Objections to Socialism

[editec]

The collective ownership of the means of production.

It runs completely counter to basic human nature. We are not bees or "borg".

Neither are we cockroaches who eat their own young.

Mankind is a social animal.

There are no self made men.

There are only people who, thanks to the society they live in which supports and sustains them, do very well.

 

[LOki]

A free marketer doesn't advocate government intervention. Toro does, so I don't consider him to be a free marketer. He views a mixed economy as optimal. In my book, he's a centrist.

Really? So if I mentioned the negative social opportunity costs of market externalities, you wouldn't advocate Pigovian taxation?

Mention them and we'll see. When you do, just be absolutely sure that you're not characterizing the negative social opportunity costs of socialist or fascist regulatory externalities as market externalities. In the meantime, my answer is fuck NO, because I don't think you're going to come up with negative social opportunity costs of market externalities that are actually valid.

But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: 'Your money, or your life.' And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
--Lysander Spooner​

And you wouldn't consider the infant industries argument as a method in which government intervention can bolster eventual market exchange?

Suck ass, bullshit, authoritarian statist change that is inconsistent with any notions of liberty or human rights, yeah.

What's most ironic about the free marketers' base hatred of government is that the government has traditionally acted as the primary stabilizing agent in a capitalist economy.

Not really. As the enforcer of the rule of law, yes; not as a market regulator. This is the primary gripe I have with you statist types; you view a free marketeer's enjoyment of the rule of law, and derision of market regulation as hypocritical, when the two concepts are entirely different.

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators.
--P.J. O'Rourke​

There's no place in a free market for force or fraud--just like there's no place for force or fraud anywhere else that people are interacting peacefully. There is no need to regulate markets, unless you cannot obtain market advantage without the use of force or fraud--and therein is the dirty little secret that you statists hide with your smoke-and-mirrors, bait-and-switch with rule-of-law vs regulation: you can't achieve and/or maintain your own market advantage without the use of government sanctioned and sponsored force an/or fraud--you losers need regulations to hobble your betters and advance your incompetent efforts. You don't have the tools to survive in a free market.

Funny you mention utopian talking points, though. Your view of how a society can function without a governing body is pretty funny. Just yet another idea that "looks good on paper".

You'll have to specify what you mean by a "governing body." I believe that a society can function more productively without a state, as was the case in the anarchist regions of Aragon, Catalonia, and parts of the Levant during the Spanish Revolution, in which the "governing" body was horizontal federations of decentralized urban collectives and rural communes, in which libertarian social organization and socialist collectivization generated efficiency gains and beneficial social effects.

"Socialist collectivization" is theft. It's morally repugnant, and ultimately fails because theft of wealth is not the same thing as the creation of wealth.

Hence, there is empirical support for my perspective, . . .

Really? So if I mentioned the negative social opportunity costs of externalities appurtenant to "socialist collectivization", you wouldn't advocate prison for the thieves?

. . . in that such a society has existed and functioned in the past, to say nothing of what we might derive from microeconomic analysis into the greater productivity of worker-owned enterprises, which have the tendency of minimizing the principal-agent problems seen in the conventional capitalist firm.

Where are these Spanish socialist collectivist thieves now, if this was so successful? I know what they're not doing . . . they're not creating wealth--they're stealing it.

This is the fatal flaw of the looting classes; they insist that they are entitled to the life-work of those who create wealth and/or capital--an "entitlement" that they collect by force.

It is self-evident that no number of men, by conspiring, and calling themselves a government, can acquire any rights whatever over other men, or other men's property, which they had not before, as individuals. And whenever any number of men, calling themselves a government, do anything to another man, or to his property, which they had no right to do as individuals, they thereby declare themselves trespassers, robbers, or murderers, according to the nature of their acts.
--Lysander Spooner​

On the other hand, support of free market capitalism has no empirical basis and is entirely derived from the textbook.

Except for every bit of free market capitalism that socialists, fascists, communists and corporatists embrace to validate their bullshit--other than that, free market capitalism has no empirical basis and is entirely derived from the textbook.

Capitalism can collapse solely on the basis of the existence of imperfect contracting, which free market utopianists routinely fail to acknowledge.

Utopians or otherwise, proponents of free markets fail to aknowledge that capitalism can collapse solely on the basis of the existence of imperfect contracting, because the notion is utter bullshit.

The fact that information asymmetries exist in a capitalist economy will necessarily cause adverse selection and moral hazard problems in the real world separate from the free market utopia.

But for these information asymmetries to become significant, global adverse selection and moral hazard problems, just about EVERYONE participating in a free market would have to make precisely the same mistakes at just about the same time--that's the premise of the doomsday prophesies of statists; possibility, regardless of how remote, means probability.

 

[Oddball]

Really? So if I mentioned the negative social opportunity costs of market externalities, you wouldn't advocate Pigovian taxation? And you wouldn't consider the infant industries argument as a method in which government intervention can bolster eventual market exchange? What's most ironic about the free marketers' base hatred of government is that the government has traditionally acted as the primary stabilizing agent in a capitalist economy.

Amusing that socialist Utopians never take into account the externalities of their pious aggressions in the marketplace!!

Nope....We're supposed to judge them by their purported know-it-all intents, not their dismal results.

 

[WiseOldMan]

Socialism?


Nobody has clearly defined it yet.


National Socialism? (NAZIS)

United Socialist Soviet Republic? (USSR)?

Public roads.

Public Schools.

Public enforcement (police)

Public defense (military)

Public preservation (fire department)

Public rescue (paramedics)

Public recreation (parks).


What the heck are we talking about?


How about this:

All roads private (have to afford the toll to pass).

All parks private (Hey, that swingset and grassy area is for members only).

All services private ("I'm sorry, sir, but our police for doesn't serve your address." "I'm sorry, sir, but you aren't a member of the fire department service." "Sir, I realize you're bleeding to death, but you haven't paid your monthly paramedic subscription fee.")


ALL government is socialism. We pay a tax and receive a service.


The only true alternative is anarchy.

 

[Oddball]

How about this:

All roads private (have to afford the toll to pass).

Red herring...Lawful fuel taxes and other user fees pay for roads.

But you could also pay for them by selling passes for any given length of time as well.

All parks private (Hey, that swingset and grassy area is for members only).

Lots of supposedly "public" parks charge user fees.

All services private ("I'm sorry, sir, but our police for doesn't serve your address." "I'm sorry, sir, but you aren't a member of the fire department service." "Sir, I realize you're bleeding to death, but you haven't paid your monthly paramedic subscription fee.")

Another red herring. Services like the police and fire are collectivized manifestations of the individual right to be free from aggression.

However, for your edification, the late Robert Nozick came up with a few workable free market models for local police/fire/EMS services.

ALL government is socialism. We pay a tax and receive a service.

The only true alternative is anarchy.

Red herring and hyperbole.

Minimal de jure governance, by its very being, is not anarchy.

 

[Quatermass]

by editec: Thinking that one can decide which system to use, and then sticking to that system even when conditions have changed and that system is now detremental to the people is the hallmark behavior of idealogues of every strip.

The above is not entirely incorrect when it comes to stratergy, as there is no room for tradition or intransigence in dealing with the fluid situations of day to day government.

by eitec: The rpoblem of government is BAD government

The problem with capitalism is BAD capitalism.

(editec of course then went on to voice the above nonsense, which if carried to its natural concussion would read: the problem with Fascism is BAD Fascism)

That's not to say a fundamental approach such as Workers democracy can be contradicted on a whim, only that any prevailing fashion which may have become entrenched within a movement (in this case Socialism) is open to further analysis; further improvement or indeed upheaval, without the agencies of conspiracy present in the profit system.

It is only under the scrutiny of the scientific Socialist method that any significant change is indeed plausible, for under Bourgeois 'democracy' the interests of plutocratic lobbies undermine any such freedom in a thousand different ways, from the tangible to the covert.

The recent bailouts of private financial bodies with public monies is a case in point. The logic, reason and insight of the honest working class is undermined by the influence of endemic institutionalised capitalist canker. The result being the refinancing of banking pirates.


Below, ecconomic trends forecaster, Gerald Celente: "Government controlled Capitalism is called Fascism".[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaSKJ75EMoc]YouTube - Gerald Celente expect World Riots Ghost Malls and a Revolution in This Country[/ame]

Clearly, only when the means of production, finance and distribution are in the hands of the masses; planned both democratically and centrally, will civilization emerge from the chaos and darkness of this epoch of greed.

 

[alice123]

nice said but is it possible?

 

[alice123]

without causing an anarchy, I mean...

 

[plt42]

I'd like to conduct a little experiment here.

State a few.

Objections to Socialism... in it's purest form, it doesn't work. That's not just an opinion. History proves it.

Like the pure bred dog vs. the mutt, the latter is the healthiest. So it is with government. A blend of social welfare, free market enterprise, and capatalist greed... yes, GREED... drives the economy and the lifestyle of the people. (Perhaps the word "motivation" is more palletable than greed but, it is what it is.) Simply stated, you set your own limitations. I like the freedom aspect of that.

 

[Bern80]

The collective ownership of the means of production.

It runs completely counter to basic human nature. We are not bees or "borg".

Neither are we cockroaches who eat their own young.

Mankind is a social animal.

There are no self made men.

There are only people who, thanks to the society they live in which supports and sustains them, do very well.

I can't believe this needs to be debated again. Does the strength of a society afford people opportunities? Of course. The extent to which you take advantage of that opportunity and turn into success is solely up to you. One has a better opportunity to become a doctor in this country than in say Ethiopia, but the individual must still do the work. If studying hard and getting the truly immaculate grades you need to get into med school, THEN study your ass of some more to get to be a doctor isn't self made. I'm not sure what is.

You are a fatalist Ed, as a lib it makes sense. God forbid you or anyone else ever had to find blame in themselves for their shortcomings.

 

[alice123]

well said

 

[Oddball]

There are no self made men.

There are only people who, thanks to the society they live in which supports and sustains them, do very well.

We're all self-made men and women.

It's only the successful ones who will admit it.

 

[alice123]

Hi guys listen, I really need some help here with a new international study dealing with what people think about the recent economic crisis and its origins...I've read the notes people wrote here in their references, and i thought maybe you'll be kind to spare 5 min. to participate. It is very important..

To take the survey just click th link...

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=6oI1yBcJxczXbjVzt_2fPA6g_3d_3d

Thanks!

Alice.

 

[Quatermass]

Zoomie1980: “It's an economic system that runs counter to basic human nature.“

You voice a common fallacy Zoomie1980“. Basic Human nature is not all about selfishness and greed, deception and aggression, (The fundamental prerequisites of the Capitalist system.) Humans are social creatures by necessity. Those qualities however are detrimental to social cohesion, as is abundantly and clearly visible in the collapsing societies of bourgeois dictatorships around the World, including the U.K. and U.S.A.



Some may recognise the New Testament Biblical passage about the sower, from
Matthew 13:




1"The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
2And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
7And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. "

what this parable explicates is the effects an objective structure has on the emergent peoples within. All the corruption which is redolent in the primitive Capitalist system (the greed, the individualistic, self centred culture; the violent scramble for wealth, the exploitation and the coercion etc. is now transferred into the Human beings that develop inside it.

Any social system thereby defines the predominant behavioural qualities of a people.

It is not ‘human nature’ but ‘human nature under the conditions of a retarded socio-economic system’ which you observe Zoomie1980

 

[Oddball]

You voice a common fallacy Zoomie1980“. Basic Human nature is not all about selfishness and greed, deception and aggression, (The fundamental prerequisites of the Capitalist system.) Humans are social creatures by necessity. Those qualities however are detrimental to social cohesion, as is abundantly and clearly visible in the collapsing societies of bourgeois dictatorships around the World, including the U.K. and U.S.A.

Riiiiiight.

And the less-than-upright human traits of selfishness and greed, deception and aggression would never ever apply to the socialist elites charged with herding the proletariat in the '"right direction"!!!

 

[Quatermass]

midcan5...

The notion that either the working class has become ‘middle class’ in nature because of the ownership of a handful of shares, or that this constitutes some form of ‘Socialism’ is completely false. These are the misnomers the privileged elites (who hold the lions share; the significant balance of industrial wealth) enjoy propagating, in order to delude the underclass into a state of stupefaction, thus rendering the exploited and disgruntled proletariat confused politically, so essentially incapacitated and harmless in the insidious yet comfortable delusion that they are something other than what they actually are.

 

[Oddball]

 

[Richard-H]

The answer lies in an ever changing, well balanced, adaptable socio-economic system. The simplistic extreme ideologies of capitalism and communism are both failures and a lie.

The tiny minority of super powerful beneficiaries of the extreme ideologues use their power to perpetuate the myth that it must be one extreme or the other while in fact both degenerate the majority to little better than slaves.

A dynamic society balance between a moderately conservative democracy on one extreme thru a liberal democracy with a social democracy on the other extreme would serve the majority best while still allowing for economic individualism.

That's kind of what we used to have here in the U.S. and what exists in many european countries today, but unfortunately, for the past 30 years, the U.S. has gone off the free liberatarian deep end.

 

[Oddball]

That's kind of what we used to have here in the U.S. and what exists in many european countries today, but unfortunately, for the past 30 years, the U.S. has gone off the free liberatarian deep end.

Examples of utterly this delusional hypothesis would be......???

 

[Citizen]

Although I do not remember the source, a good example of why socialism is a bad idea is that it only works as long as you can spend other peoples money, and when other peoples money runs out socialism fails.