Topic: Socialism - page 7. (Read 7997 times)

Yes, because Capitalism (and other forms of collectivism) is always a "state bastard" (Paul C. Martin): a complicity between the capitalists and the state terrorists.

About 5 minutes after the bright idea of a net struck someone, the idea of (what we commercial gill-netter fishermen would call) 'corking off' the entire river would occur.  Fishing would be fantastic for about four years...at least for the guy with the lowest position in the river...then mysteriously dry up completely.

Many years later it would be discovered that salmon return to the river in which they hatched to spawn on a four year cycle and 'society' would devise something called the 'Department of Fish and Game' who would modulate fishing effort such that the commercial and substance harvest would sustain for the lasting benefit of the entire population.

I think what's missing in the fish story is where the guy takes the day off to sew his net, then asks his neighbor for half a fish. The neighbor refuses and the rest of the island comes over, beats up the neighbor, and gives his fish to the first guy. Thereafter, everyone starts making sure to share their fish, constantly looking over their shoulders to see if their neighbors are watching them to see how much fish they are sharing. When one neighbor only offers a third of a fish instead of a half, another neighbor finks her out and the whole island comes and beats her up. Most of the island begins to live in fear. Meanwhile, a few people start taking days off even when their nets are in good shape. Eventually those people are hanging out, eating the fish the rest of the islanders bring home. Then an islander gets injured and can't go fish anymore, but when that islander asks for fish there isn't any left because so many people took the day off and got in line for the fish first. Those people, who want to keep their free fish coming, point at the people who are fishing and accuse them of not helping the injured islander. They beat up more of the islanders to keep the productive islanders working harder and harder and collect the fish for all the injured islanders who need help. Unfortunately, none of the people collecting the fish on behalf of the injured islander bothers to bring any fish to the injured islander, who starves to death. Now the group of non-fishing fish collectors start recruiting others to help beat up the few islanders that are left actually going out and getting more fish. When meeting to organize, they decide they need a name for the group, so they call themselves "government".

(I call this Albacore Shrugged.)

Sharing is good. Forcing other people to share seems like a good idea, but giving power over people invites corruption and abuse. When that happens, the people who organize the "help" get rich and the people who really need help tend to get the short end of the stick. Or, all too often, the long, heavy end of the stick—and they get it over the head.

I think it would be a more appropriate parallel of socialism, to say that on his one day off to make the net the society as a whole shared a bit of their fish with him, on the understanding that with his new found technology he would share some of his extra fish back to society, what you describe appears to me to more closely parallel communism.

Well there is a huge range of disagreement on exactly what these terms mean. They mean so many different things to so many different people so as to render them almost meaningless. what i can do is explain what they mean to me.

Capitalism is the physical manifestation of the generally held belief within a society that the individual (individuals) who creates (create) a thing is (are) the one (ones) who has (have) the right to determine whether or how that thing is used. Socialism on the other hand is the physical manifestation of the generally held belief within a society that the members of that society share the right to determine whether or how that thing is used.

Without delving too deeply into the economic arguments in favor of the former, which are myriad and some of which quite complex and nuanced, there is one simple intuitive explanation that is, in my opinion, in and of its self sufficient to make the case.

Say you have 365 people living on an imaginary island in an imaginary society. Every day all 365 go to the river to catch fish with their hands. They eek out a meager living this way with each person catching 1 fish each day. One day someone gets the idea of creating a net. he thinks that if he makes this net he may be able to catch twice as many fish per day. In order to create the net he would have to go a day with out fish, a very large cost indeed for a person who is already on the brink of starvation. Under socialism he would get to use his net 1 day per year. it is very unlikely that he would decide to go a full day with out eating in order to have a net for 1 day per year. In fact everyone who ever thought of the idea would come to the same conclusion and no nets would ever be made and the society would net (no pun intended) 365 fish per day. Under capitalism anyone who made a net would get to use it every day, and so everyone would decide it was worth it, everyone would make a net and the society as a whole would net 720 fish per day. This simple change of allowing the person to keep the products of his labor for himself has made the society as a whole twice as wealthy.

obviously i oversimplified and took a lot of things for granted. for example its unlikely that EVERYONE would make a net even under capitalism but it ought to be sufficient to communicate the general idea of dispersed benefits and concentrated costs (its weird saying that because im used to talking about the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs).

There is enough room on this planet for all of these "isms" and then some.  Everyone has their own personal opinion on which "ism" they would prefer to live in and would be best for them.  No one should be able to force their "ism" on someone else.  If you really want to live in a communist society, you should be free to live in North Korea or Cuba.  If you want to live in a socialist society, then you have the USA, France, Venezuela...  Now we just need to find a place to make a little room for the capitalists of the world.

OMG, I knew it! I just knew it! Al Gore invented Bitcoin!

were you just proposing bitcoin is a product of algorism?

I'd trust SHA256 over any politician....and yet, wasn't bitcoin created by someone with equalizing ideas, and now supported and propelled by the world community?  By folks in Cyprus and Argentina, the Greeks, the Chinese....oh...mined by anyone with a power outlet and mostly Chinese ASICs and Chinese computing equipment running *gulp* open-source code?

OMG, can't touch it...can't touch it!

 A partially socialist math based form of government with the president being an all knowing all seeing algorithm ?

  Algorism   

I don't believe in socialism, capitalism, communism, fascism, anarchism, or any other of these damn "isms", because the moment people gather into "groups" - you can no longer trust them. We need a new paradigm. Perhaps something that combines the best ideas of all these "isms"?

That's because it concentrates power in the hands of a few, and places trust in them to do the right thing. More often than not, they don't.

There's a strange contradiction in public opinion where I live (UK): most people (rightly) distrust politicians, and many think the government is incompetent. Yet mention privatisation, and expect to lose your head...


I'd love to see the Government release their monopoly on these services. Then we'd see a truly efficient and cost effective service.

I don't agree that all of those things are better because of government's hand but yes, I'm in full agreement about your larger point that people just use the term blindly without considering the things that can rightly be called socialist of which they do approve. Hence the earlier Warren quote about people believing that things that benefit them are social progress while things that benefit other people are socialism.

So right on, back atcha.

Right on smscotten,

I do find it curious how many get sucked into rabid negativity with the concept of socialism, while simultaneously being blind to many socialist pillars they peruse everyday, to great benefit to capitalism, and most find very agreeable.

You mentioned socialized defense, roads/bridges and other infrastructure.  Of course, one can extend this to US justice and penal system, banking system (the Fed, FDIC), farming industry, food & drug quality control, air, land & water traffic control, and countless other endeavors have all been socialized for many, many years, as the better and most cost-efficient practice of providing reliable and credible services and protection to citizens.

By exempting from taxation money flowing to religious organizations, US citizens have also agreed to socialize organized religion.

Yet, this radioactive reaction to additional socialism doesn't land with certain people in the same hypocritical light as those that are able to consider socialism without the filter of the "communist" baggage of the Cold War.

Somehow, any additional aspect where it's proposed as area that fits well for a socialist solution, aha! that is the area that will create a slippery slope and sink the universe into an orgy of Nazi proportions.

If the USA nationalized the computer industry, yes. Again we're sort of getting back to the question of how we define socialism. In a totally socialist state, every business, every activity would be owned and controlled by government. I don't think that has ever happened anywhere, but you don't have to go very far down that road before things get very unpleasant. If you don't look at it as an all-or-nothing question, there are degrees of implementation. Some countries, for example, have socialized medicine but are in other regards non-socialist.

That makes sense.  So in socialism, would the state be likely to own Apple and Microsoft?

It depends. Sometimes a state will declare a monopoly on a certain good or service, making it illegal to go into business and compete with the state in that realm. Other times, the state will be such a big competitor that it is much more difficult to compete either for market or resources.

And then you have something much worse than either socialism or capitalism: cronyism. That's when the politicians pass laws that force people to purchase goods and services from their friends and from the companies that the politicians have invested in. That's the sort of thing that the USA has more and more of. While we're fighting each other about capitalism vs socialism, the politicians and their cronies are laughing their way to the bank. As the situation gets worse, each side blames the problems on the other. Fox News says it's the fault of socialism and MSNBC says its the fault of capitalism. But as long as we keep playing that tug of war, the cronyism goes unchecked and gets stronger and stronger.

That's why I *facepalm* every time I see the capitalism versus socialism arguments. It's classic misdirection.

I'm still trying to figure out the diff between capitalism and socialism.  The basic premise (I think; someone correct me on this) of capitalism is to take profit, invest it in some business (your own or someone else's), and then make more profit and repeat.  Is this not allowed in socialism, or is it setup so that it cannot be done as easily or at all?

thats cool that you want that, i say more power to you. capitalism is about recognizing that some people do want to buy a bunch of crap the make their neighbors jealous and respecting their right to do that so long as are working to earn those things and not stealing them. its about freedom, the freedom to live a minimalist life OR not.