Thread: Socialism

That's true, but liberals have tried to expand what "the strongest taking" means. Used to be that government prevented the strong from preying on the weak by taking their stuff by force. Then someone found that they could make bread from wheat. So the guy made bread, everyone wanted bread, and so he sold them bread. In the process, he got rich. Socialists would define his actions as "preying on the weak", and because he creates a wealth disparity where before there wasn't one, he's obviously greedy.

What socialism amounts to is to punish wealth creation. And that's the difference between a conventional liberal and a socialist. A socialist considers the very act of creating wealth to be something that needs correction. A liberal wants wealth to be created, but only seeks to fix genuine examples of taking advantage of others.

Originally Posted by adaher

That's true, but liberals have tried to expand what "the strongest taking" means. Used to be that government prevented the strong from preying on the weak by taking their stuff by force. Then someone found that they could make bread from wheat. So the guy made bread, everyone wanted bread, and so he sold them bread. In the process, he got rich. Socialists would define his actions as "preying on the weak", and because he creates a wealth disparity where before there wasn't one, he's obviously greedy.

What socialism amounts to is to punish wealth creation. And that's the difference between a conventional liberal and a socialist. A socialist considers the very act of creating wealth to be something that needs correction. A liberal wants wealth to be created, but only seeks to fix genuine examples of taking advantage of others.

That is the pap you have been fed by those who want to misinform you.

This is not the place nor is there the space to help you learn the truth. That is just something you may or may not pick up as time goes along.

But, just for fun, here's a think exercise for you. What is team work and how does it work in a gregarious society? Is it really all about everyone for themselves, the rest be darned? Is it really about the last man standing?

Or is it about the whole group doing better for themselves, as a group?

Originally Posted by Dick Martin

That is the pap you have been fed by those who want to misinform you.

This is not the place nor is there the space to help you learn the truth. That is just something you may or may not pick up as time goes along.

But, just for fun, here's a think exercise for you. What is team work and how does it work in a gregarious society? Is it really all about everyone for themselves, the rest be darned? Is it really about the last man standing?

Or is it about the whole group doing better for themselves, as a group?

That is the pap you have been fed by those who want to misinform you.

This is not the place nor is there the space to help you learn the truth. That is just something you may or may not pick up as time goes along.

But, just for fun, here is a Gedanken experiment for you. Is the teamwork displayed when a majority takes things from the minority just?

Is it really about the majority controlling the minority, the individual will be darned? Is it really about the biggest gang controlling all?

Or is it about respecting and preserving dignity and rights of the individual?

Actually, its pretty much about the many keeping the few from looting the village, which is the model you are embracing.

Originally Posted by Dick Martin

That is the pap you have been fed by those who want to misinform you.

This is not the place nor is there the space to help you learn the truth. That is just something you may or may not pick up as time goes along.

But, just for fun, here's a think exercise for you. What is team work and how does it work in a gregarious society? Is it really all about everyone for themselves, the rest be darned? Is it really about the last man standing?

Or is it about the whole group doing better for themselves, as a group?

It's about people getting together voluntarily for a common purpose. The United States is not a team, which by it's nature is almost always a totalitarian enterprise where conformity is paramount.

Originally Posted by Dick Martin

Actually, its pretty much about the many keeping the few from looting the village, which is the model you are embracing.

The most common way to loot a village was to take it by force. Not many examples in history of "looting" happening through voluntary exchanges of goods and services.

Originally Posted by Dick Martin

Actually, its been that way among for a very long time, and not just among humans. You have seen the battle at Kruger, right?

YouTube - Battle at Kruger

If you haven't, you may like it. Watch it to the end.

I had not watched that video, and would normally have stopped it somewhere around mid-point, but did watch till it's conclusion. Amazing footage, shows what a government of the herd, by the herd and for the herd can do. No thought of individual gains, just protecting the future of the herd. Animal instinct, which we still have and sometimes try and ignore.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by adaher

The most common way to loot a village was to take it by force. Not many examples in history of "looting" happening through voluntary exchanges of goods and services.

Well, yeah, there are plenty. Go to the churches. See those palaces. See how the clergy lives. Then there are the bankers, who do nothing to produce wealth; they just take a cut because they can. Then there are the greedy, who use every little advantage to weasel, steal, and con hard working people out of their wealth. Then there are the con men who ride the very edge of legality and do "sharp" trading, and take advantage that way.

As to voluntary exchanges of goods and services... what planet would that be happening on?


Do you happen to know what front running is? There is an awful lot of it going on, and you may think its ok, but I sure don't.

Originally Posted by adaher

That's true, but liberals have tried to expand what "the strongest taking" means. Used to be that government prevented the strong from preying on the weak by taking their stuff by force. Then someone found that they could make bread from wheat. So the guy made bread, everyone wanted bread, and so he sold them bread. In the process, he got rich. Socialists would define his actions as "preying on the weak", and because he creates a wealth disparity where before there wasn't one, he's obviously greedy.

What socialism amounts to is to punish wealth creation. And that's the difference between a conventional liberal and a socialist. A socialist considers the very act of creating wealth to be something that needs correction. A liberal wants wealth to be created, but only seeks to fix genuine examples of taking advantage of others.

Christ, the old 'liberals' are all the problem chant. I suggest you do some reading about what the writers of our constitution thought about corporations, you might, just might if you can open your mind, see the dangers they spoke of, and why corporations are given "NO" rights under our constitution and only narrow rights are given to governments, with the rest of rights given to the states and to the people, thereof.

Simple little stores don't tell anything about real life. However, having a GOP led US Supreme Court decide to give corporations many of the rights reserved for individuals, make this constitutional liberal want to fight back. The same as when activists GOP jurist stepped all over 'state's rights' when they chose to rule over the rights of 1 person over the voters rights in Florida, in the 2000 election. The US Supreme Court picked our president in 2000, from between 2 men, against all that our forefathers gave up their lives for in revolution and sought so strongly to protect us from in the Constitution of the Untied States of America.

Ah, more of the old "Founders hated corporations" legend.

The Founders did hate corporations, but they loved business. Just not in the corporate form.

And businesses did have rights from the early days. For the same reason your house can't just be taken from you. Your house doesn't have rights, but you do, and you own the house. Same goes for a business. The business doesn't have rights, but it's impossible to seperate the business' interests from the owners' rights. Anything that could hurt his business is a "taking"(that's in the Constitution, BTW), and thus the business owner has the inalienable right to fight that taking.

Now, if liberals would refrain from trying to pass laws that take from corporations, then we can agree to keep corporations out of politics. But if you hold the view that government should be able to take whatever they want from corporations and they don't have the right to fight back, then I call you a totalitarian.

BTW, the main motivation for hating the corporate form in the Founders' time was because almost all corporations served their governments back then.

Originally Posted by Dragontalk

A socialist economy is one in which the major means of production are publicly owned. That means in practice that they are owned by the state and the profits distributed to the people either as direct payments or in the form of public services. A socialist economy may or may not allow privately-owned small business; one that does not could be called a "total" socialist economy, or maybe an "extreme" socialist economy; one that does is more moderate but still socialist as long as big business such as our own publicly-traded corps is publicly owned. A socialist economy may or may not be centrally planned, as the Soviet economy was; I have a feeling that contributed a lot to its failure.

A further assumption should be a democratic political system governing the socialist economy. That the Soviet Union didn't have a democratic government should not divert us; we are not discussing abandoning democracy for either dictatorship or oligarchy, but abandoning capitalism for socialism, which is not the same thing.

The great majority of women are more naturally social and cooperative, so with regard to socioeconomic structure, they would be more amenable to something that is fiscally liberal as long as it is socially conservative, "securitarian", so to speak. So I can see women being more receptive to socialism.

The great majority of men, on the other hand, are more naturally individualistic and competitive, and thus with regard to socioeconomic structure, they would be more amenable to something that is both fiscally conservative and socially liberal, libertarian in nature. So I can see men being more opposed to socialism.

We can't very well ignore the natural gender differences in structure preference. Though women may be gaining in power in the direction of approaching equality, men will only "allow" equality to be achieved for women, nothing more. A solid stalemate in the matter will then be achieved .. requiring compromise for "pleasant" survival's sake.

That women can "influence" men to act as women do is a tantalizing topic for a discussion of its own, just like men have influenced women to act as men, Ayn Rand being a notable example.

Regardless, I agree that utopian conversions away from the capitalist control form of money and its system will require more than a simple majority of people, both men and women, sufficiently angered by its aspects to propel systemic change. Here is an old treatise that presents the necessary attitude for such change:The Foundational Problem.

Otherwise people aren't going to be inclined to expel such great amounts of energy necessary to change from something (to whatever).

I also believe that unless the planet population greatly decreases so that availability of needs is globally present, the understandable continued fight for scarce resources will continue to support the need for neurotically competitive dog-eat-dog capitalist behavior as a survival tool for "the fittest".

Originally Posted by Dick Martin

But, just for fun, here's a think exercise for you. What is team work and how does it work in a gregarious society? Is it really all about everyone for themselves, the rest be darned? Is it really about the last man standing?

Or is it about the whole group doing better for themselves, as a group?

This is an excellent question, and I think the answers you get from some conservative-leaning people might surprise you. One of the things that frustrates me most about the modern conception of liberal democracy (specifically, an activist government that uses the force of law to "promote" community goals), is the insidious way that it undermines a real spirit of community and seeks to supplant it with authoritarian government.

One of the things that most turned me off about Ayn Rand was her dogmatic vilification of altruism as a human motivation. To be fair, she was reacting to statists who persistently used altruism as the justification for their ambitions and very rarely held any genuine concern for the well-being of others. But I think she threw the 'baby out with the bathwater'.

Altruism is a wonderful thing, a precious human trait. Some of the most beautiful experiences in my life have been the times I've acted, without regard for shallow self-interest, to help other people. Better yet, are the opportunities to join together with my community to make the world a better place. There's a powerful satisfaction in knowing that you've helped someone else, or to prove to yourself that human society isn't the wretched, vile place that the television news would like us to believe.

But I get almost none of that kind of satisfaction from the welfare state. There's no Kumbaya moment when Congress passes another law institutionalizing some aspect of altruism. There's none of the personally humanizing satisfaction of choosing to place the needs of other ahead of our own concerns. I sometimes wonder if that isn't the intent. At the very least, I think many people support this kind of government so they can avoid making that choice. Out of sight, out of mind. They might have a genuine desire to see that people in need are cared for, but they can't be bothered with doing anything about it themselves.

I find the net result of this approach dehumanizing and detrimental to the spirit of altruism. Contrary to its nominal intent, it actually diminishes the sense of community that comes from voluntary cooperation.