, then how will I ever run my farm? Who will pick my beets? This is crazy, IT JUST DOESN'T WORK). Same with greed - it's taking the path of least resistance in a system where you have no choice (t's easier to steal than to give away). "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Since we, the people, control our profit, our wages, our conditions, our prices (or lack of), we each produce what we need and how much of it we need. Povert is an incentive. An incentive to do what? To slave away and be great - the great of our country were built out of poverty and overcame their obsticles. Then why, are there not great people living in our slums? If you can find poverty anywhere, it's in slums, it it doesn't develope them; no, it downright degrades them. Isn't it gruesome how workers owning their own industry can vote on their own wages? And pay according to his need and productivity? |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||
| yes | Total Seats: 239 | |||
| no | Total Seats: 234 | |||
| abstain | Total Seats: 82 |
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