I just thought users here might like to see how the commies justify their system, in order to gain a better appreciation of it when arguing against them. Here is a link to a thread from another forum, a rather hopelessly collectivist one.
Gosh it’s humid in there. About half of what I read didn’t seem to be pertinent to the OP at all.
I wonder if the proverbial would hit the fan if I quoted Paul Craig Roberts.
Nah, I’m sure they wouldn’t ban m-
THIS POST HAS BEEN DELETED BY THE MINISTRY OF GOOD INTENTIONS
Simple.
They believe it is moral to forcefully take from another person.
Call it what you want. Honestly, there is nothing else in their so-called “theory”.
Everything else they say falls apart immediately, as soon as you propose that non-socialists should be able to escape the system.
This is why to keep the socialism, you must have constant conquest till there is no escape.
A capitalist, in contrast, can easily allow socialists to escape or to organize in socialistic villages. As long as their socialism is by free will, it doesn’t even take hold.
Always test for the free will.
BTW, you can’t base your thoughts on an American example, because it is a socialist country. Try to opt out of SSI.
You don’t need to show the price undetermination reason for socialism collapse following Mises’ prediction. That simply shows that even forgetting the free will prohibition, it still is going to collapse.
How well I know. An old socialist friend and I debated socialism for three years, off and on. It took me two and a half years just to bother getting around to doing research, but as her arguments began to falter, she fell back on the tried and true two: capitalism was nice, but now we need socialism; and “socialism won’t work properly until the entire world is socialist.” By working properly, I think she meant that magical utopia nonsense that you see in Soviet propaganda posters.
Ours were lively debates. She was a lawyer, and arguing with her really gave me a rich perspective on the law; and it sure honed my still-weak rhetoric.
But then she said that the Branch Davidians represented a threat to national security, I called her a totalitarian bitch and we haven’t spoken since.
…this argument sounds familiar
Well that isn’t quite why I linked the thread. Their arguments (even if wrong) are rather nuanced. I’d recommend taking them seriously into consideration.
Really? Crazy!
Indeed, I intend on trying to read some of their arguments sometime this weekend while @ work. I’d feel a bit of a hyprocrite, as well as uninformed, if I didn’t give some of the good posts there a chance.
I think it would be an interesting experiment if, in fact, some type of specific forum was created for the sole purpose of libertarians & socialists to debate differences.
Although, the potential for rampant flame wars is massive.
Well Per Bylund’s anarchist site and other sites like anti-state serve that function, but it’s pretty much just as you said. Leftists tend not to be very closed-minded.
Do think that people with specific views are more/less open-minded than people with other specific views? I haven’t found any difference in open-mindedness between libertarians, leftists, or rightists. I’ve always found it silly when leftists claim to be open-minded.
Depends. I’d say the moral relativist is a lot more open minded than I am. But if you are talking about political views, well. I struggle every day to keep myself from slipping into the skin of an unquestioning partisan.
Could you explain what you mean by that? I don’t believe in any “objective” or “universal” rights, but I don’t consider myself a moral relativist.
How could the holding of a particular view make one more open minded?
“Open mindedness” is a myth. If a person didn’t think that what they believed was true, they wouldn’t believe it. Even a person who believes completely in subjective truth will hiss and spit at the idea of objective truth; yet they beleve that the notion of subjective truth is objectively true. A person who calls himself “open minded” is in denial.
I sure as hell make no such claim. I am a libertarian because I am quite sure that libertarian ethics, morality and reason is the truth.
I think open-mindedness, in the definition of being receptive to new ideas or information, should be more correctly called the capacity of tolerance of new ideas or information, mainly because I think the whole concept of a person accepting new ideas and/or information would rely on
1.) the tolerance for ideas which they do not understand immediately, did not think of before, or do not agree with at all
&
2.) their ability to frame or assimilate it within their current schema.
I would think someone lacking the ability of tolerance could be called close-minded; but the concept of a complete open-minded individual without bias (the lack of which would allow reception of new ideas & information for fully) is a pretty big myth.
I learned from first hand experience whenever I participated in the weekly discussions in one of my history classes (I more or less implied the study of history is pointless if all we study is the white-washed output of the victors of history itself; I don’t think many appreciated that remark too much…)
I actually think that some individuals, let’s say some that are leftist, mean well when they say open-minded, but fall horribly of the misconception of one being fully open minded to news ideas & information, when they really mean, “more open minded compared to other individuals, such as perhaps some Rightists.” I think the concept itself is too perfectionist to be attainable.
I might be poking at a box I don’t fully understand, but that’s how I’ve usually viewed it.
That game is fun so far, thanks inquisitor.
The Principality of Contractual Agreements**“A law that defends folks from the law.”**
UN Category: Capitalist Paradise
Civil Rights:
Very GoodEconomy:
Very StrongPolitical Freedoms:
Very Good
#### Location: the Pacific #### Regional Influence: Minnow The Principality of Contractual Agreements is a small, socially progressive nation, renowned for its complete absence of social welfare. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 10 million are either ruled by a small, efficient government or a conglomerate of multinational corporations; it’s difficult to tell which.
The tiny, pro-business government is effectively ruled by the Department of Law & Order, with areas such as Social Welfare and Commerce receiving almost no funds by comparison. Income tax is unheard of. A robust private sector is led by the Information Technology, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Arms Manufacturing industries.
Voting is voluntary and all tariffs have been abolished. Crime is a major problem. Contractual Agreements’s national animal is the wolf and its currency is the national weight market.
Contractual Agreements is ranked 2672nd in the region and 58,430th in the world for Healthiest Nations.
All folks are heterogeneous. Authoritarians may agree too, maybe it’s that they have a; I’m better than you attitude.
There is only one system that provides the most peace, prosperity, and freedom. Perhaps we are losing the sophist war against laissez-faire?
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth
Introduction by Ludwig von Mises
There are many socialists who have never come to grips in any way with the problems of economics, and who have made no attempt at all to form for themselves any clear conception of the conditions which determine the character of human society. There are others, who have probed deeply into the economic history of the past and present, and striven, on this basis, to construct a theory of economics of the “bourgeois” society. They have criticized freely enough the economic structure of “free” society, but have consistently neglected to apply to the economics of the disputed socialist state the same caustic acumen, which they have revealed elsewhere, not always with success. Economics, as such, figures all too sparsely in the glamorous pictures painted by the Utopians. They invariably explain how, in the cloud-cuckoo lands of their fancy, roast pigeons will in some way fly into the mouths of the comrades, but they omit to show how this miracle is to take place. Where they do in fact commence to be more explicit in the domain of economics, they soon find themselves at a loss–one remembers, for instance, Proudhon’s fantastic dreams of an “exchange bank”–so that it is not difficult to point out their logical fallacies. When Marxism solemnly forbids its adherents to concern themselves with economic problems beyond the expropriation of the expropriators, it adopts no new principle, since the Utopians throughout their descriptions have also neglected all economic considerations, and concentrated attention solely upon painting lurid pictures of existing conditions and glowing pictures of that golden age which is the natural consequence of the New Dispensation.
Whether one regards the coming of socialism as an unavoidable result of human evolution, or considers the socialization of the means of production as the greatest blessing or the worst disaster that can befall mankind, one must at least concede, that investigation into the conditions of society organized upon a socialist basis is of value as something more than “a good mental exercise, and a means of promoting political clearness and consistency of thought.” [1]In an age in which we are approaching nearer and nearer to socialism, and even, in a certain sense, are dominated by it, research into the problems of the socialist state acquires added significance for the explanation of what is going on around us. Previous analyses of the exchange economy no longer suffice for a proper understanding of social phenomena in Germany and its eastern neighbors today. Our task in this connection is to embrace within a fairly wide range the elements of socialistic society. Attempts to achieve clarity on this subject need no further justification.
[1]. Karl Kautsky, The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution (London: Twentieth Century Press, 1907), Part II, p.1.
Maybe the pinko’s don’t know they are the minions of Procrustes?
I still don’t understand what it takes to validate hurting folks. I hope this short work by Hayek helps.
In all democratic countries, in the United States even more than elsewhere, a
strong belief prevails that the influence of the intellectuals on politics is negligible. This
is no doubt true of the power of intellectuals to make their peculiar opinions of the
moment influence decisions, of the extent to which they can sway the popular vote on
questions on which they differ from the current views of the masses. Yet over
somewhat longer periods they have probably never exercised so great an influence as
they do today in those countries. This power they wield by shaping public opinion.
Self defense, should justly be that which starts from everyones self.
There is an old joke in Russia, I’m not sure it fully fits the topic but might have something to do with the socialist mindset:
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Grandma, grandma! There is a revolution out there!
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Oh, my grandson, it’'s too bad your grandpa, Ivan had already died, he was a decabrist, a revolutionary, and he would be so proud now!
(few days later)
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Granda, grandma! I have talked to the revolutionaries! They say there will be no more rich people!
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That’s strange, my grandson. Your grandpa, Ivan, who was a revolutionary has always said that after the revolution there will be no more poor people…