Socialism has few ideals of its own. Most of its claimed ideals have been lifted from liberalism.
Murray Rothbard explains why this is in his first article of Left and Right.
But if you choose to engage, then you have the choice to engage or not. That’s liberty, not compulsory. As soon as actions become compulsory, free choice becomes squandered.
Yea but people can choose to go into a socialist system. It’s rather bizarre but possible.
But what if helping others is not valuable to you? It’s easy to ignore the needs of society when is much easier looking out for yourself. It wouldn’t make economic sense to help others without that profit.
Would that be considered anarcho-socialism? Then I guess it’s possible.
It seems like you may have misunderstood what Nir was trying to say. If I may…
When someone expends a means (say time or money etc..) in order to achieve a desired end (in this case helping someone else) it follows that they valued the means less than the ends. Therefore, by exchanging something they valued less for something they valued more, they made a “profit.”
Your reply seemed to ask but what if there was no monetary gain? It looks like you are confusing profit with monetary gain.
If I misunderstood, please ignore…
Well yes, I’m aware of the equation: Revenue - Cost = Profit, and that this equation does not only cover monetary wealth. In this case, the effort used to help someone is the cost, and the satisfaction that’s felt afterward is the profit. (I apologize if thats not completely correct but I think I got the gist of it)
But I’m saying that some people may not wish to recieve this satisfaction as “profit”. In a capitalist point of view, it would not make sense to make the effort (cost) to help someone if you do not feel satisfied (profit) afterward. In a dog-eat-dog environment, it would be nearly impossible to desire such satisfaction.
I might disagree. In an environment where many people were in need and few were willing to help, wouldn’t the marginal utility of any amount of help offered be valued higher both by the giver and the reciever? If so this would seem to only encourage more help to be given the more that people are in need.
if helping yourself to material wealth that you could not acheive on your own, Autarkically is important to you, you must make it your business to help others.
It’s possible, but that is a system that would be rather difficult to start. If the environment is especially cutthroat, your first priority wouldn’t be to help others, but to help yourself. Why help someone when you need that energy to help yourself, when the rest of the population will most likely not help you?
Imagine, if you will, a middle school dance where the boys and girls have a severe case of Wallflower Syndrome. If you were one of these boys or girls, it would be nerve wracking to ask someone to dance since nobody else is doing it. To ask someone to dance would be to stretch your neck under a guillotine, as you would lay yourself out completely vulnerable to rejection. However, if you see one couple dancing it would be easier to ask someone, thus starting a chain reaction until everyone is dancing.