Which science has disproven. Well, not completely, but we have enough evidence that human behaviour does not fit the Free Market theory to pull that theory into doubt. Humans are not always rational, they do not always put their self-interest above everything else, and they do not always (actually, they fail most of the time) evaluate their choices correctly.
/facepalm.
Economics deals with "average" behavior. Additionally, your "irrational" human simply does not have the priorities you *expected* him to have. Chances are your expectations were irrational, not the person. Humans being complex, economic models simplifies them to a simple rational actor where situation X always leads to outcome Y. As far as your economic model simplified human behavior, of course it's wrong. The question is if it is usefully wrong.
You're using a generic economic model's failure to explain individual human behavior as proof that free markets cannot exist, by the power of Science. This is a misuse of science and a failure to understand modeling's use as an analysis tool, as well as free market "theory".
"Free markets" as I've used it is not about a theory of how human beings work. It's a proposal for an economic system that balances the interests of all involved parties and maximizes social good. It is informed by practical experience (history) of how humans have acted. Free markets can maximize social good by harnessing each person's self-interest in a constructive manner, through voluntary win-win transactions. Free markets generate win-win by having each party value the items they received in trade more than what they traded for it. My money for a computer game; the programmer's time for a salary; the business owner's capital for a product; all of which leaves us better off.
Sometimes people will make bad decisions in a free market, but that does not invalidate the free market system. The system still works as people have incentive to make better decisions in the future; this is a negative feedback loop against bad decision making.
Some people have tried to replicate a free market system's success without the possibility of bad decisions and bad outcomes. They've tried giving Very Smart People all the decision making power, or passing laws that outlaw bad outcomes. None of those systems actually work better, so I'm just pushing back on all of these "improvements" that haven't.
One of these is "improvements" is the idea that the gov't can act as a neutral 3rd party observer to correct "market failures". Gov't does have an important role as a referee to enforce the rules; but the rules should be less about desired outcomes, and more about fair (and voluntary) processes. We've modified the system to do something about the market outcome of "monopolies", but the modification doesn't work well, and it's unlikely to work well due to the forces involved. ("Market failures" are really self-correcting. The failures either involve huge losses or huge profits. For the latter, losses are a strong incentive to avoid the decisions that led to losses; for the former, profits attract investment, competition, and innovation).
You want to keep tinkering with those rules until it works; I don't think it's possible to make it work, and that we're better off saving the effort and letting the market self-correct. If you think it's impossible for the market to self-correct for a monopoly, would you like to provide real life examples of monopolies that could only possibly be fixed by gov't intervention?
In reality, a weak government is more oppressive than a strong one, because it oppresses those who can't fight it.
A limited gov't isn't given the power to oppress its people. An unlimited strong gov't is more oppressive than a limited strong gov't, because the former likes to find new ways to use its power; it decides it can improve society by making all the decisions for its
Windows, on the other hand, has been around for a lot longer than any of that.
And why does that mean anything? Win 7 is a tad different than Win 95.
On the flip side, my country is facing some budgetary problems that are the result of 50+ year old laws that have never been repealed or fixed.
Markets primarily work on voluntarily transactions. This provides a lot more incentive to fix any "market power abuse" problems than democracy's "bread and circuses" problem. A company which abuses its position for profit loses customers and attracts competition, both of which provide negative feedback to any "monopoly rent" collected. The politician who reduces gov't benefits in excess of tax revenues becomes unpopular and may lose his job to a politician who will re-introduce those broken policies. (this is a positive feedback loop difficult to mitigate)
Apologies for a double post. Too many thoughts, not enough time.
Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable
We don't even agree on what the problem is. Maybe we can hold the artillery until we have agreed on the target?
We're both concerned about the abuse of power. You're concerned with abuse of market power and wish gov't to have more and enough power to correct abuses of market power.
I am concerned with abuse of political power. A gov't with the power to correct abuses of market power in the fashion you desire, is also powerful enough to abuse the market.
Corporations can't force you to buy their products, but gov'ts can point a gun at your head. Corporate executives may have reached success by "psycopathic" methods; but politicians reach their success with the same methods - they over-promise, under-deliver, and will tell you what you want to hear. One is stuck with a politician's legacy for far longer than one might be stuck with a monopoly's business product.
You do realize that one of the reason most of the rest of the world doesn't particularily like the US is this way of talking? As if you were the only people who had this brilliant insight and everyone else is still living in the middle ages.
If you want to generalize the US based on your sampling of opinionated US individuals on the Internet, go ahead. Popularity doesn't matter as much as being right.
I brought up the US gov't because you talked about breaking up MS, a US corporation. Seems reasonable that it'd be the US gov't to break up this US "monopoly", no?
Anyways, to the point: No, government is not a miracle cure, and I never said that. What I did say is that if the choice is between a psychopathic (i.e. all of them, there are studies on this) corporation and a corrupt but theoretically controllable government, I still prefer the government.
And there it is - gov't is the lesser evil compared to a corporation. Can't speak for the dynamic of a large international corporation vs. a small country, but that is most definitely not the case in the US; and I distrust your solution of empowering gov't to destroy MS just because you think it'd benefit computer innovation. Unintended consequences happen a lot when dealing with a complex system, and breaking up a "monopoly" would affect the business climate for risk and innovation. (in the case of MS, you are destroying the dominant player, not a monopoly)
What you don't seem to realize is that all the arguments you bring against government are equally true for the magical invisble unicorn, sorry invisible hand of the market - which is not a real force, but nothing but the sum actions of flawed, imperfect humans.
The "magical invisible unicorn" is based off of a very real force: human self-interest. People pursue their own self interests, to fulfill basic needs and seek their desires. A free market guides those forces to work against each other in a constructive manner, much like an engine harnesses fire to produce movement.
That the force is immaterial does not mean it does not exist.
Really? Directly? Aer you sure you know what you are writing? The EU has just fined Google some amount. I happen to be the owner and CEO of a small company. Please tell me how their actions have directly threatened my livelihood.
I take it from your choice of example that you're located in the EU, then. If the EU has power to fine Google, they have just as much power to fine your business. Now, they have not fined your business - but they have the power to do so. What stops them from creating a new regulation that will affect your business next year? What stops them from fining you some arbitrary amount in the future?
Perhaps you can trust the EU bureaucrats to always stick to reasonable regulations. Perhaps you can influence their policies with democratic elections. Good for you and your country; but in the US, our gov't has continuously expanded its power and increased the scope of regulation. They are out of control. Part of regaining that control is to take every claim of "this is necessary regulation" skeptically, because they have abused that language and gone beyond what is actually necessary.
Having an inkling of the nature of governments (which is a reflection of human nature), I disbelieve that the EU is immune to that same greed for power. That said, they are not my gov't, so they are not my business. All I know is that my gov't needs a short leash, and the outcomes you desire require too much power in the hands of gov't.
Theoretically, government isn't a business because it is not for-profit. Unfortunately, many politicians have turned it into a business for their personal profit.
Right, theoretically. In reality, gov't is run by imperfect humans acting in their own self-interest. That's the whole point of the US's system of limited, distributed powers. Checks and balances, due process, etc are all to protect us from gov't, even as gov't is necessary for an orderly society and a free market. I just find it silly to talk about gov't as a miracle cure for monopolies - when monopolies are usually created by gov't action in the first place, and when gov't actions are unlikely to actually remove the effects of monopoly.
The job of gov't isn't to fix the market so that the "right outcome" (no monopoly) happens. Their job is to provide just laws (fair rules) and then let the free market's negative feedback loops create an equilibrium based on everyone's aggregate desires.
I accept that laws against anti-competitive behavior can be part of fair rules. (just like rules against stealing and fraud) But I don't care for the idea that gov't should be in the business of breaking up monopolies - the gov't is more likely to use that power to extort their share of the monopoly rent from the "monopoly", which doesn't fix the market at all. If we're going to have a "broken" market, I'd rather that monopoly rent go towards the business that provided the goods in a voluntary transaction with the customer. The customer may be "overpaying", but generally the product is still providing more value than the price paid.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft?
Depends on your threat scenario. One of the key points is whether or not you buy into the idea that empowering government oversight in one area magically enlarges the whole government in all areas.
Giving the gov't more power over the economy gives it power over *all* businesses. Every one of us who earns a living does so either by being an employee at a business, or running our own business. Gov't abuse in this arena directly threatens the livelihoods of all citizens.
Oh, they're not likely to do anything that would trigger an immediate backlash, but they'd be perfectly willing to slowly erode our economic liberties for their own power. The US gov't has not shrunk at all for the past century or so, and each year only adds more spending and more regulations. Is it only a problem when the gov't starts requiring you to fill out an environmental impact statement each time you turn on your car? Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable (though it may be too late for that already).
Correct. Monopolies can come into existence legally, and punishing the act itself would not work well.
Indeed, and that's because monopolies cannot protect their own existence purely with market power. As far as they charge high prices and "steal" high profits, they create huge incentives for people to find alternatives and for other businesses to compete for those profits.
Conveniently, a gov't empowered to regulate markets for the "good of society" has the power to regulate markets in a way that protects a business's market advantages, and every gov't is influenced by money.
That's a strawman and you know it.
It's a true statement that I'm using to make a point. You have to define the market in which a business has "significant market power" and monopoly status. Note that copyright and brandnames (gov't regulations) is what protects MS from having to compete against Joe Blow's "Micro$oft Windows 7" (completely ripped from MS's Win7)
There are very few businesses that can claim to be a significant part of the entire economy. Except for one - the "business" of government.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft? Only one of those entities has control over tanks and nuclear weapons. So when your number one goal is to hurt MS, even at the cost of enlarging the US gov't and further empowering politicians and bureaucrats, I'm not too happy with your priorities.
So you live in a world of imperfect people and imperfect markets, that can be fixed with a perfect gov't who perfectly uses their power for the good of all.
Back in the real world, we have imperfect gov'ts who are just as able to do harm as they can do good; and who often do more harm than good. Giving them the power to destroy monopolies is really giving them the power to destroy *any* business.
Can they be trusted with that power? As far as you think MS avoided their correct fate; have they not increased their political lobbying since the anti-trust lawsuit? That's exactly the type of gov't corruption I was pointing out previously.
Do you realize that the gov't claims a monopoly on violence? That by giving it more power to regulate business, you are strengthening its monopoly position? Yes, we have democratic feedbacks to limit abuse of power, but there is still incentive for politicians to abuse whatever power they have. Businesses may abuse their market power; but gov'ts abuse their political power. Market power abuse cannot in of itself prevent competition from existing; every product has an alternative. But political power abuse is much harder to correct.
If you're concerned with the harm monopolies do, you should be just as wary of the harm that gov'ts inflict, even for a good cause. Tyranny is much worse than monopoly, and every fix for monopoly has a high risk of tyranny.
However, what we do know for a fact is that monopolistic business practices do damage to the economy. Specifically, the monopolist extracts a monopoly rent from the market by being able to shift the price point above the optimal market point. And you can do the math to prove that the loss to the economy is higher than the gain for the monopolist. The difference is economic damage.
That is so simple and so well known that it is the reason we have laws like the Sherman Act. Monopolies need to be broken up if they appear, because they are so damaging to everyone else.
Monopolies are less efficient markets, so we've added gov't regulations to try to make things more efficient.
The thing is, we also know for a fact that gov't regulations add their own inefficiencies (just like error checking adds computing and size overhead to a data packet). So reality isn't as simple as "monopolies are bad, let's destroy them all!"
Does the harm/inefficiency of gov't regulation of businesses outweigh the harm/inefficiency of a monopoly existing? You're giving some gov't bureaucrat the power to decide that a business is a monopoly and needs to be taken apart by gov't force. You've added a vector for a corruption and partisanship - a rival may bribe/lobby the gov't to harm your business. Now each business has a strong incentive to put money into political lobbying for political favors and protection.
That money that is spent on politics instead of R&D or marketing is itself a market inefficiency, and it's a direct result of gov't regulation.
At best, that is a legal definition, as opposed to the economic one. But even then, a company gets in trouble for abusive monopolistic ("monopoly-like") practices, not its status as a monopoly.
Anti-trust is about abuse of market power, not about if your company is categorized as a monopoly. Copyright and patents are gov't protected monopolies; anti-trust does not touch them.
Every single company can be categorized as a monopoly if you narrow down the market until they're the "single seller". Only Apple gets to sell Apple products, for instance. If that were sufficient to trigger anti-trust laws, every business has become illegal.
The meaning of "monopoly" is literally "single seller".
The only thing MS is a single seller of is their own products. Good for them. In other news, Dell has a monopoly on Dell computers, Apples has a monopoly on iOS, and Google has a monopoly on the Google search engine.
MS is guilty of some past "monopolistic" business practices with questionable legality, but that's an entirely different beast from *being* a monopoly.
If a cat begs like a puppy, it may be acting like a dog, but it's still a cat. MS may have acted like a monopoly, but the nature of the computing market is that MS is not and will never be a monopoly.
Does "separating fact from fiction" mean anything to you?
Fiction is art. As the product of a human being, it does tell us something about that person and his experiences, but you want us to generalize an entire society based on a few books centered on fictional characters, by a single author from that time period.
You won't know what a historical battle was like based on looking at an artist's painting. Even a photograph doesn't tell the whole story. I don't believe you can know how an entire society operated based on a writer's novel. There's simply not enough contextual information.
So when the Nazi's had unpaid slaves working in their factories, they were engaging in slavery.
Indeed, the Nazis practiced slavery. But my point was that slavery is not the antithesis of socialism, as socialism doesn't care about individual freedom, only how it prioritizes the interests of the group compared to the individual. If a socialist group feels its in their interest to practice slavery, then there's nothing in of the philosophy of socialism to stop them from doing so. (100% consensus of society is not a part of socialism; seeing how eager it is to take the means of production from the "capitalists" and give it to "the workers")
You have not demonstrated that socialism is anti-slavery. I believe that socialism is very comfortable with making everyone slaves of "society" (vs. slave of a single owner).
>Socialism seeks the "good of society". It is willing to take from the man who has more to give to the man who does not.
But it only takes what was there BEFORE he earned, which isn't HIS to begin with, it's a debt, and must be paid.
Unearned wealth is NOT hard to define well - simple maths. What did you get BEFORE you were working ? And we won't even claim ALL of that (simply because it's not practical) - just that the more you started out with, the more your obligations become.
If a laborer accumulates his savings, buys a factory (means of production), and then hires workers to build things in the factory, your philosophy of socialism desires to take his work and redistribute it to the workers. ("laborers should own the means of production").
You've accused Apple of stealing all their wealth; even though it started as a garage operation and grew into the giant corporation it is today. Your idea of "unearned" is flawed because you apply it to wealth that was created through effort.
Additionally, where does "unearned wealth" even come from? If my parents leave me an inheritance, it may be unearned from my perspective, but it was the fruit of my parents' sweat and toil. They earned it, and if they were allowed the fruits of their labor they'd have complete control over how they choose to distribute it after they're gone. (But no, society shall now step in and take its cut, since every cut before then was insufficient, apparently).
>Two principles: Workers (group) over business owners (individuals)
False, most businesses are owned by multiple people (shareholders). And workers ARE individuals, while businesses are NOT (much as capitalism like to treat them as if they are).
Businesses are not individuals, but they represent the collections of individuals' efforts. Every business owner, on the other hand, is an individual, and socialism desires to take away their ownership because the socialist feels they didn't "earn it". So in the name of "the good of society", property is taken away from the individual and given to society (the group).
I said he was a politician abusing power and that this would happen REGARDLESS of what philosophy he claimed to believe in. One of the worst and cruellest dictators of the previous century was an arch-capitalist (Pinochet) with one of the most free and unregulated markets that has ever existed. You can be a murderous bastard regardless of what economic policies you enact. But that's politics, the PHILOSOPHY of socialism is about what kind of society you want.
Nice dodge, but still a dodge.
Is Mao a socialist? By your words, earlier, yes.
Is Hitler a socialist? You haven't been willing to answer, but his actions were not much different than Mao. As far as actions reveal one's philosophy, Hitler shares a similar enough philosophy to Mao that he'd be a socialist by the same criteria. Hitler's philosophy was to create a powerful German socialist state, run by Germans (instead of Jews), for the benefit of Germans (instead of Jews).
You've basically defined self-interest as "whatever you do", I suppose I can reasonably feel you would add "unless violently coerced."
Well if you can redefine your concepts to include EVERY possibility, then you can make any argument sound like you won it, that is however a fallacy.
I helpfully put my entire definition in quotation marks for your benefit. It seems that is insufficient. Again:
"Self-interest is doing what you want to do".
-me
See that word I bolded in the sentence? The one you left out in your paraphrase? "Want" - that means desire. We often do things we do not want to do, but that's generally to serve a goal that we value even more than the thing we don't want to do. That goal is the self-interest; each person defines it according to their own values and principles.
We'll go back to your hero of an uncle, since you're proud of him and you don't think he acted in his self-interest.
No one would want to be in that situation, but it's what happened. Your uncle was faced with a choice - act to maximize his own safety, or act to save his workers. He valued his workers. He wanted to keep them safe, even at risk to his own life. He desired their well-being over his own, and he then chose to act on that value.
As far as "self interest" is doing what you *want* to do (because you value it), or accomplishing a goal that you want, your uncle acted in that self-interest.
Not every person's self-interest is so noble, but society will do well if it has many people whose self-interest is like your uncle.
But back to the point - people act towards their self interest. They seek what they want. Is this really that controversial of a concept?
Gotta love the Libertardians, their ignorance of history is only exceeded by their ignorance of economics. Go back and read some Charles Dickens for a view of the world as you claim it should be run. Ah, the Good Old Days! Damn they were awful.
If you think someone is ignorant of history and economics (e.g. reality), why would you ask them to read fiction?
What? The free market has produced very few advances in medical technology. Many of the advances in the basic sciences (including biochemistry and physics) are sponsored by the government. The same goes for drugs and medical equipment. The free market has actually not developed many items on its own, without piggy-backing on projects that were originally or partially government funded. Interestingly, the government also pays a large portion of the costs of training medical residents.
It's not enough to have a gov't study that shows a drug or device concept is feasible. A company has to take it from concept to the market, and that can be a huge challenge as well. There may be a wonderful chemical compound that cures a particular illness, but if it takes $10 million to produce a dose, that's not going to be available to the average person. A company figures out how to produce the useful compound (or device) cheaply, they develop the infrastructure (technology + workers) to produce the product, figure out how to get the product to the customer, and are liable for how their product performs.
And it's those companies that eat the cost if the drug or device doesn't pan out the way they hoped it to. So accepting that the gov't puts in a lot of effort into medical research, it doesn't take away from the effort private industry puts in to deliver the medical [i]products[/i]. (which may one day be a $5 generic at your local drugstore).
Price controls? There aren't any. I used to work at a very large biotech that sold good but absurdly expensive drugs, because there aren't any price controls that prevented it from doing so. And I actually argue for greater barriers to entry in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. There are too many drugs and devices on the market that don't work, and may do more harm than good. One of the first things we learned about in my CS courses was the Therac-25. Additionally, things like metal-on-metal hip replacements should not have been approved, given their high failure rates and higher tendency of causing metal toxicity.
Higher barriers to entry are higher development/production costs for medical companies. You're arguing for higher prices on medical products and devices... But you also want price controls on top of that? So you'll make the product expensive, and then write a law that says the product must be sold cheaply?
It doesn't take an economics degree to see that combination will create a scarcity of said product.
Then good luck chasing your stateless socialist utopia. Just beware the mass graves that litter the path you follow.
Bullshit. I said nothing of the kind. What part of "Only unearned wealth is redistributed" don't you understand ?
"Unearned wealth" is a loophole you can slip a million injustices through. The people who get to define "unearned" wield a tremendous amount of power. I know, your ideal system will not have politicians, every vote will perfectly capture the Will of the People with 100% consensus.
But remember that *you* said that a minimum level of food should be given to every person. The farmer may have "earned" the food, but your system says that society has an innate claim to it You defined property as a legal fiction authored by society for the good of all; to be revoked when it serves society's purposes. If people are starving, the farmer's claim to the food he grew is kicked aside for the "good of society".
Bullshit. You're rejecting the possibility that somebody may simply value other lives (especially multiple lives) more than their own outright, as if you can read all the minds on earth.
You managed to quote an entire half a sentence to rant at. Bravo. But if you'd like to pay attention to my entire thought, "Self-interest is doing what you want to do".
Your uncle chose a heroic action and valued the lives of others above his own. He acted in accordance with what he valued the most. Actions in pursuit of one's values is self-interest.
When I say "self-interest", I do not mean "selfish goals", even though some people may define their self-interest to be selfish goals.
. Believe NOTHING a politician says, ever, THEN you'll start learning things about reality.
What gives you the idea I need this lecture from you? But if we're exchanging advice, I think you ought to beware political/economic philosophies that over-promise and never deliver.
See above. Again - NO system of slavery and socialism can ever coexist.
Slavery is making one man serve another.
Socialism seeks the "good of society". It is willing to take from the man who has more to give to the man who does not.
"From each according ot his ability, to each according to his need". The man with much ability is to serve the man who has much need. Socialism and slavery are quite compatible.
Even THAT false definition doesn't apply to the Nazis since the jews were a PART of society. You cannot EVER be both segregationalist AND socialist the two concepts are mutually exclusive....
>Perhaps we'll get closer to an agreement if we define what makes one a socialist. Is one a socialist based on intent, or outcome?
Neither, Socialism is a philosophy not a design. If you embrace the philosophy that workers rather than business owners should earn profits and that all people deserve a certain minimum standard of living then you are a socialist. If you're a politician in any system you are likely to abuse power and commit atrocity, that's beside the point. Those beliefs are socialism, everything that espouses that is (at least claiming to be socialist), everything that does not, is not.
You define socialists as those who believe "workers rather than business owners should earn profits and that all people deserve a certain minimum standard of living ".
Two principles: Workers (group) over business owners (individuals). All (group) deserve a standard of living. (from who? unstated). Again, your formulation boils down to "the good of society trumps the individuals".
You said Chairman Mao was a "state-socialist". He murdered millions of Chinese for various reasons; those who Mao murdered were no less a part of Chinese society than Jews were of German soc
No need, you simply don't give businesses a license to operate unless they are structured that way. We have a limited number of business structures NOW, we're just reducing the number a little further. The law has ALWAYS been involved in what is allowable structures for business, If only to ensure that there is a clearly line of accountability if the business breaks other laws.
...
>That's what we call "statist" power.
Only if you have a state. If all people are equal in power, then it's simply "the will of the people".
... I repeat: I don't believe in a socialist state at all. I believe in stateless socialism. Are you unable to read ?...
It is not that I am unable to read. I don't believe you can actually create your "stateless socialism"; it is inherently unstable and either becomes a "state socialism" or "not socialism".
Let's look at your 3 statements here on what you want your socialism to be, and to do. It has business licenses, it is democratic, and it is "stateless". "Will of the People" means you must either hold elections (to determine the will of the people), or have an appointed/elections representative who presumably knows what the will of the people is at all times. That is a system of gov't.
Additionally, this system of gov't has business licenses; meaning that you can restrict people from doing business. For the licenses to be meaningful, there is a threat of enforcement. Operate without a license, and there will be a fine. Failure to pay the fine? Jail. Failures to submit to jail? Violence. To manage business licenses, you now need a central licensing authority (to counter forgery of papers; to have the authoritative list of compliant business). That sounds like a gov't beuaracracy to me, which is an indication you have a state.
Perhaps your idea of a state is only if there's a strong centralized gov't that enforces a national set of rules; My definition of a state is looser: A group of people represent the governing authority in a location. The small town's elected gov't is "state power" when they restrict land use, regulate market transactions, etc. A telltale indicator you have a state is if you have police to enforce the rules. Does your stateless socialism lack police? Is your stateless socialism free of criminals?
If you answer yes, then you're wishing for a utopia. Good luck with building it, but please stay far away from me. If you answer no, then your stateless society has a state, and calling it stateless is a lie.
>Is someone forced to be a farmer?
"Someone" is forced to be a farmer now, or we ALL die. We don't need to decide by decree WHO should be the farmer, we just need to leave the opportunity to farm and there will be farmers.
No, under our current system in western societies, anyone who wishes to be a farmer is compensated for it by market prices, plus gov't subsidies for political manipulation.
Under your system, a farmer who farms enough food for 100 people has clear excess; society is justified in taking 99% of it and giving it to 99 other people. This farmer has no right to the fruits of his labor; he has no right to own that food beyond what what society decides to allow him. That farmer has no incentive to put in that level of effort next time; maybe he farms enough food for 50 people, or 10 people. Now you have a shortage of food, if there's 99 other people who want to be fed. Farming food takes time and skill; those 99 other people may not be able to farm food for their own needs. Now what? Force the farmer to always farm enough for 100 people?
"we just need to leave the opportunity" - and presumably farmers will farm enough food. You've ignored the strong disincentive to farming your system has created. In contrast, a capitalist system creates a strong incentive to farm - personal profit. In a free market, competing desires f
So economically - I believe that a FORM of socialism with no state at all is the best way to PROMOTE individual liberty. Nobody can have ANY freedom without the freedom to eat.
I believe that those who create, must own the means of production and the resulting profits.
That's my first principle. The businesses must be owned by their workers, and run by their workers.
So what do you do to a business that does not operate in the way you like it to? You use the power of society to change how they function. You confiscate and repurpose property because it's for the "good of society".
That's what we call "statist" power. The only way for it to not be statist is if you make it voluntary on the part of the business owner to comply, in which case you leave open the option of people choosing *not* to do things that way. But you've already said that that level of freedom for the business owner is unacceptable.
Nobody can have ANY freedom without the freedom to eat.
... That's my fourth principle: property is just a tool and must be used for the good of others, or lost.
Food is property. So on one hand, one has the right to owning some bare minimum level of food for consumption; but on the other hand, one does not have any right to owning any property (which includes food). Once again, contradictory.
Your idea of freedom is warped. In some locales, food may just grow off trees, but in much of the world, food exists because people must put in a lot of work to grow it. Whose duty is it to provide food for one's freedom to eat? If there is no food, where does that minimum level of food come from? Is someone forced to be a farmer? Every right has a corresponding duty. Unless the duty for providing one's food falls on oneself, there is a person who is forced to work harder so as to feed himself and another.
Practically everything in your post was ideological restating of the bullshit they teach in schools without ever questioning the underlying fundamentals (no the natural urge of people are NOT to increase individual wealth - the VAST majority of people OPPOSE greed and consider it a BAD thing whom they actively seek to avoid in their lives - and ALL the religions on earth reflect the universality of that view by declaring it sinful - capitalism rewards the tiny minority who EMBRACE greed - psychopaths by the WHO definition).
1. I live in one of the most statist US states, CA, and went to liberal state schools filled with union teachers. If you think they teach (American) conservative philosophy there, you're wrong. (The majority of students end up subscribing to social liberalism)
2. You're deluded if you think people do not act in their self-interest. People do what is rewarding to them; what they find rewarding is defined by their view of their self-interest. Each person's definition of self-interest varies - for some it is to accumulate money or fame, for others it is to raise a family, for yet others it is to practice religion and find purpose. For some, their self-interest is to further the "good of society". But all of those people are acting in self-interest. (I did not use the term "greed", nor do I say that "greed is good")
It's not enough for a socialist state to have some of the latter type of people. Everyone must subscribe to that philosophy, otherwise you end up with free-loaders who break the system. So how do you deal with that? Either your society chooses to use its collective power (aka state power) to discourage and eliminate freeloaders, or you cannot have your socialist state. That is the trade-off socialists must make; and since socialists want their socialism, state power is their only option to make it work.
The Nazi's weren't even SLIGHTLY socialist by ANY reasonable philosopher's definition of the term and I'm TIRED of giving you facts, figures and citations and being answered with
That is a half-truth. There has never been a communist state in all of history. The USSR certainly wasn't. The half that is true is that a lot of the people who served it and committed it's atrocities believed in the ideology of communism - which the USSR did not in fact subscribe to. It was in fact a system of state-capitalism.
Call them whatever you want, each represents an attempt to create that "ideal" communist state. "Communism" is the siren song to lead a nation of people into a totalitarian system of oppression and slavery.
That every attempt at communism fails reveals that communism doesn't work, despite all the special pleading that those examples aren't really "communism".
Capitalism does not demand that your actions serve a useful purpose, it tries to match reward to usefulness - but it does not demand it. That was the point I was trying to make -a contrast between the two ideologies on this particular point.
Capitalism "demands" that people have the liberty to do what they want with their property. The natural desire of all men is to increase their wealth; in a free market capitalist system, (the only type I wish to defend) they are free to use their accumulated wealth (capital) to gain more wealth.
In a communist system, a group of armed thugs who claim to represent "society" steps in and declares that they can put this wealth (capital) to better use. They take this wealth by force and use it for their own selfish purposes. Every Communist "wannabe" state has its leaders become wealthy elites; all for the good of society, of course.
So you believe that right libertarians support a right of conquest ? Because I've never heard a right libertarian express that. In fact they tout their system as being superior precisely because it does NOT recognize a right of conquest. It demands a government to prevent conquest - it holds property rights sacred, a human right which nobody can take away, not even the government, but which that government is duty-bound to protect.
What I referred to as the "right of conquest" is the resolution of competing claims for the same piece of property. Every such conflict boils down to lethal force: you respect my claim or I will kill you. People are already willing to kill each other for food, so it's unsurprising that they do the same for land and other types of property. What makes a gov't useful and desirable is that it provides a system to resolve these claims *without* a bloodbath (within a gov't; multiple gov'ts often end up using war to resolve such issues). This tends to work out better for all parties. People create wealth; dead people can't create wealth. Killing people over property conflicts hurts the growth of wealth (generally speaking).
I don't understand why you believe that "right libertarians" believe property rights are sacred. You've used the US as an example of a somewhat right-libertarian system; and in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution (from the very beginning of this nation's existence), "unreasonable search and seizure" is banned; with the implication and reality that "reasonable search and seizure" is allowed for.
There is a natural right to property; but this right is not "naturally protected". (Natural rights are not what you have; it is what you have a right to fight and kill for) It is part of the theory of the social contract, that we voluntarily form and submit to gov't to help protect our natural rights, as the group can protect them better than any given individual. In the US, it is also recognized that the power invested in the group is itself a danger (see every example of tyranny), so that gov't power is limited in the Constitution (though severely undermined by the consistent efforts of the US Democratic party; who have in the past century chosen increased gov't power over individual liberty; aka statism over libertarianism).
Okay, I spent some time browsing through your first post. Here are a few counterpoints and thoughts.
Communism believes the economy should serve the people and the people one another. Capitalism believes nothing and nobody should serve anybody else (nor any tangible purpose) it should just exist.
It would help your point to define what you mean by Communism and Capitalism, first. Though the meaning may be clear to yourself, other people may not be familiar with the meaning you're using.
I'd agree with your summary of Communism's starting belief. (While also noting that Communism has been behind the worst butchery in human history despite any good intentions on their part; this makes it an extremely dangerous and despicable failed ideology)
Your summary of Capitalism as a belief, on the other hand, is just a strawman. Do you really think supporters of capitalism say, "Capitalism is about the belief in nothing!"? Speaking as a supporter of capitalism, capitalism is based on the belief that there is a right to private ownership. Meaning that one can own property, and that this ownership grants control over how that property is to be used. This is a belief in "something", it is a belief in the existence of a natural right. You may disagree that this natural right exists, but that is a separate from what capitalists believe.
Moving on to the main point of your post: "Property is theft"
The answer comes from a rather odd next question: is right of conquest a valid right of property (it was held so in every culture in the world until very recently after all) ?
If you say "yes":
Well then the take-over of unused land by the destitute is a legitimate form of conquest, at least as legitimate in practical terms as any other.
If you say "no":
Well then the current "owners" of the land have no legitimate claim to it.
You do have an interesting point and dilemma. But there is in fact a way for a "right libertarian" to answer it: Short version: You have a right to conquest only if you win.
Let's say there is a "right of conquest", You say the poor are now justified to take a piece of property and claim it as their own under the "right of conquest.
I shall agree that under the "right of conquest", those poor now own the property. Now what is to keep the original owners of said property from conquering the property back? And as the two groups conquer the property back and forth, who really owns the land now?
"Right of conquest" doesn't really capture the principle at work here: Ownership is based on having the primary claim to an "object" - whether it be a piece of land, an animal, a machine, or just an idea. Your claim of ownership of a piece of land doesn't mean anything if a neighboring tribe comes over and drives you out of it. To own something, you must be able to defend your claim of onwership.
It follows from this that that ownership flows from might; and it would seem that the strongest man in the world will own everything (as he can claim it all and then defend it). Yet we can also see that individual strength is really insufficient to defend a claim on everything; a very strong man could conceivably hold his own against 2 or 3 other men; but would be overwhelmed by 100 or 1000 men.
One might think then that it is aggregate power that determines ownership; that the largest group of people with a collective "might" rating will own everything. To an extent this is true, as there have been great kingdoms and empires. Though none of these empires owned everything, we see that they failed to own areas precisely because of a lack of military might; and the areas they owned they did because they were able to exert their power there.
So summarizing that as "might makes right", this seems to support the poor in your scenario taking unused land by "right of conquest".
Not conclusively, but I can identify a trend - more of X tends to lead to more of Y without making Y dependent on X.
Is socialism a philosophy or an outcome? Is socialism the economic/political system you build to create a good outcome, or is it the good outcome that comes from the economic/political system you build?
Nope, Native Americans. I didn't say the people living there did the stealing. I just said it had been stolen. Buying stolen property doesn't make it unstolen however, no matter how many people have sold it since.
You didn't read my blog link then.
So because Native American's land was "stolen" from them, Steve Jobs doesn't deserve credit for creating wealth in Apple. Ridiculously irrelevant, unless you want to show how Native Americans would have developed a nifty personal music player with accompanying online store, until Steve Jobs came and stole their land. I skimmed your blogpost, but didn't find anything very convincing. I'll post a quick feedback post to your link later.
For every 30 dollars apple spends on an ipod, only 1 dollar is spent on labor. Apple's wealth is exploitation. More than anything it's stealing other people labour by buying it for far less than a living or fair wage on the basis that nobody else is offering them anything better and their own government doesn't give a shit.
To the extent that the Chinese workers are coerced into those jobs, that could be considered exploitation. Last I've read, they get higher than average wages (vs. farming), and there's plenty of people who wish to get a job working for the Apple factories. If voluntary, all that you're observed is that the workers contribute $1 to the $30 of value the customer pays money for.
This is a mutually beneficial deal for Apple and the Chinese workers.
Consider that those workers did not create the design; nor did they build the factories or the software or the overall package of the final Apple product. Those are not the skills the Chinese workers offer, but those are skills necessary to create the value that Apple products are worth to their customers. Those skills get the lion's share of the profit precisely because they're more critical and necessary to the execution. If you disagree, you're welcome to create a competing product that is better and cheaper than Apple's - I'm sure you'll end up eating their lunch.
In the meantime, the Chinese workers get a cushier job at a factory, and can use those higher wages to improve their family's lot in life.
Well then you could argue that in a worker-owned business there wouldn't be any ROOM for non-critical staff. After all, if your income is a share of the profit, you sure as hell won't give a share to somebody whom you don't NEED to give it to. That's less for EVERYBODY else.
You brought up the car analogy, and you didn't even attempt to counter my observation. Any complex enough system will have non critical parts. If certain parts are critical, and other parts are noncritical, that means the parts are unequal in value. To take the human body for example, one can lose an arm or a foot, but losing the head or heart or lungs will be fatal.
Your idea that "all parts are equally necessary and have equal value" is simply wrong, as shown by those two counter-examples. Create another argument all you want, but unless you can counter that evidence, your idea contradicts reality. As such, it does not have any value in explaining how the world works (e.g. reality), nor does it give any insight to how the world should work.
>And she probably does, or she wouldn't get hired in the first place
Yes, that proves MY point, not yours.
Your point that she is of equal value to you, the engineer? Her existence as a receptionist does not guarantee that she adds value to the company. Nor does it show that she should be paid the same in wages as y
The two points are not contradictory in fact. Socialism is not a political philosophy - but some political systems are certainly more conducive to socialist systems arising.
Conducive enough that you will predict the amount of socialism based on political system alone?
I did not say anything of the kind. I merely said that effort + privilege > effort alone.
And I said that socialists hold privilege to be a debt owed to society. This is not a contradiction either since privilege by definition is NOT earned.
Apple was founded by people who lived in houses on stolen land, their business headquarters are on stolen land. Every single resource that goes into their products are taken from stolen land.
>They started as a small company out of someone's garage; who did they steal from to build up to their current multibillion empire?
The garage was already built on stolen land out of bricks made from stolen clay and wood cut from stolen trees.
In order for the resources to be stolen, someone else must have a rightful claim to it first. Who was it stolen from? Society?
I also find it completely laughable that you consider "stolen land" to be the reason for Apple's success. So is the land in Steve Jobs' garage extra special, or does everyone have the ability to create a multibillion dollar corporation from the land under their garage?
I call bullshit. Apple's wealth is ideas and execution. Steve had a vision and he gather people to execute it. He took risks, made good decisions, got lucky (right place at right time), and created billions of dollars in wealth through his efforts. While you think this represents a huge debt Steve owes to society, I consider it the converse; society owes Steve a huge debt for creating all those neat products with his ideas; and that debt is paid and realized in the reputation Steve gained, and the money that people have voluntarily traded for his products.
Since this is slashdot, here is a car analogy. A car has a fanbelt, cheap to make and easy to replace. It also has a flywheel, a much more complicated and expensive part that costs a lot more to make and replace. But take out EITHER and the car won't run. So their value to the car is identical.
Your analogy is flawed because you chose only to look at the critical components for car operation.
If an LED goes out on the dashboard, the car does not operate at 100%; yet this failure is not equal to engine failure. Each part has a contribution, but not every part is strictly necessary.
If the receptionist is fired, the engineer answering the phone may be wasting time; but depending on the phone load, it may not be a very large waste of time. The receptionist's job depends on her adding enough value to the company. (And she probably does, or she wouldn't get hired in the first place)
I make the principle of "everybody is equal before the law" dominant. The whole reason for things like constitutional democracies is to allow you to DO things like that. To prevent democracy from being a tyranny of the majority.
There is no liberty at ALL until everybody IS equal before the law.
Everyone is equal before the law. A gay man is just as able to get married to a woman as a straight man. A straight man cannot get married to a man any more than a gay man. They are indeed equal in the eyes of law. Realize that "Marriage" in the law is the creation of a family between a man and woman, not "being with the person you really really like". We don't reject marriage licenses based on lack of romantic love; and "we really really love each other" doesn't allow either a polygamous or incestuous marriage between man and woman.
This may not be *fair*, but that's how marriage is currently defined. If my country were to democratically choose to redefine it, I would not like it; but accept that as a democratic decision. In the meantime, my freedom of speech allows me to oppose it, and to demand my gov't reflect that.
I suppose I would say it's more a difference of principle than of practical outcome. The difference is that in a (working) democracy nobody has any MORE power than you do to affect the outcome of a decision. Republics are less democratic than anarchies - hence it's less socialist in them than it would be in an anarchy (since representatives can coerce things which the vote did not support).
If I take you at your word here, the amount of "socialism" in a society is proportional to the amount of democracy built into the system. This is a contradiction of your earlier claim that socialism is purely economic and utterly apolitical. You don't get it both ways; pick one.
Not so coincidentally, this again fits with my usage of "socialism" - socialism affects both economic and political aspects of our society, because it's a statement about values; economics is how people trade (make agreements), politics is what rules people will live by; the two are intertwined and ruled by what that society values. And it doesn't take much research to notice that the political system of a country affects its economic successes.
Not sacred, that implies religion, this is about justice. And I never SAID that SOCIETY cannot have a share of a labourers work - that is completely outside the SCOPE of what is or is not socialism. My definition applies to who keeps the PROFITS of productive labour. Socialism is any belief system that those profits should go to those who PERFORM the labour, rather than to employers.
Wages are "profits"; they are also immediate. The business owner doesn't get his profit until he sells the goods; which may or may not sell. Wages are low risk. Profit from building a factory, hiring workers, and then selling their goods is much higher risk. The level of profits reflect that risk. In a free market, the workers are free to build up their capital and try their hand at being business owners. Some make it, some can even make it really big.
The things you refer to - to a socialist is a completely unrelated topic. That is about the fact that no man is an island. All success is at least partially attributable to privilege (and any sociologist will confirm this: there is NO more reliable prediction about a child's future income than the income of his parents). Capitalists see privilege as an inherent right (with a few exceptions - Jefferson for example instituted the first estate tax to reduce privilege and prevent the rise of an aristocracy). Socialists see privilege as a debt to society. You got where you are on hard work (it's false that socialists deny this - they very much accept it) but ALSO thanks to privileges.
Here, you have just said that society owns everything; that effort->reward is a complete illusion.
This philosophy of society cannot be equally important as "every worker deserves to enjoy the fruits of his labor", because under this view, the fruits of the labor aren't really owned by the individual; they're owned by society, and society shall dictate who rightfully owns it.
>We're using different definitions for Capitalism. I define it as "private ownership"
Well if we can just make up our own definitions we're never going to get anywhere.
I believe I am quite justified in using my definitions. I am trying to understand your definitions, but they keep contradicting themselves. If you're fine with it, good for you, but that's a very good reason for me to not adopt them.
> The business owner owns the equipment and land
And not a single one of them own it by any concept that can be called just. That's rather a long argument with a lot of defining evidence. Too much to write out now, but luckily, I have a blogpost on the topic I can link you to.
Let's try to apply your theory of capitalism. Explain how Apple stole its way to its billion dollar warchest.
>Do you consider those socialists to be socialists according to your definition?
Sometimes. Only when it happens in a democracy - where every individual had equal amounts of power to support or prevent those initiatives. The more democratic, the more socialist is becomes. In a libertarian socialism, it's perfectly compatible since the SAME people who are sacrificing some of their labour have CHOSEN to do so.
Democracies are tyrannies of the majority. If a minority is coerced into sacrificing for the greater good - how is it socialism if a democracy does it, but not-socialism if done by a dictatorship?
There is a meaningful difference only if we accept that the majority have the authority to define "the greater good" while an individual (the dictator) does not. In that case, we're back to the core principle: The greater good outweighs the rights of the few.
Under that principle, if the majority (society) demands the fruits of an individual laborer's work, they can rightfully take it. Again, socialism as I have defined it. Again, incompatible with your definition of socialism (where the laborer's right to his own work is sacred).
>As long as the society treats men equally under the law, there is nothing preventing said laborer from enjoying the fruits of his labor as he sees fit.
No, in capitalism ONLY business owners see the fruits of their labour. Labour sold is not always sold at a loss (otherwise profit cannot exist). In true socialism, all businesses MUST be owned by ALL who work there, the management done by democratic vote rather than authority and the profits divided evenly. Some variations have incentive bonusses to encourage hard work (a greater share of the profits for those who work harder).
...
There's a huge difference between free markets and capitalism. Don't conflate the terms. Socialism DEPENDS on free markets just like Capitalism does - but socialism is NEVER compatible with capitalism.
We're using different definitions for Capitalism. I define it as "private ownership". Labor is a form of a capital. The business owner owns the equipment and land. The workers owns his own body and skills. In a free market, the worker voluntarily trades his time for cash; the business owner trades the worker's output for whatever it's worth. Each takes different risks and thus different rewards. (businesses can fail, after all; the owner can lose everything even as the worker walks away with his wages)
The worker who is forced to work is being subjected to a form of slavery. This is not a free market. It also violates the concept of private ownership, as the worker does not own his body, and so it would also not be capitalism as I have defined it.
I use these definitions because I have found them useful for understanding historical situations and systems. I find the definitions you offer rather arbitrary. They either fail to map to any principles; or they are inconsistent. "ONLY business owners see the fruits of their labour." is not a principle; at best it's an observation; practically it's just demagoguery. I feel like you're just using Socialism and Capitalism as labels for "stuff you like" and "stuff you dislike".
It's anti-libertarian to make a declaration about ANYTHING related to a private persons private matters. If you don't recognize gay marriage you CANNOT be libertarian. The fundamental principle of libertarianism is: your freedom ENDS where mine begins, no earlier and no later.
If a gay couple enjoys a committed relationship in their private home, that is indeed a person's private matter.
If a gay couple wishes to have a "private marriage", no one else needs to be involved. Nothing further needs to be done; homosexuality has stopped being a criminal offense in pretty much any Western country.
Marriage, however, is fundamentally a public matter. It conveys
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Which science has disproven. Well, not completely, but we have enough evidence that human behaviour does not fit the Free Market theory to pull that theory into doubt. Humans are not always rational, they do not always put their self-interest above everything else, and they do not always (actually, they fail most of the time) evaluate their choices correctly.
/facepalm.
Economics deals with "average" behavior. Additionally, your "irrational" human simply does not have the priorities you *expected* him to have. Chances are your expectations were irrational, not the person. Humans being complex, economic models simplifies them to a simple rational actor where situation X always leads to outcome Y. As far as your economic model simplified human behavior, of course it's wrong. The question is if it is usefully wrong.
You're using a generic economic model's failure to explain individual human behavior as proof that free markets cannot exist, by the power of Science. This is a misuse of science and a failure to understand modeling's use as an analysis tool, as well as free market "theory".
"Free markets" as I've used it is not about a theory of how human beings work. It's a proposal for an economic system that balances the interests of all involved parties and maximizes social good. It is informed by practical experience (history) of how humans have acted. Free markets can maximize social good by harnessing each person's self-interest in a constructive manner, through voluntary win-win transactions. Free markets generate win-win by having each party value the items they received in trade more than what they traded for it. My money for a computer game; the programmer's time for a salary; the business owner's capital for a product; all of which leaves us better off.
Sometimes people will make bad decisions in a free market, but that does not invalidate the free market system. The system still works as people have incentive to make better decisions in the future; this is a negative feedback loop against bad decision making.
Some people have tried to replicate a free market system's success without the possibility of bad decisions and bad outcomes. They've tried giving Very Smart People all the decision making power, or passing laws that outlaw bad outcomes. None of those systems actually work better, so I'm just pushing back on all of these "improvements" that haven't.
One of these is "improvements" is the idea that the gov't can act as a neutral 3rd party observer to correct "market failures". Gov't does have an important role as a referee to enforce the rules; but the rules should be less about desired outcomes, and more about fair (and voluntary) processes. We've modified the system to do something about the market outcome of "monopolies", but the modification doesn't work well, and it's unlikely to work well due to the forces involved. ("Market failures" are really self-correcting. The failures either involve huge losses or huge profits. For the latter, losses are a strong incentive to avoid the decisions that led to losses; for the former, profits attract investment, competition, and innovation).
You want to keep tinkering with those rules until it works; I don't think it's possible to make it work, and that we're better off saving the effort and letting the market self-correct. If you think it's impossible for the market to self-correct for a monopoly, would you like to provide real life examples of monopolies that could only possibly be fixed by gov't intervention?
In reality, a weak government is more oppressive than a strong one, because it oppresses those who can't fight it.
A limited gov't isn't given the power to oppress its people. An unlimited strong gov't is more oppressive than a limited strong gov't, because the former likes to find new ways to use its power; it decides it can improve society by making all the decisions for its
Windows, on the other hand, has been around for a lot longer than any of that.
And why does that mean anything? Win 7 is a tad different than Win 95.
On the flip side, my country is facing some budgetary problems that are the result of 50+ year old laws that have never been repealed or fixed.
Markets primarily work on voluntarily transactions. This provides a lot more incentive to fix any "market power abuse" problems than democracy's "bread and circuses" problem. A company which abuses its position for profit loses customers and attracts competition, both of which provide negative feedback to any "monopoly rent" collected. The politician who reduces gov't benefits in excess of tax revenues becomes unpopular and may lose his job to a politician who will re-introduce those broken policies. (this is a positive feedback loop difficult to mitigate)
Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable
We don't even agree on what the problem is. Maybe we can hold the artillery until we have agreed on the target?
We're both concerned about the abuse of power. You're concerned with abuse of market power and wish gov't to have more and enough power to correct abuses of market power.
I am concerned with abuse of political power. A gov't with the power to correct abuses of market power in the fashion you desire, is also powerful enough to abuse the market.
Corporations can't force you to buy their products, but gov'ts can point a gun at your head. Corporate executives may have reached success by "psycopathic" methods; but politicians reach their success with the same methods - they over-promise, under-deliver, and will tell you what you want to hear. One is stuck with a politician's legacy for far longer than one might be stuck with a monopoly's business product.
You do realize that one of the reason most of the rest of the world doesn't particularily like the US is this way of talking? As if you were the only people who had this brilliant insight and everyone else is still living in the middle ages.
If you want to generalize the US based on your sampling of opinionated US individuals on the Internet, go ahead. Popularity doesn't matter as much as being right.
I brought up the US gov't because you talked about breaking up MS, a US corporation. Seems reasonable that it'd be the US gov't to break up this US "monopoly", no?
Anyways, to the point: No, government is not a miracle cure, and I never said that. What I did say is that if the choice is between a psychopathic (i.e. all of them, there are studies on this) corporation and a corrupt but theoretically controllable government, I still prefer the government.
And there it is - gov't is the lesser evil compared to a corporation. Can't speak for the dynamic of a large international corporation vs. a small country, but that is most definitely not the case in the US; and I distrust your solution of empowering gov't to destroy MS just because you think it'd benefit computer innovation. Unintended consequences happen a lot when dealing with a complex system, and breaking up a "monopoly" would affect the business climate for risk and innovation. (in the case of MS, you are destroying the dominant player, not a monopoly)
What you don't seem to realize is that all the arguments you bring against government are equally true for the magical invisble unicorn, sorry invisible hand of the market - which is not a real force, but nothing but the sum actions of flawed, imperfect humans.
The "magical invisible unicorn" is based off of a very real force: human self-interest. People pursue their own self interests, to fulfill basic needs and seek their desires. A free market guides those forces to work against each other in a constructive manner, much like an engine harnesses fire to produce movement.
That the force is immaterial does not mean it does not exist.
Really? Directly? Aer you sure you know what you are writing? The EU has just fined Google some amount. I happen to be the owner and CEO of a small company. Please tell me how their actions have directly threatened my livelihood.
I take it from your choice of example that you're located in the EU, then. If the EU has power to fine Google, they have just as much power to fine your business. Now, they have not fined your business - but they have the power to do so. What stops them from creating a new regulation that will affect your business next year? What stops them from fining you some arbitrary amount in the future?
Perhaps you can trust the EU bureaucrats to always stick to reasonable regulations. Perhaps you can influence their policies with democratic elections. Good for you and your country; but in the US, our gov't has continuously expanded its power and increased the scope of regulation. They are out of control. Part of regaining that control is to take every claim of "this is necessary regulation" skeptically, because they have abused that language and gone beyond what is actually necessary.
Having an inkling of the nature of governments (which is a reflection of human nature), I disbelieve that the EU is immune to that same greed for power. That said, they are not my gov't, so they are not my business. All I know is that my gov't needs a short leash, and the outcomes you desire require too much power in the hands of gov't.
Theoretically, government isn't a business because it is not for-profit. Unfortunately, many politicians have turned it into a business for their personal profit.
Right, theoretically. In reality, gov't is run by imperfect humans acting in their own self-interest. That's the whole point of the US's system of limited, distributed powers. Checks and balances, due process, etc are all to protect us from gov't, even as gov't is necessary for an orderly society and a free market. I just find it silly to talk about gov't as a miracle cure for monopolies - when monopolies are usually created by gov't action in the first place, and when gov't actions are unlikely to actually remove the effects of monopoly.
The job of gov't isn't to fix the market so that the "right outcome" (no monopoly) happens. Their job is to provide just laws (fair rules) and then let the free market's negative feedback loops create an equilibrium based on everyone's aggregate desires.
I accept that laws against anti-competitive behavior can be part of fair rules. (just like rules against stealing and fraud) But I don't care for the idea that gov't should be in the business of breaking up monopolies - the gov't is more likely to use that power to extort their share of the monopoly rent from the "monopoly", which doesn't fix the market at all. If we're going to have a "broken" market, I'd rather that monopoly rent go towards the business that provided the goods in a voluntary transaction with the customer. The customer may be "overpaying", but generally the product is still providing more value than the price paid.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft?
Depends on your threat scenario. One of the key points is whether or not you buy into the idea that empowering government oversight in one area magically enlarges the whole government in all areas.
Giving the gov't more power over the economy gives it power over *all* businesses. Every one of us who earns a living does so either by being an employee at a business, or running our own business. Gov't abuse in this arena directly threatens the livelihoods of all citizens.
Oh, they're not likely to do anything that would trigger an immediate backlash, but they'd be perfectly willing to slowly erode our economic liberties for their own power. The US gov't has not shrunk at all for the past century or so, and each year only adds more spending and more regulations. Is it only a problem when the gov't starts requiring you to fill out an environmental impact statement each time you turn on your car? Attack the problem before it becomes unmanageable (though it may be too late for that already).
Correct. Monopolies can come into existence legally, and punishing the act itself would not work well.
Indeed, and that's because monopolies cannot protect their own existence purely with market power. As far as they charge high prices and "steal" high profits, they create huge incentives for people to find alternatives and for other businesses to compete for those profits.
Conveniently, a gov't empowered to regulate markets for the "good of society" has the power to regulate markets in a way that protects a business's market advantages, and every gov't is influenced by money.
That's a strawman and you know it.
It's a true statement that I'm using to make a point. You have to define the market in which a business has "significant market power" and monopoly status. Note that copyright and brandnames (gov't regulations) is what protects MS from having to compete against Joe Blow's "Micro$oft Windows 7" (completely ripped from MS's Win7)
There are very few businesses that can claim to be a significant part of the entire economy. Except for one - the "business" of government.
Who should I fear more, the US gov't or Microsoft? Only one of those entities has control over tanks and nuclear weapons. So when your number one goal is to hurt MS, even at the cost of enlarging the US gov't and further empowering politicians and bureaucrats, I'm not too happy with your priorities.
So you live in a world of imperfect people and imperfect markets, that can be fixed with a perfect gov't who perfectly uses their power for the good of all.
Back in the real world, we have imperfect gov'ts who are just as able to do harm as they can do good; and who often do more harm than good. Giving them the power to destroy monopolies is really giving them the power to destroy *any* business.
Can they be trusted with that power? As far as you think MS avoided their correct fate; have they not increased their political lobbying since the anti-trust lawsuit? That's exactly the type of gov't corruption I was pointing out previously.
Do you realize that the gov't claims a monopoly on violence? That by giving it more power to regulate business, you are strengthening its monopoly position? Yes, we have democratic feedbacks to limit abuse of power, but there is still incentive for politicians to abuse whatever power they have. Businesses may abuse their market power; but gov'ts abuse their political power. Market power abuse cannot in of itself prevent competition from existing; every product has an alternative. But political power abuse is much harder to correct.
If you're concerned with the harm monopolies do, you should be just as wary of the harm that gov'ts inflict, even for a good cause. Tyranny is much worse than monopoly, and every fix for monopoly has a high risk of tyranny.
However, what we do know for a fact is that monopolistic business practices do damage to the economy. Specifically, the monopolist extracts a monopoly rent from the market by being able to shift the price point above the optimal market point. And you can do the math to prove that the loss to the economy is higher than the gain for the monopolist. The difference is economic damage.
That is so simple and so well known that it is the reason we have laws like the Sherman Act. Monopolies need to be broken up if they appear, because they are so damaging to everyone else.
Monopolies are less efficient markets, so we've added gov't regulations to try to make things more efficient.
The thing is, we also know for a fact that gov't regulations add their own inefficiencies (just like error checking adds computing and size overhead to a data packet). So reality isn't as simple as "monopolies are bad, let's destroy them all!"
Does the harm/inefficiency of gov't regulation of businesses outweigh the harm/inefficiency of a monopoly existing? You're giving some gov't bureaucrat the power to decide that a business is a monopoly and needs to be taken apart by gov't force. You've added a vector for a corruption and partisanship - a rival may bribe/lobby the gov't to harm your business. Now each business has a strong incentive to put money into political lobbying for political favors and protection.
That money that is spent on politics instead of R&D or marketing is itself a market inefficiency, and it's a direct result of gov't regulation.
At best, that is a legal definition, as opposed to the economic one. But even then, a company gets in trouble for abusive monopolistic ("monopoly-like") practices, not its status as a monopoly.
Anti-trust is about abuse of market power, not about if your company is categorized as a monopoly. Copyright and patents are gov't protected monopolies; anti-trust does not touch them.
Every single company can be categorized as a monopoly if you narrow down the market until they're the "single seller". Only Apple gets to sell Apple products, for instance. If that were sufficient to trigger anti-trust laws, every business has become illegal.
The meaning of "monopoly" is literally "single seller".
The only thing MS is a single seller of is their own products. Good for them. In other news, Dell has a monopoly on Dell computers, Apples has a monopoly on iOS, and Google has a monopoly on the Google search engine.
MS is guilty of some past "monopolistic" business practices with questionable legality, but that's an entirely different beast from *being* a monopoly.
If a cat begs like a puppy, it may be acting like a dog, but it's still a cat. MS may have acted like a monopoly, but the nature of the computing market is that MS is not and will never be a monopoly.
Does "separating fact from fiction" mean anything to you?
Fiction is art. As the product of a human being, it does tell us something about that person and his experiences, but you want us to generalize an entire society based on a few books centered on fictional characters, by a single author from that time period.
You won't know what a historical battle was like based on looking at an artist's painting. Even a photograph doesn't tell the whole story. I don't believe you can know how an entire society operated based on a writer's novel. There's simply not enough contextual information.
To learn history, read history, not fiction.
So when the Nazi's had unpaid slaves working in their factories, they were engaging in slavery.
Indeed, the Nazis practiced slavery. But my point was that slavery is not the antithesis of socialism, as socialism doesn't care about individual freedom, only how it prioritizes the interests of the group compared to the individual. If a socialist group feels its in their interest to practice slavery, then there's nothing in of the philosophy of socialism to stop them from doing so. (100% consensus of society is not a part of socialism; seeing how eager it is to take the means of production from the "capitalists" and give it to "the workers")
You have not demonstrated that socialism is anti-slavery. I believe that socialism is very comfortable with making everyone slaves of "society" (vs. slave of a single owner).
>Socialism seeks the "good of society". It is willing to take from the man who has more to give to the man who does not. But it only takes what was there BEFORE he earned, which isn't HIS to begin with, it's a debt, and must be paid. Unearned wealth is NOT hard to define well - simple maths. What did you get BEFORE you were working ? And we won't even claim ALL of that (simply because it's not practical) - just that the more you started out with, the more your obligations become.
If a laborer accumulates his savings, buys a factory (means of production), and then hires workers to build things in the factory, your philosophy of socialism desires to take his work and redistribute it to the workers. ("laborers should own the means of production").
You've accused Apple of stealing all their wealth; even though it started as a garage operation and grew into the giant corporation it is today. Your idea of "unearned" is flawed because you apply it to wealth that was created through effort.
Additionally, where does "unearned wealth" even come from? If my parents leave me an inheritance, it may be unearned from my perspective, but it was the fruit of my parents' sweat and toil. They earned it, and if they were allowed the fruits of their labor they'd have complete control over how they choose to distribute it after they're gone. (But no, society shall now step in and take its cut, since every cut before then was insufficient, apparently).
>Two principles: Workers (group) over business owners (individuals) False, most businesses are owned by multiple people (shareholders). And workers ARE individuals, while businesses are NOT (much as capitalism like to treat them as if they are).
Businesses are not individuals, but they represent the collections of individuals' efforts. Every business owner, on the other hand, is an individual, and socialism desires to take away their ownership because the socialist feels they didn't "earn it". So in the name of "the good of society", property is taken away from the individual and given to society (the group).
I said he was a politician abusing power and that this would happen REGARDLESS of what philosophy he claimed to believe in. One of the worst and cruellest dictators of the previous century was an arch-capitalist (Pinochet) with one of the most free and unregulated markets that has ever existed. You can be a murderous bastard regardless of what economic policies you enact. But that's politics, the PHILOSOPHY of socialism is about what kind of society you want.
Nice dodge, but still a dodge.
Is Mao a socialist? By your words, earlier, yes.
Is Hitler a socialist? You haven't been willing to answer, but his actions were not much different than Mao. As far as actions reveal one's philosophy, Hitler shares a similar enough philosophy to Mao that he'd be a socialist by the same criteria. Hitler's philosophy was to create a powerful German socialist state, run by Germans (instead of Jews), for the benefit of Germans (instead of Jews).
http://en.wikipedia.or
You've basically defined self-interest as "whatever you do", I suppose I can reasonably feel you would add "unless violently coerced." Well if you can redefine your concepts to include EVERY possibility, then you can make any argument sound like you won it, that is however a fallacy.
I helpfully put my entire definition in quotation marks for your benefit. It seems that is insufficient. Again:
"Self-interest is doing what you want to do".
-me
See that word I bolded in the sentence? The one you left out in your paraphrase? "Want" - that means desire. We often do things we do not want to do, but that's generally to serve a goal that we value even more than the thing we don't want to do. That goal is the self-interest; each person defines it according to their own values and principles.
We'll go back to your hero of an uncle, since you're proud of him and you don't think he acted in his self-interest.
No one would want to be in that situation, but it's what happened. Your uncle was faced with a choice - act to maximize his own safety, or act to save his workers. He valued his workers. He wanted to keep them safe, even at risk to his own life. He desired their well-being over his own, and he then chose to act on that value.
As far as "self interest" is doing what you *want* to do (because you value it), or accomplishing a goal that you want, your uncle acted in that self-interest.
Not every person's self-interest is so noble, but society will do well if it has many people whose self-interest is like your uncle.
But back to the point - people act towards their self interest. They seek what they want. Is this really that controversial of a concept?
Gotta love the Libertardians, their ignorance of history is only exceeded by their ignorance of economics. Go back and read some Charles Dickens for a view of the world as you claim it should be run. Ah, the Good Old Days! Damn they were awful.
If you think someone is ignorant of history and economics (e.g. reality), why would you ask them to read fiction?
What? The free market has produced very few advances in medical technology. Many of the advances in the basic sciences (including biochemistry and physics) are sponsored by the government. The same goes for drugs and medical equipment. The free market has actually not developed many items on its own, without piggy-backing on projects that were originally or partially government funded. Interestingly, the government also pays a large portion of the costs of training medical residents.
It's not enough to have a gov't study that shows a drug or device concept is feasible. A company has to take it from concept to the market, and that can be a huge challenge as well. There may be a wonderful chemical compound that cures a particular illness, but if it takes $10 million to produce a dose, that's not going to be available to the average person. A company figures out how to produce the useful compound (or device) cheaply, they develop the infrastructure (technology + workers) to produce the product, figure out how to get the product to the customer, and are liable for how their product performs.
And it's those companies that eat the cost if the drug or device doesn't pan out the way they hoped it to. So accepting that the gov't puts in a lot of effort into medical research, it doesn't take away from the effort private industry puts in to deliver the medical [i]products[/i]. (which may one day be a $5 generic at your local drugstore).
Price controls? There aren't any. I used to work at a very large biotech that sold good but absurdly expensive drugs, because there aren't any price controls that prevented it from doing so. And I actually argue for greater barriers to entry in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. There are too many drugs and devices on the market that don't work, and may do more harm than good. One of the first things we learned about in my CS courses was the Therac-25. Additionally, things like metal-on-metal hip replacements should not have been approved, given their high failure rates and higher tendency of causing metal toxicity.
Higher barriers to entry are higher development/production costs for medical companies. You're arguing for higher prices on medical products and devices ... But you also want price controls on top of that? So you'll make the product expensive, and then write a law that says the product must be sold cheaply?
It doesn't take an economics degree to see that combination will create a scarcity of said product.
>Does your stateless socialism lack police?
Yes.
Then good luck chasing your stateless socialist utopia. Just beware the mass graves that litter the path you follow.
Bullshit. I said nothing of the kind. What part of "Only unearned wealth is redistributed" don't you understand ?
"Unearned wealth" is a loophole you can slip a million injustices through. The people who get to define "unearned" wield a tremendous amount of power. I know, your ideal system will not have politicians, every vote will perfectly capture the Will of the People with 100% consensus.
But remember that *you* said that a minimum level of food should be given to every person. The farmer may have "earned" the food, but your system says that society has an innate claim to it You defined property as a legal fiction authored by society for the good of all; to be revoked when it serves society's purposes. If people are starving, the farmer's claim to the food he grew is kicked aside for the "good of society".
Bullshit. You're rejecting the possibility that somebody may simply value other lives (especially multiple lives) more than their own outright, as if you can read all the minds on earth.
You managed to quote an entire half a sentence to rant at. Bravo. But if you'd like to pay attention to my entire thought, "Self-interest is doing what you want to do".
Your uncle chose a heroic action and valued the lives of others above his own. He acted in accordance with what he valued the most. Actions in pursuit of one's values is self-interest.
When I say "self-interest", I do not mean "selfish goals", even though some people may define their self-interest to be selfish goals.
. Believe NOTHING a politician says, ever, THEN you'll start learning things about reality.
What gives you the idea I need this lecture from you? But if we're exchanging advice, I think you ought to beware political/economic philosophies that over-promise and never deliver.
See above. Again - NO system of slavery and socialism can ever coexist.
Slavery is making one man serve another.
Socialism seeks the "good of society". It is willing to take from the man who has more to give to the man who does not.
"From each according ot his ability, to each according to his need". The man with much ability is to serve the man who has much need. Socialism and slavery are quite compatible.
Even THAT false definition doesn't apply to the Nazis since the jews were a PART of society. You cannot EVER be both segregationalist AND socialist the two concepts are mutually exclusive. ...
>Perhaps we'll get closer to an agreement if we define what makes one a socialist. Is one a socialist based on intent, or outcome?
Neither, Socialism is a philosophy not a design. If you embrace the philosophy that workers rather than business owners should earn profits and that all people deserve a certain minimum standard of living then you are a socialist. If you're a politician in any system you are likely to abuse power and commit atrocity, that's beside the point. Those beliefs are socialism, everything that espouses that is (at least claiming to be socialist), everything that does not, is not.
You define socialists as those who believe "workers rather than business owners should earn profits and that all people deserve a certain minimum standard of living ".
Two principles: Workers (group) over business owners (individuals). All (group) deserve a standard of living. (from who? unstated). Again, your formulation boils down to "the good of society trumps the individuals".
You said Chairman Mao was a "state-socialist". He murdered millions of Chinese for various reasons; those who Mao murdered were no less a part of Chinese society than Jews were of German soc
No need, you simply don't give businesses a license to operate unless they are structured that way. We have a limited number of business structures NOW, we're just reducing the number a little further. The law has ALWAYS been involved in what is allowable structures for business, If only to ensure that there is a clearly line of accountability if the business breaks other laws.
>That's what we call "statist" power. Only if you have a state. If all people are equal in power, then it's simply "the will of the people".
... I repeat: I don't believe in a socialist state at all. I believe in stateless socialism. Are you unable to read ? ...
It is not that I am unable to read. I don't believe you can actually create your "stateless socialism"; it is inherently unstable and either becomes a "state socialism" or "not socialism".
Let's look at your 3 statements here on what you want your socialism to be, and to do. It has business licenses, it is democratic, and it is "stateless". "Will of the People" means you must either hold elections (to determine the will of the people), or have an appointed/elections representative who presumably knows what the will of the people is at all times. That is a system of gov't.
Additionally, this system of gov't has business licenses; meaning that you can restrict people from doing business. For the licenses to be meaningful, there is a threat of enforcement. Operate without a license, and there will be a fine. Failure to pay the fine? Jail. Failures to submit to jail? Violence. To manage business licenses, you now need a central licensing authority (to counter forgery of papers; to have the authoritative list of compliant business). That sounds like a gov't beuaracracy to me, which is an indication you have a state.
Perhaps your idea of a state is only if there's a strong centralized gov't that enforces a national set of rules; My definition of a state is looser: A group of people represent the governing authority in a location. The small town's elected gov't is "state power" when they restrict land use, regulate market transactions, etc. A telltale indicator you have a state is if you have police to enforce the rules. Does your stateless socialism lack police? Is your stateless socialism free of criminals?
If you answer yes, then you're wishing for a utopia. Good luck with building it, but please stay far away from me. If you answer no, then your stateless society has a state, and calling it stateless is a lie.
>Is someone forced to be a farmer?
"Someone" is forced to be a farmer now, or we ALL die. We don't need to decide by decree WHO should be the farmer, we just need to leave the opportunity to farm and there will be farmers.
No, under our current system in western societies, anyone who wishes to be a farmer is compensated for it by market prices, plus gov't subsidies for political manipulation.
Under your system, a farmer who farms enough food for 100 people has clear excess; society is justified in taking 99% of it and giving it to 99 other people. This farmer has no right to the fruits of his labor; he has no right to own that food beyond what what society decides to allow him. That farmer has no incentive to put in that level of effort next time; maybe he farms enough food for 50 people, or 10 people. Now you have a shortage of food, if there's 99 other people who want to be fed. Farming food takes time and skill; those 99 other people may not be able to farm food for their own needs. Now what? Force the farmer to always farm enough for 100 people?
"we just need to leave the opportunity" - and presumably farmers will farm enough food. You've ignored the strong disincentive to farming your system has created. In contrast, a capitalist system creates a strong incentive to farm - personal profit. In a free market, competing desires f
They think Obama's past 4 years has been about strengthening the middle class, and they want 4 more years of it. War is peace, y'know.
So economically - I believe that a FORM of socialism with no state at all is the best way to PROMOTE individual liberty. Nobody can have ANY freedom without the freedom to eat. I believe that those who create, must own the means of production and the resulting profits. That's my first principle. The businesses must be owned by their workers, and run by their workers.
So what do you do to a business that does not operate in the way you like it to? You use the power of society to change how they function. You confiscate and repurpose property because it's for the "good of society".
That's what we call "statist" power. The only way for it to not be statist is if you make it voluntary on the part of the business owner to comply, in which case you leave open the option of people choosing *not* to do things that way. But you've already said that that level of freedom for the business owner is unacceptable.
Nobody can have ANY freedom without the freedom to eat.
... That's my fourth principle: property is just a tool and must be used for the good of others, or lost.
Food is property. So on one hand, one has the right to owning some bare minimum level of food for consumption; but on the other hand, one does not have any right to owning any property (which includes food). Once again, contradictory.
Your idea of freedom is warped. In some locales, food may just grow off trees, but in much of the world, food exists because people must put in a lot of work to grow it. Whose duty is it to provide food for one's freedom to eat? If there is no food, where does that minimum level of food come from? Is someone forced to be a farmer? Every right has a corresponding duty. Unless the duty for providing one's food falls on oneself, there is a person who is forced to work harder so as to feed himself and another.
Practically everything in your post was ideological restating of the bullshit they teach in schools without ever questioning the underlying fundamentals (no the natural urge of people are NOT to increase individual wealth - the VAST majority of people OPPOSE greed and consider it a BAD thing whom they actively seek to avoid in their lives - and ALL the religions on earth reflect the universality of that view by declaring it sinful - capitalism rewards the tiny minority who EMBRACE greed - psychopaths by the WHO definition).
1. I live in one of the most statist US states, CA, and went to liberal state schools filled with union teachers. If you think they teach (American) conservative philosophy there, you're wrong. (The majority of students end up subscribing to social liberalism)
2. You're deluded if you think people do not act in their self-interest. People do what is rewarding to them; what they find rewarding is defined by their view of their self-interest. Each person's definition of self-interest varies - for some it is to accumulate money or fame, for others it is to raise a family, for yet others it is to practice religion and find purpose. For some, their self-interest is to further the "good of society". But all of those people are acting in self-interest. (I did not use the term "greed", nor do I say that "greed is good")
It's not enough for a socialist state to have some of the latter type of people. Everyone must subscribe to that philosophy, otherwise you end up with free-loaders who break the system. So how do you deal with that? Either your society chooses to use its collective power (aka state power) to discourage and eliminate freeloaders, or you cannot have your socialist state. That is the trade-off socialists must make; and since socialists want their socialism, state power is their only option to make it work.
The Nazi's weren't even SLIGHTLY socialist by ANY reasonable philosopher's definition of the term and I'm TIRED of giving you facts, figures and citations and being answered with
That is a half-truth. There has never been a communist state in all of history. The USSR certainly wasn't. The half that is true is that a lot of the people who served it and committed it's atrocities believed in the ideology of communism - which the USSR did not in fact subscribe to. It was in fact a system of state-capitalism.
Call them whatever you want, each represents an attempt to create that "ideal" communist state. "Communism" is the siren song to lead a nation of people into a totalitarian system of oppression and slavery.
That every attempt at communism fails reveals that communism doesn't work, despite all the special pleading that those examples aren't really "communism".
Capitalism does not demand that your actions serve a useful purpose, it tries to match reward to usefulness - but it does not demand it. That was the point I was trying to make -a contrast between the two ideologies on this particular point.
Capitalism "demands" that people have the liberty to do what they want with their property. The natural desire of all men is to increase their wealth; in a free market capitalist system, (the only type I wish to defend) they are free to use their accumulated wealth (capital) to gain more wealth.
In a communist system, a group of armed thugs who claim to represent "society" steps in and declares that they can put this wealth (capital) to better use. They take this wealth by force and use it for their own selfish purposes. Every Communist "wannabe" state has its leaders become wealthy elites; all for the good of society, of course.
So you believe that right libertarians support a right of conquest ? Because I've never heard a right libertarian express that. In fact they tout their system as being superior precisely because it does NOT recognize a right of conquest. It demands a government to prevent conquest - it holds property rights sacred, a human right which nobody can take away, not even the government, but which that government is duty-bound to protect.
What I referred to as the "right of conquest" is the resolution of competing claims for the same piece of property. Every such conflict boils down to lethal force: you respect my claim or I will kill you. People are already willing to kill each other for food, so it's unsurprising that they do the same for land and other types of property. What makes a gov't useful and desirable is that it provides a system to resolve these claims *without* a bloodbath (within a gov't; multiple gov'ts often end up using war to resolve such issues). This tends to work out better for all parties. People create wealth; dead people can't create wealth. Killing people over property conflicts hurts the growth of wealth (generally speaking).
I don't understand why you believe that "right libertarians" believe property rights are sacred. You've used the US as an example of a somewhat right-libertarian system; and in the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution (from the very beginning of this nation's existence), "unreasonable search and seizure" is banned; with the implication and reality that "reasonable search and seizure" is allowed for.
There is a natural right to property; but this right is not "naturally protected". (Natural rights are not what you have; it is what you have a right to fight and kill for) It is part of the theory of the social contract, that we voluntarily form and submit to gov't to help protect our natural rights, as the group can protect them better than any given individual. In the US, it is also recognized that the power invested in the group is itself a danger (see every example of tyranny), so that gov't power is limited in the Constitution (though severely undermined by the consistent efforts of the US Democratic party; who have in the past century chosen increased gov't power over individual liberty; aka statism over libertarianism).
The US ceded th
Okay, I spent some time browsing through your first post. Here are a few counterpoints and thoughts.
Communism believes the economy should serve the people and the people one another. Capitalism believes nothing and nobody should serve anybody else (nor any tangible purpose) it should just exist.
It would help your point to define what you mean by Communism and Capitalism, first. Though the meaning may be clear to yourself, other people may not be familiar with the meaning you're using.
I'd agree with your summary of Communism's starting belief. (While also noting that Communism has been behind the worst butchery in human history despite any good intentions on their part; this makes it an extremely dangerous and despicable failed ideology)
Your summary of Capitalism as a belief, on the other hand, is just a strawman. Do you really think supporters of capitalism say, "Capitalism is about the belief in nothing!"? Speaking as a supporter of capitalism, capitalism is based on the belief that there is a right to private ownership. Meaning that one can own property, and that this ownership grants control over how that property is to be used. This is a belief in "something", it is a belief in the existence of a natural right. You may disagree that this natural right exists, but that is a separate from what capitalists believe.
Moving on to the main point of your post: "Property is theft"
The answer comes from a rather odd next question: is right of conquest a valid right of property (it was held so in every culture in the world until very recently after all) ?
If you say "yes":
Well then the take-over of unused land by the destitute is a legitimate form of conquest, at least as legitimate in practical terms as any other.
If you say "no":
Well then the current "owners" of the land have no legitimate claim to it.
You do have an interesting point and dilemma. But there is in fact a way for a "right libertarian" to answer it: Short version: You have a right to conquest only if you win.
Let's say there is a "right of conquest", You say the poor are now justified to take a piece of property and claim it as their own under the "right of conquest.
I shall agree that under the "right of conquest", those poor now own the property. Now what is to keep the original owners of said property from conquering the property back? And as the two groups conquer the property back and forth, who really owns the land now?
"Right of conquest" doesn't really capture the principle at work here: Ownership is based on having the primary claim to an "object" - whether it be a piece of land, an animal, a machine, or just an idea. Your claim of ownership of a piece of land doesn't mean anything if a neighboring tribe comes over and drives you out of it. To own something, you must be able to defend your claim of onwership.
It follows from this that that ownership flows from might; and it would seem that the strongest man in the world will own everything (as he can claim it all and then defend it). Yet we can also see that individual strength is really insufficient to defend a claim on everything; a very strong man could conceivably hold his own against 2 or 3 other men; but would be overwhelmed by 100 or 1000 men.
One might think then that it is aggregate power that determines ownership; that the largest group of people with a collective "might" rating will own everything. To an extent this is true, as there have been great kingdoms and empires. Though none of these empires owned everything, we see that they failed to own areas precisely because of a lack of military might; and the areas they owned they did because they were able to exert their power there.
So summarizing that as "might makes right", this seems to support the poor in your scenario taking unused land by "right of conquest".
Yet we need to look also at how an empir
Not conclusively, but I can identify a trend - more of X tends to lead to more of Y without making Y dependent on X.
Is socialism a philosophy or an outcome? Is socialism the economic/political system you build to create a good outcome, or is it the good outcome that comes from the economic/political system you build?
Nope, Native Americans. I didn't say the people living there did the stealing. I just said it had been stolen. Buying stolen property doesn't make it unstolen however, no matter how many people have sold it since. You didn't read my blog link then.
So because Native American's land was "stolen" from them, Steve Jobs doesn't deserve credit for creating wealth in Apple. Ridiculously irrelevant, unless you want to show how Native Americans would have developed a nifty personal music player with accompanying online store, until Steve Jobs came and stole their land. I skimmed your blogpost, but didn't find anything very convincing. I'll post a quick feedback post to your link later.
For every 30 dollars apple spends on an ipod, only 1 dollar is spent on labor. Apple's wealth is exploitation. More than anything it's stealing other people labour by buying it for far less than a living or fair wage on the basis that nobody else is offering them anything better and their own government doesn't give a shit.
To the extent that the Chinese workers are coerced into those jobs, that could be considered exploitation. Last I've read, they get higher than average wages (vs. farming), and there's plenty of people who wish to get a job working for the Apple factories. If voluntary, all that you're observed is that the workers contribute $1 to the $30 of value the customer pays money for.
This is a mutually beneficial deal for Apple and the Chinese workers.
Consider that those workers did not create the design; nor did they build the factories or the software or the overall package of the final Apple product. Those are not the skills the Chinese workers offer, but those are skills necessary to create the value that Apple products are worth to their customers. Those skills get the lion's share of the profit precisely because they're more critical and necessary to the execution. If you disagree, you're welcome to create a competing product that is better and cheaper than Apple's - I'm sure you'll end up eating their lunch.
In the meantime, the Chinese workers get a cushier job at a factory, and can use those higher wages to improve their family's lot in life.
Well then you could argue that in a worker-owned business there wouldn't be any ROOM for non-critical staff. After all, if your income is a share of the profit, you sure as hell won't give a share to somebody whom you don't NEED to give it to. That's less for EVERYBODY else.
You brought up the car analogy, and you didn't even attempt to counter my observation. Any complex enough system will have non critical parts. If certain parts are critical, and other parts are noncritical, that means the parts are unequal in value. To take the human body for example, one can lose an arm or a foot, but losing the head or heart or lungs will be fatal. Your idea that "all parts are equally necessary and have equal value" is simply wrong, as shown by those two counter-examples. Create another argument all you want, but unless you can counter that evidence, your idea contradicts reality. As such, it does not have any value in explaining how the world works (e.g. reality), nor does it give any insight to how the world should work.
>And she probably does, or she wouldn't get hired in the first place Yes, that proves MY point, not yours.
Your point that she is of equal value to you, the engineer? Her existence as a receptionist does not guarantee that she adds value to the company. Nor does it show that she should be paid the same in wages as y
The two points are not contradictory in fact. Socialism is not a political philosophy - but some political systems are certainly more conducive to socialist systems arising.
Conducive enough that you will predict the amount of socialism based on political system alone?
I did not say anything of the kind. I merely said that effort + privilege > effort alone. And I said that socialists hold privilege to be a debt owed to society. This is not a contradiction either since privilege by definition is NOT earned.
Apple was founded by people who lived in houses on stolen land, their business headquarters are on stolen land. Every single resource that goes into their products are taken from stolen land.
>They started as a small company out of someone's garage; who did they steal from to build up to their current multibillion empire?
The garage was already built on stolen land out of bricks made from stolen clay and wood cut from stolen trees.
In order for the resources to be stolen, someone else must have a rightful claim to it first. Who was it stolen from? Society?
I also find it completely laughable that you consider "stolen land" to be the reason for Apple's success. So is the land in Steve Jobs' garage extra special, or does everyone have the ability to create a multibillion dollar corporation from the land under their garage?
I call bullshit. Apple's wealth is ideas and execution. Steve had a vision and he gather people to execute it. He took risks, made good decisions, got lucky (right place at right time), and created billions of dollars in wealth through his efforts. While you think this represents a huge debt Steve owes to society, I consider it the converse; society owes Steve a huge debt for creating all those neat products with his ideas; and that debt is paid and realized in the reputation Steve gained, and the money that people have voluntarily traded for his products.
Since this is slashdot, here is a car analogy. A car has a fanbelt, cheap to make and easy to replace. It also has a flywheel, a much more complicated and expensive part that costs a lot more to make and replace. But take out EITHER and the car won't run. So their value to the car is identical.
Your analogy is flawed because you chose only to look at the critical components for car operation.
If an LED goes out on the dashboard, the car does not operate at 100%; yet this failure is not equal to engine failure. Each part has a contribution, but not every part is strictly necessary.
If the receptionist is fired, the engineer answering the phone may be wasting time; but depending on the phone load, it may not be a very large waste of time. The receptionist's job depends on her adding enough value to the company. (And she probably does, or she wouldn't get hired in the first place)
I make the principle of "everybody is equal before the law" dominant. The whole reason for things like constitutional democracies is to allow you to DO things like that. To prevent democracy from being a tyranny of the majority. There is no liberty at ALL until everybody IS equal before the law.
Everyone is equal before the law. A gay man is just as able to get married to a woman as a straight man. A straight man cannot get married to a man any more than a gay man. They are indeed equal in the eyes of law. Realize that "Marriage" in the law is the creation of a family between a man and woman, not "being with the person you really really like". We don't reject marriage licenses based on lack of romantic love; and "we really really love each other" doesn't allow either a polygamous or incestuous marriage between man and woman.
This may not be *fair*, but that's how marriage is currently defined. If my country were to democratically choose to redefine it, I would not like it; but accept that as a democratic decision. In the meantime, my freedom of speech allows me to oppose it, and to demand my gov't reflect that.
I suppose I would say it's more a difference of principle than of practical outcome. The difference is that in a (working) democracy nobody has any MORE power than you do to affect the outcome of a decision. Republics are less democratic than anarchies - hence it's less socialist in them than it would be in an anarchy (since representatives can coerce things which the vote did not support).
If I take you at your word here, the amount of "socialism" in a society is proportional to the amount of democracy built into the system. This is a contradiction of your earlier claim that socialism is purely economic and utterly apolitical. You don't get it both ways; pick one.
Not so coincidentally, this again fits with my usage of "socialism" - socialism affects both economic and political aspects of our society, because it's a statement about values; economics is how people trade (make agreements), politics is what rules people will live by; the two are intertwined and ruled by what that society values. And it doesn't take much research to notice that the political system of a country affects its economic successes.
Not sacred, that implies religion, this is about justice. And I never SAID that SOCIETY cannot have a share of a labourers work - that is completely outside the SCOPE of what is or is not socialism. My definition applies to who keeps the PROFITS of productive labour. Socialism is any belief system that those profits should go to those who PERFORM the labour, rather than to employers.
Wages are "profits"; they are also immediate. The business owner doesn't get his profit until he sells the goods; which may or may not sell. Wages are low risk. Profit from building a factory, hiring workers, and then selling their goods is much higher risk. The level of profits reflect that risk. In a free market, the workers are free to build up their capital and try their hand at being business owners. Some make it, some can even make it really big.
The things you refer to - to a socialist is a completely unrelated topic. That is about the fact that no man is an island. All success is at least partially attributable to privilege (and any sociologist will confirm this: there is NO more reliable prediction about a child's future income than the income of his parents). Capitalists see privilege as an inherent right (with a few exceptions - Jefferson for example instituted the first estate tax to reduce privilege and prevent the rise of an aristocracy). Socialists see privilege as a debt to society. You got where you are on hard work (it's false that socialists deny this - they very much accept it) but ALSO thanks to privileges.
Here, you have just said that society owns everything; that effort->reward is a complete illusion.
This philosophy of society cannot be equally important as "every worker deserves to enjoy the fruits of his labor", because under this view, the fruits of the labor aren't really owned by the individual; they're owned by society, and society shall dictate who rightfully owns it.
>We're using different definitions for Capitalism. I define it as "private ownership"
Well if we can just make up our own definitions we're never going to get anywhere.
I believe I am quite justified in using my definitions. I am trying to understand your definitions, but they keep contradicting themselves. If you're fine with it, good for you, but that's a very good reason for me to not adopt them.
> The business owner owns the equipment and land
And not a single one of them own it by any concept that can be called just. That's rather a long argument with a lot of defining evidence. Too much to write out now, but luckily, I have a blogpost on the topic I can link you to.
Let's try to apply your theory of capitalism. Explain how Apple stole its way to its billion dollar warchest.
>Do you consider those socialists to be socialists according to your definition?
Sometimes. Only when it happens in a democracy - where every individual had equal amounts of power to support or prevent those initiatives. The more democratic, the more socialist is becomes. In a libertarian socialism, it's perfectly compatible since the SAME people who are sacrificing some of their labour have CHOSEN to do so.
Democracies are tyrannies of the majority. If a minority is coerced into sacrificing for the greater good - how is it socialism if a democracy does it, but not-socialism if done by a dictatorship?
There is a meaningful difference only if we accept that the majority have the authority to define "the greater good" while an individual (the dictator) does not. In that case, we're back to the core principle: The greater good outweighs the rights of the few.
Under that principle, if the majority (society) demands the fruits of an individual laborer's work, they can rightfully take it. Again, socialism as I have defined it. Again, incompatible with your definition of socialism (where the laborer's right to his own work is sacred).
>As long as the society treats men equally under the law, there is nothing preventing said laborer from enjoying the fruits of his labor as he sees fit.
No, in capitalism ONLY business owners see the fruits of their labour. Labour sold is not always sold at a loss (otherwise profit cannot exist). In true socialism, all businesses MUST be owned by ALL who work there, the management done by democratic vote rather than authority and the profits divided evenly. Some variations have incentive bonusses to encourage hard work (a greater share of the profits for those who work harder).
There's a huge difference between free markets and capitalism. Don't conflate the terms. Socialism DEPENDS on free markets just like Capitalism does - but socialism is NEVER compatible with capitalism.
We're using different definitions for Capitalism. I define it as "private ownership". Labor is a form of a capital. The business owner owns the equipment and land. The workers owns his own body and skills. In a free market, the worker voluntarily trades his time for cash; the business owner trades the worker's output for whatever it's worth. Each takes different risks and thus different rewards. (businesses can fail, after all; the owner can lose everything even as the worker walks away with his wages)
The worker who is forced to work is being subjected to a form of slavery. This is not a free market. It also violates the concept of private ownership, as the worker does not own his body, and so it would also not be capitalism as I have defined it.
I use these definitions because I have found them useful for understanding historical situations and systems. I find the definitions you offer rather arbitrary. They either fail to map to any principles; or they are inconsistent. "ONLY business owners see the fruits of their labour." is not a principle; at best it's an observation; practically it's just demagoguery. I feel like you're just using Socialism and Capitalism as labels for "stuff you like" and "stuff you dislike".
It's anti-libertarian to make a declaration about ANYTHING related to a private persons private matters. If you don't recognize gay marriage you CANNOT be libertarian. The fundamental principle of libertarianism is: your freedom ENDS where mine begins, no earlier and no later.
If a gay couple enjoys a committed relationship in their private home, that is indeed a person's private matter.
If a gay couple wishes to have a "private marriage", no one else needs to be involved. Nothing further needs to be done; homosexuality has stopped being a criminal offense in pretty much any Western country.
Marriage, however, is fundamentally a public matter. It conveys