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Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?
Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.
-Geaux
Hmm, actually it is just the reverse. Socialism is bottom up if properly implemented. Any top down attempt is doomed to fail due to corruption at the top.
Which is exactly why it will never work. You can't get people form the bottom, to voluntarily give up their rights to property. That's why it must be enforced at the point of a gun, by people in government.
No socialist state has ever been implemented without lethal force. Castro, Lenin, Pol Pot, Mao.
Even so called 'democratically elected' socialists used violence to achieve their goals. Hugo Chavez had his militias patrolling the streets terrorizing people who opposed him.
There is no example of a socialist system that didn't resort to violence, because when you tell people they have to give everything they have, to everyone else who hasn't earned it, they refuse.
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
Is redistribution of wealth, aided by social institutions, from the top down wrong, but from up from the lower strata to the top OK?
Because socialism always fails which is the top down model.
-Geaux
Hmm, actually it is just the reverse. Socialism is bottom up if properly implemented. Any top down attempt is doomed to fail due to corruption at the top.
Which is exactly why it will never work. You can't get people form the bottom, to voluntarily give up their rights to property. That's why it must be enforced at the point of a gun, by people in government.
No socialist state has ever been implemented without lethal force. Castro, Lenin, Pol Pot, Mao.
Even so called 'democratically elected' socialists used violence to achieve their goals. Hugo Chavez had his militias patrolling the streets terrorizing people who opposed him.
There is no example of a socialist system that didn't resort to violence, because when you tell people they have to give everything they have, to everyone else who hasn't earned it, they refuse.
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
What you are describing is communism. Socialism does not require giving up private property. Basically, socialism is a form of government that functions to the benefit of its people - just what government was intended to do.
Social Security and Medicare are social programs that cover all citizens within their defined definitions - those over 65 years old.
Most developed (first world) countries have social programs.
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
??? Communes are neither new, ineffective systems of social organization, nor doomed to failure. Take a look at any number of organizations.
The Branch Davidians didn't do so well, but that they didn't is hardly an indication of the viability of communal living and social organization. When a bunch of crazy and/or stupid people elect to adopt a communal lifestyle/organization, sure, things aren't likely to go so well for them. But that is because they are idiots, not because communal systems of organization cannot work.
Scale, based on what I've observed, is the limiting factor to communal systems' efficacy. Even though some of the orders noted above have existed for over a thousands of years, they all have at least one key thing in common: notwithstanding their having central and global leadership, the central leaders of the orders leave the details of daily life -- what to produce, how much to produce, etc. -- up to the leaders of each local commune (abbey, cloister, etc.).
Really.....
The money that I earn in my pay check, is my property. The government confiscates it and gives it to people who have not earned it. If I refuse to pay, men with guns show up, and drag me off to jail.
Socialism most certainly does require the giving up of property rights. If you doubt that theory, just test it. Refuse to pay medicare taxes. See what happens.
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
??? Communes are neither new, ineffective systems of social organization, nor doomed to failure. Take a look at any number of organizations.
The Branch Davidians didn't do so well, but that they didn't is hardly an indication of the viability of communal living and social organization. When a bunch of crazy and/or stupid people elect to adopt a communal lifestyle/organization, sure, things aren't likely to go so well for them. But that is because they are idiots, not because communal systems of organization cannot work.
Scale, based on what I've observed, is the limiting factor to communal systems' efficacy. Even though some of the orders noted above have existed for over a thousands of years, they all have at least one key thing in common: notwithstanding their having central and global leadership, the central leaders of the orders leave the details of daily life -- what to produce, how much to produce, etc. -- up to the leaders of each local commune (abbey, cloister, etc.).
I don't see any of those as being products of socialist ideals. They most certainly are not "equality" based systems.
Moreover, none of these, as far as I can tell, are self-sustaining. It's only because people outside the communes work and earn money in the capitalist system, that they then donate to the communes, that keep them running.
Moreover, the Cistercians and such conducted themselves more like a company than a commune. The had strict property rights, and engaged in productions of goods, and their abbeys were placed close to towns and cities, and often on major highways of trade.
How is this any different than McDonald picking a good spot for a new store?
So while I do sort of see the connection, I don't see them as the same as Jones Town, or Brooks Farm, Drop City, and other supposed socialist equality based systems.
Really.....
The money that I earn in my pay check, is my property. The government confiscates it and gives it to people who have not earned it. If I refuse to pay, men with guns show up, and drag me off to jail.
Socialism most certainly does require the giving up of property rights. If you doubt that theory, just test it. Refuse to pay medicare taxes. See what happens.
Your ability to identify one aspect of socialism that offends you and then mark it as the "root of all evil," so to speak, does not obviate the fact that the system in which you have for the entirety of your life, if you were born and raised in the U.S., incorporates multiple socialist ideas. Additionally, your remarks, while demagoguing over what you see as socialism's shortcomings, fail to identify any means for mitigating the ills of capitalism. Lastly, that one will suffer a penalty for not paying one's taxes in no way supports the assertion that "socialism most certainly does require the giving up of property rights." Were there to exist a place having laissez faire capitalism and that collected taxes exclusively to fund non-social programs, one would still be penalized for not paying one's taxes. How tax money is spent has nothing to do with whether there is a penalty imposed for not paying them.
I think you have misconstrued the intent of a great many social programs. The task is not to construct a vibrant economic order, but to cultivate economic development by aiding the establishment of the institutional conditions that enable economic actors to pursue their plans freely, to place their bets on economic ideas, and find the financing to bring those bets to life in the marketplace.
Question:
Assuming you are not a one-percenter, just how well do you imagine you'd do in a capitalist system that doesn't incorporate some tenets of socialism?
Now you can have communes with-in a capitalists system. That can happen. Branch Davidians in Waco Texas, lived in a commune. Those communes have a lousy lousy track record. Jones Town was a commune. Where you see these bottom up socialized societies working? I don't see many.... not many at all...
??? Communes are neither new, ineffective systems of social organization, nor doomed to failure. Take a look at any number of organizations.
The Branch Davidians didn't do so well, but that they didn't is hardly an indication of the viability of communal living and social organization. When a bunch of crazy and/or stupid people elect to adopt a communal lifestyle/organization, sure, things aren't likely to go so well for them. But that is because they are idiots, not because communal systems of organization cannot work.
Scale, based on what I've observed, is the limiting factor to communal systems' efficacy. Even though some of the orders noted above have existed for over a thousands of years, they all have at least one key thing in common: notwithstanding their having central and global leadership, the central leaders of the orders leave the details of daily life -- what to produce, how much to produce, etc. -- up to the leaders of each local commune (abbey, cloister, etc.).
I don't see any of those as being products of socialist ideals. They most certainly are not "equality" based systems.
Moreover, none of these, as far as I can tell, are self-sustaining. It's only because people outside the communes work and earn money in the capitalist system, that they then donate to the communes, that keep them running.
Moreover, the Cistercians and such conducted themselves more like a company than a commune. The had strict property rights, and engaged in productions of goods, and their abbeys were placed close to towns and cities, and often on major highways of trade.
How is this any different than McDonald picking a good spot for a new store?
So while I do sort of see the connection, I don't see them as the same as Jones Town, or Brooks Farm, Drop City, and other supposed socialist equality based systems.
Once again, you've let your awareness of one aspect of the situation lead you to construe it as the sole and/or primary driver to the nature and scope applying to that situation.
- Though today, donations may be among the primary sources of income for convents and abbys, in at least one era of largely unregulated capitalism, the Renaissance, they were not, even when donations were nonetheless significant.
- Your remark above goes to the point of self-sustainability and the generation of resources, not whether a redistribution or evenly apportioned distribution of resources generated can result in a successful mode of organization for a given society. Once again, you have confounded your thinking on one matter with your conclusions on another, that though related, are yet different matters.
None of what you said seems to even address the point I made. ....
But it wasn't redistribution. Again, they operated more like corporations. The monks generally had a vow of poverty. Which is one of the reasons the Abbeys were so wealthy, and could buy more land and engage in more trade.
At least that's my understanding.
The communes that operate on redistribution, often failed.... and usually pretty quick.
None of what you said seems to even address the point I made. ....
...And I won't ever directly address your point until you present a logically valid/expressed line of argument. I identified the fallacy in your remarks. If/when you revise the presentation of your argument so that it no longer contains fallacious elements, I'll gladly respond to it.
But it wasn't redistribution. Again, they operated more like corporations. The monks generally had a vow of poverty. Which is one of the reasons the Abbeys were so wealthy, and could buy more land and engage in more trade.
At least that's my understanding.
The communes that operate on redistribution, often failed.... and usually pretty quick.
Do you realize what you just wrote? Has it not occurred to you that at some level any organization that uses internal resources to generate and collect resources from outside itself necessarily, to some extent, resembles a corporation? The issue with socialism isn't how it generates resources, but with how it distributes them.
Corporations/partnerships:
Socialist society/organization:
- Use internal resources --> attract external resources to the firm --> distributes the attracted resources among corporation owners in proportion to their share of ownership (contribution to the firm's efforts)
The distribution of resources is based on what one deserves.
Think of the most basic of successful socialist organizations, the family/household. I have three kids.
- Use internal resources --> attract external resources to the society --> distributes the attracted resources among the members of the society based on ethical principles that may or may not bear a direct correlation to their contribution to society's efforts, but that absolutely have to do with one's being a member of the society
The distribution is based on need, and perhaps to some extent deservedness.
The contribution each of us in my household makes to the household's total bundle of resources can be seen as this: I -- 100% of them; they 0% of them.
I have so far distributed far more of my resources to my daughter than to my sons, individually and collectively. They don't complain that she's received more of the resources I've attracted to our household (society). That she's received more had no impact on her productivity (be it to the household or for her own ends) or theirs, nor on any of their perceptions of what is fair or not fair about how resources get distributed among them/us. The reason she's received more is because I determined she needed more; however, now that she's married and living under her own roof, she receives none of my immediate household's resources, yet my sons still do.
Might it come to pass that by the time all three have established their own households that one of them has received notably more resources than the others? Almost certainly.
Hmmm... but you don't take what your sons have earned, because they have earned nothing.
I got up at 3 AM, to drive a half hour into work, and not get back home until 4 PM that evening, to have the government take 20% of my check in taxes, of which practically none of it benefits me.
How does your son and daughter who have not worked at all, getting your benefits, equate to me working my butt off so your socialist buddies can steal my income to buy votes?
I just don't see that as being similar.
Hmmm... but you don't take what your sons have earned, because they have earned nothing.
I got up at 3 AM, to drive a half hour into work, and not get back home until 4 PM that evening, to have the government take 20% of my check in taxes, of which practically none of it benefits me.
How does your son and daughter who have not worked at all, getting your benefits, equate to me working my butt off so your socialist buddies can steal my income to buy votes?
I just don't see that as being similar.
I believe that you don't so see them. The irrationality of your remarks makes it clear to me that you don't grasp the extent to which they are and are not similar and that the extent of the similarity that makes the analogy apply to the points I've made is not compromised by the aspects of its dissimilarity. Moreover, that you've addressed the analogy rather than the point the analogy amplified further tells me that there's little point to discussing this with you.
It's just as well....thanks all the same for being a source of minor entertainment.
What's funny is in reality pure unregulated capitalism redistributes all the wealth to the 1%. It would be wonderful if at least 10-15% of this country could have a chance to open up a business and create/hold on to wealth.
Actually, pure, unregulated capitalism would result in the wealth concentrating in the hands of far less than 1%. Is there anybody who actually believes that pure, unregulated capitalism is a workable system?
No evidence to support such a claim. Tons that contradict it.
I'm not familiar with this contradictory evidence. Can you provide me with a reference?
Pretty much everywhere. Haiti, USSR, Cuba, Egypt, Switzerland. Everywhere in the world could be used a counter evidence to your claim.
Now obviously, there is 100% pure capitalist system, and there isn't any 100% pure socialist system. Even Communist Russia got 1/4th of their food from capitalist for-profit farms, because Communist collective farms sucked so bad, they couldn't even feed their own workers, let alone export food as they had in the years leading up to the revolution.
But take Haiti. Haiti has horrible anti-capitalist laws, that don't even respect property. It is hiddeously difficult just to get clear title on property in Haiti. Which is why 5 years later, and billions of aid dollars flowing into Haiti, they still haven't rebuilt large sections of even the capital city.
Contrast that with the wealthy government elite of Haiti. If you look at the top 1% of Haiti, all of them are either in government, connected to government, or family of government. Socialism at it's finest.
Cuba, same thing. Egypt, same thing.
Do even know why the the Arab spring happened? Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia was operating a vegetable cart, without proper license or permit. Because his act of unregulated capitalism was illegal.... they confiscated his cart. That's when he went to the police station and set himself on fire. His family would starve without him able to sell the vegetables his family grew.
Regulation is what allowed only those members of the government to sell their products, while preventing anyone else.
Then when you look at the opposite side..... Switzerland, Estonia, Hong Kong, Singapore. Places where more people share in the wealth of the country.
Did you know Switzerland is one of the top least regulated, most capitalist countries in the world? Corporate tax rate of 8.5%, tariffs on imported goods nearly 0%, freedom of investment, and strong property right protections. Switzerland is ranked 5th, on the economic freedom index, compared to the US at 12th.
Based on the relative comparison of dozens of different countries, with varying degrees of socialism, and capitalism, clearly the more capitalist the country is, the more people can share in the wealth. The less capitalists it is, the less they share in the wealth.
Really.....
The money that I earn in my pay check, is my property. The government confiscates it and gives it to people who have not earned it. If I refuse to pay, men with guns show up, and drag me off to jail.
Socialism most certainly does require the giving up of property rights. If you doubt that theory, just test it. Refuse to pay medicare taxes. See what happens.
