So we’re in agreement now.
You know, I was reading that in Maoist China, the reason so many people starved was because the government issued an edict that more metal stoves needed to be built and so tons of resources were diverted from whatever they would’ve been under “free” market conditions and directed towards building stoves. Now, they did get the stoves done, but they didn’t have anything to cook in them. Just saying, I’m not as much of an expert on all this economic theory as you guys are but I do know that in a socialist economy, CERTAIN things CAN get made, they just always make too much of one thing and not enough of another.
the only addition the socialist economy is, is the addition of force. capital is present. production is present. but those are the features of the capitalist economy. the socialist is a political institution that is shuffling around production of A and B not in accord with the consumers but in accord to the political motives of the socialist. that seems to be why the discussion just ended in agreement, because that is agreed upon. the socialist addition isn’t making “certain” things. The socialist isn’t making anything. they are not apart of the capital market other than shuffling things around with coercion. Any sustaining signals, as I pointed out in my last two posts, are signals from the market but since those signals are not determined by the prices, then those signals coming out from the market to the socialist are false signals. the socialist is going in accord with some kind of signals but those are not accurate price signals meeting the consumer demands in other for those consumers, ie. society, to prosper in their economizing.
An excellent piece by Gary North on todays LewRockwell.com :
“The State Seeks To Be God. Thus its pose as a healer. But this time, says Gary North, economics will bring down the regime”:
" Obamacare and the Politics of Revenge"
"President Obama got his training with ACORN. Where the ACORN falls, so grows the tree.
ACORN has fallen.
ACORN got caught by a pair of creative actors, both conservatives. They went to ACORN posing as a pimp and his woman. How could they get government aid? ACORN had suggestions. They videotaped the exchange. Then they took a modified video – yes, faked – to Andrew Breitbart, the Web site master. The fake was this: in the video, the young man appears in a pimp’s outfit. In fact, he did not wear it in the room. This is being made into a big deal by the liberal media. “Why, it’s all a fake!” Look, the whole stunt was fake. What was not fake was the response from ACORN’s employees: the offer to help them get the money and break the law.
Breitbart tried to get the networks to run the video. He was turned down. So, he took it to Mr. Video Clip, Glenn Beck. Beck ran it. That was how ACORN got on the Web. The story is here.
The publicity has ruined ACORN. It lost a fortune in contracts from the Federal government. It is close to bankruptcy, laments this Leftist site.
It has local chapters. Its agenda will survive. But the tree got knocked down.
THE GREAT IRONY
I am of course both amused and delighted. Mostly amused. This was the perfect response to ACORN. That is because ACORN had long employed the tactics of a master organizer, Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book on his tactics, Rules for Radicals. It was published in 1971, the year before he died.
Alinsky was a radical, not a revolutionary. His strategy was to study an organization carefully. Understand how it works, he said. Then identify a weakness that is inherent in its rules or practices. He was amazingly successful at challenging organizations and forcing them to change their policies.
The two actors may not have understood that they were using a tactic devised by Alinsky. They spotted a weakness in ACORN’s practices: its commitment to getting government money for small businesses. They staged a charade. ACORN’s employees fell for it. It did not seem remarkable to them that a white teenage hooker and her white pimp wanted money from the government to set up a prostitution house for teenage girls who were in the clutches of a “bad” pimp. Government-subsidized entrepreneurship was right up ACORN’s alley. That was the end of ACORN. The charade was legal. There is no law against impersonating a hooker and her pimp.
Let me describe a classic Alinsky tactic. I wrote about it in 1983. A Christian college’s administration had allowed the students to invite Alinsky to speak. This was stupid. They soon learned just how stupid it was. Students came up to him after the lecture. They complained that nothing was allowed on campus. “What is allowed?” he asked. “We can chew gum.” “That’s it,” he said. He told them to buy lots of gum. “Keep chewing it. Spit it out the school sidewalks. Keep doing it, day after day. Tell the administration you will quit when it relaxes the other rules.” It took one week. You can read my column on Alinsky here.
ACORN got gummed by a pair of actors.
Now it is Obama’s turn to get gummed.
OBAMACARE AND THE HEALING STATE
National health care is the second most important of all government welfare programs. The first is funding education and making it compulsory. But this is generally enforced at the state level in the United States.
Why is government-funded medical care so important? Because it is the symbol of a state that has the power to extend life. It is the supreme agency of healing. Any government that does not pass laws funding and controlling the health care delivery system is seen by the apologists of state power as being inconsistent. A state that cannot heal is not a true god. The modern humanist state presents itself as the final court of appeal. It supposedly possesses final sovereignty.
Four centuries ago, this was called the divine right of kings. That meant that the king was the final court of appeal. There was no one or nothing higher, other than God. Today, the government’s position is that there is no God. Therefore, the state is the final sovereign. It is God by default.
A final sovereign must possess the power of life and death. So, we live under the jurisdiction of a welfare-warfare state.
The United States has had Medicare ever since 1965. The state has proclaimed itself as a healer of the old. This expense will bankrupt the Federal government unless the law is modified to allow cost-cutting. Politically, this is not yet possible. The oldsters want the money: over to $11,000 a year in subsidies.
This was not enough, according to Democrats. Another 30 million Americans need health insurance coverage. Now they are going to get it. Voters are going to pay.
Why isn’t this good politics? Because the Federal government waited too long. It is now running annual deficits over $1.5 trillion. This does not count the extra two trillion or so that accrue to the unfunded Medicare program each year. That is part of the off-budget budget.
At some point, all those oldsters who are dependent on the off-budget budget will be placed on the off-life support system. They will have their life support unplugged, at least figuratively and in some cases literally.
The motivation to get those 30 million people inside the health insurance system is a deeply religious motivation. The Democrats were upset that the United States government was not doing enough. What kind of healer is that?
The total expenditure for health care in the United States is about 15% of gross domestic product – higher than any other nation. This was not enough. There had to be more, the Democrats said. So, there will be. Costs will rise. Politicians are now on the hook. Who will pay these costs? It’s a government program now. There is no escape for the politicians. They must make some voting bloc angry. But which? What a dilemma!
The anger is enormous. It will increase. As of March 20, 59% of voters were opposed.
They see themselves as being ignored, which is in fact the case. This has created an opportunity for Republicans. They voted no unanimously.
This is pure politics. How often does a party vote 100% opposed? Almost never. They smell blood, and they reacted as sharks do. They voted for Bush’s bankrupting prescription drug subsidy program. Now they are all opposed. It’s politics…"
regards, onebornfree
Well said Bloom, this is the problem I am describing.
Not necessarily. A socialist society may have the schematic necessary to procure their own capital. A social commonwealth could easily order it’s surfs to mine the resources, and construct whatever objects necessary to meat their goal.
Whether their subjects starve during the process or not is not necessarily relevant to the point that they could in fact possibly complete a goal. The problem is it will always be a great expense because there will have been no economic sanity.
Continuing this discussion here.
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/economic-calculation-what-is-at-the-center/11826
We kind of derailed the healthcare bill topic.