Socialism persists because it is a moral philosophy as much as an socio-political theory. The idea of balancing liberty with material luxury is very attractive, believe it or not. Many socialists have shed the old ways of nationalization and vanguardism and are now simply advocates of ethical treatment of the people by governments and corporations. Since the fall of the Soviet Union I have observed theoretical democratic socialism moving back towards these Fabian roots, along with governments who are self-proclaimed “Socialists” such as Labour and PASOK.
That is not what I said in the slightest. I said that the posts thus far have been doing this. Please do not misrepresent what I write, especially when the truth of the matter is so easily revealed by actually reading what I did write.
Avatar attacks? Really? And you call me the troll? Grow up.
Incidentally, the post right before this made by cognitivist gives the first good, unbiased, accurate answer. I am verifying it. I suggest you do the same, if you hold your stated position as honestly as you claim.
Socialism is about wanting what others have and creating justifications on why you deserve it.
Which is why a great deal of socialists are upper-middle class white males…
And they want to tell others what to do with their money. Why does anything change if they want to steal the money to spend on others instead of themselves?
Do you take issue with the assessment that socialism is about redistribution? Good luck finding a socialist that disagrees.
Do you take issue with the assessment that socialism is about redistribution?
Sure, but a lot of libertarianism is about redistribution as well. Libertarians would argue that we need to redistribute wealth away from those who used what they would consider illegitimate means to obtain it; namely politicians and those who have used politics as a means to obtain wealth. Socialists, to use a broad and ambiguous term, may want to redistribute wealth away from those who don’t deserve it, such as the sons of wealthy businessmen or those that have “excessive” wealth. Others, who may not fall into either category could advocate things such as redistributing wealth to maximise economic growth.
The difference between all these groups is how they’re determining the distribution of wealth.
Socialism doesn’t really exist anymore, at least in economic circles. The Austrian refutations socialism (the coordination and calculation arguments, as well as Bohm-Bawerk’s refutation of Marx) has turned the socialists into interventionist Neo Classical economists who are internally inconsistent and who worry about pareto optimality. They have long since abandoned objective theories of value, exploitation as an explanation for profit (at least publicly), and the desire to completely take over the means of production. Socialism persists in society, amongst the masses, mainly because they don’t have the time or the will to read up on economic history/theory.
We also don’t plan for it to be an ongoing thing…
And while wealth redistro would be ideal, we also predict that the problem would go away anyway if you just got rid of special interest protectionism.
All politics is about distribution.
But libertarianism is not, mainly, about redistribution. Socialism is backwards looking, it wants to redistribute what exists today. Libertarianism is forward looking, it is concerned with ownership of what will be.
While redistribution may play a part in libertarianism, it is certainly not required to fullfill libertarianism’s ends(on the political level).
Inheriting is not lazyness but often they go hand in hand no? YOu say that people who save actually help more because they produce more but in regards to people who inherit.. how many of them use the money wisely or dare I say hold on to it.. how does this help society?
Ted
How does undermining property rights, the foundation of civilization, help society?
the institution of inheritence is motive for the potentially productive and forward minded people to be productive and accumulate resources so that they can pass on wealth to their offspring and favoured causes.
if there were ‘restrictions’ on inheritance, then atlas would shrug.
its very simple. a socialist places the workers on the pedestal. they are the ones who should get first dibs on the fruits of progress, not the capitalist minority. and according to them, in a capitalist system the workers are pushed back into an undeserved economic status. only in socialism regime can the world revolve around workers. ironicly, socialism often means the impoverishment of everyone, including the workers.
socialism is the means to a pro-worker end.
No, they don’t go hand in hand. People who want to create a better future for their children also have an incentive to teach them how to handle capital, investment and production.
Milton Friedman likes to tell you something:
Milton friedman is a rock and roll star sometimes.
every socialist argument is countered with the fact that it will result in lower standarts of living. they have two choices- “a workers world” were everyone is reduced to poverty, or a world were workers enjoy more material wealth but are second in importance.
I would like to see an actual good socialist argument put forward, where instead of advocating income redistro or state ownership, they realized: Hey. We gotta produce more stuff for the common man. Why not increase capital investment? The masses have time preferences that are too short term. We can maximize the utility for humanity by deferring consumption and increasing investment.
^do not forward this to any socialists. It will be very annoying.
again, that is not the main problem. as in socialism, a cadre of managers are supposed to “invest in capital”. the problem is that a moneyless, planned economy doesn’t work. as a matter of fact soviet union deferred consumption a lot and fiendishly accumulated capital, yet still was a babel’s tower of economic production
Most socialists I’ve talked too more or less subscribe to the ideology due to revenge & think it’s serves their best interest, despite completely ignoring anyone else’s accounts from having lived under de-facto socialism.
The others that one can marginally respect either purposely know what Socialism is about (I can respect someone not avoiding the consequences of their ascribed ideology, as I’m sure any libertarian would do so to another libertarian as valid proponent of socialism, even if I heavily disagree & find their beliefs & ideas largely out-dated & disgusting), or subscribe to it via good intentions & bad interpretations on information that they hold to be true (usually economics, but moralism is a strong foundation for everything in socialism).
part of their ammunition is that they can link whatever crime that happened in the “age of capitalism” to capitalist mode of production. that includes colonialism, world wars and even sex crimes. they essentially lump every evil that happens in capitalism countries like us, uk, and germany together.
What did the child do to deserve this?
They absolutely go hand in hand, because inheritance is nothing other than arbitrary values in one affecting the prosperity of another. If the incentive is love, then none outside the sphere of the dead person is even eligible for it. If the incentive is ‘reward’, then why does the reward need to be post-humous? Why was the reward not issued in life, appropriate to the action which merited it?
Inheritance is merely saying: Hey, I don’t need this anymore, so you can have it.
Sentiment may provide context and justification, but it cannot change the essential nature of inheritance. It is something for, objectively, nothing.
It also keeps the money pool within a certain segment of society. That’s called a class system, because claim to ownership, and thus authority derived from that ownership, is based upon heriditary process. As of 2000, 91.9% of the US population recieve no inheritance, because there is nothing for them to inherit. This did not used to be the case.
Did only 8.1% of the nation ‘work hard’?