Essentially yes. Whenever some dumb Socialist says ‘Communism has never existed’ you go right ahead and say at Crude Communism has and point him/her in the direction of “Private Property and Communism” in Marx’s Economic Manuscripts
http://www.revleft.com/vb/anarcho-capitalism-and-t111263/index.html
I take it that DixieFlatline on the RevLeft forum is Liberty Student? The identical profile image and respectful demeanor give it away. I’m enjoying this discussion quite a bit. It has occurred to me that communism, as preached by these forum-goers, is more of a political philosophy than an economic one. They take the whole ‘free trade implies exploitation’ thing and run with it. Aside from that, they ignore most economics.
They’re also very prone to violence. They reject property outright (property is theft, huh?) and believe that it’s ok to take property from people by force. Some of them even seem to believe that it’s a good idea to simply destroy property, if only to keep it out of the hands of a dirty capitalist. Again, the teenagers on TV throwing rocks through windows come to mind.
I’ve concluded that we will have far more success in the long run. They have no idea how to market their ideology. They come off as violent, immature, coarse, unlikable individuals. We have to play the opposite role, which is easy, because our principles dictate peace.
Thoughts?
Nice posts there LS, I enjoyed reading them. You seem so…calm and intelligent compared to their tendency to insult and ridicule.
Indeed, two posts in & LS is already carrying the torch from the previous thread. I would join in as well, actually, but I would be considerably out of element as far as my understanding of Marxism / communism/ etc. are concerned.
Most of my arguments would probably amount to relying on basic understandings & moral objections and/or preferences, so I would be an easier target, which is partially why I am trying to get through Thomas Sowell’s “Marxism” asap, but it is a rather thick read so far.
I will keep a watchful eye, though.
Haha, do you have any other gems like this? Please continue.. [:)]
A few:
0.) The political philosophy being divided against economics is sadly annoying, & it probably explains why purely political philosophies are more wide-spread than one that are also economic philosophies. It is far easier for those ignorant of economics to digest philosophies that are devoid or avoid economics altogether, which is a bit ironic, because it would make these philosophies very successful, in marketing terms, at being sold to the economically ignorant.
I think the ignorance of economics is furthered increased by a juvenile theory that if one ignores economics, the world no longer becomes about economics, and if the world is no longer about economics, of course things seems easier. Everything would be vastly different if the many things that motivated people to develop economics, one of them being scarcity, did not exist.
To this I would say, even in a world with uber-technology & a replicator (Star Trek), human beings still had problems, & we always will. Running away from economics will do nothing but postpone the inevitable.
1.) They do not care about “marketing” their ideology, since their ideology amounts to coercion, which means they will forcibly “sell” their ideaology to any & everyone, regardless if people want to “buy” into it.
Ironically, they many of them are preforming the uncle-tom role of the very marketers they claim to hate, by continually mis-representing all competiting political & economical theories to their own school of thought, which is vital to increase membership in their ranks.
For many of them, it will not matter if communism or socialism is ever perfected, & proves to be true, & us wrong, so long as everyone outside of their school of thought thinks that anarcho-capitalism, anti-coercion, anarchism, or whatever other school of thought are evil, & that their way (communism and/or socialism) are the only true way(s).
2.) As I’m sure some of them are immature, you cannot generalize those that fit an alurring stereotype for anti-socialists to buy into. I know plenty of socialists that are older than me, sound more intelligent, but have essentially built up shelter around the same arguments & make them look different in their rhetoric.
Unsurprisingly, I do not talk politics with them, but aside from that difference, they are largely mature people, albeit with flaws.
I would consider myself to be an outsider on both this forum and theirs but to be honest if I had to choose which society I would prefer, I would prefer an ancap society. I don’t see how an anarcho-communsity society could work. To me I see ancaps atleast being more practical… Of course I am completely ignorant on the entire anarchist tradition…
Regarding schumpeter:
I think what’s particularly interesting about Marxism is that they believe change can occur by the working class. This of course would require a complete breakdown of the system, as according to methodologicla collectivism is the only time that a person may choose which system they wish to belong to or create. But this ignores other systems still remain, and if any revolution is to occur it will always be by the elites in society. I’ll quote Heilbroner on this, I don’t know how they (revleft) view him, but he was obviously a socialist who later conceded that Mises was right (regarding markets and state socialism).
So history, as a narrative of change and development, is the story fo the impact of elites on the inert mass of society. In different social settings the qualities needed to exercise influence will change - military talent has its place in a feudal society, economic talent in a amrket society - but the driving force of an elite of one kind or another is awlays there. Thus the echelon of eladers constitutes a special group. As such it assumes its rightful place at the apex of society. There the leaders may change, but not leadership. “The upper strata of society,” Schumpeter writes, “are like hotels which are indeed always full of people, but people who are forever changing.”
What we have here is yet another thrust at Marx - Directed at the Marxian idea of the revolutionary force of the proletariat. All wrong, Says Schumpeter. The proletariat cannot be the force for change because by virtue of its sheer numbers it must mainly lie in the normal range of humankind. Individual proletarians may possess leadership capabilities, but eladership itself can be possessed only by a tiny minority.
Heilbroner, The World Philosophers. 7th Ed. p. 307
Or that there is such a thing as a “working class” as if manager’s, sole proprietor’s, people in partenership’s, et al. do not work.
I heard or read somewhere that most revolutions are started by the middle class. Regardless, either way, I have never heard of the lower class instigating a revolution. They just do not have the means to do so.
On my thread, one of them posted this:
"I would like to see worker’s democracy where power is based from workplace and communities - I would call this “socialism” because there would be a state, but power in that state would be based on the working class rather than the capitalists as it is now.
I think this is a big misunderstanding people on the right (actually liberals too), specifically libertarians have: the state, in my view, is not separate from society. The state is created to uphold a certain status-quo for a certain group. In Feudalism, the state was designed to maintain a society where people’s position was determined by their birth and what caste they were in. This is totally useless and actually harmful for market-based business and so eventually the bourgeois got so powerful that they had to get rid of the old states that were holding them back.
In capitalism, the state is created around the needs of business - trade laws, private property protections and so on. So when the US or UK nationalizes business, this is not socialism in the sense of a workers society (both Stalinists and Right-wingers think that nationalized industry is socialism) but it is nationalization in the interests of capitalism as a whole (even though it may hurt an induvidual firm or industry).
There will be nationalizations under socialism but it will look more like a sit-down strike from the 30s or a factory occupation in Argentina than some beurocrat signing a document and issueing a decree. Ultimately since the working class has no need to exploit other groups of people to create wealth, there will be less need for “state” organizing and I think the parties that represent workers in a worker society might be based on how quickly we can dismantle the state as well as how resources should be distributed."
Makes no sense to me.
The author of that statement desperately needs a dose of methodological individualism.
and
How is that in capitalism , the state is created around the needs of business, say private property protections, and then go to nationalize an industry, being no longer private?That’s because he has the Marxian theory of the state, which I personally respect a lot, but it doesn’t represent what free markets really are.
Yes. Marx’s definition of capitalism causes much confusion between the Austrians and the Marxists/commies/whatever. Actually, Marx had two definitions for capitalism; one was explicit while the other was implicit. The explicit definition: a socio-economic system based on private property, and free and unrestricted exchange of goods and services, including labor, with the goal of making a profit; free trade, free buying, and free selling. The implicit definition: mercantilism. Thus, what Marx criticizes is mercantilism, albeit, by explicitly calling it capitalism. It is important that we understand these two definitions so that we can properly argue with the Marxists/commies/whatever because what the people at RevLeft call capitalism is actually mercantalism. In other words, the RevLefties argue explicitly argue against capitalism, while implicitly arguing against mercantalism.
Here is a great audio in the Media section of Mises.org that explains this: http://media.mises.org/mp3/marxism/Osterfeld.mp3
I LOL’D!
don’t socialists often argue against … socialism( or is that absurd? )
(or are they?)
None seem willing to tackle my arguments so far. Then again, I think they can’t refute/rebut them without looking like asses.
Yeah, they are just like every other political hack, completely unwilling to engage in honest discourse. It is their religion, and they have complete faith in it.
That is the problem with unreasonable politics… it requires faith, not understanding…
How can one argue with people that are that dense?
Regardless, thanks for the explanation. Very interesting. Unbelievable how easy it is to confuse people.
Also, it’s a hasty generalization when they say that “capitalists” require the state to maintain profits. That’s not true, only some “capitalists” used the state to impose tariffs, impose monopolies, or to impose any other intervention.
Which is why it’s idiotic to use the term capitalist to describe a statist, because only a statist would have an interesting to impose tariffs, monopolies, intervention, in a word, coercion, to gain profits.
Besides, the communists use this very same reasoning to separate themselves from failed examples of their ideology (i.e. Leninism), why not throw this right back at them?
The state betrays whatever economic system it supposedly has monopoly over (even a Fascist state has no guarantee to continue the Fascist economic system, per the leveraging of state power by supposed “oppositions” that might rise up & revolt via either elections, or establishment of parallel governments, or armed revolt), so why should capitalism be any different?
Every statist is required to utilize coercion, by the very letter of statist philosophy. A capitalist is not required to use coercion.
The moment the capitalist does he is not longer utilizing economical, but political means, for profit, & perverts the economic means for the rest of us that just want to trade & get paid peacefully without coercion.