Please refrain from any comments about healthcare and other divergant topics. The question remains: how does one convert 100% of all private wealth to public wealth without resorting to theft or violence?
Also, what Harduser describes is most definately the use of both theft and violence. The wealth is being taken against the wishes of the of owners of said wealth, and it is being taken by government agents who are then using violence to punish them for their noncooperation. So… how does one accomplish the task without theft or violence?
[quote]Archone wrote:
Please refrain from any comments about healthcare and other divergant topics. The question remains: how does one convert 100% of all private wealth to public wealth without resorting to theft or violence?
Also, what Harduser describes is most definately the use of both theft and violence. The wealth is being taken against the wishes of the of owners of said wealth, and it is being taken by government agents who are then using violence to punish them for their noncooperation. So… how does one accomplish the task without theft or violence?[/quote]
You can’t do it without theft and violence. You can’t do any major revolution that bans something without some sort of force, threat, violence and theft. But you probably wouldn’t call it theft if it is no longer allowed in the country by law and it is taken from you.
You can’t ban slaves without violence and “theft” of the slaves from the masters, I doubt everyone will agree to give up their slaves just because some revolution happened. You can’t enforce democracy in a dictatorship without some force, unless the dictator and all the other aristocrats agree to give up their power. You can’t enforce the tax system in a country which has no tax system without violence, theft and threat, because I doubt everyone will give their hard earned money away just because someone says you now have to. And just like that you can’t do a socialist revolution without violence and theft, because I doubt everyone will agree to give away their capitalist businesses just because they now have to and a revolution has happened.
How is it that you find freeing slaves to be comparable or parallel to stealing business and physical assets from their owners?
Why draw that parallel?
Is there a reason the matter itself – taking businesses and/or property from rightful owners against their will – can’t be fully discussed in and of itself without using bogus alleged parallels?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Human beings cannot be considered someone else’s property so freeing slaves is not the same thing as theft.
Also, on that note, hiding one’s income from the government cannot be considered a crime either.[/quote]
I am not trying to compare capitalism to slavery. I am just trying to say that every such major revolution, which bans something some people consider to be rightfully theirs yet others think it cannot be allowed by its nature requires “theft”, violence, threat etc.
My point is that socialist revolution cannot be done without violence, but any revolution with the same magnitude couldn’t be done either. Just like you can’t bring democracy and order to some places of the world without violence.
Certainly any program which requires people to do or have done to them things against their will must rely on force or credible threat of force.
In another recent thread where it was claimed by a socialist that government wasn’t needed for true socialism, I kept asking how if someone owned a means of production and didn’t want to give it up that the socialists were going to take it, if not by force or threat of force; and asked how he saw this being done if not by government.
Never an answer.
They don’t want to admit to their system being dependent on mass-scale armed robbery.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Certainly any program which requires people to do or have done to them things against their will must rely on force or credible threat of force.
In another recent thread where it was claimed by a socialist that government wasn’t needed for true socialism, I kept asking how if someone owned a means of production and didn’t want to give it up that the socialists were going to take it, if not by force or threat of force; and asked how he saw this being done if not by government.
Never an answer.
They don’t want to admit to their system being dependent on mass-scale armed robbery.[/quote]
That is not quite true.
If you really believed in the labor theory of value, how intellectually lazy and ignorant of economic theory as that might be, everyone working for a “capitalist” is ecploited and that “exploitation” is supported by force of arms by the state.
Insofar it is only logical to take control of the government and foght back.
Those are not bad people, just illiterate when it comes to economics.
And of xourse lots of narcissistic opportunists, aka politicians and lots and lots of useful idiots and welfare bums.
I really have trouble seeing how a person who finds himself a job offer and decides that the salary is something he chooses to get in exchange for working, actually imagines that after some time he should become the legitimate owner of the business on top of having gotten the salary for all those years, without that ever being agreed.
The picture doesn’t change whether it’s a small business or say Henry Ford and his many employees. (Ford Motor Company was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1920’s, so it wasn’t a small operation. Let’s pick say 1926 as our time point, though the exact time doesn’t matter.)
If his employees had decided that they “really” owned the business because they had voluntarily traded their time and effort for salary and took from him by armed force his plants and every aspect of his business, you mean to say you really think they wouldn’t know, deep down, that this was armed robbery?
I really have trouble seeing how a person who finds himself a job offer and decides that the salary is something he chooses to get in exchange for working, actually imagines that after some time he should become the legitimate owner of the business on top of having gotten the salary for all those years, without that ever being agreed.
The picture doesn’t change whether it’s a small business or say Henry Ford and his many employees. (Ford Motor Company was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1920’s, so it wasn’t a small operation. Let’s pick say 1926 as our time point, though the exact time doesn’t matter.)
If his employees had decided that they “really” owned the business because they had voluntarily traded their time and effort for salary and took from him by armed force his plants and every aspect of his business, you mean to say you really think they wouldn’t know, deep down, that this was armed robbery?[/quote]
Yup, I am having problems with that too.
But I really believe that most of them are perfectly capable of bullshitting themselves.
“Although we [have] been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism.” - F. A. Hayek
Our love of the end (prosperity), which freedom is our means, has both become taken so far towards granted that we have forgotten the principles which we hold and follow so dearly in order to produce that means and end in of itself. We move from a liberal society to one of socialism.
Those from the Left see it right to push to communism while the Right see it right to push towards corporatism.
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.[/quote]
The Amish are very admirable people; they did a special on NPR about a mortgage broker in Lancaster PA. He said he can not remember an Amishmen defaulting on his loan. The Amish (do) take care of their own; I do not know how they would deal with a lazy person.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.[/quote]
The Amish are very admirable people; they did a special on NPR about a mortgage broker in Lancaster PA. He said he can not remember an Amishmen defaulting on his loan. The Amish (do) take care of their own; I do not know how they would deal with a lazy person.[/quote]
Well not many lazy people come from the Amish, but what they do is shun them out of the society. They can come back if they are willing to work hard, they have religious reasons behind their way of life.
I really have trouble seeing how a person who finds himself a job offer and decides that the salary is something he chooses to get in exchange for working, actually imagines that after some time he should become the legitimate owner of the business on top of having gotten the salary for all those years, without that ever being agreed.
The picture doesn’t change whether it’s a small business or say Henry Ford and his many employees. (Ford Motor Company was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the late 1920’s, so it wasn’t a small operation. Let’s pick say 1926 as our time point, though the exact time doesn’t matter.)
If his employees had decided that they “really” owned the business because they had voluntarily traded their time and effort for salary and took from him by armed force his plants and every aspect of his business, you mean to say you really think they wouldn’t know, deep down, that this was armed robbery?[/quote]
I doubt that the socialists would be feeling bad about it like it was robbery. When you think it is for the greater good of everyone and that is the best way, you can convince yourself it is not robbery.
Perhaps thinking about it like taxes, again, works pretty well. Taxes are theft on some level, taking money from someone who earned it himself, but if you believe it is necessary and for the greater good of the country, you don’t think about it as robbery.
'What I argued in this book, and what the British experience consequence of socialist planning create a state of affairs in which, if the policy is to be pursued, totalitarian forces will get the upper hand. I explicitly stress that ‘socialism can be put into practice only by methods of which most socialists disapprove’ and even add that in this ‘the old socialist parties were inhibited by their democratic ideals’ and that ‘they did not possess the ruthlessness required for the performance of their chosen task.’ - F. A. Hayek
The thing is that socialist believe it’ll do good. However, once they (as I did) realise what measures actually have to be taken in order for it to work. They usually will not agree with their old opinions as they once did. They will come to their senses that socialism is an impingement on tolerance.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.[/quote]
The Amish are very admirable people; they did a special on NPR about a mortgage broker in Lancaster PA. He said he can not remember an Amishmen defaulting on his loan. The Amish (do) take care of their own; I do not know how they would deal with a lazy person.[/quote]
Well not many lazy people come from the Amish, but what they do is shun them out of the society. They can come back if they are willing to work hard, they have religious reasons behind their way of life.[/quote]
I grew up with many amish freinds , they are great people
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
I do admire the resourcefulness of the Amish and Mennonites. They follow an Anarchic-Communism way of life, however there is not done by force. It is done voluntarily and they are free to leave the community if they wish.
If they do not put effort, they are not allowed to piggy back on the system, they do not use the communist system in order to allow those that do not want to work to live comfortably they do it because they live in selected poverty.
However, this can be seen in any Patriarch family structure. Where everyone works, and all are welcomed they save money and the father controls the money. The Amish however only buy and make the necessities.[/quote]
The Amish are very admirable people; they did a special on NPR about a mortgage broker in Lancaster PA. He said he can not remember an Amishmen defaulting on his loan. The Amish (do) take care of their own; I do not know how they would deal with a lazy person.[/quote]
Well not many lazy people come from the Amish, but what they do is shun them out of the society. They can come back if they are willing to work hard, they have religious reasons behind their way of life.[/quote]
I grew up with many amish freinds , they are great people [/quote]
That is great, however that does not make socialism great.