[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
My main problem is that I believe individual property rights to be an inherent god given universal right. I believe forcing someone at gunpoint under threat of loss of freedom to hand over money for the benefit of someone else to be morally wrong.[/quote]
FTW!!
“As in periods of equality no man is compelled to lend his assistance to his fellow men, and none has any right to expect much support from them, everyone is at once independent and powerless. These two conditions, which must never be either separately considered or confounded together, inspire the citizen of a democratic country with very contrary propensities. His independence fills him with self-reliance and pride among his equals; his debility makes him feel from time to time the want of some outward assistance, which he cannot expect from any of them, because they are all impotent and unsympathizing. In this predicament he naturally turns his eyes to that imposing power which alone rises above the level of universal depression. Of that power his wants and especially his desires continually remind him, until he ultimately views it as the sole and necessary support of his own weakness.”
–Democracy in America, Tocqueville–
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/05/18/patrick-j-deneen/the-dead-end-of-contemporary-liberalism/
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Here’s an open challenge to the advocates of socialism:
Define individual liberty within a socialist economic framework. [/quote]
Well, what Marx would say is that you are blinded by your bourgeois class origins. Here’s how it works: The entire legal and social framework that exists is to perpetuate ownership of property and exploitation. The legal framework for this with its system of individual rights is what is termed “negative freedoms” in Marxism: These are false and just perpetuate the system. What’s more, all social frictions are simply manifestations of inequities. (So if we disagree it is because of our class biases, not out opinions.) Having the State take over total control is referred to as “unification”.
Once all means of production are controlled by the State, there will be no need for any legal system to enforce anything. So here is where we hit the main idea for Socialists/Communists: As the State takes moves towards unification, the people are getting freer and freer. They may lose their “negative freedoms” (such as freedom of speech, association, religion and so forth, but remember that those are just for the exploitation of the masses) but “true freedom” (whatever that is) is growing all the time. Those that oppose this control by the State simply show themselves as the enemies of progress and should be dealt with severely.
So this accounts for the bewildering statements that various totalitarian societies are freer than their Western counterparts.
What is really missing is a useful definition of freedom in all of this, so I propose it (thanks to some dead white guys)
Freedom is the ability to make and then follow your own rules to become the best person you can. Laws that promote freedom support this.
When people talk about “freedom from want” they are totally missing the boat on freedom as a type of human behavior. Remember that freedom, justice and equality are all human concepts to regulate human behavior. They have no analog in Nature. Various Leftish attempts to claim the freedom is some natural state skirt the issue and make a muddle of it. For instance, freedom from want does not exist in the wild. Moreover, what if the lion wants to eat the antelope? Liberal (in the classical sense of limited government) would answer that public recorded and executed contracts are how freedom is best protected and this, by and large, is how commerce is done in the US. The cartoonish capitalist pig is a vast exception rather than the normal operative mode of business. Without a clear idea of what your definitions are, you will always end up just following your nose.
Case in point. Where does money come from? The Marxist theory of valuation (which is mostly, in the final analysis taken from very old Christian ideas about money being the root of all evil, I might add) was, in the final cut, never more than an amorphous idea. This is crucial since it means that there can never be such a thing as “Scientific Socialism” or some such. It would be like planning an economy around little pink flying dragons then erecting a police state to manage it all. This is not too far off from Communist countries in operation, btw. Ask the Cambodians. The damnable Western idea (first ably described by Adam Smith) about money is that it is created by human industry, i.e., wealth is created as value added.
In Marxist thinking, all wealth comes from the ground (either grown or mined) so there is really essentially a fixed supply of it. If I have any it is at the expense of someone else. Therefore ipso facto, all wealth is illegitimate. Indeed, the Malthusian model used is that the population grows, wealth will concentrate in the exploiting classes and the poor will become so utterly wretched that widespread revolution will be the only alternative to mass starvation. When was the last famine you heard about? Oh yeah, North Korea or Ethiopia (which was Marxist at the time and trying its first 5 year agricultural plan, Hurrah!) This did not happen in the West. Matter of fact, the amount of money in the world is doubling roughly every 20 years, which flatly contradicts the Marxist model. The several hundred million in India and China who have come out of poverty simply should not exist.
So my point here are that Marxists are under no obligation to explain anything about freedom – to them it is part of the class system that exploits it members. But really there is also no clear idea in this discussion about what freedom is (my aside with money was to help put it in perspective), so we will ever be running around in circles here for want of a definition.
And as always, I might just be full of shit…
– jj
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
The fallacy of socialism is that we all DESERVE to be equal - that we are owed a certain standard of existence and that we can force everyone to share with us so that we can have it.
We do not deserve to be equal - we are not owed a certain standard of living.
We are only created equal and then we, by the strength of our character and the determination of our will, have to choose what it is that we will become - good or bad, rich or poor, happy or sad - it is up to us.
[/quote]
I’m gonna be a turd…
Equality? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Look, there are various types of equality, such as of result (everyone ends up the same), means (everyone has the same chances), origin (we all start the same) and the list goes on. The problem with making some type of equality is that it requires extreme despotism to enact and enforce. In short the only way to make everyone equal is to set up a totalitarian state run by an aristocracy with exceptional powers – this is the self-contradiction. Said differently, people are different, therefore to get some form of equality requires unequal treatment and has to ignore the very idea of fairness. Since people’s different talents will always assert themselves, you need an enormously invasive system to keep it all in check. Sound familiar?
Again, we get back to definitions. In the case of the US (those dead guys, again) the tack they took was that the only reasonable way to have equality was by defining it as political equality – everyone has the same rights under law. All workings are open-sourced and any legal proceedings must be by consensus (jury of your peers). No attempt to regulate the end results of this system are made and people are free to turn out however they want.
And as always, I might just be full of shit…
– jj
read ATLAS SHRUGGED.
it’s happening right before our very eyes.
the demise of another great society.
history repeating itself.
just like Rome.
Also, read END THE FED (Ron Paul)
Adios
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.
[quote]jj-dude wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
The fallacy of socialism is that we all DESERVE to be equal - that we are owed a certain standard of existence and that we can force everyone to share with us so that we can have it.
We do not deserve to be equal - we are not owed a certain standard of living.
We are only created equal and then we, by the strength of our character and the determination of our will, have to choose what it is that we will become - good or bad, rich or poor, happy or sad - it is up to us.
[/quote]
I’m gonna be a turd…
Equality? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Look, there are various types of equality, such as of result (everyone ends up the same), means (everyone has the same chances), origin (we all start the same) and the list goes on. The problem with making some type of equality is that it requires extreme despotism to enact and enforce. In short the only way to make everyone equal is to set up a totalitarian state run by an aristocracy with exceptional powers – this is the self-contradiction. Said differently, people are different, therefore to get some form of equality requires unequal treatment and has to ignore the very idea of fairness. Since people’s different talents will always assert themselves, you need an enormously invasive system to keep it all in check. Sound familiar?
Again, we get back to definitions. In the case of the US (those dead guys, again) the tack they took was that the only reasonable way to have equality was by defining it as political equality – everyone has the same rights under law. All workings are open-sourced and any legal proceedings must be by consensus (jury of your peers). No attempt to regulate the end results of this system are made and people are free to turn out however they want.
And as always, I might just be full of shit…
– jj[/quote]
Just to be clear. Those are the words of IrishSteel.
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.[/quote]
Liberals measure compassion by how many people they can provide welfare for, conservatives measure compassion by how few people need it.
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.[/quote]
I do not really know what remains of your point when we have established that government redistrinution necessarily makes us worse off as a whole.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Liberals measure compassion by how many people they can provide welfare for, conservatives measure compassion by how few people need it.[/quote]
^GOOD STUFF!
I’ll just sit back for a while and let some of you others drive this train for a while - excellent comments!
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
Just to be clear. Those are the words of IrishSteel.[/quote]
Actually not. I wrote them and they are mine alone. I did not read any such post (as of yet) by Irish Steel. So great minds do indeed think alike (and we both had help from David Hume)
– jj
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.[/quote]
Liberals measure compassion by how many people they can provide welfare for, conservatives measure compassion by how few people need it.[/quote]
Sure, if the poor die there is no need to care for them. I think this is called evolution, which many conservatives are also proponents of… Oh wait, nevermind.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.[/quote]
I do not really know what remains of your point when we have established that government redistrinution necessarily makes us worse off as a whole.[/quote]
Even Adam Smith acknowledged that there is a need for government intervention. The extent of the government intervention must be up to the citizens in the given country. Again, preferences.
I live in what most Americans would describe as a socialist country, what personal freedoms have been taken from me (besides a higher tax rate)?
I get it, it is relativism. The socialists either are thinking of a stateless socialism (impossible as we have pointed out in other threads) or their definition is not the same as the actual definition for liberty because everything is “relative” and there is no absolute definition.
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]jonzy91 wrote:
This is an appealing argument at first glance. However, economic theory has shown time and time gain that if the provision of public goods (charities) is left to voluntary provision, then the amount of the public good provided will not be optimal.
[/quote]
What is “optimal” is a mere value judgement and no economist worth his salt would make such a claim.
[/quote]
Sorry. I refer to Pareto Optimality and I’m also well aware that there is no guarantee that the government will provide this amount of the public good. [/quote]
But Pareto optimality is an ever moving target.
What could bring us closer to it if not the free market, every government intervention must necessarily moves is away from it.[/quote]
Correct. Nonetheless, my initial point about the shortcomings of compassionate capitalism still stands.[/quote]
I do not really know what remains of your point when we have established that government redistrinution necessarily makes us worse off as a whole.[/quote]
Even Adam Smith acknowledged that there is a need for government intervention. The extent of the government intervention must be up to the citizens in the given country. Again, preferences.
I live in what most Americans would describe as a socialist country, what personal freedoms have been taken from me (besides a higher tax rate)?[/quote]
What personal freedom do you have left if another man claims that he is entitelt to the fruits of your labor and you accept it?
You are a serf, a well kept beast of burden.
You have no freedoms, you have a master that grants you a little wiggle room in order to maximize your productivity.
Even if you accept that for yourself you still have no right to force others under the yoke.
This idea of collectivism all sounds so nice, with everybody working together for the common good. Problem is for some reason certain people think other need to be forced into such a system.
I have had a crazy idea running through my head for a few years, but have been reluctant to present it. It is what I would call capitalistic socialism. If there are people out there who truly want to live a communal existence, I don’t see anything stopping them. They are fooled into the idea that they need to make the government do it, when they can very easily get a group of like minded people together to do it on their own.
I am not talking about the stupid hippie communes created years ago. But a group of people creating a kind of club or organization of like minded people with a legal framework. They all form the organization together, and through democracy run the group.
They all agree to have 100% of their after tax income given to the group, plus all of their assets, and the entire group decided how it is to be utilized. They do a group shopping to feed the members. And they maintain a potentially growing financial account as they slowly add new members to the group. Eventually they can buy an apartment building(s) for everyone to live in, build their own warehouse markets where they are given their rations.
The group could buy insurance for the members who are not covered in their places of employment, and they can spend the money to cover the deductibles for the members who do.
They could buy cars for the members too. And since they are a community, they would not need a cor per person, like most families, but enough to make sure everybody has a car when needed.
The best part is that all members are voluntary. Nobody is ever forced to join. And as a group, if somebody is not living up to their standards, they can be kicked out.
And now the socialists can have their utopia and leave the rest of us alone.
But the only reason I have not put this idea out before is simply because I could see the potential of them growing into a big political group that could wield lots of power.
Assuming the communes don’t fail that is.
^A home owners association or something that closely resembles it.
[quote]The Mage wrote:
This idea of collectivism all sounds so nice, with everybody working together for the common good. Problem is for some reason certain people think other need to be forced into such a system.
I have had a crazy idea running through my head for a few years, but have been reluctant to present it. It is what I would call capitalistic socialism. If there are people out there who truly want to live a communal existence, I don’t see anything stopping them. They are fooled into the idea that they need to make the government do it, when they can very easily get a group of like minded people together to do it on their own.
I am not talking about the stupid hippie communes created years ago. But a group of people creating a kind of club or organization of like minded people with a legal framework. They all form the organization together, and through democracy run the group.
They all agree to have 100% of their after tax income given to the group, plus all of their assets, and the entire group decided how it is to be utilized. They do a group shopping to feed the members. And they maintain a potentially growing financial account as they slowly add new members to the group. Eventually they can buy an apartment building(s) for everyone to live in, build their own warehouse markets where they are given their rations.
The group could buy insurance for the members who are not covered in their places of employment, and they can spend the money to cover the deductibles for the members who do.
They could buy cars for the members too. And since they are a community, they would not need a cor per person, like most families, but enough to make sure everybody has a car when needed.
The best part is that all members are voluntary. Nobody is ever forced to join. And as a group, if somebody is not living up to their standards, they can be kicked out.
And now the socialists can have their utopia and leave the rest of us alone.
But the only reason I have not put this idea out before is simply because I could see the potential of them growing into a big political group that could wield lots of power.
Assuming the communes don’t fail that is.[/quote]
Amish
Mennonites
Monasteries
Ultra-Orthodox Jews
Parishes
Various Cloaked Nunneries
Societies of Brothers and Sisters
Societies of secular Brothers and Sisters
[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]florelius wrote:
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 ).
[/quote]
Of course we have different perceptions. But which perceptions are the correct ones?
The person who offers you a job, you call an exploiter. While I see him as creating an income opportunity for you. Don’t like that job? Go for a better one. Or better yet, create one. I know people who have actually created their own job.
Here is where our perceptions differ. You actually think there is something called an employee. What I see is everyone is actually a business owner. If you work for a company, or the government, or non profit organization, you are actually in business for yourself.
Your business is your time, And you run that business by accepting work for a wage. Your time is your product.
You simply make an agreement with a business, or another person to pay you for your time a predetermined amount. It is completely up to you to accept that pay or reject it. Or as my daughter did, refuse the job unless more was offered, and they did.
As long as you keep this mindset, you will never have any control over your life. You will always be controlled by somebody else. Not because they are exploiting you, but because you are exploiting yourself.
Take responsibility for your life here.
Here is a question you should answer. Would you like to be wealthy?
For most people the answer is yes. (If the answer is no, explain yourself. And I won’t believe you.)
Then tell us if you have a plan. This is the funny part, because so many people complain about their lives, complain that they don’t have any money, and yet when you ask what their plan is to get more money, or solve their problem, they just give you a stupid look, or go about blaming others.
(Yes I have probably said something similar before.)
Again the difference in thought is that I accept responsibility for being where I am because of the actions I have taken in my life. And I accept responsibility for taking the actions to get where I am going.
Everything else is just whining.