Liberty in Socialism?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]dmaddox wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

Did I choose to be born in a capitalist society without any productiv property, no I did not. no societys are totally voluntary. I work where I work because I need the money, I did not have childhood dream of working at a supermarked. capitalisme/liberalisme sounds find on paper. but its a tyranny in the real life. the society you talk about could be possible in a pre-industrial age. a society consisting of indepentent farmers and artisans wich all owned there own property ( jeffersonian republicanisme ). while today the society and economy are bigger and more complex and it takes a different system than liberalisme to create a society that can grant the most freedom.

If I lived in a pre-industrial society I would have been a jeffersonian republican.[/quote]

So basically you beleive as the original Unions that were organized to help the common workers? I will say that the original Unions formed around 1900 give or take a few decades were needed, but in this day in time of all the information on the internet, and the legal system and government regulation the unions are no longer needed. The unions are no more than an organized mob asking for more money and more benefits at the expense of the people who have taken the risk to set up the company in the first place. The workers are no longer taken advantage of. I believe that the investors are the ones being taken advantage of. Look at the Auto companies GM and Chrysler. Both companies stock and bond holders got shit out of the agreement the Government and Unions came up with. This is socialism at its finest. Take from the people willing to sacrifice to save some money and lend it to a company, and the people who run the unions are the ones that get the money, and not the workers.[/quote]

we dont have socialisme today. the are no stock holders in socialisme. wall street is shut down lol.

unions where importent, are importent and will always be importent. free unions will also be importent in socialisme. whats bad is staterun unions.

22

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

[/quote]
Socialism makes no distention between ill gotten gains and fairly gotten ones. Socialism is collective ownership of both. Every time you mention socialism, you talk about exactly that.

[quote]

Did I choose to be born in a capitalist society without any productiv property, no I did not. no societys are totally voluntary. I work where I work because I need the money, I did not have childhood dream of working at a supermarked. capitalisme/liberalisme sounds find on paper. but its a tyranny in the real life. the society you talk about could be possible in a pre-industrial age. a society consisting of indepentent farmers and artisans wich all owned there own property ( jeffersonian republicanisme ). while today the society and economy are bigger and more complex and it takes a different system than liberalisme to create a society that can grant the most freedom.

If I lived in a pre-industrial society I would have been a jeffersonian republican.[/quote]

So you are claiming you would be better off if there was no supermarket to employ you? You are admitting they make your life better by simply acknowledge they give you a needed resource. How, if they make your life better, and you volunteer to work for them and agree to your wages, are they taking advantage? If it wasn’t for them you could be a bum on the streets. Oh yes, that terrible supermarket giving you job is what makes your life so bad. You should take their earnings.

Point being, if you look at the heart and soul of any exchange, almost all business is good for all those involved. Socialism confiscates the honest and dishonest dollar alike.

23

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

[/quote]
Socialism makes no distention between ill gotten gains and fairly gotten ones. Socialism is collective ownership of both. Every time you mention socialism, you talk about exactly that.

[quote]

Did I choose to be born in a capitalist society without any productiv property, no I did not. no societys are totally voluntary. I work where I work because I need the money, I did not have childhood dream of working at a supermarked. capitalisme/liberalisme sounds find on paper. but its a tyranny in the real life. the society you talk about could be possible in a pre-industrial age. a society consisting of indepentent farmers and artisans wich all owned there own property ( jeffersonian republicanisme ). while today the society and economy are bigger and more complex and it takes a different system than liberalisme to create a society that can grant the most freedom.

If I lived in a pre-industrial society I would have been a jeffersonian republican.[/quote]

So you are claiming you would be better off if there was no supermarket to employ you? You are admitting they make your life better by simply acknowledge they give you a needed resource. How, if they make your life better, and you volunteer to work for them and agree to your wages, are they taking advantage? If it wasn’t for them you could be a bum on the streets. Oh yes, that terrible supermarket giving you job is what makes your life so bad. You should take their earnings.

Point being, if you look at the heart and soul of any exchange, almost all business is good for all those involved. Socialism confiscates the honest and dishonest dollar alike.[/quote]

first of all this debates are useless because you “pro capitalist” guys have different perception of freedom than me and the rest of the “pro socialist” guys.

The freedom you talked about is the freedom for a worker to choose his exploiter. wow thanks for that freedom mate ( sarcasme ).

24

Hey Flo - appreciate your courage in jumping into this discussion.

Your comments about the fredoms of the worker are pretty much what i expected to hear, but what I wanted to delve into was the actual Individual Liberty concept.

We in America hold that our Liberty and unalienable rights are given to us by our creator and are thus not an aspect of the state. And these Free Individuals choose to gather together for mutual benefit and empower the existence of the Constitution. Through this document of limitations we created a limited government. It is why our constitution is written in negative terms (what the government cannot do) rather than in positive terms (what the government must do). Our whole political philosophy grew out of the individualism of our founding fathers. Thus, our liberties have alway existed as something greater than economics and “workers” rights and definitely as something existing beyond the state.

The citizen of America is not defined by his worker status, but merely by his existence. It was this same existential approach that allowed our forefathers to decide that merely being born in this land of Liberty was good enough to warrant receipt of the protection of that individual’s liberty. Emancipation, suffrage - a whole host of new ideas branched out of this existential liberty.

I see no aspect of this in any writing of socialism that I have encountered. Everything from MArx to Mao starts and ends with the collective/state rather than with the individual. The individual does not exist and has no rights except in relation to the collective/state. He is merely a worker and this status (worker) is the foundation of any rights granted to him by the collective/state.

I hope I am making this disctinction clearly.

How do you see Individual Liberty existing with the socialism matrix?

25

Socialism is freedom from exploitation??? WTF?!

The very nature of socialism is exploitation precisely because it must create a slave class to do all the work.

edited for clarity

26

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

[/quote]
Socialism makes no distention between ill gotten gains and fairly gotten ones. Socialism is collective ownership of both. Every time you mention socialism, you talk about exactly that.

WTF? You need to do some growing up. You acknowledge your employer makes your life better while damning them for exploiting you. I directly disproved all your contentions and you didn’t address them.

Capitalism is the freedom to be an employer. If you and your magnificent perception know oh so much more about the running of business and the “fairness” of employing workers, start a business. If you’re right, your will put the bad guys out of business. Workers will work for you instead of those terrible exploiters.

By your asinine logic, there are no companies that don’t exploit to work for. There are, I can start naming some if you’d like. even one disproves your hypothesis on capitalism.

But as I said, you are making accusations at a company that keeps you from starving. Quit, go die in the street. If they make your life better, explain how it’s exploitation.

Sounds to me like you aren’t productive and your life sucks as a result, but your looking for someone else to blame.

My dad started off poor. When I was born, we were poor. My dad “exploited” himself way up the ladder to a good life. I got a better boost in life than he did, and I plan on giving my kids a better start than I got.

For you in your arrogance to think that your “poor” life (probably still better off that 95% of the world) gives you the right to my dads labor or the right to take my labor from my son, makes me want to punch you in the damn face.

Social is immoral. It is against the natural right of a man to own himself. It is against everything I consider good.

I will not sell any part of myself for any part of bit of social security.

We both know what liberty and freedom really mean. The socialist definition is nothing more than a perverted twisted concocted justification. It means self ownership. Period. Anything that contradicts self ownership is wrong. Period.

27

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Hey Flo - appreciate your courage in jumping into this discussion.

Your comments about the fredoms of the worker are pretty much what i expected to hear, but what I wanted to delve into was the actual Individual Liberty concept.

We in America hold that our Liberty and unalienable rights are given to us by our creator and are thus not an aspect of the state. And these Free Individuals choose to gather together for mutual benefit and empower the existence of the Constitution. Through this document of limitations we created a limited government. It is why our constitution is written in negative terms (what the government cannot do) rather than in positive terms (what the government must do). Our whole political philosophy grew out of the individualism of our founding fathers. Thus, our liberties have alway existed as something greater than economics and “workers” rights and definitely as something existing beyond the state.

The citizen of America is not defined by his worker status, but merely by his existence. It was this same existential approach that allowed our forefathers to decide that merely being born in this land of Liberty was good enough to warrant receipt of the protection of that individual’s liberty. Emancipation, suffrage - a whole host of new ideas branched out of this existential liberty.

I see no aspect of this in any writing of socialism that I have encountered. Everything from MArx to Mao starts and ends with the collective/state rather than with the individual. The individual does not exist and has no rights except in relation to the collective/state. He is merely a worker and this status (worker) is the foundation of any rights granted to him by the collective/state.

I hope I am making this disctinction clearly.

How do you see Individual Liberty existing with the socialism matrix?[/quote]

the thing is that I dont see freedom seperated from the collectiv/society. If humans lived alone in the forest and not in groups as we do no. nobody would talk about freedom, because they would be totally free from other humans, but also totally dependent on them self. as we know humans live in groups in some form. tribes, small willages, states etc. freedom becomes a concept when people live togheter and are depentent on each other. the term freedom/liberty is only interresting in a collectiv/society. freedom is the independence a individual has in the group/collectiv/society. to talk about freedom as something disconected from a group/collectiv/society is pointless and strictly abstract.

as an example of a abstract freedom concept, we can look to Sartre. Sartre said that humans = freedom. in others words, man is the manifistation of freedom. He said that we do always have the freedom to make a choice regardless of the conteks that choiche is taken. lets say you have no money and you have to get a job. the thing is there is only one job you can get, at that is a job is at a brothel as a gigolo. you offcourse dont want to be a gigolo, but its either that or starving. offcourse this is an extrem scenario, but its only to describe sartre. well sartre would say that you do have a choice, even do its beetwen death or daily rape. This is similar to the freedom concepts many in here have, and its not what I regard as a healthy freedom concept, I think it only serves to legitimate the exploiters and failures of the system of today. in other words it does not serve any purpose, because it says that you are always free regardless if you live in a fascist, capitalist or a socialist society.

I would then say that a freedom concept must be a properiory truth, it has to be conteks based.
when the burgeoise rebelled against the late feudalsystem, they fought for freedom from the feudal state. The feudal state with its priviligies for the nobility and its regulations was in direct opposition to the interrests of the burgeois class. So when they talked about freedom, they ment a society where trade where free of regulations and that there property was safe from confiscation. The american revolution was a revolt against british mercantilisme and for home rule. The american burgeois experienced many acts from the british that made them depentent on the british market. one example is the “hat act”. it made it illegal to produce hats in the colonies. So the freedom the american burgeois wanted was freedom from this unfair economic union beetwen america and england. This is an example that freedom is conteks based. Today we have had our burgeois revolutions in the west, and we have gotten rid of the aristocracy and its state. its marks as an progress in human history. but we still have unfreedom in the western society, but the enemy is not a aristocracy, a foreign colonial superpower or an unfair economic union. so it does not make sence to fight for freedom from this entitys I listed above. Whats make sense today in the western world is to fight for freedom from exploitation because its a real issue that hold the majority of the population down.

I answer your question about individual libertys in the socialist matrix later on.

ps. sorry for the wall of text.

28

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

[/quote]
Socialism makes no distention between ill gotten gains and fairly gotten ones. Socialism is collective ownership of both. Every time you mention socialism, you talk about exactly that.

WTF? You need to do some growing up. You acknowledge your employer makes your life better while damning them for exploiting you. I directly disproved all your contentions and you didn’t address them.

Capitalism is the freedom to be an employer. If you and your magnificent perception know oh so much more about the running of business and the “fairness” of employing workers, start a business. If you’re right, your will put the bad guys out of business. Workers will work for you instead of those terrible exploiters.

By your asinine logic, there are no companies that don’t exploit to work for. There are, I can start naming some if you’d like. even one disproves your hypothesis on capitalism.

But as I said, you are making accusations at a company that keeps you from starving. Quit, go die in the street. If they make your life better, explain how it’s exploitation.

Sounds to me like you aren’t productive and your life sucks as a result, but your looking for someone else to blame.

My dad started off poor. When I was born, we were poor. My dad “exploited” himself way up the ladder to a good life. I got a better boost in life than he did, and I plan on giving my kids a better start than I got.

For you in your arrogance to think that your “poor” life (probably still better off that 95% of the world) gives you the right to my dads labor or the right to take my labor from my son, makes me want to punch you in the damn face.

Social is immoral. It is against the natural right of a man to own himself. It is against everything I consider good.

I will not sell any part of myself for any part of bit of social security.

We both know what liberty and freedom really mean. The socialist definition is nothing more than a perverted twisted concocted justification. It means self ownership. Period. Anything that contradicts self ownership is wrong. Period.[/quote]

maybe you should take a chill pill dude. no need to get angry at me because I have a diffeent opinion than you.

29

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

The reason that it is necessary for the “capitalist” to profit off the labor of others is that the vast majority of humans are risk-averse. Since investing in an enterprise is a risky proposition, the economic system must entice investors with the possibility of a profit. If earning a profit through “other people’s labor” by way of investing were not possible, nobody would invest.

The socialists’ answer to this problem is the people (the state, in this case) to own the capital, and for the people (the direct employees, in this case) to vote on how to invest it.

Unfortunately, this brings a rather obvious moral hazard into the equation: the people voting on how to invest the money do not actually possess the money, and thus are not exposed to the consequences of bad decision-making.

Two real-world examples:

1.) Witness the modern banker operating with a (often explicit) promise of a bailout or guarantee from their government.

2.) Notice the near-universal practice of tying executive compensation to improvements in stock price. This is done to try and mitigate this moral hazard.

Here, the socialist will argue that the worker’s “stake” in the operation is their continued employment, and that that will be enough to entice them to make wise decisions. On paper, this seems to be a reasonable argument. Unfortunately, empirical evidence (see #1 above for an example) suggests otherwise.

[i](Another common promise of socialism, put forth by Mr. McCarter, is that “anybody who seeks employment will have a job”. Under this system, the worker then truly has little impetus to vote to invest capital wisely, as they are almost completely insulated from the effects of poor decisions.)

(Another reason workers’ voting on capital expenditure issues usually leads to poor decisions is because the workers will often have incomplete information about their company/industry and have no experience/education in executive decision-making.

While it sounds like an easy problem to fix on paper, the reality is that asking workers to make wise and informed capital expenditure decisions is like asking the sales department to do the accounting while they’re at it. That’s the executive’s job, and it’s actually a very difficult job. If full-time executives were not necessary, they wouldn’t exist.)[/i]

Given that real-world evidence suggests that the risk of job-loss does not produce enough of an impetus for workers to vote wisely in capital investment, the only other option to effectively link workers to the consequences of their bad decisions is to introduce the concept of equity stakes.

Unfortunately, equity stakes are worthless in a socialist world where investment income is prohibited. So a socialist system seems to introduce a moral hazard into a key component of a modern economy that cannot be eliminated without defeating the entire purpose of socialism.

30

There’s no point in even discussing pure socialism: it will never happen (much like pure capitalism).

Social-democracy is a possibility: and I think it can work well in a stable post-industrial democracy.

31

In summation: and for “teh lulz”

32

[quote]tGunslinger wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

The reason that it is necessary for the “capitalist” to profit off the labor of others is that the vast majority of humans are risk-averse. Since investing in an enterprise is a risky proposition, the economic system must entice investors with the possibility of a profit. If earning a profit through “other people’s labor” by way of investing were not possible, nobody would invest.

The socialists’ answer to this problem is the people (the state, in this case) to own the capital, and for the people (the direct employees, in this case) to vote on how to invest it.

Unfortunately, this brings a rather obvious moral hazard into the equation: the people voting on how to invest the money do not actually possess the money, and thus are not exposed to the consequences of bad decision-making.

Two real-world examples:

1.) Witness the modern banker operating with a (often explicit) promise of a bailout or guarantee from their government.

2.) Notice the near-universal practice of tying executive compensation to improvements in stock price. This is done to try and mitigate this moral hazard.

Here, the socialist will argue that the worker’s “stake” in the operation is their continued employment, and that that will be enough to entice them to make wise decisions. On paper, this seems to be a reasonable argument. Unfortunately, empirical evidence (see #1 above for an example) suggests otherwise.

[i](Another common promise of socialism, put forth by Mr. McCarter, is that “anybody who seeks employment will have a job”. Under this system, the worker then truly has little impetus to vote to invest capital wisely, as they are almost completely insulated from the effects of poor decisions.)

(Another reason workers’ voting on capital expenditure issues usually leads to poor decisions is because the workers will often have incomplete information about their company/industry and have no experience/education in executive decision-making.

While it sounds like an easy problem to fix on paper, the reality is that asking workers to make wise and informed capital expenditure decisions is like asking the sales department to do the accounting while they’re at it. That’s the executive’s job, and it’s actually a very difficult job. If full-time executives were not necessary, they wouldn’t exist.)[/i]

Given that real-world evidence suggests that the risk of job-loss does not produce enough of an impetus for workers to vote wisely in capital investment, the only other option to effectively link workers to the consequences of their bad decisions is to introduce the concept of equity stakes.

Unfortunately, equity stakes are worthless in a socialist world where investment income is prohibited. So a socialist system seems to introduce a moral hazard into a key component of a modern economy that cannot be eliminated without defeating the entire purpose of socialism.[/quote]

you miss one point about socialisme: in socialisme you dont need to produce for profit, so there are no need to revard rich risk seeking investors. If we have socialisme with a market, so-called syndicalisme. the workers own there workplace direct, they will be carfull, because if they are not they go bankrupt, and they loose the workplace and there invested capital.

if a society where a state owns the means of production, run its corporations for profit, you dont have socialisme anymore, you have statist capitalisme.

p

33

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
We in America hold that our Liberty and unalienable rights are given to us by our creator and are thus not an aspect of the state. And these Free Individuals choose to gather together for mutual benefit and empower the existence of the Constitution. Through this document of limitations we created a limited government. It is why our constitution is written in negative terms (what the government cannot do) rather than in positive terms (what the government must do). Our whole political philosophy grew out of the individualism of our founding fathers. Thus, our liberties have alway existed as something greater than economics and “workers” rights and definitely as something existing beyond the state.

The citizen of America is not defined by his worker status, but merely by his existence. It was this same existential approach that allowed our forefathers to decide that merely being born in this land of Liberty was good enough to warrant receipt of the protection of that individual’s liberty. Emancipation, suffrage - a whole host of new ideas branched out of this existential liberty.
[/quote]

This should be posted on the front of every US history textbook in America. Good post.

34

[quote]florelius wrote:
Today we have had our burgeois revolutions in the west, and we have gotten rid of the aristocracy and its state. its marks as an progress in human history. but we still have unfreedom in the western society, but the enemy is not a aristocracy, a foreign colonial superpower or an unfair economic union. so it does not make sence to fight for freedom from this entitys I listed above. Whats make sense today in the western world is to fight for freedom from exploitation because its a real issue that hold the majority of the population down.
[/quote]

See, this is where I get confused with Marxists. Do you not realize that in your efforts to help the “proletariat” you have actually created a new quasi-aristocracy that is supported by the state? Do you actually think that mounds of government regulations that are often lobbied for by big business actually help the little guy? Who do you think taxes hurt the most? Certainly not the people who own the business, as they just pass down costs to their workers or the consumers.

I know that true Marxism doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with regulations or taxes, but you have acknowledged that the state needs to be strengthened in order to attain a communist society. I think this is the flaw in Marxism. The state needs to be strengthened in order to eliminate Capitalism, I agree with that, but it never works out the way you guys want it to. It’s always two elites forming an unholy alliance with one another instead of just one bad elite. Big business can get ugly, but give me that elite class over big government + big business any day.

35

[quote]Dabba wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
Today we have had our burgeois revolutions in the west, and we have gotten rid of the aristocracy and its state. its marks as an progress in human history. but we still have unfreedom in the western society, but the enemy is not a aristocracy, a foreign colonial superpower or an unfair economic union. so it does not make sence to fight for freedom from this entitys I listed above. Whats make sense today in the western world is to fight for freedom from exploitation because its a real issue that hold the majority of the population down.
[/quote]

See, this is where I get confused with Marxists. Do you not realize that in your efforts to help the “proletariat” you have actually created a new quasi-aristocracy that is supported by the state? Do you actually think that mounds of government regulations that are often lobbied for by big business actually help the little guy? Who do you think taxes hurt the most? Certainly not the people who own the business, as they just pass down costs to their workers or the consumers.

I know that true Marxism doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with regulations or taxes, but you have acknowledged that the state needs to be strengthened in order to attain a communist society. I think this is the flaw in Marxism. The state needs to be strengthened in order to eliminate Capitalism, I agree with that, but it never works out the way you guys want it to. It’s always two elites forming an unholy alliance with one another instead of just one bad elite. Big business can get ugly, but give me that elite class over big government + big business any day.[/quote]

marxists and socialliberalist/socialdemocrats are not the same thing. Do you think I am in favor of an alliance beetwen capital and the burgeois state. I am offcourse not. The burgeois state is just that, the burgeois state. it takes any action that are required to protect the burgeois class. be it small government or big government. When we marxists say capitalisme, we dont meen the utopian dream of orion. our definition is a class society, where the burgeois have the power over the market and the state. socialisme from a marxist perspectiv meens a class society where the proletariat have the power over the economy and the state. So we dont want the state of today to get to strong, because this state is our enemy and we must maybe fight against it today. So dont blame the policys of the capitalist state on us marxist. Blame it on the burgeois.

36

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

Did I choose to be born in a capitalist society without any productiv property, no I did not. no societys are totally voluntary. I work where I work because I need the money, I did not have childhood dream of working at a supermarked. capitalisme/liberalisme sounds find on paper. but its a tyranny in the real life. the society you talk about could be possible in a pre-industrial age. a society consisting of indepentent farmers and artisans wich all owned there own property ( jeffersonian republicanisme ). while today the society and economy are bigger and more complex and it takes a different system than liberalisme to create a society that can grant the most freedom.

If I lived in a pre-industrial society I would have been a jeffersonian republican.[/quote]

What you do not seem to understand is that the capital provided to you by the evil capitalist enables you to make a living working in a supermarket. Without it you would have do eek out a living by subsistence agriculture.

Also, you do not seem to get that “profit” is a reward for the risks an entrepreneur takes and is an important market signal to allocate resources in the areas where consumers want them most.

37

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

I have always seen a glaring flaw in this defense of freedom in the practice of socialism. In a capitalist society all arrangements are voluntary. That is to say, no one can be literally forced to enter into any arrangement of employment/compensation/ect. No one can ever be forced to work at a specific place. The only way anyone can be forcibly taken advantage of is through government. How on earth can you argue that a factory is taking advantage of a worker when the worker has chosen and continues to choose employment at the place to all other alternatives they are free to choose?

Further, what if I get rich selling my paintings? Who am I exploiting? How can you justify the community having a right to my success. The community nationalizing my earnings is the only way I can truly be victimized. All other actions are voluntary.
[/quote]

where in my post did I say you cannot sell your own paintings? I said that you cant get rich on the expense of others.

[/quote]
Socialism makes no distention between ill gotten gains and fairly gotten ones. Socialism is collective ownership of both. Every time you mention socialism, you talk about exactly that.

Why cant he open his own business?

38

Are people really calling business owners who hire people exploiters? How are they exploiting you, you agreed to sell your time for a certain amount of money that you both agreed too. If you believe you are worth more then it is up to you to prove that.

Its funny the very regulations socialist seem to love create the monopolies they seem to hate

39

[quote]florelius wrote:
I am going to put it very simple.

freedom in socialisme = freedom from exploitation. This meens that you dont have the right to the fruits of others labor, in other words: you dont have the freedom to get rich on the expens of others. Now I know some here will say that “but doesnt the individual worker get exploited by the collective”. well maybe in some abstract sence, but in a modern society with industry, people work in groups. there are non car factorys with only one worker. So to be clear, when I say exploitation I dont meen that the car factory worker doesnt get grain from the agrarian worker and vice verca, I meen that there are no person or group of people who takes out a profit from the labor of the car factory worker and the agrarian worker. Now if the factorys/workplaces should be owned by the community/country etc or if it should be owned in common by the workers on the individual workplace is a decision the people must make in the socialist society.

btw: people does also have freedoms like: freedom of speech, of organisation and of tought. [/quote]

You are missing something really important. The only way someone can only be exploited is when they have no other option for earning a living.

In a capitalist system as long as taxes are not excessive you have the option of working hard, saving your own start up capital and starting your own business. You may get exploited while you are working to save up your nest egg, but once you have, you can take your destiny into your own hands and never get exploited again.

In socialist countries you don’t have that option. Yes you may get a job as a laborer in a factory but you will never get out of it. Socialism is very exploitative because it keeps people from becoming master of their own destiny.

40

[quote]florelius wrote:

maybe you should take a chill pill dude. no need to get angry at me because I have a diffeent opinion than you.

[/quote]

There is a difference between having a different opinion and having someone advocate taking my property under threat of violence. I would live and let live, except for the small fact that you are advocating people coming to my house with guns. It is not a difference of opinion because your philosophy advocates physical violence against me for disagreeing.

By the way, once again, great job on addressing any of my arguments.