Liberty in Socialism?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
221

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ahem . . . every time socialism has been tried as a single economic/political system it has failed . . . thus endeth the tale.

Socialism works small scale as a component of a capitalistic economic system and nowhere else . . .[/quote]

With all due respect, Irish, you don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Seriously, everything you’ve said in this thread has been a gross misunderstanding of socialism.[/quote]

Well, then, Mr. Enlightened-Socialist pray tell where this shining example, nay, paragon of socialism as a single political and economic system has existed and succeeded? Where is this grand utopia of which you so knowledgeably speak? We are all longing, even aching to witness such perfection in acion!! Oh, my poor deluded intellect to have even questioned the grand wisdom of your . . .can i stop this now?

Give me your example and not your rhetoric!![/quote]

Still waiting Ryan . . . . . .[/quote]

Your tone clearly indicates that you have no interest in any serious discussion, and thus I have no interest in seriously engaging you.

222

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
^A home owners association or something that closely resembles it.[/quote]

Home owners association is more like an oligarchy. My father lives in an HOA, and I hate it, ever few months I have to go to his place to clean up his house for him, the thing is…there is nothing wrong. They require desert landscaping and they complain when there is a weed in his yard, because it is not ‘desert landscaping’, but he lives in the desert with desert plants in his yard. Baffles me. [/quote]

It’s voluntary.[/quote]

How is HOA voluntary?[/quote]

Don’t you ultimately have a choice to become a member or to not be a member? No one can force you into an association by the point of a gun. When you want to leave they do not send armed men after you nor do they collect money from you to keep you under their thumb.

Homeowners associations are examples of voluntary governance. Sports leagues are an other example.

They all rely on contracts to function. When they have disputes they can be settled in private courts.

In fact, what I advocate is a society in which voluntary contracts govern all relationships.[/quote]

…i don’t know if this is comparable, but i own an apartment and have to be a member of the HOA. It’s even required by law to have an active HOA. I have to pay 150 euros each month for the upkeep of the building, but if i don’t pay it the HOA can/will start legal proceedings to get me to pay the money or even evict me. Ofcourse i didn’t have to buy this particular apartment, but since all apartment buildings have a HOA, and i can only afford buying an apartment, i’m stuck with it…

223

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ahem . . . every time socialism has been tried as a single economic/political system it has failed . . . thus endeth the tale.

Socialism works small scale as a component of a capitalistic economic system and nowhere else . . .[/quote]

With all due respect, Irish, you don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Seriously, everything you’ve said in this thread has been a gross misunderstanding of socialism.[/quote]

Well, then, Mr. Enlightened-Socialist pray tell where this shining example, nay, paragon of socialism as a single political and economic system has existed and succeeded? Where is this grand utopia of which you so knowledgeably speak? We are all longing, even aching to witness such perfection in acion!! Oh, my poor deluded intellect to have even questioned the grand wisdom of your . . .can i stop this now?

Give me your example and not your rhetoric!![/quote]

Still waiting Ryan . . . . . .[/quote]

Your tone clearly indicates that you have no interest in any serious discussion, and thus I have no interest in seriously engaging you.[/quote]

Oh so very wrong! Don’t try that “ignore the question for tone” garbage with me. I do want to have a very serious discussion with you about this. I used sarcasm to show that you ignored my point with an “ad homen” attack and challenged you to actually rebut my statement with an actual example that proves my statement wrong.

This avoidance technique (and several others) is exactly what we have come to expect from you. You’re great (and I mean this honestly) at presenting the theoretical defense of socialism, but you fail mightily on concrete examples and actual proof. You resort to all sorts of avoidance techniques when pinned down to provide actual real examples of your socialist theory in action.

Here’s your chance. Prove me wrong by providing an example of socialism existing as a single political and economic system and succeeding . . .

224

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Great post. Brother Chris couldn’t be more incorrect. As Karl Polanyi said, “Laissez-faire was planned, planning was not.” The history of the free market is one state action after another. The market itself had to be created by the government, and its administrative functions only increased after its establishment.[/quote]

Are you talking about private property being protected by government? Is that what you mean by saying that the market was created by government? Because you certainly can’t be talking about market forces themselves. That is all due to voluntary human interaction. Not sure why a socialist would want to even deny this because it doesn’t necessarily negate your position in any way.

225

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
I totally agree. Advocates of the free-market (paradoxically) seem to be largely static thinkers on this matter, assuming that the economics of Smith’s time are applicable today. They are not. The size and scope of large businesses, and the power they have in the economy (too big to fail, able to subsidize a poor product into the market place, able to give their CEOs massive bonuses whilst letting the company fail, exe) is beyond the imaginings of Smith, or his contemporaries, and make a purely capitalistic dogma, I think, absurd.[/quote]

How is “too big to fail” or subsidization a failure of the market? That is a failure of an overly intrusive, bloated government. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shifting the blame away from big businessmen. In some ways, they are the market’s greatest enemies, but they are only allowed to do these things when the government becomes too large.

226

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…i don’t know if this is comparable, but i own an apartment and have to be a member of the HOA. It’s even required by law to have an active HOA. I have to pay 150 euros each month for the upkeep of the building, but if i don’t pay it the HOA can/will start legal proceedings to get me to pay the money or even evict me. Ofcourse i didn’t have to buy this particular apartment, but since all apartment buildings have a HOA, and i can only afford buying an apartment, i’m stuck with it…
[/quote]

two things:

  1. this is fascism and not a voluntary contract. The government is interfering in your ability to make choices.

  2. you still have a choice where you live though the governance is probably all the same since it is mandated by government.

227

[quote]Dabba wrote:
How is “too big to fail” or subsidization a failure of the market? That is a failure of an overly intrusive, bloated government. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shifting the blame away from big businessmen. In some ways, they are the market’s greatest enemies, but they are only allowed to do these things when the government becomes too large.
[/quote]

Deciding the save something that is “Too big to fail” is the result of an overly intrusive government, and the term comes from them. That’s why I put in it quotes. But I do think traditional pure-idealistic-capitalism fails when brought to the scale of single entities controlling large % of an economy. First, there is the separation between the interests of the people running the company, and the company itself: think Enron or any other massive company in the red that continues to pay it’s top people large salaries… or even any salary at all. In Smith’s capitalism, if your not producing something, or providing a service that puts you in the black, you don’t get paid. Now if you do it, you blow your employee’s retirement account and wire the money to an offshore account.

The other side is just the scope: if B of A fails, it will impact everyone in the US, customer or not. That’s pretty different than one of the three local blacksmiths having to close shop.

228

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
But I do think traditional pure-idealistic-capitalism fails when brought to the scale of single entities controlling large % of an economy.[/quote]

You mean singular entities like the government itself? I would agree with you on that.

Other than that I do not see how voluntary exchange can ever fail – that is all capitalism is.

229

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
But I do think traditional pure-idealistic-capitalism fails when brought to the scale of single entities controlling large % of an economy.[/quote]

You mean singular entities like the government itself? I would agree with you on that.

Other than that I do not see how voluntary exchange can ever fail – that is all capitalism is.[/quote]

Capitalism on paper assumes, and in reality requires, both options and an informed consumer to work its magic. The ability to artificially manipulate prices, and subsidize failure turns it on it’s head. There’s no way around it an we see it all the time.

Company X generally makes decent products, but comes out with shit product Y, markets it well, has a good relationship with the pertinent media forces, to make shitty product Y look good: people still buy shitty product Y. What? Not everyone is falling for it? Well company x is very profitable, it’s going to drop the price of product Y well the below the competition, and take a loss on product Y until it starts selling. Competitors who make better versions of product Y, but don’t have other branches to subsidize them, cannot compete with shitty product Y, because they can’t make the price artificially low. Despite their superior products, that in a functioning market, would have competitive prices, they loose. They go out of buisness. They fold. Now we all get shitty product Y, which magically becomes more expensive once the competition is out of the way/people have built brand loyalty (a real thing, people are creatures of habit).

230

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Deciding the save something that is “Too big to fail” is the result of an overly intrusive government, and the term comes from them. That’s why I put in it quotes. But I do think traditional pure-idealistic-capitalism fails when brought to the scale of single entities controlling large % of an economy. First, there is the separation between the interests of the people running the company, and the company itself: think Enron or any other massive company in the red that continues to pay it’s top people large salaries… or even any salary at all.[/quote]

Yep, Enron is just flourishing nowadays ain’t it?

I agree here, but there are two things: First, in an unregulated market it is highly unlikely that many of these large companies could survive or become so large in the first place without state enforcement. Secondly, I challenge you to provide me one example of a working economy that didn’t depend on the decisions of other people and that didn’t have negative consequences for bad actions. Good thing is that in a more free market, people are forced to learn their mistakes sooner and therefore they can’t get so big that they do so much damage (this is one of the reasons that recessions were so common, yet so short, back in the 19th century).

The other thing is that, like I said above, the fact that these companies KNOW that they have the backing of the state in case anything goes wrong makes them more likely to take on risky mortgages or other things that, in a free market, would be filtered out much more quickly and likely wouldn’t happen in the first place very often.

231

[quote]Dabba wrote:
The other thing is that, like I said above, the fact that these companies KNOW that they have the backing of the state in case anything goes wrong makes them more likely to take on risky mortgages or other things that, in a free market, would be filtered out much more quickly and likely wouldn’t happen in the first place very often.
[/quote]

If I can get rather wealthy (even filthy rich) by influencing public policy in away that takes advantage of my already established presence, and to the dismay of smaller competitors and new entries, why not do it?

I’m asking if it’s inevitable that once a few companies become leaders, that they might just welcome a set amount of rules, regulation, and taxation, if they’re confident they can survive it while watching less stable competition choke to death. So while at first what might seem like a profit loss actually becomes a boon for those already in a secure position. The centralization of the market into fewer and fewer hands. Until you have to the too-big-to-fails.

While it seems like I’m agreeing with you, I’m actually questiong if this is the inevitable progression of a cold, self-interested, profit as sole motive, economy.

Also, I wonder how many now are merely concerned with getting weatlhy in their 15-20 years of leadership, knowing the very practices which are bringing in this hyper-profit at the moment are actually damaging in the long term, causing failure in, say, 30 years. By then, one could be retired, living the good life. The company is someone else’s problem at that point. “Hey, I got mine, and got out.”

232

[quote]Sloth wrote:
If I can get rather wealthy (even filthy rich) by influencing public policy in away that takes advantage of my already established presence, and to the dismay of smaller competitors and new entries, why not do it?[/quote]

Uh, did you not read what I said? You absolutely should. The problem is, you shouldn’t be able to. From an individual’s perspective, I want to maximize personal utility, and that means profit. If I can do that by getting a tariff or subsidy from congress, I absolutely will. But looking at the society at large, this clearly is not a good thing.

Again, this is what the problem is. People think that many of the regulations we have are for the consumers. But one must look beneath the label. Many of these big businesses lobby for regulations that will work in their favor.

Oh I know Sloth that you are not agreeing with me. I used to really enjoy your posts and since I started posting more I thought that you were a free market conservative, but it has become abundantly clear that you, as opposed to someone like Tiribulus (another resident conservative), do not stick to free market principles.

Yep, and this is exactly what politicians do as well. They do enough to create an artificial high so that people are satisfied in the short run and then it all crashes down in the next guy’s term. A good way to limit this in the market is by taking out regulations which often times benefit the large companies as opposed to smaller ones.

233

[quote]Dabba wrote:
[Oh I know Sloth that you are not agreeing with me. I used to really enjoy your posts and since I started posting more I thought that you were a free market conservative, but it has become abundantly clear that you, as opposed to someone like Tiribulus (another resident conservative), do not stick to free market principles.

[/quote]

I’m just a Conservative. In fact, I wonder if ‘free market conservative’ is a bit of misnomer. I’m thinking free-market liberal would be a more accurate description of those supporting unrestrained Capitalism. I’m more of Decentralist, I guess. A localist. I see the same potential to gut communities, virtue, and duty to fellow citizen/neighbor in Capitalism as I do in federal entitlement programs. I’d prefer humane free-markets with limits. The favoring of the local and smaller. I don’t want to see capitalist outsource jobs, tell us it’s for our own good. Then, watch as my displaced countrymen have to compete with cheaper imported labor (lobbyed for) for jobs which remain. Sometimes, even illegal labor. I can’t help but wonder, if in all that creative destruction, only a few are getting the benefits of the creative, while the rest just get the destruction.

234

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’m just a Conservative. In fact, I wonder if ‘free market conservative’ is a bit of misnomer. I’m thinking free-market liberal would be a more accurate description of those supporting unrestrained Capitalism. I’m more of Decentralist, I guess. A localist. I see the same potential to gut communities, virtue, and duty to fellow citizen/neighbor in Capitalism as I do in federal entitlement programs. I’d prefer humane free-markets with limits. The favoring of the local and smaller. I don’t want to see capitalist outsource jobs, tell us it’s for it’s for our own good. Then, watch as my displaced countrymen have to compete with cheaper imported labor (lobbyed for) for jobs which remain. Sometimes, even illegal labor. I can’t help but wonder, if in all that creative destruction, only a few are getting the benefits of the creavtive, while the rest just get the destruction. [/quote]

That’s why I don’t identify as a conservative. I call myself a classical liberal, as I figure it’s right in between hardcore libertarianism and the conservatism you’ve just described.

235

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’d prefer humane free-markets with limits.[/quote]

Btw, you do know that this basically describes the platform for modern progressives right?

236

Honestly R.P.M. the propaganda is getting a little tiresome. I ask about this cooperative, and you can’t answer that, just making fun of the fact that I actually do research.

It is a little hard to argue with you when you think you know what your talking about when you make it obvious you don’t. I have been specifically arguing against Socialism, which is a big government idea. Now I realize you actually mean Communism, not Socialism.

You have Marx as your avatar, so I assumed you should know about this.

You complain about people being oppressed, yet what are you proposing for what you call Capitalists?

I have known business owners working their asses off, barely trying to stay afloat, and what you call workers living high off the hog.

What you are complaining about is not actually capitalism, but a caricature of capitalism. You do not have any real idea of that capitalism is, nor of what a Capitalist is. In fact you are using the Capitalist as a scapegoat, as if they are the new Jew. That way you are not responsible for your own life, they are. Even though you don’t need to work for them. Even though you can go across the street and compete with them.

The antagonism you are complaining about is falsely created by propagandists like you, just like the oppression is falsely created.

It does nobody any good to be upset that somebody else is doing fine. Just like the fat person hating the lean person. The fat person is completely capable of being lean. The poor person is just as capable of becoming wealthy as the wealthy person.

We need to look at success as something for us to learn from. Not something to envy.

Instead of telling people they can achieve too, you spend your time telling people they are oppressed, so they end up sitting in their room in an oppression depression.

How exactly are people being oppressed anyway? I assume you are talking about a person working for another person. But that is why they are working. Their job is to make the other person money. That is what I do, and I have no problem with it. If I am unhappy about the situation, I need to do something about it, and if I am unwilling to do something about it, I do not feel I have the right to complain.

I am a worker, and I am not oppressed.

237

[quote]Dabba wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’d prefer humane free-markets with limits.[/quote]

Btw, you do know that this basically describes the platform for modern progressives right?
[/quote]

I don’t know, you tell me.

238

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
^A home owners association or something that closely resembles it.[/quote]

Home owners association is more like an oligarchy. My father lives in an HOA, and I hate it, ever few months I have to go to his place to clean up his house for him, the thing is…there is nothing wrong. They require desert landscaping and they complain when there is a weed in his yard, because it is not ‘desert landscaping’, but he lives in the desert with desert plants in his yard. Baffles me. [/quote]

It’s voluntary.[/quote]

How is HOA voluntary?[/quote]

Don’t you ultimately have a choice to become a member or to not be a member? No one can force you into an association by the point of a gun. When you want to leave they do not send armed men after you nor do they collect money from you to keep you under their thumb.

Homeowners associations are examples of voluntary governance. Sports leagues are an other example.

They all rely on contracts to function. When they have disputes they can be settled in private courts.

In fact, what I advocate is a society in which voluntary contracts govern all relationships.[/quote]

Well voluntary contracts are fine, but I do not want all my relationships to be that way.

239

Haha, as if that were necessary. If we were having this debate circa mid-1700s, and I asked you to cite an example of successful self-regulating market capitalism, to prove that it worked, you wouldn’t be able to do it, because it hadn’t existed so far. Then I might say to you “aha! Because it has never existed, therefore it can never work!” Of course we have the advantage today of knowing that I would have been wrong, because industrial capitalism was right around the corner. The long and short of it is, your statement is illogical. Reformulate your thoughts and ask an intelligible question.

240

[quote]Dabba wrote:

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Great post. Brother Chris couldn’t be more incorrect. As Karl Polanyi said, “Laissez-faire was planned, planning was not.” The history of the free market is one state action after another. The market itself had to be created by the government, and its administrative functions only increased after its establishment.[/quote]

Are you talking about private property being protected by government? Is that what you mean by saying that the market was created by government? Because you certainly can’t be talking about market forces themselves. That is all due to voluntary human interaction. Not sure why a socialist would want to even deny this because it doesn’t necessarily negate your position in any way.[/quote]

The conditions for the market economy were created by the government. Especially the markets for the fictitious commodities of land and labor. Commons were enclosed and peasants were expropriated to make way for capitalist enterprises. Their houses were torn down and their land taken. Existing laws that impeded the workings of the new economy were repealed.

In other words, the state was consciously pursuing the goal of laissez-faire.