Objections to Socialism

[Procrustes Stretched]

how's this: whatever dude.?

And an "F" for any actual cogent reply is yours.

Put up or button it.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Because I'm a parent now silly! When that happens macro thinking is the first casualty. I thought everyone knew that.

you've been a parent ever since I've known you. Is it a slow progression into senility that is happening or is it a slow progression into imbecility?


I'm tired.


I've got a dude stuck on a dingleberry on my butt.

 

[manifold]

you've been a parent ever since I've known you. Is it a slow progression into senility that is happening or is it a slow progression into imbecility?

Not true.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Not true.

I stand corrected. The d-files are dusty.



---

What do you think about what toro wrote:

Because it removes the flow of capital from the pricing system, and the pricing system is the most efficient allocator of capital to the industries which are most likely to grow the fastest and be in the highest demand.

Now, excuse me, I have a football game to watch.

 

[Agnapostate]

It may create a "class" of "democratic diceders" that end up actually owning the means of production. If this class of "democratic deciders" is the same as the politicians, we would soon get a dangerous concentration of political and economic power.

That functions as a practical objection rather than an ideological one, which I would answer with the example of the Spanish Revolution, in which the anarchist participants in the Spanish Civil War formed federations of libertarian socialist collectives that affected about eight to ten million people.

As I've mentioned previously, the Spanish Revolution marks the most widespread implementation of libertarian socialism in human history, and thus deserves to be noted time and time again. Yet it has been relegated to the ash heap of history, leaving the casual citizen under the impression that socialism has something to do with the brutal authoritarianism of the Soviet Union, and anarchism has something to do with disorder and chaos, both fallacious myths.

Returning to the nature of anarchism and libertarian socialism as implemented in Spain, the author Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people were directly or indirectly impacted by the Spanish Revolution and the anarchist collectives, and about two million workers directly participated in the collectivization process. According to Antony Beevor, an author on the Spanish Revolution, "The total for the whole of Republican territory was nearly 800,000 on the land and a little more than a million in industry. In Barcelona workers' committees took over all the services, the oil monopoly, the shipping companies, heavy engineering firms such as Volcano, the Ford motor company, chemical companies, the textile industry and a host of smaller enterprises. . . Services such as water, gas and electricity were working under new management within hours of the storming of the Atarazanas barracks . . .a conversion of appropriate factories to war production meant that metallurgical concerns had started to produce armed cars by 22 July . . . The industrial workers of Catalonia were the most skilled in Spain . . . One of the most impressive feats of those early days was the resurrection of the public transport system at a time when the streets were still littered and barricaded."

Another author, Jose Peirats, writes that, "Preoccupation with cultural and pedagogical innovations was an event without precedent in rural Spain. The Amposta collectivists organised classes for semi-literates, kindergartens, and even a school of arts and professions. The Seros schools were free to all neighbours, collectivists or not. Grau installed a school named after its most illustrious citizen, Joaquin Costa. The Calanda collective (pop. only 4,500) schooled 1,233 children. The best students were sent to the Lyceum in Caspe, with all expenses paid by the collective. The Alcoriza (pop. 4,000) school was attended by 600 children. Many of the schools were installed in abandoned convents. In Granadella (pop. 2,000), classes were conducted in the abandoned barracks of the Civil Guards. Graus organised a print library and a school of arts and professions, attended by 60 pupils. The same building housed a school of fine arts and high grade museum. In some villages a cinema was installed for the first time. The Penalba cinema was installed in a church. Viladecana built an experimental agricultural laboratory.

The collectives voluntarily contributed enormous stocks of provisions and other supplies to the fighting troops. Utiel sent 1,490 litres of oil and 300 bushels of potatoes to the Madrid front (in addition to huge stocks of beans, rice, buckwheat, etc.). Porales de Tujana sent great quantities of bread, oil, flour, and potatoes to the front, and eggs, meat, and milk to the military hospital.

The efforts of the collectives take on added significance when we take into account that their youngest and most vigorous workers were fighting in the trenches. 200 members of the little collective of Vilaboi were at the front; from Viledecans, 60; Amposta, 300; and Calande, 500."

It is estimated that eight to ten million people were directly or indirectly affected by the Spanish anarchist collectives. Author Leval has estimated 1,700 agrarian collectives, with 400 for Aragon, (although other estimates have been above 500), 900 for Levant, 300 for Castile , 30 for Estremadura, 40 for Catalonia, and an unknown number for Andalusia. He estimates that all industries and transportation were collectivized in the urban areas of Catalonia, (and indeed, 75% of all of Catalonia was estimated to have been collectivized in some way), 70% of all industries in Levant, and an unknown percentage in Castile.

The victories and social and economic benefits promoted in the Spanish Revolution through the implementation of libertarian socialist ideals, such as the establishment of syndicalism, voluntary association, and workers self-management strongly suggests that anarchist and libertarian socialist theories and practices are of a practical nature.

A more expansive summary of their existence can be found here.

Centralized planning of an entire economy generally turns out badly.

If the central planners make a mistake it's often a real disaster.

Capitalist non centralized planning spreads our the investments such that while some things fail, others thrive.

Centralized planning ends up badly for societies for the same reason that huge asset inequities leads to problems for society.

The end game for unregulated capitalism is capital monopoly.

The end game for socialist society is socialist monopoly.

Neither pure capitalism, nor pure socialism are therefore, I think, very good systems.

I certainly don't deny that such regrettable and unfortunate issues are typically facets of a centralized economy, which is necessarily authoritarian in many ways. However, that is not the brand of socialism that I favor. I am an anarchist, I oppose the existence of the state, and I would favor a variety of decentralized, libertarian socialism.

As I have mentioned previously, public control without a state would essentially function through a federation of voluntary communes and syndicates that are democratically managed through participatory committees and workers’ councils. This would mean placing emphasis on grassroots neighborhood committees, community assemblies and other direct democratic associations rather than the centralized state.

Instead of a “top-down,” centralized governance system, an anarchist society would function using a “bottom-up,” decentralized governance system.

Neighborhood assemblies would be open to the general public, and these assemblies will be the primary (and final) governors of public policy in their jurisdiction. Public policy would be determined by direct democratic means, and delegates would be assigned to deal with the task of public policy administration. These delegates would be recallable at any time by a direct democratic vote, as opposed to the current dictatorial political system.

Various sections and aspects of the Paris Commune are an illustrative example of this sort of direct democracy in action, although it is necessary to note that the Paris Commune was not anarchistic, and was not strictly libertarian socialist either. It did, however, incorporate certain elements of libertarian socialism.

Workers’ councils would be specifically intended to address workers’ needs and concerns, and would determine workplace management and administration through direct democracy, again. Control of the means of production would be granted to both these democratically managed workers’ councils, as well as to the citizens of the locality, if some of the workers are not both. The community assemblies would primarily serve as complementary features of workers’ councils for citizens who do not perform conventional work (such as parents with small children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, etc.)

If the community’s industrial aspects are properly and efficiently managed through direct democracy, this would result in increased benefits for the workers and surrounding community. The workers themselves would be able to distribute and delegate work tasks and administration evenly among themselves, and thus form a far more efficient workforce, resulting in increased production levels and benefits, as well as decreased work hours and shortages.

Soviets initially functioned this way, until the Bolsheviks began to forcefully collectivize land and resources, and delegated control of the means of production to high-level bureaucrats rather than workers.

Through community and industrial unionism, decisions regarding the means of production and public policy affecting the wider community could be made in an efficient, direct democratic manner.

Communes would function as free, voluntary associations that would not force citizens to work or govern. Participatory committees would be freely joined and democratically managed, as opposed to the current situation, when all are forced to either work or die, because of the system of wage slavery that exists. An ideal commune would grant the minimal means of life even to those who were able but not willing to work. They would not grant them nonessential public services, however, unless they chose to participate in the work and management of the commune. As for those who were unable to work, they would still be granted full public services, as well as be permitted to have some degree of participation through community assemblies.

In the workplace itself, hierarchical authority structures would be dismantled in favor of direct democratic management. Policy creation would be given to the workers’ councils, and specific delegates and workers would be assigned to manage specific policy administrations, as is the case with the community assemblies. No longer would a separation between labor and management exist. The laborers would be the managers. Separate groups of order-givers and order-takers would no longer exist, and positions that solely emphasized management would not exist, as they would be useless and unnecessary. Through these methods, the workplace would not only function more democratically, it would function more efficiently, as workers are more intimately familiar with the conditions of the workplace than distant, unassociated managers are, and would be better qualified and capable to manage it properly.

The neighborhood and community assemblies would be the other segment of participatory committees to manage society as a whole. Towns and cities would essentially be formed from smaller neighborhood assemblies, which in turn would be federated at the regional and national levels in order to provide collective benefits to all involved. (The participatory committees would remain autonomous, of course, and could secede from larger federations if its member saw fit.) The assemblies would primarily address governance at the local level, and would ensure that all community members were provided with sufficient public services such as food, housing, healthcare, transportation, communication, etc. If there were councils or delegates that managed these assemblies, they would not possess an executive or bureaucratic status, and would primarily be intended to address specific facets of policy administration that would be too cumbersome and inefficient for management by the wider assembly.

Assemblies would be summoned on a regular basis, as often as required or necessitated by communal interests and issues, upon the request of the communal council or the consensus of the inhabitants of the local community. Local inhabitants would deliberate and address local issues and problems, and implement direct democratic management techniques in order to address them, possibly appointing additional councils or delegates in order to address them.

Lower levels of assemblies would maintain control over higher levels, thus reversing the unjust infliction of hierarchical, top-down authority structures.

Now, as I have previously mentioned, the most extensive model of this form of governance would be the Spanish anarchist collectives, which were not subject to the problems you noted.

Pure socialism could never work. Societies cannot survive without the poor. If everyone was guaranteed an education, food, and shelter, the result would not be a loss of creative motivation, as some people suggest. It would result in no one willing to collect the trash, clean the hotel rooms, or bus the tables. The vast majority of people would pursue more stimulating work.

First, I should note that the problem of who does unpleasant or difficult work is certainly not adequately addressed in capitalist society; such work is essentially assigned to members of the lower classes who can seek no meaningful forms of employment. That being said, a libertarian socialist collective or federation would not force anyone to do such work, but if people chose to be part of the collective and chose to receive resources from the collective, such work would probably be rotated so that no one was forced to do it all the time.

The principles of socialism are incompatible and repugnant to the Principle of Self Ownership.

Is this another tired reference to the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union was not a legitimately socialist state, (to the extent that a "socialist state" can even exist), because of the fact that the social structure of the Soviet Union mirrored that of Western capitalist society. As socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production, and any meaningful form of collective ownership involves democratic management, perhaps even direct democratic management of the nature detailed by Murray Bookchin's libertarian municipalist theories, a legitimate example of socialism would be the aforementioned Spanish anarchist collectives, the Paris Commune, the Free Territory of Ukraine, and perhaps some libertarian elements of the Bolivarian Revolution, etc.

The Soviet Union, conversely, did not have any legitimate form of democratic management, and rather relied on heavily authoritarian centralized structure involving governance by Bolshevik party officials and members of the Politburo and other components of the Central committee, etc. Thus, it mirrored the social structure of Western capitalist nations in that it was governed by a ruling class elite that had the illusion of democracy about.

This reality has always been recognized by legitimate socialists.

The Soviet Union Versus Socialism, by Noam Chomsky

Failure to understand the intense hostility to socialism on the part of the Leninist intelligentsia (with roots in Marx, no doubt), and corresponding misunderstanding of the Leninist model, has had a devastating impact on the struggle for a more decent society and a livable world in the West, and not only there. It is necessary to find a way to save the socialist ideal from its enemies in both of the world's major centres of power, from those who will always seek to be the State priests and social managers, destroying freedom in the name of liberation.

Even more notable, perhaps, is Peter Kropotkin's letter to Lenin, firmly disassociating himself and his anarcho-communism from the authoritarian perversions that Lenin and his followers were to introduce to the world.

Vladimir Ilyich, your concrete actions are completely unworthy of the ideas you pretend to hold. Is it possible that you do not know what a hostage really is — a man imprisoned not because of a crime he has committed, but only because it suits his enemies to exert blackmail on his companions? ... If you admit such methods, one can foresee that one day you will use torture, as was done in the Middle Ages. I hope you will not answer me that Power is for political men a professional duty, and that any attack against that power must be considered as a threat against which one must guard oneself at any price. This opinion is no longer held even by kings... Are you so blinded, so much a prisoner of your own authoritarian ideas, that you do not realise that being at the head of European Communism, you have no right to soil the ideas which you defend by shameful methods ... What future lies in store for Communism when one of its most important defenders tramples in this way every honest feeling?

I also wonder why you speak of self-ownership when the principles of capitalism are hardly compatible with any meaningful form of self-ownership, considering that one is effectively forced to work in a capitalist society. The most common analogy used to illustrate this is that of two different varieties of robbery. If a man were to knock you to the ground and rip your valuables out of your pockets, we would rightly call this a robbery. And if a man were to point a gun to your head and demand that you hand over your valuables, we would similarly label this robbery, despite the fact that you had technically "consented" to give them to him. We would recognize the fact that consent given under duress remains an unjust form of coercion, and robbery because there is no viable alternative. The former example represents direct statism and the authoritarianism that it promotes, while the latter example represents the more subtle authoritarianism of capitalism, in which people technically "consent" to work for a master, but it is consent given under duress, since one cannot carry on a meaningful existence, if any, without wages.

Our basic instinct in self-preservation and self betterment and we expect to be the sole masters of that which we have earned. We are charitable, but we, as individuals make the the decision as to who we give to, how much, and when, not a "committee". We, as a species value the worth of the individual far more than we do the collective. We are not bees in hive. We value the individual records in sports far more than the team records.

Liberalism always believes the false notion that humankind has evolved far more than we actually have. When in times of shortage we will be more than happy to see our fellow man starve and die in order to feed ourselves and our immediate families. We see that behavior in famine prone regions all the time.

Firstly, I am not a "liberal." I am an anarchist. Your reference to liberals is odd, considering that liberals are mixed-market capitalists, and contrary to popular belief, mixed-market capitalism is not "capitalism with a bit of socialism." Socialism is constituted only by the public ownership of the means of production.

Next, I don't believe that your argument is entirely inaccurate. Socialism, and Marxism in particular, has traditionally suffered from a belief in the malleability of human nature, which is the basis behind Marx's theory of historical materialism. In addition, Engels's apparent misunderstanding of Darwinism and belief in Lamarckianism was the basis behind the rise of the brutal doctrine of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union.

That being said, there can be legitimate sociobiological justifications for egalitarian forms of organization, even socialism, evolving from the basis of cooperation (instead of focusing exclusively on competition) and biologically natural forms of kin altruism, which can expand into community settings. (Consider the Israeli kibbutzim, for instance.)

Hence, you are incorrect in stating that all forms of socialism are contrary to human nature. This is primarily because possess the inaccurate belief that socialism is based on some sense of unnatural altruism or charity, while maintaining that capitalism is more "natural" because it relies on economic self-interest. You likely also regard competition as the chief manifestation of "human nature." This belief ignores the ways in which cooperation, rather than competition, can serve in the self-interest of beings involved.

Consider the Prisoner's Dilemma, a notable example of game theory. Suppose, for instance, that you had been falsely accused of a crime, along with another person. You are told that if you simply confess that the other person committed the crime, you will be released and he will be sentenced to thirty years in prison. However, he has been offered the exact same deal against you, and if you both accuse the other, you will both be spending fifteen years in prison. If neither one of you accuses the other, there will be no case against either one of you, and you will only be detained for a few months, and then released. This is an illustrative case regarding the merits of cooperation as opposed to competition.

The anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin wrote a book entitled Mutual Aid regarding the nature of cooperation rather than competition in natural circumstances, based on his observations during his time in Siberia.

The full text is available here.

The validity of Kropotkin's work on this topic was affirmed by no less an authority than the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.

Stephen Jay Gould. Kropotkin Was No Crackpot, 1997

The central logic of Kropotkin’s argument is simple, straightforward, and largely cogent...I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct.

Gould did fault Kropotkin with not realizing that cooperation was primarily intended to benefit individual organisms, which was a common mistake at the time, but again, this misconception was not one isolated to Kropotkin.

As a whole, his work is valid.

There are other major problems with equal outcome based systems. They destroy initiative, incentive, and effort. If I get nothing more for achieving more, I will chose not to bother.

The idea that socialism is a system based on equality of outcome is a fallacy, which sinks your entire argument. Even communism, the most egalitarian form of socialism that exists, is based on equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. In short, your argument fails in that it assumes that differentiations of compensation in accordance with differentiations of labor input will not exist in a socialist economy. A market socialist, mutualist, or collectivist economy would retain a wage system, albeit with democratic management, and a communist economy would restrict or prohibit one's access to public services if one was able but unwilling to work. In anarchist Catalonia, those unwilling to work were simply not considered part of the collective, and had to pay for public services that members of the collective received free of charge. A similar pattern continues in the parts of Chiapas that are controlled by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

And who decides what the resource distribution is? The "intellectual elite"? "Councils of workers" are a joke because most workers lack the education, intelligence, or training to even remotely understand economic issues on a macro scale.

By no means would an intellectual elite decide such issues. For one thing, an "intellectual elite" is really a creation of a capitalist society in and of itself because of the industrial discipline implanted in school students through the authoritarian school system, and despite being "public," the school system functions as a component of the capitalist mode of production. (I have commented further on that issue in this thread.)

In addition, your dire predictions about workers' councils are not borne out by currently existing models. Autogestion (workers' self-management) is an existing reality in Argentina, for instance, in which about 170 workplaces have been taken over by about 10,000 workers since the 2001 economic crisis, the most notable examples being the Hotel Bauen of Buenos Aires, the Brukman factory, and the Fabrica Sin Patrones.

Argentina: Where Jobless Run Factories

Almost entirely under the media radar, workers in Argentina have been responding to rampant unemployment and capital flight by taking over traditional businesses that have gone bankrupt and are reopening them under democratic worker management. It's an old idea reclaimed and retrofitted for a brutal new time. The principles are so simple, so elementally fair, that they seem more self-evident than radical when articulated by one of the workers in this book: "We formed the cooperative with the criteria of equal wages and making basic decisions by assembly; we are against the separation of manual and intellectual work; we want a rotation of positions and, above all, the ability to recall our elected leaders."

Thus, empirical evidence contradicts your claims.

Socialism doesn't scale at all. It only marginally works in small, ethnically homogenous societies that are already wealthy to begin with as in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and break down in larger more diverse societies with wide ranging social differences and economic ranges (Soviet Union, and now Germany and France).

The European models are not socialist countries; they are social democracies, and social democracy would be better described as a leftist form of capitalism rather than a form of socialism. I have already addressed the issue of the Soviet Union and why it was a state capitalist entity that is inappropriately referenced by the anti-socialist.

The REALITY of the human condition and the core of our nature is that at the end of the day, you are entitled to ONLY what you can TAKE and what you can KEEP. Nothing more, nothing less.

That's an extremely odd and inconsistent statement for a capitalist to make, considering that the nature of private property permits individuals to hoard items beyond what they can personally use. Your position seems to be an endorsement of personal possession above private property, and while personal possession involves ownership of items that an individual can personally use, private property involves the establishment of a monopoly of control over items that an individual cannot personally use, such as a plot of land that one is not living on and has no need of.

Social Darwinism. Totally disowned and held as contemptable by Darwin himself.

Quite right. Darwin's work is as misrepresented by modern capitalists as Adam Smith's is.

It relies upon proactive aggression to take from the productive, in order to feather the nests of the unproductive.

What other objection matters??

That is not an accurate claim, since there are coercions based on hierarchy and wage slavery that prevent the "unproductive" from being "productive" in a capitalist society.

I can't envision how this would be executed in practice. For example, are you suggesting that the amount of food my family would recieve is decided by popular vote at a community assembly? And what about healthcare? Do I have to lobby for and await a favorable vote before I can get treatment for my daughter's case of kroop? I would certainly object to that.

If you objected to that, you would be under no compulsion to join such a community assembly or collective, since libertarian socialism is based on voluntary association.

Which would still rely upon the proactive use of force to give any of its collectivistic proclamations any credibility.

FWIW, there's little to nothing inherently libertarian in the mob rule of democracy.

That is a factually inaccurate claim, since libertarian socialism is and always has been based on voluntary association. Unless you mean the initial expropriation that would occur? I would personally argue for the ethical legitimacy of that from the most fundamental justifications for socialism that exist, meaning the principle of just acquisition detailed by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, as well as the principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility.

Obviously, no absolutely legitimate form of property really exists in industrial society, given that it or the resources used to create it were forcibly seized at one time or another. Hence, there is no real inviolable principle of nonaggression against the property of others, especially considering that the state protection of private property has the effect of perpetuating past forms of unjust acquisition.

The principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility is also important if we are to judge the ethical status of actions according to their consequences, rather than deontological principles. For instance, we can clearly say that it is worse to steal a million dollars than to steal one dollar, despite the fact that both violate the principle against stealing money. Similarly, it is difficult to frown on expropriating the assets of the rich and redistributing it among the poor if the poor receive profound benefits from such assets without forcing the rich to sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance, since their excess wealth can only be used for commodities for themselves, as opposed to the essential necessities and utilities that it would provide to the multitudes of poor.

Possible Objection:

Would it resemble anything we know or have known? USSR or other Socialist Republic? As far as I know it's been tried in various forms and settings and has resulted in complete failure.

I think there is the model of employee ownership, but that is not socialism as much as it is a socialist approach when viewed from the prism of the ..ahem...free market.

My only true personal objection to socialism is that it has been a failure when tried, and I am happy with the system we have in the USA (although not perfect it is familiar and open to change). To try and create a perfect socialist experiment is not an experiment I want to be expose to either voluntary or forced.

A Socialist Democratic Republic might be to my liking, but I do not trust it would be implemented to my liking by the powers that be----and I do NOT trust my peers in a jury or a social experiment. So community assemblies and worker's councils are not my cuppa tea.

As I mentioned previously, the Soviet Union was not a legitimate socialist entity. That being said, I return to my previous examples of the Spanish Revolution and the benefits of workers' self-management in Argentina to make my case.

Because it removes the flow of capital from the pricing system, and the pricing system is the most efficient allocator of capital to the industries which are most likely to grow the fastest and be in the highest demand.

Now, excuse me, I have a football game to watch.

Yes, I was wondering when our good friend L. Von Mises would make his entrance. As I've mentioned to you before, Mises (and Hayek) was unable to win even the most elementary debates with socialist opponents. In dealing with the Lange model, Mises reverted from ideological attacks to grim predictions that such a model was not practically viable. Moreover, if I recall correctly, Enrico Barone developed a Pareto efficient model of a functioning socialist economy a full twelve years before the emergence of Mises's "economic calculation" argument.

But an even more scathing criticism than that is that Mises’s argument is fundamentally flawed in that it only addresses authoritarian “socialism” and central planning, and not libertarian socialism. However valid Mises’s objection may be in relation to Marxism, Leninism and other forms of centrally planned “socialism,” (and that is debatable, considering that he could not respond to Lange's critique sufficiently), it lacks validity when applied to libertarian socialism. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that both you and Mises are gravely mistaken when assuming that a centralized command system is a feature of true socialism.

As a utilitarian, I apply notions of the value of utility to socialism and communism as well, (and most anarcho-communists do also, for that matter.) A democratic network between producers and consumers can foster appropriation of use value depending on the amount of resources used in production, the labor value of the production, and the amount of benefits (or utility) that the finished product provides. Use value can easily be determined in a decentralized system through the estimates of direct consumers, whose input would actually matter, as direct democracy would be the system in place. Obviously, central planners are not the actual consumers and cannot make similar estimates. Von Mises’s argument fails to apply to libertarian socialism in this way. Cost is too often confused with price because of the interference of the market and the wage system. Actual cost can be estimated based on the material resources used in production, the labor value of the production, (since beneficial social effects rather than strict remuneration is essential) and the utility of the finished product, as I mentioned above.

The market system is not superior to libertarian forms of communism. I disagree with both capitalists and market socialists on the superiority of a market system. The true cost of a product is not approximated well by the market; price inflations intended to maximize profit rather than utility routinely serve as a form of extortion amongst consumers. Without the insertion of true utility costs in a market system, social costs cannot be approximated either. The market also fails to discriminate between individual and collective utility, and in fact often favors the benefits of a few isolated individuals. (And I might add that the benefits that they receive, such as commodities and luxuries are of no particular moral significance when compared with the benefits that the collective and majority of individuals would receive, such as necessities and essential utilities.)

Also...I assume you're familiar with a Coasian analysis of the nature of the firm?

 

[LOki]

Can you can the politically correct jargon and speak in plain English? WTF are you writing a term paper in an Academic setting?


What is it with you and the quaint and arcane phrases/code words?

Translation:

ur big werdz r hurtin me brian!

 

[Agnapostate]

Did you revive that other socialism thread because this reminded you of it?

 

[LOki]

Did you revive that other socialism thread because this reminded you of it?

Well, it does answer the question that opens this thread, . . . yes?

 

[Agnapostate]

Well, it does answer the question that opens this thread, . . . yes?

I'll have to take another look at it, though I'm still trying to overcome my amusement at your Lysander Spooner quote...the man was pro-capitalist only in Murray Rothbard's wet dreams. Though he was more closely affiliated with classical liberalism than Tucker or Stirner, for instance, he remained devoutly opposed to wage labor, while your capitalist heroes most certainly do not.

 

[LOki]

I'll have to take another look at it, though I'm still trying to overcome my amusement at your Lysander Spooner quote...the man was pro-capitalist only in Murray Rothbard's wet dreams. Though he was more closely affiliated with classical liberalism than Tucker or Stirner, for instance, he remained devoutly opposed to wage labor, while your capitalist heroes most certainly do not.

The irony is not lost on the rest of us.

 

[Toro]

Yes, I was wondering when our good friend L. Von Mises would make his entrance. As I've mentioned to you before, Mises (and Hayek) was unable to win even the most elementary debates with socialist opponents. In dealing with the Lange model, Mises reverted from ideological attacks to grim predictions that such a model was not practically viable. Moreover, if I recall correctly, Enrico Barone developed a Pareto efficient model of a functioning socialist economy a full twelve years before the emergence of Mises's "economic calculation" argument.

Well, that's very nice that they were unable to win debates. But it honestly doesn't much matter to me what happened in some musty university hall 100 years or whatever ago.

I do not argue from an Austrian perspective. I often point out the flaws of the Austrian arguments to the Austrian theologians on the Board. However, there are very few economists in the world today who do not believe that the pricing system is the most efficient system. The debate in the economics realm is not whether or not prices should be allowed to reach its clearing level because we all know what happens when pricing is not allowed to clear and is kept at an artificially high or low level. This has been repeated over and over and over again in the world around us. All you have to do is view what is occurring in Zimbabwe or Argentina or Venezuela for extreme examples of what happens when prices are not allowed to clear. Instead, the debate is how the pricing system most optimally operates.

Incidentally, I am of the opinion that both you and Mises are gravely mistaken when assuming that a centralized command system is a feature of true socialism.

I am really not all that interested in the various forms of socialism, nor am I particularly interested in any theoretical construct of how society should look like. Rather, I do have an idea what happens when there is "democratic ownership of the means of production."

We know that companies owned by the government in a competitive market (as opposed to a monopolistic market) are generally far less efficient that companies in the private sector, and thus are destroyers of wealth. Your typical competitive government institution earns less than its cost of capital, meaning it returns, say 5% while its cost of capital is, say, 7%. That means the company is destroying 2% of the nation's wealth. There are some government corporations that are run for the profit motive, i.e. along the lines of the pricing system. There are also some credit unions and co-operatives that are well run. But generally, corporations that are not run with profits first in mind are wealth-destroying institutions.

As for direct employee ownership, in the academic world, that may be appealing but in reality, it is not. And I don't mean it is not from my perspective, as an allocator of capital, which is what I am. Rather, I am talking from the providers of labor, i.e. the labor unions themselves. Generally, members of labor unions do not want to run corporations. I know this because they tell me so, or at least they tell people whom we hire this is so. They realize how difficult it is to run firms. They realize they do not have the skills to run firms. They have tried through employee stock ownership plans where the union members own the company. They tried it. They don't want to do it. Instead, rather than running the organization, they want to get paid more.

Whether or not something is "true" communism is an irrelevant argument, just like it is an irrelevant argument whether or not we have had a "true" free market or a "true" conservative government. It is all hypothetical and exists only in the minds of its proponents.

As for me, like

science > religion

and

empiricism > ideology/philosophy/dogma

 

[Ravi]

Originally Posted by Agnapostate First, I should note that the problem of who does unpleasant or difficult work is certainly not adequately addressed in capitalist society; such work is essentially assigned to members of the lower classes who can seek no meaningful forms of employment. That being said, a libertarian socialist collective or federation would not force anyone to do such work, but if people chose to be part of the collective and chose to receive resources from the collective, such work would probably be rotated so that no one was forced to do it all the time.

Then you'd have the problem of having everyone adequately trained to do hundreds of different jobs competently. Imagine for a minute rotating yourself through driving a garbage truck and collecting trash, cleaning hotel rooms, waiting tables, performing general landscape chores for the community, etc. And imagine not being able to do it competently. Chaos.

 

[michiganFats]

Instead of defining Socialism as "collective ownership of the means of production", perhaps if it were defined as "collective taking of the profits", you would get a different result?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Translation:

actually, using words like that moron does is a sure sign of a weak brain mixed with a huge inferiority complex and feelings of inadequacy. sorta what you see in academia.

 

[Toro]

Then you'd have the problem of having everyone adequately trained to do hundreds of different jobs competently. Imagine for a minute rotating yourself through driving a garbage truck and collecting trash, cleaning hotel rooms, waiting tables, performing general landscape chores for the community, etc. And imagine not being able to do it competently. Chaos.

It is more than that. What we know - and this is not theoretical - is that specialization increases productivity, and productivity is key to increased standards of living. Society, and the individual, are better off when they specialize at what they do best.

 

[PeterS]

The collective ownership of the means of production.

What production do we collectively own?

 

[Ravi]

It is more than that. What we know - and this is not theoretical - is that specialization increases productivity, and productivity is key to increased standards of living. Society, and the individual, are better off when they specialize at what they do best.

That was what I was trying to say, thanks for clarifying it.

Not to mention that it would be uber-frustrating for most people to be the jack of all trades and the master of none. Getting them to sign on to such frustration would be extremely difficult.

 

[Zoomie1980]

That functions as a practical objection rather than an ideological one, which I would answer with the example of the Spanish Revolution, in which the anarchist participants in the Spanish Civil War formed federations of libertarian socialist collectives that affected about eight to ten million people.

As I've mentioned previously, the Spanish Revolution marks the most widespread implementation of libertarian socialism in human history, and thus deserves to be noted time and time again. Yet it has been relegated to the ash heap of history, leaving the casual citizen under the impression that socialism has something to do with the brutal authoritarianism of the Soviet Union, and anarchism has something to do with disorder and chaos, both fallacious myths.

Returning to the nature of anarchism and libertarian socialism as implemented in Spain, the author Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people were directly or indirectly impacted by the Spanish Revolution and the anarchist collectives, and about two million workers directly participated in the collectivization process. According to Antony Beevor, an author on the Spanish Revolution, "The total for the whole of Republican territory was nearly 800,000 on the land and a little more than a million in industry. In Barcelona workers' committees took over all the services, the oil monopoly, the shipping companies, heavy engineering firms such as Volcano, the Ford motor company, chemical companies, the textile industry and a host of smaller enterprises. . . Services such as water, gas and electricity were working under new management within hours of the storming of the Atarazanas barracks . . .a conversion of appropriate factories to war production meant that metallurgical concerns had started to produce armed cars by 22 July . . . The industrial workers of Catalonia were the most skilled in Spain . . . One of the most impressive feats of those early days was the resurrection of the public transport system at a time when the streets were still littered and barricaded."

Another author, Jose Peirats, writes that, "Preoccupation with cultural and pedagogical innovations was an event without precedent in rural Spain. The Amposta collectivists organised classes for semi-literates, kindergartens, and even a school of arts and professions. The Seros schools were free to all neighbours, collectivists or not. Grau installed a school named after its most illustrious citizen, Joaquin Costa. The Calanda collective (pop. only 4,500) schooled 1,233 children. The best students were sent to the Lyceum in Caspe, with all expenses paid by the collective. The Alcoriza (pop. 4,000) school was attended by 600 children. Many of the schools were installed in abandoned convents. In Granadella (pop. 2,000), classes were conducted in the abandoned barracks of the Civil Guards. Graus organised a print library and a school of arts and professions, attended by 60 pupils. The same building housed a school of fine arts and high grade museum. In some villages a cinema was installed for the first time. The Penalba cinema was installed in a church. Viladecana built an experimental agricultural laboratory.

The collectives voluntarily contributed enormous stocks of provisions and other supplies to the fighting troops. Utiel sent 1,490 litres of oil and 300 bushels of potatoes to the Madrid front (in addition to huge stocks of beans, rice, buckwheat, etc.). Porales de Tujana sent great quantities of bread, oil, flour, and potatoes to the front, and eggs, meat, and milk to the military hospital.

The efforts of the collectives take on added significance when we take into account that their youngest and most vigorous workers were fighting in the trenches. 200 members of the little collective of Vilaboi were at the front; from Viledecans, 60; Amposta, 300; and Calande, 500."

It is estimated that eight to ten million people were directly or indirectly affected by the Spanish anarchist collectives. Author Leval has estimated 1,700 agrarian collectives, with 400 for Aragon, (although other estimates have been above 500), 900 for Levant, 300 for Castile , 30 for Estremadura, 40 for Catalonia, and an unknown number for Andalusia. He estimates that all industries and transportation were collectivized in the urban areas of Catalonia, (and indeed, 75% of all of Catalonia was estimated to have been collectivized in some way), 70% of all industries in Levant, and an unknown percentage in Castile.

The victories and social and economic benefits promoted in the Spanish Revolution through the implementation of libertarian socialist ideals, such as the establishment of syndicalism, voluntary association, and workers self-management strongly suggests that anarchist and libertarian socialist theories and practices are of a practical nature.

A more expansive summary of their existence can be found here.



I certainly don't deny that such regrettable and unfortunate issues are typically facets of a centralized economy, which is necessarily authoritarian in many ways. However, that is not the brand of socialism that I favor. I am an anarchist, I oppose the existence of the state, and I would favor a variety of decentralized, libertarian socialism.

As I have mentioned previously, public control without a state would essentially function through a federation of voluntary communes and syndicates that are democratically managed through participatory committees and workers’ councils. This would mean placing emphasis on grassroots neighborhood committees, community assemblies and other direct democratic associations rather than the centralized state.

Instead of a “top-down,” centralized governance system, an anarchist society would function using a “bottom-up,” decentralized governance system.

Neighborhood assemblies would be open to the general public, and these assemblies will be the primary (and final) governors of public policy in their jurisdiction. Public policy would be determined by direct democratic means, and delegates would be assigned to deal with the task of public policy administration. These delegates would be recallable at any time by a direct democratic vote, as opposed to the current dictatorial political system.

Various sections and aspects of the Paris Commune are an illustrative example of this sort of direct democracy in action, although it is necessary to note that the Paris Commune was not anarchistic, and was not strictly libertarian socialist either. It did, however, incorporate certain elements of libertarian socialism.

Workers’ councils would be specifically intended to address workers’ needs and concerns, and would determine workplace management and administration through direct democracy, again. Control of the means of production would be granted to both these democratically managed workers’ councils, as well as to the citizens of the locality, if some of the workers are not both. The community assemblies would primarily serve as complementary features of workers’ councils for citizens who do not perform conventional work (such as parents with small children, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, etc.)

If the community’s industrial aspects are properly and efficiently managed through direct democracy, this would result in increased benefits for the workers and surrounding community. The workers themselves would be able to distribute and delegate work tasks and administration evenly among themselves, and thus form a far more efficient workforce, resulting in increased production levels and benefits, as well as decreased work hours and shortages.

Soviets initially functioned this way, until the Bolsheviks began to forcefully collectivize land and resources, and delegated control of the means of production to high-level bureaucrats rather than workers.

Through community and industrial unionism, decisions regarding the means of production and public policy affecting the wider community could be made in an efficient, direct democratic manner.

Communes would function as free, voluntary associations that would not force citizens to work or govern. Participatory committees would be freely joined and democratically managed, as opposed to the current situation, when all are forced to either work or die, because of the system of wage slavery that exists. An ideal commune would grant the minimal means of life even to those who were able but not willing to work. They would not grant them nonessential public services, however, unless they chose to participate in the work and management of the commune. As for those who were unable to work, they would still be granted full public services, as well as be permitted to have some degree of participation through community assemblies.

In the workplace itself, hierarchical authority structures would be dismantled in favor of direct democratic management. Policy creation would be given to the workers’ councils, and specific delegates and workers would be assigned to manage specific policy administrations, as is the case with the community assemblies. No longer would a separation between labor and management exist. The laborers would be the managers. Separate groups of order-givers and order-takers would no longer exist, and positions that solely emphasized management would not exist, as they would be useless and unnecessary. Through these methods, the workplace would not only function more democratically, it would function more efficiently, as workers are more intimately familiar with the conditions of the workplace than distant, unassociated managers are, and would be better qualified and capable to manage it properly.

The neighborhood and community assemblies would be the other segment of participatory committees to manage society as a whole. Towns and cities would essentially be formed from smaller neighborhood assemblies, which in turn would be federated at the regional and national levels in order to provide collective benefits to all involved. (The participatory committees would remain autonomous, of course, and could secede from larger federations if its member saw fit.) The assemblies would primarily address governance at the local level, and would ensure that all community members were provided with sufficient public services such as food, housing, healthcare, transportation, communication, etc. If there were councils or delegates that managed these assemblies, they would not possess an executive or bureaucratic status, and would primarily be intended to address specific facets of policy administration that would be too cumbersome and inefficient for management by the wider assembly.

Assemblies would be summoned on a regular basis, as often as required or necessitated by communal interests and issues, upon the request of the communal council or the consensus of the inhabitants of the local community. Local inhabitants would deliberate and address local issues and problems, and implement direct democratic management techniques in order to address them, possibly appointing additional councils or delegates in order to address them.

Lower levels of assemblies would maintain control over higher levels, thus reversing the unjust infliction of hierarchical, top-down authority structures.

Now, as I have previously mentioned, the most extensive model of this form of governance would be the Spanish anarchist collectives, which were not subject to the problems you noted.



First, I should note that the problem of who does unpleasant or difficult work is certainly not adequately addressed in capitalist society; such work is essentially assigned to members of the lower classes who can seek no meaningful forms of employment. That being said, a libertarian socialist collective or federation would not force anyone to do such work, but if people chose to be part of the collective and chose to receive resources from the collective, such work would probably be rotated so that no one was forced to do it all the time.



Is this another tired reference to the Soviet Union? The Soviet Union was not a legitimately socialist state, (to the extent that a "socialist state" can even exist), because of the fact that the social structure of the Soviet Union mirrored that of Western capitalist society. As socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production, and any meaningful form of collective ownership involves democratic management, perhaps even direct democratic management of the nature detailed by Murray Bookchin's libertarian municipalist theories, a legitimate example of socialism would be the aforementioned Spanish anarchist collectives, the Paris Commune, the Free Territory of Ukraine, and perhaps some libertarian elements of the Bolivarian Revolution, etc.

The Soviet Union, conversely, did not have any legitimate form of democratic management, and rather relied on heavily authoritarian centralized structure involving governance by Bolshevik party officials and members of the Politburo and other components of the Central committee, etc. Thus, it mirrored the social structure of Western capitalist nations in that it was governed by a ruling class elite that had the illusion of democracy about.

This reality has always been recognized by legitimate socialists.

The Soviet Union Versus Socialism, by Noam Chomsky



Even more notable, perhaps, is Peter Kropotkin's letter to Lenin, firmly disassociating himself and his anarcho-communism from the authoritarian perversions that Lenin and his followers were to introduce to the world.



I also wonder why you speak of self-ownership when the principles of capitalism are hardly compatible with any meaningful form of self-ownership, considering that one is effectively forced to work in a capitalist society. The most common analogy used to illustrate this is that of two different varieties of robbery. If a man were to knock you to the ground and rip your valuables out of your pockets, we would rightly call this a robbery. And if a man were to point a gun to your head and demand that you hand over your valuables, we would similarly label this robbery, despite the fact that you had technically "consented" to give them to him. We would recognize the fact that consent given under duress remains an unjust form of coercion, and robbery because there is no viable alternative. The former example represents direct statism and the authoritarianism that it promotes, while the latter example represents the more subtle authoritarianism of capitalism, in which people technically "consent" to work for a master, but it is consent given under duress, since one cannot carry on a meaningful existence, if any, without wages.



Firstly, I am not a "liberal." I am an anarchist. Your reference to liberals is odd, considering that liberals are mixed-market capitalists, and contrary to popular belief, mixed-market capitalism is not "capitalism with a bit of socialism." Socialism is constituted only by the public ownership of the means of production.

Next, I don't believe that your argument is entirely inaccurate. Socialism, and Marxism in particular, has traditionally suffered from a belief in the malleability of human nature, which is the basis behind Marx's theory of historical materialism. In addition, Engels's apparent misunderstanding of Darwinism and belief in Lamarckianism was the basis behind the rise of the brutal doctrine of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union.

That being said, there can be legitimate sociobiological justifications for egalitarian forms of organization, even socialism, evolving from the basis of cooperation (instead of focusing exclusively on competition) and biologically natural forms of kin altruism, which can expand into community settings. (Consider the Israeli kibbutzim, for instance.)

Hence, you are incorrect in stating that all forms of socialism are contrary to human nature. This is primarily because possess the inaccurate belief that socialism is based on some sense of unnatural altruism or charity, while maintaining that capitalism is more "natural" because it relies on economic self-interest. You likely also regard competition as the chief manifestation of "human nature." This belief ignores the ways in which cooperation, rather than competition, can serve in the self-interest of beings involved.

Consider the Prisoner's Dilemma, a notable example of game theory. Suppose, for instance, that you had been falsely accused of a crime, along with another person. You are told that if you simply confess that the other person committed the crime, you will be released and he will be sentenced to thirty years in prison. However, he has been offered the exact same deal against you, and if you both accuse the other, you will both be spending fifteen years in prison. If neither one of you accuses the other, there will be no case against either one of you, and you will only be detained for a few months, and then released. This is an illustrative case regarding the merits of cooperation as opposed to competition.

The anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin wrote a book entitled Mutual Aid regarding the nature of cooperation rather than competition in natural circumstances, based on his observations during his time in Siberia.

The full text is available here.

The validity of Kropotkin's work on this topic was affirmed by no less an authority than the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.

Stephen Jay Gould. Kropotkin Was No Crackpot, 1997



Gould did fault Kropotkin with not realizing that cooperation was primarily intended to benefit individual organisms, which was a common mistake at the time, but again, this misconception was not one isolated to Kropotkin.

As a whole, his work is valid.



The idea that socialism is a system based on equality of outcome is a fallacy, which sinks your entire argument. Even communism, the most egalitarian form of socialism that exists, is based on equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome. In short, your argument fails in that it assumes that differentiations of compensation in accordance with differentiations of labor input will not exist in a socialist economy. A market socialist, mutualist, or collectivist economy would retain a wage system, albeit with democratic management, and a communist economy would restrict or prohibit one's access to public services if one was able but unwilling to work. In anarchist Catalonia, those unwilling to work were simply not considered part of the collective, and had to pay for public services that members of the collective received free of charge. A similar pattern continues in the parts of Chiapas that are controlled by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.



By no means would an intellectual elite decide such issues. For one thing, an "intellectual elite" is really a creation of a capitalist society in and of itself because of the industrial discipline implanted in school students through the authoritarian school system, and despite being "public," the school system functions as a component of the capitalist mode of production. (I have commented further on that issue in this thread.)

In addition, your dire predictions about workers' councils are not borne out by currently existing models. Autogestion (workers' self-management) is an existing reality in Argentina, for instance, in which about 170 workplaces have been taken over by about 10,000 workers since the 2001 economic crisis, the most notable examples being the Hotel Bauen of Buenos Aires, the Brukman factory, and the Fabrica Sin Patrones.

Argentina: Where Jobless Run Factories



Thus, empirical evidence contradicts your claims.



The European models are not socialist countries; they are social democracies, and social democracy would be better described as a leftist form of capitalism rather than a form of socialism. I have already addressed the issue of the Soviet Union and why it was a state capitalist entity that is inappropriately referenced by the anti-socialist.



That's an extremely odd and inconsistent statement for a capitalist to make, considering that the nature of private property permits individuals to hoard items beyond what they can personally use. Your position seems to be an endorsement of personal possession above private property, and while personal possession involves ownership of items that an individual can personally use, private property involves the establishment of a monopoly of control over items that an individual cannot personally use, such as a plot of land that one is not living on and has no need of.



Quite right. Darwin's work is as misrepresented by modern capitalists as Adam Smith's is.



That is not an accurate claim, since there are coercions based on hierarchy and wage slavery that prevent the "unproductive" from being "productive" in a capitalist society.



If you objected to that, you would be under no compulsion to join such a community assembly or collective, since libertarian socialism is based on voluntary association.



That is a factually inaccurate claim, since libertarian socialism is and always has been based on voluntary association. Unless you mean the initial expropriation that would occur? I would personally argue for the ethical legitimacy of that from the most fundamental justifications for socialism that exist, meaning the principle of just acquisition detailed by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, as well as the principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility.

Obviously, no absolutely legitimate form of property really exists in industrial society, given that it or the resources used to create it were forcibly seized at one time or another. Hence, there is no real inviolable principle of nonaggression against the property of others, especially considering that the state protection of private property has the effect of perpetuating past forms of unjust acquisition.

The principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility is also important if we are to judge the ethical status of actions according to their consequences, rather than deontological principles. For instance, we can clearly say that it is worse to steal a million dollars than to steal one dollar, despite the fact that both violate the principle against stealing money. Similarly, it is difficult to frown on expropriating the assets of the rich and redistributing it among the poor if the poor receive profound benefits from such assets without forcing the rich to sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance, since their excess wealth can only be used for commodities for themselves, as opposed to the essential necessities and utilities that it would provide to the multitudes of poor.



As I mentioned previously, the Soviet Union was not a legitimate socialist entity. That being said, I return to my previous examples of the Spanish Revolution and the benefits of workers' self-management in Argentina to make my case.



Yes, I was wondering when our good friend L. Von Mises would make his entrance. As I've mentioned to you before, Mises (and Hayek) was unable to win even the most elementary debates with socialist opponents. In dealing with the Lange model, Mises reverted from ideological attacks to grim predictions that such a model was not practically viable. Moreover, if I recall correctly, Enrico Barone developed a Pareto efficient model of a functioning socialist economy a full twelve years before the emergence of Mises's "economic calculation" argument.

But an even more scathing criticism than that is that Mises’s argument is fundamentally flawed in that it only addresses authoritarian “socialism” and central planning, and not libertarian socialism. However valid Mises’s objection may be in relation to Marxism, Leninism and other forms of centrally planned “socialism,” (and that is debatable, considering that he could not respond to Lange's critique sufficiently), it lacks validity when applied to libertarian socialism. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that both you and Mises are gravely mistaken when assuming that a centralized command system is a feature of true socialism.

As a utilitarian, I apply notions of the value of utility to socialism and communism as well, (and most anarcho-communists do also, for that matter.) A democratic network between producers and consumers can foster appropriation of use value depending on the amount of resources used in production, the labor value of the production, and the amount of benefits (or utility) that the finished product provides. Use value can easily be determined in a decentralized system through the estimates of direct consumers, whose input would actually matter, as direct democracy would be the system in place. Obviously, central planners are not the actual consumers and cannot make similar estimates. Von Mises’s argument fails to apply to libertarian socialism in this way. Cost is too often confused with price because of the interference of the market and the wage system. Actual cost can be estimated based on the material resources used in production, the labor value of the production, (since beneficial social effects rather than strict remuneration is essential) and the utility of the finished product, as I mentioned above.

The market system is not superior to libertarian forms of communism. I disagree with both capitalists and market socialists on the superiority of a market system. The true cost of a product is not approximated well by the market; price inflations intended to maximize profit rather than utility routinely serve as a form of extortion amongst consumers. Without the insertion of true utility costs in a market system, social costs cannot be approximated either. The market also fails to discriminate between individual and collective utility, and in fact often favors the benefits of a few isolated individuals. (And I might add that the benefits that they receive, such as commodities and luxuries are of no particular moral significance when compared with the benefits that the collective and majority of individuals would receive, such as necessities and essential utilities.)

Also...I assume you're familiar with a Coasian analysis of the nature of the firm?

Again, you deny fundamental human nature. Sure, in a prisoner of war or political prisoner environment humans will seek the only thing that a completely powerless person can to survive, as cooperation is the only thing that can work. To base an entire politico-economic theory on the basis of what what finds in a rare and brutal environment and extrapolate that to ordinary life, is ridiculous.

Humans, generally, are extremely UNCOOPERATIVE. We are forced to be cooperative in a corporate environment because if we are not, we are fired for not being a "team player". Given total freedom of action virtually no one has any interest in being a "team player". It takes months of training to train soldiers to work as a team because it is so unnatural to do so.

We are still selfish, self-preservationist beings at the core. I know, if you ever try to take what is mine, I will kill you if I can, no matter how bad you need what you are trying to take, and have no reservation about doing so. What is mine, is MINE, not yours, and not the "collective's". And that is the standard human state.

 

[Zoomie1980]

It is more than that. What we know - and this is not theoretical - is that specialization increases productivity, and productivity is key to increased standards of living. Society, and the individual, are better off when they specialize at what they do best.

Another reality of the human condition these socialists (or whatever oddball socio-politio-economic fabrication this guy thinks he is) that we can all do all the things a society needs done, equally well. I can collect garbage as well as any garbage collector in my town, but there is not a single one of them that could perform any aspect of my job.

So who is going to perform life saving open heart surgery when the surgeon is pulling his garbage collection shift that week?

 

[Zoomie1980]

That was what I was trying to say, thanks for clarifying it.

Not to mention that it would be uber-frustrating for most people to be the jack of all trades and the master of none. Getting them to sign on to such frustration would be extremely difficult.

As obvious as that sounds, the Military doesn't buy it. Ever wonder why we call them "Generals"?